Restless in the Grave Read Free Page B

and led him right to us.” A shadow passed across his face. “And getting him didn’t come for free.”
    “Heard that, too. Still.”
    Liam nodded. “Still.”
    “Heard you didn’t even have to go to trial.”
    Liam shook his head. “Oh, he wanted to tell us all about it. Whether we wanted to hear it or not.”
    Jim smiled. “A full confession, plus enough probative evidence to slam-dunk a jury full of card-carrying ACLU members, might make some practicing law enforcement professionals think they’d died and gone to heaven.”
    “When the perp, tail wagging, led them to the grave of his tenth vic, where was found not only her skeleton but also the skeleton of her unborn child, some practicing law enforcement professionals might think otherwise. I’m just glad it didn’t come to that.”
    Their eyes met in perfect understanding. By profession, their noses rubbed in the worst of human behavior every day of their working lives, they were de facto unshockable. People behaved badly. It’s why there were cops. But Jim and Liam wouldn’t have been human if the criminal, conscienceless inventiveness of certain deeply bent individuals had not, in fact, deeply shocked them on occasion.
    Campbell settled back into his chair. “I’ve got a problem.”
    “Figured. A big one, too.” He saw Campbell’s look and shrugged. “Had to be something big to get you on a plane all the way out here.” Jim laced his fingers behind his head. “I grant you full and free access to the wisdom of your elder and better.”
    Campbell didn’t smile. “I caught a murder.” He paused. “I think.”
    “Interesting,” Jim said.
    Campbell’s laugh was explosive. “That’s one word for it. I could use some help on it.”
    “I thought you had help. Didn’t Barton send Prince down there?”
    Campbell’s brows came together. “He did.”
    “And she can’t help you?”
    “No,” Campbell said.
    “Why not?”
    Campbell’s lips tightened. “Because she ran off with my father.”
    When Jim stopped laughing, he saw that Campbell was regarding him with a marginally lighter countenance. “Yeah, very funny.”
    “Clearly, it is,” Jim said, wiping an eye. “USAF Colonel Charles Campbell, trooper thief. Who’d a thunk it.”
    “Anybody who knew him for more than five minutes,” Campbell said.
    “Wouldn’t have thought it of Prince, though.”
    “No,” Campbell said glumly, “but all bets are off when it comes to my father and women. But about this case.”
    Jim frowned. There was something else, other than perfidious fathers absconding with faithless sidekicks. “What about it?”
    “If I were investigating this officially,” Campbell said, his voice bleak, “my prime suspect would be my wife.”

 
     
    Four
     
    FRIDAY, JANUARY 15
    Niniltna
     
    At the very same moment Sergeant Liam Campbell was unburdening his heart to Sergeant Jim Chopin, Niniltna Native Association board of directors chair Kate Shugak was back in the Niniltna School gymnasium for the second day in a row. As usual, a longing eye was canvassing the room for the nearest exit. While yesterday’s potlatch for Old Sam had inspired its share of grief and tears, she infinitely preferred it to presiding over the annual shareholders meeting.
    Although it was going unusually well, the customary infighting, backbiting, and power-jockeying were in suprising abeyance. In part this was due to their current chair’s leadership abilities. Kate marched them through old business like Alexander went through Asia, doubling the budget for the Niniltna Public Health Clinic against easily suppressed opposition from Ulanie Anahonak and her anti-everything clique, refining two clauses in the NNA contract with Aurora Communications, Inc., the document governing the construction of cell towers down the three-hundred-mile length of the Kanuyaq River, and reporting on ongoing talks between the Association, the State of Alaska, and the federal government on just who could fish