Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

background on the murder victims. I know that you’re an army guy, Keeler, but there is a place in this world for the pencil-necked office dweeb making calls and typing out emails and messages.”

I said, “Air Force actually. What do you think Detective Smithson is doing, right now?”

“My guess? Background on the victims. Other than that, he’s waiting on forensics maybe.” Ellie was looking over across the water to a paper factory nestled into the armpit of Eagle cove. She laughed to herself. “The question to ask of course is: what is Smithson not doing.” The factory stack was spewing white smoke. She said, “Smithson cut his teeth as a State Trooper up around Fairbanks. Came down to Port Morris ten years ago. He’s above board, but not very imaginative. I reckon he might help.”

I was suddenly thinking about Ellie. Whatever I might have imagined a Chief of Police, Chilkat Tribal Authority to be like, it was not her. I said, “I’m guessing your background in law enforcement didn’t begin here in Alaska, or in the Chilkat Tribal Territories. You’re lower forty-eight.”

She chuckled. “Certainly not here. You going to take a guess?”

I looked at her and chewed it over in my mind. What was I looking at? I ignored the exterior to some extent. Good-looking woman, so what? Outdoorsy type, could have been something she picked up later in life. There was a wariness about her, disguised by her outward appearance. Some wounds that she had recovered from, but the scars showed through. My assessment was a competent type of person, decent, and inherently suspicious.

I said, “Big city cop. Something didn’t work out. You came out here. Chilkat tribal authority, not by being born here, but because you were able to claim the blood ties. Some kind of an escape.”

Ellie had a twinkle in her eye. “Can you keep on going, or is that all you’ve got?”

I said, “You are in your forties. Got a kid, probably away in college or something. No husband. So, I’m guessing divorced, maybe collateral damage from your old job. You haven’t been up here for that long. Maybe five years max. So, twenty-some odd years on the big city force. Fifteen shy of retirement. Five years in uniform, then some kind of anti-crime unit. Someone saw the potential in you. You used that to go up to Robbery Investigation and get your detective shield halfway through. But that’s when it ended. Some kind of a problem happened. Could have been anything. Stopped cold. Game over.”

Ellie smiled grimly. “Well done, and thanks for the flattery. Bob’s not in college, he’s a smokejumper with the National Park Service. Stationed down at Yellowstone. Far as my career goes, I put eighteen years in. Ended at the Homicide table but got caught up in something.”

I said, “I’ve got experience in government bureaucracy. Back east or out west? Your accent isn’t strong either way.”

“Philly.”

I looked out the window. The gulls were flying over the truck and out to sea now. “You said four of the five W's. Why not the fifth?”

Ellie said, “The fifth W is why. We don’t give a shit about why. Cops looking for motive is bullshit. Cops look for convictions, which come from confessions, witnesses, and evidence. Motive gives you nothing. It’s a narrative that plays for the movies, the press, and the public. Civilians want to know why, because they need to feel that bad things happen for a reason. Truth is, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes shit just happens.”

We locked eyes. Hers were clear and glossy, confident and activated. They didn’t show me a cynic, or a bitter person. They showed me a realistic and practical woman. A professional, stopped cold at the top of her game. She was someone who I could learn from.

I said, “You’ve been wasting your talents on this bullshit for five years, Ellie. Now it’s time to make up for that.”

“Yes.”

“You know there’s something not right up here. We’re going to take them down.”

She said, “Game on, brother.”

Twenty-One

The Chilkat Tribal Authority was an office in a functional cement block across the street from the Port Morris town hall, itself a functional building with a grassy landscaped square out front.

We did the two-floor walk-up, then a pale tiled corridor lit by fluorescent tubes built into the white drop ceiling. The office was one of two on that floor. The other being a pair of shuttered double glass doors marked ‘North Pacific Travel Industry Risk Assessment’.

Forty steps after that, we arrived. ‘Chilkat Tribal Authority’ was printed in gold letters on glass doors. Very official-looking. Inside was a waiting area. Sofas around a low coffee table offering magazines promising features on tribal life. Leaflets featuring the issues and problems of tribal life were fanned out for the taking. There were several photographs on the wall, well-spaced and neatly hung. There was a receptionist, big and young and wearing black-framed glasses. He was reading a paperback.

Ellie said, “Hi Dave.”

Dave looked up and said, “Hey Ellie.” He swiveled his eyes to me. Then Ellie was taking me through, past the reception desk, too far for Dave’s eyes to follow without serious risk to his neck. The offices were clean and white and carpeted in beige. There was a big photocopier in the corridor. It looked immovable and set to do all kinds of mysterious things besides copying. There was an office on the left after the photocopier. Door open, two women inside sitting at facing desks. They looked up simultaneously as we passed.

Ellie opened the second door on the right. A big room, with a big table and several chairs gathered around it, a speaker phone gadget in the middle. She had a desk on the other side of the room, butted right up to a wall of windows looking out over the town hall green. There was desk space for two others in a corner area away from the door.

I said, “Where are the other two guys?”

Ellie gave me