Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel (3 page)

“Detecting is detecting,” Kane said. “And I know my way around the woods.”

Silence descended. It was clear the group had at least one more question, but no one wanted to ask it. Finally, a young man said, “There’s sort of a rough element out here. You may run into them in your work.”

Kane smiled and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair.

“I have a lot of experience with the rough element,” he said, “both as a police officer and more recently. I’ll be okay.”

“How many men have you killed?” Moses Wright asked.

“Do you want me to count the war?” Kane asked.

“Is that where you got the scar?” the old man said with a vicious grin. “The war? Or is it perhaps punishment for more recent sins?”

“That’s enough, Father,” Thomas Wright said. “Mr. Kane didn’t come here to be put on trial.”

“The Lord said, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ ” Moses Wright growled.

Kane looked at the old man for a long moment.

“Your Lord sets a high standard,” he said. “Are you so holy that you always meet it?”

That brought silence. Thomas Wright looked around the table and got nods from everyone but his father.

“Now, perhaps, Mr. Kane, you’d like to hear what it is we’d like you to do,” he said.

“That’s why I’m here,” Kane said.

Wright cleared his throat and began.

“As my father said, not everyone is cut out for this life,” he said. “This is a community in every sense of the word. We live together and worship together and laugh together and weep together. We raise our children together. We own everything you see together.

“That togetherness is too much for some people. So is the religion that binds us. So is the lack of amenities: no movies, no television, no coffee stands. No coffee, for that matter.”

“We allow no stimulants,” the old man said.

“Coffee is expensive,” his son said, “and we can’t grow it ourselves. At any rate, we lose a few people every year. We have our own school, but there comes a time when many of our children go off to college or the military.”

“You send people to the military?” Kane asked.

“We are not pacifists, Mr. Kane,” the old man said.

“Nor are we trying to cut ourselves off completely from the larger world,” said his son. “At least not all of us are. And because we cannot raise or make everything we need, we have to have money. So we own some businesses, both along the highway in Devil’s Toe and in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Mostly tourism related. Our own people run those businesses.

“As you can see, a significant portion of our young-adult and adult population is exposed to the larger world. A few succumb to its charms.”

“We wouldn’t lose any if we kept them at home and prayed harder,” the old man said.

His son ignored him.

“I’m telling you this so that you understand that we don’t panic when someone leaves. We don’t like to lose anyone. The community is diminished by their departure. But we understand that humans have different needs and the free will to seek to fulfill them.”

“Get to the point,” the old man barked.

“Having said all that,” his son said, “we would like to hire you to find a member of our community.”

“
They
would like to hire you,” the old man said.

“Elder Moses Wright,” his son said mildly, “we have discussed this and thought about it and prayed about it. This is what we agreed to do.”

None of the other elders said anything, but Kane understood that they were sitting at the table, when they no doubt had plenty to do elsewhere, to demonstrate that the community agreed with Thomas Wright and not his father.

“Who would you like found?” he asked.

“My daughter,” Thomas Wright said. “Faith.”

“By your leave, Elder Thomas Wright,” Pinchon said, “the others and I have affairs to attend to. I will assert that this is the man to do the job, and in the absence of any new disagreement”—he shot a glance at Moses Wright—“we will leave it to you to explain the task to him and negotiate his payment.”

With that, the other men put on their outdoor clothing and departed, leaving Kane and the two Wrights.

“This is unwise,” the old man said. “Rejoice has always handled its own problems.”

“Father,” the younger man said, “you can be a help or a hindrance. Either way, we are decided to do this.”

Now that the other men were gone, the differences between the two remaining were even clearer. And there was something about the younger man that Kane couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something about the way he talked or sat or held his head seemed familiar.

“I have counseled against bringing in an outsider,” the old man said, “particularly this outsider. I will continue to speak against it.”

“In that case, Mr. Kane,” Thomas Wright said, “perhaps we should continue our discussion elsewhere. So that my father may return to his prayer and meditation.”

The two men put on their outdoor gear and retraced their route to the Suburban.

“There’s something I wanted to show you anyway,” Wright said. He started the Suburban, pulled away from the building, and aimed for the foothills. As he drove, he talked.

“Faith is almost eighteen. She has been gone four days now, since Friday,” he said. “We don’t know where she has gone or with whom. Some think she has chosen the world over Rejoice. Others are afraid harm has come to her.”

“What do you think?” Kane asked.

“I don’t know what to think. Since she became a teenager, Faith has become a difficult person to fathom. She does what is expected of her and seems committed to our beliefs. But last year she insisted on attending the regional high school. She said it was because they offered programs she was interested in, but I can’t help thinking she wanted time away from Rejoice.

“The truth is, I’m afraid I don’t know my daughter very well.”

“Might her mother be able to shed some light?” Kane asked.

Wright was silent for a moment.

“Her mother was called to God four years ago,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Kane said. “How about friends?”

“I don’t think Faith confided in anyone. I of course asked the young people if they knew anything about her—I’m not certain what to call it. Departure? Disappearance?—but got no information from them. I wasn’t really sure what I should have been listening for, anyway.

“I’m not much of a detective, I’m afraid. And the local trooper says Faith is just another runaway. He couldn’t be less interested. So we sent for you.”

The two men drove the rest of the distance in silence. Wright pulled up next to a big greenhouse in an even bigger clearing and shut off the engine.

“I’m not sure how much good I can do you,” Kane said as he followed Wright into the greenhouse. “Faith is nearly an adult. She’s been gone long enough for the trail to be cold. There seem to be no clues. I don’t know the area or the people. And my past . . .”

He had more to say, but the sight that greeted him in the greenhouse took his voice away. The two men stood in a vast flower garden, an explosion of color and fragrance and moisture. The flowers were sprawled in beds, and in pots that overflowed the crude tables on which they sat. After the monotony of the winter landscape, the flowers made Kane want to sing and, at the same time, stunned him into silence. He wasn’t sure how much time went by before Wright spoke again.

“My father doesn’t approve of this place,” he said. “Most of our greenhouses are for vegetables, and a few fruits that we try to coax into growing. He thinks this place impractical and, somehow, ungodly. But man does not live by bread alone, or even by the word of the Lord. The people here need beauty in their lives, and some evidence during the long winter that nature is not all hostility and bleakness. This place provides these things. I love it here. So did Faith.”

He paused and turned to face Kane. He had tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to force Faith to come back, Mr. Kane,” he said. “I just want to stand here with her one more time.”

2

 
JEREMIAH 22:3

 
 
 
 
“SO WHAT COULD I DO?” KANE SAID, SITTING UP STRAIGHT in the hard wooden chair that faced Tom Jeffords’s desk. Jeffords didn’t want anyone but himself to be comfortable in his office. “I told him I’d try to find the girl.”

Jeffords sat behind the cherry wood desk in a padded leather chair that, with the addition of just a few jewels, would have been a throne. He was flanked by the red, white, and blue of the U.S. flag, the blue and gold of the Alaska flag, and the white-field-with-blue-anchor of Anchorage’s city flag.

The wall between the flags was covered with certificates and plaques, each and every one of them awarded to Thomas Jeffords. Stretching out from the flags to the far walls were clusters of photographs of Jeffords with various dignitaries: Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, two George Bushes, John Denver, B. B. King, Martha Stewart, Ted Nugent (the Motor City Madman), several prosperous-looking Asians. If you were wealthy or famous and visited Anchorage, it was hard to avoid having your picture taken with Tom Jeffords.

Jeffords drummed on his blotter with a letter opener.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “They need the help, and you need a new start.”

It must be nice to sit on a throne and issue decrees, Kane thought.

“Look,” he said, “I just spent four hours bouncing around the sky in a bush plane with a kid barely old enough to drive, and another with a bunch of Bible thumpers, all as a favor to you. So if you’re looking for me to start gushing gratitude, don’t.”

“Angels,” Jeffords said, trying to balance the letter opener on its point.

“What?” Kane asked.

“Angels,” Jeffords said. He moved his hands slowly away from the opener. It started to fall. He grabbed it again. “Their neighbors call them Angels. It’s not meant as a compliment.”

“Why do you know so much about Rejoice?” Kane asked.

Jeffords was silent. He moved his hands again. The opener tilted to the side. He let it fall.

“Let’s just say I have an investment in the area,” he said.

Kane could believe that. Jeffords’s title was chief of police, but he really ran Anchorage. Doing so had made him a rich man. Not from bribes and corruption. Jeffords was too smart for that. But for more than a dozen years he’d been on the inside of every good business deal in the city and many outside it. He could have any sort of investment in the area around Rejoice.

Kane didn’t bother to ask what the investment was. He knew from experience that Jeffords would tell him what he wanted him to know and nothing more.

“What are they doing out there, anyway? The Angels?” Kane said.

Jeffords spun the letter opener and watched it wheel around until it stopped, business end pointed at Kane.

“I’m sure they could give you a better account than I,” Jeffords said.

He gave the letter opener another spin.

“Seems like a hard place for a religious community,” Kane said. “There’s got to be more welcoming locations.”

Once again the opener pointed at Kane.

“What’s the point of having faith,” Jeffords said, his words tinged with what might have been sarcasm, “if you don’t test it?”

He spun the letter opener once more and both men watched it revolve until it stopped, pointing at Kane.

“Are you a religious man now, Nik?” Jeffords asked. “Do you believe in God?”

“What difference does that make?” Kane said, hearing the irritation in his voice. “Jesus, Tom, you’ve known me for more than thirty years. What are you asking me a question like that for?”

“Rejoice’s preacher is said to be an eloquent and convincing man,” the chief said. “It wouldn’t pay to be too credulous. On the other hand, the Angels have created a religious culture out there. It would help to be able to speak their language.”

“I’ll get by,” Kane said, wondering what Jeffords really meant by the question. Was the chief developing religious scruples as he aged? Or was he afraid that during his years in prison Kane, like so many other cons, had found Jesus?

He looked across the desk at the big, silver-haired man in the tailored police uniform and shrugged.

“This is probably a snipe hunt, anyway,” he said. “By now the girl could be in Vancouver or Seattle or anywhere. Even here.”

“I’m having my people keep an eye out for her,” Jeffords said. “I’ve made inquiries of my friends in the state and the Lower 48. Even our Canadian cousins. Nothing so far.”

“What is this girl to you?” Kane asked.

Jeffords’s answer was a thin smile.

“She’s a missing teenage girl from a respectable family,” he said. “What else does she have to be?”

Classic Jeffords, Kane thought. An answer that doesn’t answer anything.

“What are your plans?” the chief asked.

“I came back to collect a few things,” Kane said. “I’ll load up and drive out there tomorrow sometime.”

“Good,” Jeffords said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“You can give me my job back,” Kane said.

“You know perfectly well that can’t happen,” Jeffords said, holding up a hand to keep Kane from replying. “I know, I know. You’ve been cleared of the charges against you. But you still violated department policies. I’m taking a big political risk helping you out at all.” Then his voice softened. “You’re a good investigator, Nik, maybe the best I’ve ever worked with, but you’ll never work here again.”

“So the fact I was falsely convicted doesn’t make any difference?” Kane asked. “Is that fair?”

Jeffords shook his head.

“Don’t be childish, Nik,” he said. “As my father used to tell me, fair is a place where men in overalls throw cow chips for distance.”