KS13.5 - Wreck Rights Read Online Free PDF Page A

second. “Candi,” he said, and flashed out his broadest, most welcoming smile. He scooted over in the booth. “Have a seat.”
    Candi didn’t even look at Kate, who stood up and said, “I’ll just check on Mutt.”
    Jim didn’t need to see her meaningful look to know what he was supposed to do. He put his arm along the back of the booth and smiled down at little Candi. “How nice to see you again.”
    Little Candi’s blush was so powerful it caused her pancake makeup to glow like pale pink neon.
    · · ·
     
    “Well?” Kate said. She was sitting in the crew cab she had borrowed from Jeannie, the clerk at Stoddard’s Aircraft Parts, and since it was coming up on Jeannie’s quitting time she was getting a little restive.
    “She didn’t know anything, either,” he said, slamming into the passenger seat. Mutt poked her nose into the front seat and rested a consoling chin on his shoulder.
    “Did she know Paul, at least?”
    “Yes, she knew Paul, enough to give him his paycheck every two weeks. Oh, and to forward his calls to the shop.”
    “What calls?”
    He gave an irritable shrug. Mutt gave him a wounded look and withdrew her support. “Seems like his sister called a lot.”
    “Sonia?”
    He nodded. “Yeah.”
    Kate, in the act of starting the engine, paused with her hand on the key. “Define ‘a lot.’”
    “Often enough for Candi to recognize her voice. Maybe once or twice a week.”
    Kate stared out the windshield at the unprepossessing city winterscape. There was a lot of slush on the road, a lot of snow on the sides of the road, and the hum of studded tires on pavement as vehicles so dirty you couldn’t make out their color, never mind their make, splattered by. “Why at work, I wonder?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe when he was at work was the only time she could get to a phone. She lives in the Park, right?”
    “Yes, outside Niniltna. And no, I don’t think she has a phone, she’d have to go into town to make the call.”
    “Maybe he couldn’t afford one.”
    “If he was a Teamster, he could afford a phone. But then why call so often? A couple of times a week, what’s that about?” She started bouncing her knee, a sure sign of intense Shugak rumination. “Their parents are okay, last time I checked. There aren’t any other brothers or sisters. Why’s she calling him twice a week?” She looked at the clock on the dash and started the truck. “We’ve got to get this truck back before Jeannie thinks we’ve taken it and headed for California.”
    · · ·
     
    The three of them were back in the Cessna and halfway home, crossing the silver ribbon of the TransAlaska Pipeline five thousand feet below when she spoke again. “Jim, do you have a list of dates of when semis have skidded off of Hell Hill?”
    “No,” he said in surprise. “Hazen probably does, since he’s the one who responds to them most of the time.”
    “Let’s go to Ahtna,” she said.
    He changed course without asking why. It was well after dark when they landed. He taxied up to the Frontier Air terminal, where the Ahtna police chief was waiting. “I hope you’ve got something to tell me more interesting than my dinner,” the police chief said, “which I was about to sit down to.”
    Kate brightened. “We going to Tony’s?”
    Tony’s was the Ahtna Lodge, a hotel on the edge of the river. What it lacked for in the way of rooms, which were converted Atco trailers, it more than made up for in its chef, Tony’s partner in life and in the business.
    Hazen sighed. “I guess we are.”
    Both men knew there was no point in asking Kate Shugak any questions until she was on the safe side of her exquisitely charred 16-ounce T-bone, not to mention the green salad with blue cheese on the side, a baked potato with all the trimmings, and pumpkin pie to follow. The Ahtna police chief, who was a big man with a bigger beer belly, said, “Where the hell does she put it all?”
    “Maybe she diets,” Jim said, who was