Part 7 (2/2)

Jim could afford to sound laconic. ”I suppose you expect me to go on out to the setnet site and interview the family.”

The shark's grin was back, wide and predatory, with entirely too many teeth showing.

”I'm tendering,” she said. ”Some of us actually have to work for a living, you knowwe're not subsidized to live in luxury by a grateful state.”

He let out a great shout of laughter that rang off the metal insides of the cab.

”s.h.i.+t,” Kate said, with feeling.

”Thanks, Kate,” he said, still laughing. ”I appreciate the offer. And the laugh.”

”Up yours,” she said.

With true n.o.bility, he refrained from giving the obvious reply, but only because he needed help in muscling Meany's stiff and awkward body out of the truck bed and into the back of the plane. They slammed the door on the macabre object ignoring the wide-eyed looks of a cl.u.s.ter of airport worker standing near the terminal. ”I'll be back, this evening if I can tomorrow if I can't.”

”Hurry,” she said, with emphasis. ”If this strike continues, most of your best suspects are going to head south for the winter.”

”I'll hurry.”

”Meantime, I'll dig up what I can, but if they start fis.h.i.+ng again, I start tendering.”

He eyed her, considering. ”You want me to put you or temporary staff? There's a per diem.”

”G.o.d, no!” she said, genuinely horrified.

He spread his hands. ”I offered.”

”And I turned you down flat. Just get your sweet a.s.s back here as soon as you can.”

The grin flashed again. ”Why, thank you, Kate. I didn't think you'd noticed.”

Back in town, Kate narrowly avoided a squirrel darting across the road and pulled the truck up in front of the harbormaster's office. Through the window, she could see Gull sitting at his desk. He looked up and waved her inside.

”Thanks for the use of the truck, Gull,” she said, handing over the keys.

He looked at them, thought about it for a moment and then, as if inspiration had struck, stuffed them into a pocket. Not a man who maintained a strict guard over the material things in his life, but then the truck was the property of the city, and there weren't many places to drive a stolen vehicle in Cordova.

”So, Chopper Jim get off with the stiff all right?” he said, sitting back and putting his feet on the desk.

She mimicked his actions, linking her hands and stretching so that her bones popped. ”Yeah.”

Gull scratched the back of his head. ”h.e.l.l of a thing.” It was an offhand observation; he didn't look shocked or horrified or disgusted, but then he could quote chapter and verse of a century's worth of atrocities committed against the n.o.ble red man by the base white man from the Mexican to the Canadian border. He wasn't one to get overly excited at a single murder, no matter how redundant in method. ”What do you think happened?”

”I don't have a clue,” Kate said. ”Or rather, I've got too many of them. Did you see Meany when he came in yesterday afternoon?”

Gull snorted, and folded his gigantic paws over his chest. ”h.e.l.l, I saw him yesterday evening. I had to run him out of transient parking. Son of a b.i.t.c.h. You know, Kate, it's not the fact that guys like him try to steal from the city that upsets me so much, it's the discourtesy.”

”Discourtesy?”

”Discourtesy,” he said firmly. ”I mean, the Fomalhauters weren't having enough problems with the repairs to their exhaust ducttheir Star Grazer'd taken a hit from a rogue microplanetoidthen this earthbound yo-yo tries to put a G.o.ddam drift netter up their tailpipe.”

Kate wondered if Gull knew anything more about astronomy and the potential for extraterrestrial life than he did about the Native American. Probably not, but who was she to spoil his fun.'

Then it hit her. ”What time was that?”

”What, when the Fomalhauters landed?”

”No,” Kate said gravely, ”when Meany tried to drive up their tailpipe.”

He scratched again. It seemed to help him think. ”I dont know, about ten maybe? He always does that, or did it, coming in later in the evening, thinking I won't nail his a.s.s.”

”And did you? Nail his a.s.s?”

”To the floor. I was practicing 'The Ojibway Square Dance' on my fluteit sounds better when you sit next to an open windowand I looked up and there he was, the p.r.i.c.k sneaking up on the float, without running lights, can you imagine? He's lucky I wasn't the Coast Guard. So I marched right down there and ran him off.”

”Was he alone?”

”I didn't see anybody else,” Gull said. He added, ”Of course, Meany was on the flying bridge, and like I said, he was running dark. There could have been somebody in the cabin, I suppose. Like ten or twelve women,” he added, ”all married to somebody else. I'm telling you, Kate, the guy went for quant.i.ty.”

”Did you have words?”

”I yelled at him,” Gull said with satisfaction. ”He didn't bother yelling back, he just slammed her into reverse so fast he rammed the slip and d.a.m.n near stripped the gears. Some kind of boat jockey he is.” He snorted, sounding like a disdainful bull.

Kate thought about that for a few moments, then for the time being abandoned it. Gull had no motive, other than the continuing battle over transient parking, a battle he carried with enthusiasm to every skipper of every boat, sport or commercial, seiner or drifter, who dared preempt a foot of the transient float. There ought to be signs, like the blue-and-white wheelchair they had for Handicapped Parking. Maybe a fluorescent decal every ten feet of float with a flying saucer on it. Alien Anchorage. Outlander Landing. Put it next to a red circle with the figure of a man in the center of it and a red slanted line crossing him off. Little Green Men and Bug-Eyed Monsters Only. Kate wondered what shape the Fomalhauters took, and decided not to ask. ”So that was about ten o'clock.”

Gull nodded, then brightened. ”It must have been about twenty after when I came in, because I turned on the TV in time to watch Jackie Purcell lie about the weather.”

So Meany was still alive at ten, and his son may or may not have been on board. She should head on out to Alaganik, start banging on hatches, talking to fishermen to find out if they'd seen anything at Alaganik the night before. But they'd chased him off hours before the period ended, none of them had given pursuit, none of them had been fis.h.i.+ng except for Meany, and most of them had been drinking and partying besides, and Meany had been such a popular guy that none of them would be inclined to care one way or the other if the murderer was caught, anyway.

Except the murderer.

She ought to take a look at Meany's boat, too. They'd left it in Alaganik at anchor. Someone had given the son a ride to his family's setnet site, where his mother and uncle were supposed to be. Her next stop, she thought drearily.

They were startled out of their separate reveries by the crackle of the radio and Lamar Rousch's voice, rendered thin and reedy by the FM bandwidth, announcing the next fis.h.i.+ng period. Gull leaned over to turn up the volume, and when Lamar signed off, turn it down again. ”No period,” he said. ”Escapement must be down.”

”For crying out loud,” Kate said, ”about a million reds must have gone up the Kanuyaq yesterday from Alaganik Bay alone, and n.o.body was hanging any nets in their way. Well, two, but h.e.l.l.”

Gull gave his head a sympathetic wag. ”I wonder sometimes myself how accurate those fish counts can be. You know, there was a trader from Andromeda riding deadhead on the last SeaLands.p.a.ce freighter through here, he was telling me”

A movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Old Sam heading down the ramp. ”Oops. There's my boss. Gotta go. Thanks again for the truck.”

Gull waved her off with a regal hand, very much master of all he surveyed. ”Okay, Kate. See you.”

She caught up with Old Sam as he was about to board the Freya. ”Hey, Sam.”

”Hey, girl.” Nimble in the face of eighty winters, Sam hopped over the gunnel and landed lightly on the deck.

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