And speaking of Blue Jay Jefferson. Another quintessential Alaskan old fart, like Moses Alakuyak, yet not at all like that obstreperous old timer. For one thing Jefferson was white and Moses had been Yupiq, and although Moses would have repudiated the notion in incendiary language a gulf of privilege would have separated the two. According to Ms. Petroff, Blue Jay Jefferson was a boomer, a charter member of the Spit and Argue Club, a former state legislator, chair of (pick one) the Alcohol Beverage Control board, the Alaska Industrial Development and Economic Authority, and the state Republican Party. In his day he’d been a lobbyist for every oil company who’d punched a hole anywhere in the state. He’d been set to run for governor until he came out against the PFD and it was too much to ask Alaskans to vote for someone who wanted to sideline their gravy train. Boomers like Jefferson and Donohoe regarded any economic activity as good economic activity. Pissed at Berglund for holding that up, but again, another creaky old guy who barely had enough strength to stand up on his own two legs. Outer edge.
Alexei and Kimberley Petroff went right into separate boxes next to Berglund before Liam even thought about it, based on nothing but his interview with them the day before. There was something there, he just didn’t know what. Yet.
He raised his head and looked at the door that led to the outer office. Ms. Petroff was obeying his orders to leave him strictly alone this morning. No. Nope. Not. The sins of the father and all that. Absolutely no reason to add her name to the grid.
Allison Levy, Jake Hansen, and Paula Pederson, along with Hansen’s wife, Lily, went on the outer edge. The first three were members of the Blewestown City Council. The Hansens ran a halibut charter during the summer and fished commercially during the winter. Allison Levy ran a bed-and-breakfast and Paula Pederson grew peonies in commercial quantities and FedExed them to brides all over the South 48. So far as Liam could tell the four of them were there to round out the group of local movers and shakers slash neighbors, all of whom, if McGuire stroked them enough, might help him block off the road to the beach. He reached all of them by phone. All of them told the same story, bed before midnight.
He tossed down his pencil with an exasperated sigh and sat back in his chair to look at the map of Blewestown and environs that Ms. Petroff had produced in record time. If it didn’t fill quite all of the wall it covered a decent portion of it. The bar scale showed 1 inch : 1 mile. He got up and went over to stand in front of it. He found Heavenly Drive and traced it with his forefinger to Augustine Lane, their street, and drew a small red heart, a smile pulling up the corner of his mouth.
He found Baranov Avenue and penciled an X next to the junk yard. He’d looked up the owner in the borough’s parcel viewer and run them through the state records. The guy had been inside for everything from disturbing the peace to felony distribution, but the state hadn’t managed to keep him there for more than a year at a time.
And the place didn’t feel like the headquarters of the drug organization Barton alleged to exist. A professional dealer would know not to draw attention his or her way, and certainly not by stockpiling junk all over their property. A professional dealer would find a house on a busy but respectable street where the traffic in and out wouldn’t draw attention. No, this guy was an individual entrepreneur.
He called Chief Rafferty and suggested she take in the sights along Baranov Avenue. She said she’d be delighted.
He looked back at the map. The rocky outcropping that formed what Erik Berglund had believed to be a rough natural dock was barely a smudge. He drew a shovel to mark the spot.
He went back to his desk and sat down with his hands behind his head, staring at the map. It had contour lines on land and depth contours on water. The darker the green on land, the higher the elevation, and the darker the blue at sea, the deeper the water. The coves, bays and inlets on the south side of the Bay were lapis lazuli, while the north side of the Bay, the Blewestown side, was such a pale blue as to be almost gray where it was nearest to shore. It was all sand, all the way down from Wolverine River at the head of the bay to the Spit, around Cook’s Point and north all the way up to Turnagain. There was coal in the bluff that fronted the beach that had been mined for steamship fuel back in the day, and offshore platforms producing oil and natural gas lined the western side of Cook Inlet. Liam was no expert but it followed that sooner or later RPetCo or someone else would start punching holes in the Bay to see what was there. Where there was promise of a valuable resource in quantity, someone always did. It was the history of Alaska, beginning with the Russians and the sea otters.
He needed to find Erik’s cabin. It was reasonable to expect that it was somewhere out East Bay Road because that’s where the dig was and who liked a long commute? Except Judge
