“The Japanese do love Alaskan fish,” Liam said.
“Lucky for us.” She banked left and flew halfway up the bay to a salt-water slough with a bridge over it. Over the bridge the end of the strip appeared and she set down as gently as she could. The tension leached out of Liam as if someone had pulled a plug. He saw her noticing and he laughed, a short, relieved burst of sound. “At least no one shot a blade off the propeller that time.”
“There’s that,” she said, grinning. Although the memory was no cause for humor. They could both have been killed. Lucky she’d had that hacksaw in her tool box.
They parked to one side of a large, empty hangar, and started to walk the dirt road into town. “Who are we going to see, again?”
“Alexei and Kimberley Petroff,” he said. “They were at Gabe’s party on Monday night. He’s the chief of the local tribe and she’s his wife.”
“So, opportunity, and you say there are rocks all over the place so I guess there were means.”
“For everyone.”
“What about motive?”
“I don’t know. Depends if Alexei is a tree cutter or not.”
She knew what he meant. Some Alaska tribes wanted to exploit their resources; some wanted to protect what they had. In Alaska, no matter the community, it was always about what you could pull out of the ground and the water.
They walked up the dusty road to the bridge and crossed it into town. It was very small, one main street half a mile long paralleled by another small street and side streets connecting the two. It looked a lot like Blewestown’s grid, on a smaller scale. “Paved, with curbs and sidewalks and even street signs,” Wy said. “Just like downtown. I wonder who lives here with that kind of pull.”
She could be forgiven her cynicism. It always came down to who lived where when it came to apportioning the state’s budget. Sometimes Wy thought it would be more egalitarian to rotate legislative seats through all the villages, towns, and cities of the state on a regular basis. The pork might be sliced more thinly but at least everyone would get a piece. “Hey, there’s a bar.”
The Mussel Inn had a bar down the left and the inevitable old fart asleep with his head on it at one end. The right wall was lined with booths and the windows at the end overlooked the small boat harbor. It smelled strongly of deep fat frying and was lavishly festooned with fish nets decorated with corks, glass floats, and women’s underwear. The woman behind the bar, a diminutive dyed blonde with a pierced lip, narrowed her eyes when they asked for directions to the Petroffs’ home. “Why don’t I call them to make sure they’re home before you walk up?” she said, and didn’t wait on their answer to do so. It was a brief conversation and she hung up and said, “Up Castner, turn left on Kiska, right on Traversie, and up the hill. They’re at the top.”
She didn’t exactly hand them their hats but it was clear that if they weren’t drinking they weren’t welcome.
They followed her directions faithfully and came to Traversie and turned right. It was a short but steep climb. They emerged at the top to find a solidly built two-story log house that had been there for a while but looked well cared for, logs oiled, roof freshly shingled, the frames of the many sash windows newly painted a bright white. A fenced garden and a shop big enough to hold a small drifter on a trailer could be seen behind the house.
As they approached the front door, it opened. Indubitably Alaska Native, Liam thought, medium/heavy with muscle, not fat, black/brown, early forties, no facial hair, no visible scars. Heavy brows that nearly met over his eyes in a permanent scowl. “Alexei Petroff?”
“You the trooper?”
“Yes. Liam Campbell. This is my wife and pilot, Wyanet Chouinard.”
“I suppose this is about Erik.” Petroff didn’t wait for his answer, but stepped back, opening the door wide.
They went up the steps and inside. The door opened into a small entryway lined with boots and coats. They toed off their shoes, and Petroff led them into the living room, a corner room with windows on both sides. It was lined with Sheetrock painted white, making it a lot lighter than most cabins he had been in, and, he’d bet, a lot warmer in the winter. Just in case it wasn’t, a rock fireplace with a metal insert and a fan had been built into a corner, and the furniture looked prebuilt and comfortable. “We’d like to speak to your wife, too, if she’s home,” Liam said.
There was movement in the doorway and they stepped back to get out of the way of a woman carrying a tray holding mugs and a carafe. “I thought you might like some coffee,” she said. Also Alaska Native, medium/slight, black/brown, mid to late thirties. Her hair was pulled up and back with a clip and like all of them she wore a plaid shirt and jeans and socks on her feet. There were tiny gold hoops in her ears and a wedding ring on her left hand, no watch, but then who did wear watches anymore. She set
