Midnight come again by Dana Stabenow
Authors: Dana Stabenow
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Women Sleuths, Mystery, Private Investigators, Detective and Mystery Stories, Hard-Boiled, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Women Private Investigators, Women Detectives, Fiction - Mystery, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective - Police Procedural, alaska, Mystery & Detective - Series, Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character), Shugak; Kate (Fictitious chara, Women private investigators - Alaska, smuggling
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indifference said, "Who is this guy, anyway? What happened to him? What did he die from?"
Baird finished writing out the waybill and scribbled his signature at the bottom. "Fell off a boat tied up to the dock down on the river. One of them processor boats, so the deck was pretty high up. Trooper said his head looked like a squashed tomato. Yuk."
He separated the copies of the waybill and thumbed the clip on the clipboard. Before the copy of the waybill covered it, Jim saw the name typed on the form in full.
He removed the clipboard from Baird's hands.
"What the--" "I just want to look," Jim said, and again there was that unconscious authority in his voice that comes only from years on the job. It silenced Baird. He watched Jim read through the form once again.
No witnesses were listed, but then they wouldn't be, this wasn't an incident report. All it said was that the body of one Alex Burinin, having died an accidental death, was being released into the custody of the medical examiner for confirmation of cause of death, signed off by Trooper M. Zarr.
He unzipped the bag, ignoring Baird's protest, and looked at the face.
All dead faces looked like something out of Madame Tussaud's, waxen and lifeless, soul and spirit on their way to somewhere else, but Jim recognized the features from the mug shot in the file Gamble had shown him, in spite of the fact that the top of the skull had been flattened to his eyebrows, forming such a beveled crown that comparisons to Frankenstein were irresistible. Someone had very kindly mopped up the blood, revealing a nose like the beak of a vulture, eyes set deeply into dark-skinned sockets, a chin so weak Jim was surprised he hadn't grown a beard to hide it; a chin, again according to Gamble's files, Alexei Burianovich had made a career out of disproving.
He zipped up the bag and turned to Baird, ready with an innocuous explanation of his interest, when he saw Kate standing in the open hangar. She looked tense, and tired, as if she hadn't had much sleep.
Too bad.
Mutt stood next to her, shoulder to knee. They were a pair, a duet, a unit entire unto themselves.
He realized he was staring, and made a business out of fussing over the body bag's zipper.
Baird noticed, and looked around. "Hey, Sovalik." He looked at his watch, surprised. "God damn, is it midnight already?" He shook his head and offered a grin. "Time flies when you're having fun, don't it?
Churchill?"
Again with the slightest hesitation before the name, Jim noticed. Damn it all anyway, he wasn't a day on the job and his cover was already compromised. It was all Kate's fault, he thought, and the rage came back as if it had never been away.
"Well," Baird said cheerfully, taking no notice of either the red creeping slowly into Jim's face or Kate's silence, "I'm going to go catch me some Z's. You hand over to Kathy, she'll show you the bunkhouse. You're due back on duty at noon. Don't be late or I'll fire your ass."
This was a threat so hollow the words rang off the insides of themselves, but no one said so. Jim helped him move the body to a pallet, and Baird climbed into the pickup and was off without further ado.
Kate stood where she was, silent, still enveloped with that eerie patience. She could wait for him to talk first, she could wait for doomsday to arrive. No hurry.
Yes. An entirely different Kate Shugak.
He didn't like it. He didn't like her much, either, at the moment.
"The Cub's at the tiedown outside," he said curtly. "The Cessna's overnighting at Russian Mission; they're scheduled to take off for Kaliganek after daylight, then back here. The DC-3 is in Dillingham, and the Here's inbound from Aniak and scheduled to make a fish run to Anchorage for Northwest Packers at two a. m." He nodded at the truck.
"Got a full load, including the body."
"The what?" She peered down at the body bag as if she had never seen one before.
He handed her the clipboard. "I'm assuming you know the
Baird finished writing out the waybill and scribbled his signature at the bottom. "Fell off a boat tied up to the dock down on the river. One of them processor boats, so the deck was pretty high up. Trooper said his head looked like a squashed tomato. Yuk."
He separated the copies of the waybill and thumbed the clip on the clipboard. Before the copy of the waybill covered it, Jim saw the name typed on the form in full.
He removed the clipboard from Baird's hands.
"What the--" "I just want to look," Jim said, and again there was that unconscious authority in his voice that comes only from years on the job. It silenced Baird. He watched Jim read through the form once again.
No witnesses were listed, but then they wouldn't be, this wasn't an incident report. All it said was that the body of one Alex Burinin, having died an accidental death, was being released into the custody of the medical examiner for confirmation of cause of death, signed off by Trooper M. Zarr.
He unzipped the bag, ignoring Baird's protest, and looked at the face.
All dead faces looked like something out of Madame Tussaud's, waxen and lifeless, soul and spirit on their way to somewhere else, but Jim recognized the features from the mug shot in the file Gamble had shown him, in spite of the fact that the top of the skull had been flattened to his eyebrows, forming such a beveled crown that comparisons to Frankenstein were irresistible. Someone had very kindly mopped up the blood, revealing a nose like the beak of a vulture, eyes set deeply into dark-skinned sockets, a chin so weak Jim was surprised he hadn't grown a beard to hide it; a chin, again according to Gamble's files, Alexei Burianovich had made a career out of disproving.
He zipped up the bag and turned to Baird, ready with an innocuous explanation of his interest, when he saw Kate standing in the open hangar. She looked tense, and tired, as if she hadn't had much sleep.
Too bad.
Mutt stood next to her, shoulder to knee. They were a pair, a duet, a unit entire unto themselves.
He realized he was staring, and made a business out of fussing over the body bag's zipper.
Baird noticed, and looked around. "Hey, Sovalik." He looked at his watch, surprised. "God damn, is it midnight already?" He shook his head and offered a grin. "Time flies when you're having fun, don't it?
Churchill?"
Again with the slightest hesitation before the name, Jim noticed. Damn it all anyway, he wasn't a day on the job and his cover was already compromised. It was all Kate's fault, he thought, and the rage came back as if it had never been away.
"Well," Baird said cheerfully, taking no notice of either the red creeping slowly into Jim's face or Kate's silence, "I'm going to go catch me some Z's. You hand over to Kathy, she'll show you the bunkhouse. You're due back on duty at noon. Don't be late or I'll fire your ass."
This was a threat so hollow the words rang off the insides of themselves, but no one said so. Jim helped him move the body to a pallet, and Baird climbed into the pickup and was off without further ado.
Kate stood where she was, silent, still enveloped with that eerie patience. She could wait for him to talk first, she could wait for doomsday to arrive. No hurry.
Yes. An entirely different Kate Shugak.
He didn't like it. He didn't like her much, either, at the moment.
"The Cub's at the tiedown outside," he said curtly. "The Cessna's overnighting at Russian Mission; they're scheduled to take off for Kaliganek after daylight, then back here. The DC-3 is in Dillingham, and the Here's inbound from Aniak and scheduled to make a fish run to Anchorage for Northwest Packers at two a. m." He nodded at the truck.
"Got a full load, including the body."
"The what?" She peered down at the body bag as if she had never seen one before.
He handed her the clipboard. "I'm assuming you know the
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