Play With Fire (5 page)

The sun, taking its own sweet time, finally intersected the horizon and the rainbow began to dim. Dinah let out a sigh of pure rapture. "A full rainbow at twenty minutes past eleven in the evening. Only in Alaska."

Later, drifting off to sleep in her tent, Kate heard Bobby say in a cranky voice, "Just what the hell was the Sanhedrin, anyway?"

The next day was a repeat of the previous six at slightly lower temperatures. Mutt roused from her state of heat-induced stupor and nipped Kate's behind as she bent over a patch of morels. Kate abandoned a bucket not half full and gave chase. For fifteen minutes they played tag, moving deeper into the blackened forest and becoming totally covered in black soot, until Kate tripped over a branch and went sprawling on her face. Spitting out ash, she raised her head to see Mutt staring down at her with an expression of gathering delight.

Kate could just imagine what she looked like, and told the half breed,

"You should talk! You look like you've been hit with a bucket of creosote."

Then she noticed the mushrooms. Morels, hundreds of them, thousands of them, a virtual carpet of them. She jumped to her feet. "Dinah! Bring the buckets! There be fungi here!"

One clump of mushrooms perched on an elongated mound and seemed to grow thicker there than anywhere else. Kate waded toward it and began to pick.

"Kate! Kate, where are you? I found another sign! Amos 5:24!" "Right here! I--" Kate paused, her hands full of mushrooms. Next to her, the wolf-husky hybrid froze, head lowering between her shoulders, hackles rising, ears flattening, as a low, continuous growl issued from deep in her throat.

"Kate?" Dinah stumbled into the clearing, three empty buckets dangling from each hand. "Wow! Shroom heaven! I found another sign, Kate, Amos

5:24. Kate? What is it? What's wrong?"

"Stay there." Kate rose to her feet, and at the other woman's involuntary step forward repeated sharply, "Stay there."

"What is it?" Dinah said.

"Someone's body."

As a safeguard, all should be eaten with a draught of olive oil and soda or lye ashes, for even the edible sorts are difficult of digestion and generally pass whole with the excrement.

--Dioscorides

"Dinah?"

The blonde's face was white and pinched. Kate had to say her name a third time before she looked up from the body to meet Kate's eyes. "Go get your camera."

The blue eyes widened. "What?"

"Go get your camera," Kate repeated.

"You want me to photograph--it?" Dinah swallowed.

"Yes. Go get it."

Dinah swallowed again, opened her mouth to protest, met Kate's hard stare, closed her mouth and went to get her camera. Kate turned back to the body. Mutt, nose wrinkled, lips drawn back from her teeth, growled again. "Easy, girl."

She was squatting at what would have been the hips. Now that she knew what she was looking at, she could see the legs, the left one drawn up, a horsetail sprouting from just behind the bend of his knee. Her eyes traveled back up his torso. Both arms were outflung, as if he'd tripped and tried at the last moment to catch himself as he fell forward. The little mounds that would be his hands cradled between them half a dozen shoots of fireweed the color of lime sherbet. He was covered with black ash turning silver, dissolving into the forest floor, becoming one flesh with the earth, fertilizing the fireweed, fodder for Morchella esculenta.

There was something about his pose, the raised knee, the outflung arms, a sense of vulnerability. Dead, almost literally ashes to ashes, he seemed still to be moving, still to be in flight. Flight from what?

Had he been chased by a bear? Running in front of the fire?

She frowned. When had it become a he?

A moment later Dinah came crashing back. Breathing hard, she skidded to a halt next to Kate and raised the camera. "What do you want me to shoot?"

"Can you get me and the body in the same shot?"

Dinah backed up a step, another, focusing the lens. "Yes."

Kate raised her voice. "I'm Kate Shugak, it's June sixteenth, the location is just under two miles east of Cat's Creek." She pointed.

"That's north. Chis tona is about a mile that way cross-country. It's--" she looked at her watch "--nine forty-five a.m. Dinah Cookman and I were picking mushrooms when I stumbled across the body." She looked over her shoulder. "Is the mike picking up my voice?"

Dinah, her voice steadier now that she was viewing things through a lens, said, "Yes."

"Can you get a shot of the whole clearing?"

"Yeah." Dinah panned slowly around, coming to rest again on Kate and the body.

"From the width of the shoulders and hips I'd guess male. Can't tell race or age. He doesn't appear to be much burned, the fire must have jumped a spot here. There's plenty of ash, though, and from the ash and the mushrooms growing in the ash I'd say he's been here since last summer. Something's been chewing on his ass, probably after death, probably before freeze-up." She took a breath, held it, and leaned closer to pluck a few mushrooms free. Ash came up with them, leaving a gash of putrefying human flesh behind. There was no mistaking that smell, ever. Even with her breath held against it Kate felt it invading her nostrils, her lungs. Mutt, with olfactory senses ten times more evolved than her own, gave a distressed whine and backed up to stand beside Dinah.

"Decay is advanced," Kate said tightly. Pulling her sleeve down over her hand, she held her breath and reached out to lift up an arm. There was a sickening, sucking sound. For one horrible moment Kate feared that the arm had separated from the body at the shoulder.

"There doesn't appear to be any ash beneath the body, so my best guess is it was here before last year's fire. Probably caught out in the fire.

Dumb bastard."

Something tickled at the back of her brain, some unanswered question that jumped up and down and demanded her attention, but the smell was increasing and increasingly bad and she was afraid if she didn't back off she would vomit. She rose, brushing ash from her knees, and looked at Dinah. "You can quit."

Dinah lowered the camera, relief on her face. "You're not going to look closer?"

"He'll fall apart if I roll him over."

"Kate?"

"What?"

"Why didn't the bears get him?"

"What?" "You said they'd eat anything that would sit still for it." She jerked her chin at the body. "Why not him?"

"Good question," Kate said, wishing one had. "They would have, if they'd stumbled across him first."

"Instead of which, we did."

"Just lucky, I guess," Kate agreed. "It may be he just this week thawed out. It stayed cold late this year, and the dirt and the ash forms a pretty good layer of insulation. Not to mention the mushrooms.

Even Mutt didn't smell it until we were right on it. During the winter--" She shrugged. "Bears sleep through the winter, body's frozen and snowed over. He'd sit until spring."

"And last fall?"

"Last fall there was a forest fire. Wasn't much in the way of any kind of life, wild or otherwise, around after that. What was did some chewing on his butt." She pointed. Dinah didn't look. "Give me the tape."

Dinah ejected the tape and handed it over. Kate took it and headed for camp, leaving the half-filled bucket behind. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to pick another mushroom again as long as she lived.

Bobby took one look at her face and said one word. "What?"

Kate jerked her head. "We found a body."

He stared. "You kidding me."

She shook her head. His gaze slid past her to Dinah, regarded her pale face for a frowning moment, and came back to Kate, examining the tense hold she had on her wide mouth, the tight look around her eyes. She'd picked up her pack and was slipping the tape inside. "You going for Chopper Jim?"

She nodded, zipping the pack closed.

"You okay?" She nodded again, and he shook his head, a disgusted expression crossing his face. "Sorry. Stupid question." He caught her hand and gave it a brief squeeze. "But you will be." He was rewarded with a small smile. "And we were having such a good time," he said, adding bitterly, "It's positively disgraceful, Shugak, the way bodies follow you around."

The smile was more genuine this time. She slung the pack. "The nearest phone's at the junction. I'll be back as soon as I can." She looked at Dinah.

Young as she was, the blonde was quick. She swallowed hard. "You want me to go back and see that nothing disturbs the body."

Kate gave a small shrug. "It's been out there going on a year already."

"But still," Dinah said.

"But still," Kate agreed.

Dinah swallowed again. "Okay."

"Can my chair make it out there?" Bobby said.

Dinah's face lightened. "We can try."

"Then let us do so." "I'll be back as soon as I can," Kate said again, and headed out.

Tanada was sleepy in the hot noon sun. The mushroom wholesaler's flatbed stood alone in the parking lot. The only living thing in sight was a bald eagle roosting in the top of a scrub spruce.

The tavern was equally deserted. It was a different bartender than the one of the previous afternoon, a sad-looking man of forty with two wisps of lank, dark hair descending from his upper lip that were trying hard to look like a mustache. He polished a glass and rode along with Dwight Yoakum, sitting in the back of a long, white Cadillac. He raised eyes to Kate that looked as sorrowful as his singing voice sounded. "Phone?" she said. Without missing a beat his head nodded toward a corner.

She dialed the operator and asked for the trooper office in Tok. When they answered she asked for Jim Chopin and they put her on hold. Next to her Mutt flopped down with less than her usual grace, the heat starting to get to her again. While they were waiting a couple came in the door.

They were middle-aged and wide-eyed and had the air of something in definably foreign about them. Maybe it was the way the woman wore her clothes, casual yet too elegant to be American. Maybe it was the way the man carried his chin, up and ever so slightly arrogant. Maybe it was the tiny, exquisitely manicured poodle, his topknot caught up in a red sateen bow, cradled in the woman's arms and staring about him with beady little eyes.

"Bonjour," the man said to the bartender.

The bartender looked blank.

"Hello?" a voice said in Kate's ear.

She straightened and turned her face toward the wall. "Jim?"

The voice was deep, slow and calm. "Kate? Is that you?"

"Yes."

"Hey, lady. Where you at?"

"Tanada."

A thread of amusement crept into the deep voice. "You picking mushrooms?"

"I was."

There was a brief silence. Like Bobby, Jim knew Kate rather well.

"What's up?"

"I found a body."

The voice sharpened. "Where?"

"Cat's Creek."

A pause. "Where's Cat's Creek?"

"Fifth turnoff south of Chistona."

"Oh." There was another pause, while Kate imagined him looking at a map.

His next words confirmed it. "Okay, I got it."

"How soon can you be here?"

"If I fly straight to Tanada, an hour. You wait for me, give me a ride in?"

"Yeah. Jim?"

"What?"

"Body's been there a while."

"How long?"

"It's covered with ash."

He was silent for a moment. "So you think it was somebody caught out in the fire last year?"

"Looks that way."

"Okay, I'll see you in a bit."

"Bring a mask. Bring two." She hung up. On the tape deck, Dwight Yoakum had moved from the Cadillac to the honky-tonk, and two glasses of white wine had materialized on the bar. The woman reached for hers and took a small sip. An involuntary sound escaped her and she looked distressed.

"Monsieur," her husband said to the bartender, "you tell moi, uh, where me find un traineau a chi ens For picture?" The bartender looked blank, and the man looked thwarted.

Eons before, back in the Stone Age, Kate had fulfilled the foreign language requirement for her B.A. with four semesters of French.

Somewhat to her own surprise she discovered an ambition to try it out, thought up what might be a recognizable sentence and walked up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder. "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur? Peutetre je vous aider ai They turned to her in surprise, and she repeated herself. Mutt stood next to her, panting slightly. The poodle, regarding them both with disfavor, let out a sharp yip pitched so high it hurt Kate's eardrums.

Mutt returned no reply, merely fixed a considering yellow gaze on the other dog, still panting, maybe showing a centimeter more canine than was absolutely necessary but otherwise remaining calm.

The woman, intercepting that considering yellow stare, clutched the poodle closer to her breast. "Pauvre petit chi en C'est bien, petit, c'est bien." She gave Mutt a hostile glance, and seemed ready to include Kate in it until Kate repeated herself, this time speaking more slowly, taking more care with her pronunciation. Surprise gave way to comprehension. For a moment the notorious French disdain for their mother tongue spoken atrociously warred with the desire for rational communication. Communication won.

Speaking slowly and carefully, enunciating every syllable with care in a manner that left Kate in little doubt that the intervening years had not been kind to whatever accent she might once have possessed, Monsieur gave a little bow and said, "Bonjour, mademoiselle. Vous parlez franca is

"Un peu seulement," she said, the only phrase she remembered word-perfect twelve years after her last class, "et pas pour un long, long fois."

He winced a little but covered it up immediately. Everyone shook hands, the poodle taking a surreptitious nip at Kate's when Kate let go of Madame's. He missed Kate but he didn't miss Monsieur. Monsieur snatched his hand back and dog and man exchanged a malevolent glance.

Madame's stare was suspicious, and Monsieur quickly smoothed his own expression into an acceptable blandness.

From the other red marks on the back of Monsieur's hand Kate deduced that this wasn't the first time Pauvre Petit Chien had taken his best shot. From Monsieur's evident willingness to put up with the attacks, she further deduced Madame and Monsieur's relationship to be in its earlier stages. Not for nothing had Kate once been the star of the Anchorage D. A."s investigator's office.