A Hard Case Read online

“Well, Bronski, keep working on it. His relatives are making noises to one of Alaska’s senators—one who has seniority in the U.S. Senate. This could turn out to be a hot potato. I don’t want any slip-ups on our part. You got that, Bronski?”

  “Yeah, Boss. I got it.”

  We said our good-byes and hung up. The thought occurred to me that I was walking on the edge. If I didn’t come up with something, I would most likely be replaced—expensive or not. At the very least I would be demoted to pushing brooms somewhere in Anchorage and come to think of it, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I sat down, leaned back, and closed my eyes. The hangover was back.

  * * *

  The rest of the day, except for my sleep periods, passed slowly. I even got the paperwork done in time for the afternoon plane. Computer-wise, this post office was about a generation behind the rest of the Postal Service, which suited me just fine. The info did not go out over telephone lines as it normally would elsewhere. Instead, it still went out on hardcopy reports. This gave me time to fudge a little if I needed to. Today was one of those days to “fudge.” I did do one righteous thing. The remaining vodka bottle stayed untouched. There had been too many hangovers the past few days. It was tough, but I made myself wait until evening when I took a stiff jolt of “Old Jack,” but that was all. While I wasn’t going on the wagon, I made up my mind I would do less drinking for a day or two. My body needed the rest.

  So I stood there, empty glass in hand, looking yet again out the window at the fog in the deep 10:30 p.m.. twilight. It occurred to me that staring out the window at twilight was getting to be a habit. From such thoughts and preoccupations came that famous thousand-mile stare that a person who has been in heavy combat can develop. I shuddered at the thought. I had seen too many of those stares and I wanted no part of them. After all, wasn’t that what a mental brick wall was for?

  I looked down into my empty glass wishing it wasn’t so, but I had made a deal with myself and somehow I meant to keep it. No more liquor tonight. I looked back up, mostly to take my mind off drinking when I saw her and her gold earrings walking by. Where in hell was she going? Anxious to solve this riddle, I slammed my glass down on the counter and grabbed a flashlight. I was almost out the door when I realized I was in my stocking feet. Crap! More minutes of precious time wasted while I put on my hiking boots. By the time I was out the door, a good five-minutes had gone by. Would I be able to follow her in the fog? My little voice told me I was wasting my time. To hell with it. I would try anyway.

  She was not in sight as I rounded the front of the post office. I guessed though that she had made for the path by the river. The main path wouldn’t be hard to follow, but if she took off on one of the side paths, then I was lost. I hurried on as fast as I dared in the dense fog. The flashlight helped, but at times I felt I was parting thick stage curtains. On the main path now, I was certain I heard voices, but nothing discernible as to what they were saying or what direction they were coming from. I looked at my watch and pushed on. At the end of five minutes I stopped. Was it my imagination or had the voices become fainter? I turned and walked slowly back toward the village. The voices, when I heard them, seemed louder.

  The light from my flashlight crossed what looked like a path headed toward the river. Again, a murmur of voices, but were they coming from the riverside of the main path or the hillside? I took a deep breath and plunged down the side path toward the river. The going was easy at first. The passage was almost as wide as the main path, but after twenty yards or so the brush started to close in. With the brush getting thicker and the fog denser, I started to get whacked by branches. Thoughts about, “what the hell am I doing here?” started to come to my mind. The path became harder to see. The voices stopped. Was I close enough for them to hear me stumbling? My heart pounding, I stopped in place and turned off the flashlight. I felt like I was on patrol again in Vietnam. God, I hated night patrols. I always felt like the Cong knew our every move. There were always twigs snapping and popping, somebody suppressing a sneeze or worse yet, farting. Sweat broke out on my brow, which I took to be a bad sign. I forced myself to relax, to tune in to my environment.

  Then I heard heavy breathing coming from the direction of the main path. Too loud to be human. I flicked my flashlight on, took one look and yelled. It was a huge grizzly standing not ten yards away. Without thinking I turned and ran down the steepening path. A branch lashed out and caught the hand my flashlight was in. It went flying into the brush and went out. I stopped running and listened, cursing the noises from my heaving chest. Now I found myself in a dim light. Was the fog thinning? I knew which way the river lay, but that was all. If the grizzly was around, he was being awful quiet. Maybe he was back on the main path by now having a good laugh. I sincerely hoped so. My own breathing sounds had quieted, so I proceeded down the path. No way was I going to go back up toward where the bear might be. I could actually see ten yards or so, enough to give me confidence.

  I continued on, grabbing hold of tree branches to keep from sliding down the steep slope, knowing the path would end at the river’s edge. Soon I would be walking in water, hopefully not swimming, back toward the village. My worst fears were confirmed. A plop of water and my feet started registering a wet feeling. Then I was in up to my knees. There would be laughter in the village tomorrow if anyone found out about my little adventure. A full moon now poked its welcoming face in between the curtains of fog. I could see, but not well enough to stop willow branches from giving me a good slap from time to time, as if to remind me of my folly. I trudged on, resigned to the cold water. I had not forgotten what it was like to be in such predicaments—Nam had taught me well.

  But I was not prepared for the face floating on the surface of the river, framed by the willows. This time I did not yell or scream. In the moon’s light, her face was so serene that it would have been a crime to disturb her sleep. Besides, I did not yell in Nam when she . . . and I wasn’t going to now. This wasn’t Nam, and this wasn’t her. This was Alaska.

  I stared down at her for almost a full minute, still dressed in her Levi’s and sweater, and thought about what to do. I hated to move her. Perhaps she should be left among the willows. In time they would embrace her, slowly giving her back to Mother Earth. I shook my head, still searching for reality. I couldn’t leave Mary here, no matter how much I might want to. She had to be taken back to her own kind.

  As gently as I could, I disengaged her from the willows. They did not let go easily. They had already started to claim her as their own. Finally, it was done, and I stood with her in my arms, wondering how long my alcohol-softened body would put up with lugging a hundred pounds of dead weight. I started out, stumbling through the water, resolve in my heart. I would get her to the village, no matter how long it took.

  Chapter 8

  The look on Charlie’s face was difficult to describe in the 3:00 a.m. predawn light. After walking through the willows at the river’s edge for nearly two hours, I barely had the energy left to make one hard kick on his front door. Luckily, that was enough. That, and my hoarse demanding voice.

  Dressed in Levi’s and T-shirt, he looked like he was ready for a fight when he first opened the door. But then he looked down and saw Mary. His eyebrows dropped and his mouth clamped shut, reflecting not anger, but a deep and expectant sorrow.

  “Take her, Charlie. I’m about ready to drop her.”

  He motioned with his arms. “Give her here.”

  He tried to be gruff, but he had a hard time pulling it off. At first he hugged her to his chest, then shook his head, whether in frustration or trying to shake off the tears. I lowered my trembling arms to my sides.

  “Where’d you find her?” He asked, in a voice near broken.

  “Along the river, in the willows.”

  Charlie nodded dumbly, and I knew he wasn’t thinking like a law-enforcement officer, but rather like a brother-boyfriend. He just stood there in his doorway, trying to cope with his loss.

  “Charlie,” I c
roaked, “shouldn’t we take her over to the infirmary?”

  He nodded. In a way, I don’t think he really wanted to. I think he wanted to take her into his house, to be with her for a while. There was enough law-enforcement left in him that he knew he had to do the right thing, by the book.

  “C’mon, Charlie.”

  He followed me, still not saying a word, Mary hugged to his chest. I felt like I was leading a giant by an invisible rope. His feet plodded in the dust behind me. My teeth were starting to chatter double-time and I knew I was on the edge of hypothermia.

  In a minute we were at the infirmary. I lifted my arm to try the door. Of course, it was locked. I turned.

  “Charlie, you have the key?”

  He nodded, still not quite with it. I looked down and spied the key ring on his belt. There were enough keys to make any bank guard proud. My hands were shaking.

  “Charlie, which key?”

  He motioned with Mary’s body. I extended my arms and steeled myself one more time to take her weight. Charlie was with it enough to quickly discern which key was the right one. Shortly, the infirmary door opened. He took her gingerly from my arms and I crowded into the room ahead of him, anxious for warmth.

  “Are there any medics around?” I asked.

  He laid her on the examining table before turning to face me, anger in his voice. “No, they’re out fishing! What good would it do?”

  I stared back as I rubbed at my arms, first with one hand then the other trying to get some warmth back.

  “To have someone declare her officially dead, I guess, Charlie. Hell, I don’t know! Seems like a good idea.”

  Charlie nodded and scratched his head, thinking, trying to get his head back in working order.

  “Yeah, Leo, you’re right. I kinda got emotional there for a minute. I think I’ll give Bethel a call. The Troopers will want to know about her. It might be we’ll have to ship her to Anchorage. You know, for an autopsy, which makes planning the date of her funeral kinda hard. I wonder what killed her?”

  “Hard to say,” I countered, “I can’t see any outstanding marks or bruises on her, but they could be hidden under her clothes. They’ll want to do a blood test.”

  Charlie closed his eyes momentarily, and nodded. Was it acknowledgment or fear of what the M.E. would find? Either way her death affected him. We stood there for another minute not saying anything, letting our thoughts come together, getting ready for what was to come. The quiet before the storm. Charlie turned to me, his eyes hard as steel.

  “Wanna tell me why you were out there that late, or should I say this early in the morning?”

  His question hit me by surprise, although I guess it shouldn’t have. The implications of it started to weigh on my shoulders. I knew what he was thinking, that somehow I could be blamed for her death. I still could have had something to do with her demise, even though I brought her in. It would be so easy for the villagers to blame an outsider for her death. All somebody had to say was, “yeah, I saw him drinking earlier in the evening with her.” Presto Change-o, end of nosy postmaster.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk, Charlie.”

  He nodded, his mouth working with last night’s coated tongue. He knew I was probably lying, but right then he couldn’t prove different. I went on, trying to make my little lie more comfortable.

  “I was on the main path by the river, when a bear came at me and I ran down a side path toward the river. Before I knew it, I was at the edge of the river, getting an unwanted bath.”

  By now, Charlie was rubbing his stomach. I wasn’t sure what this meant. Maybe it helped to make my story a little more palatable. I hoped it did, otherwise I was going to be some kind of bad guy to the villagers, certainly in the blame department. Charlie moved his eyes back to Mary lying there so quiet on the stainless steel table, her eyes staring nowhere.

  “We gotta tell her mother. Damned if I want to, but we gotta.” He said.

  “Want me to go along? We’ve become friends, of sorts.”

  I said this softly, not wishing to intrude on his thoughts as to how he was going to break the news. Awakened from sleep at four o’clock in the morning by the town cop is not a sign of good news. At least that’s what I would be thinking if I were her. Charlie stopped rubbing on his stomach while I stood there with a hands-in-my-pocket innocent-eyed look.

  “Something more than boss-worker relationship?”

  “No, Charlie, just a good working relationship. Although, I did learn more about her on the search for Mary. Remember, we were partners?”

  He pursed his lips, still working off the night’s coated tongue. “Yeah, I remember, and yeah, you can come with me. But I do the talking!”

  “Sure, Charlie, It’s your call.” I said.

  Satisfied, he turned back to Mary and shook his head. Slowly, he walked to her and tried to close her eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Rigor Mortis had already set in. They wouldn’t close.

  “I shoulda known it would come to this,” he said.

  I came up slowly behind him.

  “What do you mean?” I asked in an even low voice.

  His head turned slowly back to mine. This time it was he, who traded me the eye-in-the-eye look.

  “Nothing.”

  * * *

  I stumbled into my room and sat down on the edge of the bed, damn glad the previous night was over. Finding Mary’s body along the river was hard on my psyche, even if I had been toughened by Vietnam, where seeing dead bodies was no big deal. Giving the bad news to Jeanette, though, had been one of the harder things I’ve done in my life. At the door of Jeanette’s house, Charlie fell apart by not being able to speak, leaving Jeanette to divine the bulk of the story from me. At first, I thought she was going to take it well, but I should have known better. Maybe it was Charlie’s tears streaming down his face, then down a jaw that seemed unable to open, that temporarily kept her from crying out-loud.

  Her eyes moved from Charlie’s to mine, asking in silence what she could not say. Then after a brief summation from me, with eyes squeezed shut, she threw her head back and let out a high keening wail. Weird and mystical. Dug up from the primal force that resides in all of us. A force we white people seldom, if ever, use. A force that has been long forgotten, so used are we to putting up a social front of good Christian stoicism. Not for Jeanette, though, whose grandfather was the first one in her isolated community to see a Christian white man. Then Charlie, unable to contain himself any longer, let loose with a high pitched cry or was it a Christian sob, I couldn’t tell. It was the only time I heard him show any emotion for Mary’s death. Later I was to learn native men rarely show grief. Knowing I shouldn’t be here, that these people needed to be alone, I left. Before I left I gave Jeanette a quick shoulder squeeze, murmuring in her ear I was available for whatever help she needed.

  Outside, it was obvious the rest of the village knew something must be wrong because all the dogs were howling a mournful dirge. They had been strangely quiet during my walk down Main Street with Mary in my arms, but now that her death had been made known, it was like a news organization making it official.

  Now, sitting on the edge of my bed, all I wanted was sleep. Today would survive without my rethinking and worrying about the previous night. I managed to get my wet shoes and clothes off before taking a quick slug of whiskey. It was with a grateful heart that I slipped into a warm bed. I did not even dream for the next six hours.

  Chapter 9

  I woke up feeling groggy, but this time it wasn’t from a hangover. I have to admit it was a good feeling, but I sure as hell was not going to stop drinking. Alcohol was the only way I could cope with my demons. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I decided today was definitely going to be a slow day. Nope, no more waltzing through the fog for me. Whatever was going on with the pretty woman and her late evening walks could wait until another time.

  I lurched forward and stood without the need for support. Son-of-a-gun! It was going to be a great d
ay! It would have been, too, except for Mary’s death in the back of my mind. I stumbled across the room to the washbasin and did all the usual things to make myself presentable. Then came a fine brunch of coffee and a Spam sandwich, the Spam coming from an unopened can I found in the cabinet. Some guys in Nam wouldn’t eat the stuff. Sissies all. I loved that fatty salty taste.

  After brunch I opened up the post office at noon, thinking someone would want to check their mail. No one came. I wasn’t too surprised. This was a day of grief. At one o’clock, I closed up and went up the hill to the airport in the town truck. The mail plane was late, not showing up until thirty minutes had passed. Finally, I heard the roar in the distance. This time the pilot didn’t make his usual pass before landing, but came straight in from the east and landed short. I watched as he pulled up to the truck and turned his engine off.

  “Kind of late, aren’t you?” I asked as he climbed down from the wing.

  “Yeah, I had to make room.” He answered.

  “Make room?”

  He looked at me as if I was slightly off.

  “Yeah, you know, for the body.”

  He nodded behind me. I turned and looked to see a silent procession led by Charlie coming up the hill with six men carrying a casket. It was a plain wooden box with a few people following behind, their faces sad and blank. Jeanette’s eyes, though, were full of tears. Working as quickly as I could, I unloaded the mail from the plane into the rear of the pickup. I then moved the old truck off to one side to make room for the procession. There was not a word uttered by the men loading the casket or the women following. It was as if their grief, and therefore their mourning, was on hold. There were a couple of hard looks thrown my way. Like I was responsible for Mary’s death. I felt I couldn’t win. I was a white government worker in their eyes and that was enough for a hard stare. Jeanette, for her part, looked straight ahead, either lost in her grief or else trying to maintain a neutral stance.