Though Not Dead (59 page)

The front edge landed diagonally across his father’s chest. The sharp snapping of ribs was clearly audible. Erland watched, as the life faded from his father’s eyes.

He reached for something, anything, and flung it across the room. Whatever it was made a very satisfying crash. “Mom! He’s getting away! Call the cops!”

He went to one of the intact display cases, and with deliberate force smashed his head through the top of the glass.

He staggered back, sick and dizzy, something warm flooding into his eyes. “Mom! Vicky!”

He ran across the room to the door and down the hallway with exaggeratedly heavy steps. “He’s getting away!” he shouted through the door his half brother had left open behind him. Lights were coming on up and down the street.

There was a distant sound of sirens. He sagged against the door frame, and smiled drunkenly into the dark night.

He’d recognized Sam, even with his hood up, even from the back. It had been like watching himself run away.

In the few moments he had before the cops got there, he gave thought to whether he should say so. He decided he would not. Even with his own eyewitness testimony, even with his family’s standing in the state, there was always the possibility that Sam could prove his innocence, and then the cops would have to look for another suspect. No, far better that Sam Dementieff disappear into the night, that his father’s murder be the result of a simple burglary gone terribly wrong.

He went back into the study and sank to his knees next to his father’s body, taking his father’s hand between both of his own. He heard the footsteps behind him. “Erland? Emil! Oh my God!”

“Oh, Mom, Mom … I think he’s dead.” His shoulders heaved with sobs.

His sister, Victoria, stopped dead in the doorway, her hands clapping over her mouth to hold back a scream at the sight of her father’s body beneath the desk. Her mother pushed past her and ran to her son, crouching next to him. “Are you hurt? Erland, tell me! Are you hurt?”

Before she pulled his head to her breast, he caught a glimpse of the expression on his sister’s face, the tinge of suspicion in her eyes that underlay the undeniable horror there, and he had to work to repress a satisfied smile.

Erland Bannister was a born killer long before he met Kate Shugak.

Acknowledgments

I read some of these books for the first time

during my childhood odyssey through the

shelves of Susan Bloch English’s Seldovia Public Library.

This novel owes a lot to them

but even more to her.

Hector Chevigny’s
Lord of Alaska

Pierre Berton’s
Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush

Judge James Wickersham’s
Old Yukon: Tales, Trails, and Trials

Murray Morgan’s
Confederate Raider in the North Pacific

Brian Garfield’s
The Thousand-Mile War

Ernest Gruening’s
Many Battles

Joe Rychetnik’s
Bush Cop

Victor Fischer’s
Alaska’s Constitutional Convention

Jean Potter’s
The Flying North

Naske and Slotnick’s
Alaska: A History of the 49th State

Keith and Proenneke’s
One Man’s Wilderness

Jim Rearden’s
Castner’s Cutthroats

and pretty much anything ever published by

the Alaska Geographic Society.

Other constant resources are

the
Anchorage Daily News
online edition,

rural Alaskan newspapers like

the
Homer News
and the
Dutch Harbor Fisherman

(especially the police blotters)

and more recently, AlaskaDispatch.com.

The story of Saint Juvenaly comes from several sources,

including the Outreach Alaska page

of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Alaska Web site.

And once again, Don Ryan,

aka Der Plotmeister, comes through.

Thanks.

ALSO BY DANA STABENOW

T
HE
K
ATE
S
HUGAK
S
ERIES

A Night Too Dark

Whisper to the Blood

A Deeper Sleep

A Taint in the Blood

A Grave Denied

A Fine and Bitter Snow

The Singing of the Dead

Midnight Come Again

Hunter’s Moon

Killing Grounds

Breakup

Blood Will Tell

Play with Fire

A Cold-Blooded Business

Dead in the Water

A Fatal Thaw

A Cold Day for Murder

T
HE
L
IAM
C
AMPBELL
S
ERIES

Better to Rest

Nothing Gold Can Stay

So Sure of Death

Fire and Ice

T
HRILLERS

Prepared for Rage

Blindfold Game

T
HE
S
TAR
S
VENSDOTTER
S
ERIES

Red Planet Run

A Handful of Stars

Second Star

A
NTHOLOGIES

Powers of Detection

Wild Crimes

Alaska Women Write

The Mysterious North

At the Scene of the Crime

Unusual Suspects

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOUGH NOT DEAD
. Copyright © 2011 by Dana Stabenow. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stabenow, Dana.

Though not dead : a Kate Shugak novel / Dana Stabenow.—1st ed.

       p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-55911-3 (alk. paper)

  1.  Shugak, Kate (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   2.  Women private investigators—Alaska—Fiction.   3.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   4.  Alaska—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3569.T1249T47 2011

813'.54—dc22

2010039080

First Edition: February 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-9268-8

First Minotaur Books eBook Edition: February 2011