Restless in the Grave by Dana Stabenow Page A

evidently waitress was not only a job regarded with automatic disdain, it was also a job with a pheromone signature that flagged down every male between the ages of seven and seventy. It added an extra layer of distraction to a job she already didn’t know how to do, but she gritted her teeth and smiled and remembered Jim’s orders. Just try to wrap it up in a week, otherwise I might have to come down there and clear it myself. The thought of Sergeant Jim Chopin walking in the door in all his blue-and-gold glory made her smile a lot more genuine, which went some way toward increasing her tips, too.
    She could have slacked off—it wasn’t like she was going to be slinging beer to off-season fishermen forever—but it wasn’t in her to do a job badly, so she found a moment to be grateful there was no smoking at Bill’s and dug into it as if it were going to be her life’s work.
    At eight o’clock a short, plump blonde with sharp green eyes and curly blond hair came in with Liam Campbell and Wyanet Chouinard, and the three of them settled into a booth. Campbell was in civilian clothes, and looked just as devastatingly attractive in them as he did in his uniform.
    Chouinard smiled and said, “Hi, Kate. I see Bill put you to work.” She’d changed out of her bibs into a blouse and slacks, and her hair had been freed from its ponytail to tumble gloriously over her shoulders.
    “That she did,” Kate said. “Thanks for the tip.”
    “This is Kate Saracoff,” Chouinard told her companions. “She flew in from Togiak with me this afternoon. I heard Laura Nanalook took off again and Bill was short-staffed, so I sent her here. Kate, this is my husband, Liam Campbell, and my friend, Jo Dunaway.”
    Campbell nodded, as if to a stranger. The blonde kept looking at her, a frown spreading across her face. “What can I get you?” Kate said.
    No one at the table looked at the menus she offered. “Jalapeño burger with onion rings, and an iced tea,” Chouinard said.
    “Who were you thinking of sleeping with tonight, again?” Campbell said. “Cheeseburger and fries, and two fingers of Glenmorangie.”
    The blonde was still staring at Kate.
    “Jo?” Chouinard said. “You hungry?”
    “Patty melt, green salad, blue cheese on the side, and a margarita, blended, with salt.”
    Kate could feel the blonde’s eyes boring into her back as she went to deliver the order. They ate and drank and didn’t linger.
    By nine o’clock most of the booths were filled and a drunken couple was trying and failing to keep up with the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” blaring out from the sound system. Up till then, the drink orders had been mostly beer. When the women drinkers showed up, the orders for Cosmos, Island Breezes, and Appletinis started coming. Whatever happened to a nice glass of chardonnay? In Niniltna, the height of drinking sophistication was the Middle Finger, and you had to earn one by climbing Big Bump. Like getting fifteen thousand feet straight up in the air all by itself wasn’t enough of a high.
    In Newenham, apparently palates were more refined.
    At ten o’clock the blonde came back in. She went to the bar, acquired a stool from an inebriated fisherman ten years her junior with a hip bump and a dazzling smile, and ordered a beer, which she proceeded to nurse. A few minutes later, Bill told Kate to take fifteen minutes in her office with her feet up, handed her a fizzing glass of Fresca and ice, and pushed her in that direction.
    Kate had just sat down in Bill’s chair and put her feet up on Bill’s desk when Dunaway came in behind her and closed the door. She stood there, hand on the doorknob, watching Mutt sit down next to Kate and rest her head on Kate’s thigh. “Hello, Kate,” she said. “I don’t remember the dog.”
    Kate took a big swallow of her drink. The bubbles tickled pleasantly at the back of her throat.
    “Wy says your last name is Saracoff, but it isn’t. It’s Shugak.” Kate