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

a billionaire. He could lose his fortune with a couple of bad business deals, but was still rich enough that he risked seeming snobbish and out of touch with everyday folk. He wasn’t nearly rich enough to be worshiped, so he had to establish himself as a man of the people – a bona fide Alaskan.

That’s what the commercial was for.

Set against the incredibly beautiful backdrop of the Tongass National Forest, Fawsey stood with his pretty wife and handsome son in front of a tall yellow cedar. He recounted his years as a young father, working his way through school at the University of Alaska Southeast campus. How he and his wife worked at a fish hatchery south of Juneau, turning their son, Levi, loose every summer from the time he was ten years old to explore the mountains behind the hatchery. The forests, Fawsey said, were his son’s home for five years, and remained so to this very day. He extolled his virtues as a free-range parent, letting the wilderness help raise his child. He compared it to the kind of governance he represented – the kind of government Alaskans liked.

The kind of government that stayed out of your way.

Maycomb pocketed her phone when the video ended.

“It’s a long shot,” she said. “But if Donita Willets is still alive, I’d bet Levi Fawsey stashed her somewhere out there. Behind the hatchery where he used to explore as a boy.”

Van Dyke sneered. “That narrows it down to… Oh, I don’t know. How far can an energetic kid hike in the five years between the time he’s ten and fifteen?”

“Still,” Cutter said, refusing to acknowledge their feud. “It gives us a place to start.” He thought for a moment, then turned to Tarrant. “Bobby, is there a chance Forest Service has maps of any cabins in that area around the fish hatchery? If Fawsey was going to hide her anywhere, it’s likely to be in some kind of dwelling.”

“There are a couple of obvious ones,” Tarrant said. “But I’m guessing he’d want something more off the beaten path than a recreational use cabin. We have a burn list that we’ve determined need to be destroyed. Rangers stumble on them usually while they’re in the backcountry – illegal structures put up by squatters, hunters, and such. Takes a while to get around to torching them though, so there are a few out there. The weather has to be right.”

Lola smiled. “Don’t want Smokey the Bear starting the fires.”

“No kidding,” Bobby Tarrant said. He turned toward his green Tahoe, but spun immediately, seized by an idea. “I’ll round up some air assets and find out which officers are familiar with that area around the hatchery. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of topo maps, but I may have something better. I know a guy.”

Chapter 37

Lola went with Detective Van Dyke to the Valkyrie Mine Holdings main offices in the Mendenhall Valley, leaving the hatchery lead and Bobby Tarrant’s “guy” to Cutter. The offices were not much to speak of. A bored receptionist sat behind the counter playing games on her phone. The lobby was small, with two ratty avocado-colored chairs that looked like they’d been manufactured sometime around statehood and a low coffee table with a few dusty mining magazines. It reminded Lola of some of the shabby clinics she’d visited in the emerging nations of the South Pacific. She half expected to see a line of tiny black ants climbing the wall.

The receptionist looked up from her game of Candy Crush long enough to glance at Rockie Van Dyke’s badge.

“We need to check on someone who may have worked here,” Van Dyke said.

“You’ll want to talk to Elaine in HR.” The girl went back to her game without picking up the desk phone, pushing an intercom, or even yelling over her shoulder.

“Is Elaine here?” the detective said at length.

The girl heaved a dramatic sigh, rolling her eyes like a teenager. Lola thought she must have been the boss’s daughter or something – maybe his mistress.

She picked up her phone, searched for the right button to press, and then paged Elaine from HR to come to the lobby.

Lola opened a folder containing a couple of screen shots from the surveillance video of Mary Dutchik’s gallery camera and spread them out on the desk. In one, Bandana Hands’s gaunt face peered almost directly at the camera. He was bent and crooked, his expression twisted with pain. “Wonder if you’ve seen this foldy-uppy guy before.”

“That’s Dean Schimmel,” the girl said. “He’s a—”

A heavy-set woman in a blue sweatshirt and tight jeans poked her head around the corner from the hallway behind the reception desk. It was almost a tactical quick peek, like Lola would have done were she searching a house for an armed fugitive.

“These detectives are asking about Schimmel,” the receptionist said.

The woman introduced herself as Elaine, the Human Resources manager. She looked at the photo.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Dean Schimmel all right. I’d recognize his skinny ass anywhere. What’d he do now?”

Van Dyke raised an eyebrow. “Now? What’s he done before?”

“Nothing, really,” Elaine from HR said. “Drunk driving, maybe some weed. Stuff like that.”

“He threw a baby girl in the ocean,” Lola said, her words coming out like they tasted bitter.

The receptionist looked up from her game. “No shit?”

“No shit,” Lola said. “He didn’t want to talk to us, so he just snatched the kid away from her mother and pitched her in the drink like a piece of garbage. All so he could get away.”

“So,” Van Dyke said. “Dean Schimmel still works here, then?”

Elaine nodded. “A general laborer out at the mine.” She pulled up a roster on her iPad. “He’s supposed to be out there now, but it looks like he banged in sick for the last two days. They sent him back to town to see a doc.”

A tall man with slick black hair came around the corner of the hallway. He carried a stack of files in one hand