known to harbor terrorists. I’ve driven the armored limousine with some shmuck diplomat who entertained a prostitute in the back seat while his wife rode in the car behind us in the motorcade. What I’m saying, Your Honor, is that I have protected a hell of a lot of people I did not like.” Cutter grinned. “But you, sir, are not one of those people.”
Markham let the shaving bag fall to his side. “You don’t do that very often, do you?”
“Do what?”
“Smile.”
“I guess not.”
“Neither do I,” Markham said. “They mean more when they’re rare. Now, go do whatever it is you need to do. I’m in for the night.”
CHAPTER 29
Lola followed Birdie Pingayak’s directions to the cabin where Donna Taylor was staying at the edge of the village. With the judge tucked away, Cutter had decided they should look at a few people of interest in the village. That was fine. Sleep was overrated anyhow, Lola thought. A walk would be good exercise. Even if someone in the village was part of the mess out at Chaga Lodge, they were likely working with others. Lola mulled the possibilities. There was always a chance that this was one of those “Butcher Baker” things. That had happened before Lola’s time, before she was born even, but everyone in Alaska law enforcement knew about Robert Hansen. The serial killer had kidnapped Anchorage prostitutes throughout the 1970s and early 80s, and then flown them out to his remote cabin where he raped them a while and then let them go so he could hunt them like animals. If it was something like that, then maybe nobody in town was involved. They were dealing with an entirely different animal. The Meads might already be dead, or they could be out there running for their lives from some madman with a rifle. The thought of it made her look behind her a little more than usual.
The Meads had been taken away from the lodge for a reason. Someone could be hunting them, but the more likely reason was . . . well, just about anything else. In any case, it didn’t hurt to check out the likely bad actors here in Stone Cross. One of them might lead the way back to his or her buddies.
Lola had a powerful flashlight, but she left it in her pocket. Instead, she slogged through the darkness using her peripheral vision and a sort of echolocation from the sucking slurp of her boots against the mud in order to stay on the trail. The inky blackness creeped her out a little, but she liked the on-edge feeling. The village was already remote enough. If she got in trouble out here, where no one could hear her, she’d have to figure a way out of it on her own—a feeling she liked even better.
There were no street signs, and the houses she passed—the ones she could see through the fog—all looked alike, but the musty odor of two dozen wet dogs and their associated crap made the place easy enough to find. She followed the smell past three junked snow machines that had been made into a fort, and beyond a dense thicket of willows and alders. It took a lot of food to feed so many working dogs, and the telltale odor of a full rack of dried fish was soon added to the moist air.
The wet snow had stopped and temperatures hovered somewhere around thirty-two. That was downright balmy by Alaska standards, but moist fog crawled inside every layer of Lola’s clothing, sapping the heat from her body. Even her stomach shivered. Her grandfather’s people were Cook Island Maori, seafaring souls accustomed to coconuts and warm South Pacific breezes. He’d married a hardy blonde who’d run away from her Nebraska farm to see what the rest of the world had to offer. Lola’s thick black hair, high cheekbones, and bronze skin made her look more like her Polynesian ancestors, but at times like these she wished she could channel a little of her Nebraskan grandmother’s Nordic blood. Maybe even a little of her body fat for insulation. . . No, that was just crazy.
Instructors at the academy did their level best to prepare baby deputy marshals for life on the street—running, shooting, interviewing, driving, more running—but freezing to death in ankle-deep mud while on the lookout for rabid foxes was never mentioned once in Lola’s training. These Alaska moments made her wonder if she’d ever be able to adjust