Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

“A philosophical marshal,” Maycomb said, looking at him, but still doodling on the table with her finger.

“Deputy marshal,” he corrected. “And don’t get me wrong. This isn’t an indictment of every reporter out there. I’m all about a free press. It keeps everybody honest. I just prefer not to be the one to talk to them.”

“How about we be the one percent,” Maycomb said. The circles with her finger turning into jabs against the table as she came to some conclusion. “How about you and I work together.”

Cutter gave her an it’s-not-so-easy grimace. “To get your story or get to the truth and find Donita Willets?”

“Both,” she said. “But Donita Willets first, definitely.”

She piled a mound of scrambled eggs on her toast and took a bite. “Listen,” she said. “My sister-in-law hates my guts. She’s made it clear to my news director that the station will get nothing if he assigns me any story regarding the police or public safety. I cover Native issues for public radio. Harmless.”

“Native issues?” Cutter said.

“Yep,” she said. “I’m Tlingit and Unangan.”

“Unangan?” Cutter said, interested. Culture had a great deal to do with behavior.

“Our word for Aleut,” she said. “My mother’s family was from here, Tlingit. My father’s father was Tlingit as well. But my father’s mother was from the Pribilofs. She was brought here during World War II. The United States government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to rescue the people from St. Paul and other islands in the Aleutians from advancing Imperial Japanese troops. Sounds like a deal, right? But they dumped them in internment camps here in Southeast. My grandmother ended up in Funter Bay.”

“I read about that on the plane ride down. Tragic,” Cutter said. “An old salmon cannery.”

“In the Anchorage Daily News?”

“Yep.”

Maycomb beamed. “That was my piece.”

“Good writing,” Cutter said. “Bad times. I guess German prisoners of war were held here in Southeast as well.”

Maycomb nodded, apparently pleased he’d actually read the whole article. “The German prisoners got dry barracks, decent food – and heat. My grandmother was with the group that got plunked in the rain and mud at that broken-down salmon cannery at Funter Bay. Not fit for a goat, let alone American citizens…”

“Sounds like it,” Cutter said.

“The war ended and the government shipped the ones who hadn’t died of flu or dysentery back to the Aleutians to work the seal harvest – except my grandmother. She’d fallen in love with a Tlingit boy who used to help deliver their meager supplies. I’m thinking of writing a book about her.”

“I’d read a book like that,” Cutter said.

Maycomb ate a bite of toast, settling herself again after getting so personal. “The point is, there are a lot of Native issues for me to write about. Those guys who came after me on the beach called me an Indian bitch. Not just bitch, but Indian bitch, as if that made it worse somehow.”

“There was a lot about them that wasn’t right,” Cutter said.

“Anyway, thank you.”

“What’s the deal with your sister?” Cutter asked, changing the subject.

“Sister-in-law.” Maycomb put both hands on the table again to steady herself. “Well… for starters, she wants to take my son. She thinks I’m a shitty mother and whole-heartedly believes she could do better.”

Cutter let out a deep breath. “Because you’re Native?”

“No,” Maycomb said. “Because I’m a drunk. I could deal with it if she were just another Indian-hater. That would put her a hundred percent in the wrong. Trouble is, part of what she thinks is absolutely true. I am… or at least I was a shitty mother and an even worse wife.”

“You appear to be doing well now,” Cutter said.

“Looks can be deceiving,” she said. “I mean, I am sober. My birthday was yesterday if you can believe it.”

Cutter knew enough alcoholics to understand she meant her sobriety birthday. People who attended AA called the anniversary of when they were born their “belly-button birthday.” Their “birthday” celebrated the first day they had remained sober – and that was far and away more momentous than the belly-button kind.

“I’m a recovering drunk, but I’m still a drunk,” Maycomb continued. “Leave me alone with a six-pack – and at some point, there’s a good chance I’ll have to do my research and drink it all, just to see if I’m still an alcoholic. And when I say drink, I mean drink.” She faced the window as she spoke, staring into the fog. “My husband – Rockie’s brother – he was such a decent soul. Poor guy watched me go back to the bottle again and again – and never once said anything about kicking me to the curb. I mean, I was already there on my own, but he never mentioned divorce or taking our son from me.”

Head still bowed, she glanced up at him, embarrassed. “Sorry to vomit the sordid details of my life up on the table.”

“Hey,” Cutter said. “I asked.”

She gave a soft chuckle. “You know how to pick a recovering alcoholic out in a crowd?”

Cutter remained stone-faced.

“Don’t worry,” Maycomb said. “She’ll tell you. I guess we get so used to making amends and admitting we have a problem that we start to believe everyone wants to hear about it.”

“Like I said, I asked.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t ask for all… this…” Her voice trailed into a whisper as she locked on to something on the street outside.

Cutter turned, leaning forward to get a look at Maycomb’s sight line.

Juneau was waking up. People were just beginning to emerge from warm houses onto chilly streets black with rain. A man in orange Grundéns overalls and floppy black rubber boots pushed a wheelbarrow toward a waiting boat, illuminated by a string of work lights. A couple of young women walked side by side toward some early-morning job downtown, dressed Juneau-sheik with tasseled Nepalese wool beanies, name-brand rain jackets, and skinny jeans tucked into their Xtratufs. Another woman, a mom or nannie, pushed a tandem jogging stroller with a clear plastic rain hood across