Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2) - Marc Cameron Page 0,130

remember seeing all the scars when you took me swimming at that hotel in Fairbanks when I was little.”

“I can tell you if you want,” Birdie said.

“Tell me if you want,” Jolene said. “Someday. I’m sorry it happened to you. But I’m glad you’re my mom.”

“Me too,” Birdie said. “Me too.”

“Lola also talked to me about sex.”

Birdie laughed at the suddenness of that. “She did, did she?”

“She had to, so I’d understand what happened with Sascha. I mean, I already know the basics—”

“You do?”

“Mom! Of course I do. You’ve told me the basics. The point is, you don’t have to worry about Sascha. Lola told me he’s just the liquid you used to make my soup.”

“That sounds like an interesting conversation.”

“It really was.” Jolene chuckled. “She’s like talking to a big sister or something. You know she’s Maori? They’re the ones who do that haka war dance I showed you on YouTube. She asked me about your tattoo.”

“Why?”

Jolene shrugged. “Just interested, I guess. She has a Maori tattoo on her shoulder. It’s a really cool design of a shark. She had it cut in on the island her family comes from—the old way. Said it hurt ‘like a bitch.’ I told her your tavlugun was stitched in with a needle and thread. She said you were badass.”

“Is that right?” Birdie said. Her face flushed.

“I told her I was thinking of getting one like yours, skin-stitched on my chin—like you and Great-Grandma.”

Everything Birdie thought to say sounded hollow, silly, trite. She wanted to scoop up her little girl, to laugh out loud. Instead, she stood quietly, stoically, in the terminal and watched out the window as Cutter and Lola walked across the tarmac toward the Alaska Airlines jet.

Jolene gave her a soft nudge with an elbow. “You are, you know, Mom.”

Birdie looked over at her. “I am what?”

“A badass,” Jolene said, smiling softly.

Tears welling in her eyes, Birdie Pingayak pressed her forehead and nose against her daughter’s cheek and breathed.

EPILOGUE

Two days after Cutter and the others returned from Bethel, Anchorage Police Canine Zeus was buried on a small plot of land belonging to Theron Jensen’s father in Chugiak, a few miles north of Anchorage proper. The procession of marked police cruisers and other law enforcement vehicles was a half mile long.

Mim brought the kids and met Cutter there, standing beside him as the rest of the procession parked and the officers made their way to the mound of dark earth in a field otherwise white with new snow.

Chief Phillips had come as well, and stood with Lola Teariki a few rows back in the crowd of almost two hundred people. Both Jensen and Zeus were extremely well loved and everyone there had had some kind of interaction with the team, working a canine track on a runner, searching a building, or just saying hello at the station.

“I’m glad you came, Chief,” Lola whispered.

“Sad deal,” Phillips said. “I’ll deny it if you tell anyone, but I’m damned glad Cutter wasn’t too gentle when he took down that son of a bitch Twig Ripley.”

“Twig fought him,” Lola said. “Cutter used the force necessary to—”

“I told you I am glad,” Phillips said. She gave a somber nod. “Your report on Sascha Green was interesting. Sounds like you’re no stranger to using the appropriate amount of force yourself.”

“He punched the judge,” Lola said.

“You thought Green was nothing but a CVB warrant. You didn’t do a background workup before you went out there, did you?”

“No,” Lola admitted. “But I called back from Stone Cross and had Nancy run him for me when we started hearing his name. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Good.” Phillips nodded thoughtfully. “He’s a fighter. It was good you knew that when you were ready to arrest him.”

“I’m kinda glad he fought,” Lola admitted.

“I understand,” the chief said. “Just remember, you can convince virtually anyone they need to fight you if you look at ’em just right. The trick is using that power judiciously.”

“Gotcha,” Lola said. “Speaking of the judge, I never did hear what happened between the judge’s secretary and Cutter that pissed the judge off so much.”

“Gayle?” Phillips smiled. “You’ll have to ask Arliss about that. Or the judge. You can ask him if you want.”

“Markham’s a good guy,” Lola said. “But I think I’ll pass on that.”

* * *

Cutter had a nephew on each hand, Michael on his right, Matthew on his left. They were both quiet, looking as though they might break into tears at any moment. Losing a dog was part of growing up, but Cutter wondered if the memorial was too much, this close to the death of their father. Mim had insisted they attend together.

An honor guard of four officers in dark blue Anchorage PD class A uniforms carried the small wooden casket to the grave and laid it gently across the support ropes. The chief of APD said a few words, as did the mayor, and the Eagle River woman who had donated the money to the department to sponsor Zeus’s training and upkeep. A piper from a local pipe-and-drum corps played “Amazing Grace.” Associated with police funerals, the song always brought a tear to Cutter’s eye—and he was not the only one.

When the song was finished, a few officers walked up and placed challenge coins or other mementos on top of the casket to honor the fallen police dog. Cutter gave a small cottonwood carving of a dog to Task Force Officer Nancy Alvarez, who passed it to her boyfriend. Officer Theron Jensen nodded in gratitude, and then placed the wooden figure on top of his partner’s casket with the other items. The chief then stepped forward and set a handheld police radio upright at the foot of the casket.

Even the wind seemed to fall quiet as a female dispatcher’s voice crackled loud and clear over the radio.

“K9 Zeus.”

Silence.

“Anchorage Police Dispatch calling K9 Zeus.”

More silence.

The dispatcher’s voice trembled now as she tried in vain to hold it together.

“K9 Zeus, no response. K9 Zeus is out of service. God speed, dear friend. You are gone, but not forgotten.”

The twins were bawling by the time the end-of-watch call was over.

“I’m so sorry,” Cutter whispered, wiping away a tear.

Mim spoke between her own sobs. “If you don’t cry when your friend’s dog dies, then you’re not much of a man.”

“I never heard that Grumpy Rule,” Cutter said.

“It’s a Mim Man-Rule . . . Check that, a Mim Human-Being Rule.”

A rare smile spread across Cutter’s face. “I just love you, Mim,” he said, hoping it sounded nonchalant, brother-in-law-like.

She reached to touch his arm. “I just love you, Arliss Cutter—and don’t you forget it.”