Nobody Cares, page 19
Dace was losing steam. She needed sleep. “He named me 49,” she told the police chief. “I was his 49th victim. And nobody noticed? Nobody cared about the women who were being reported missing. Officer Dixon found them in an afternoon in the records. But no one cared.”
She felt the tears forming in her eyes, and she bit her lip. She didn’t want to cry in front of these men. “And the worst thing of all? This is the norm. All over the country Native women are being brutalized daily and nobody notices or cares.”
“Unfortunately that is true,” Newsome said. “But doesn’t excuse us. There will be reform. My word on it.”
Dace blinked back her tears, and nodded, her throat too choked up to speak. But she didn’t believe him. Not really.
Sic Mary Ayek on them, she thought, and suddenly she didn’t need to cry as badly.
Chapter 22
Paul Kitka was tired. Tired of the brass and their bullshit, he thought. And if he was tired, he had to think Dace was beyond tired. He’d at least had some sleep.
He leaned over to his boss. “Can we send the brass home?” he murmured. “And have someone arrest those two sons of bitches?”
Wyckoff glanced up at him out of the corner of his eye. He looked grim. Paul wondered what that meant.
“Gentlemen, I think we can wrap things up?” Wyckoff said. “Chief Newsome, you can contact the task force leader, Captain James McGuire, to arrest Dawson and Petroski on charges of kidnapping, assault and murder. And we can begin to trace those who have enabled the two of them.”
“Well,” Commander Carlson said uncomfortably, “I can’t turn Dawson and Petroski over until we’ve conducted our own investigation. There are national security issues involved, unfortunately. Perhaps not the ones Dawson and Petroski claimed, but they themselves are security issues now. That will have to be dealt with before we can turn them over to civilian authorities.”
Son of a bitch, Paul thought. He looked at Wyckoff and saw that he wasn’t surprised.
“Carlson, you wait a minute,” Newsome said furiously. “We are going to charge those men. You hear me?”
“You can do whatever you want,” Carlson said. “But I won’t turn them over until we’ve completed our investigation. And as you know, you can’t arrest someone on the base without our approval.”
“They’d better not step off it,” Newsome said. “Because I will nail them.”
“They won’t,” Carlson assured him.
“And what punishment do they face?” Wyckoff asked. “What penalties can be assessed by the Air Force for this? Especially since Dawson is an intelligence contractor — he’s not military at all.”
“I assure you we will take this very seriously,” the AMOC director said, speaking for the first time.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked about penalties,” Wyckoff said.
Carlson looked at the him. “Court-marshal for starters,” he said. “Ten years in prison.”
“Seems light for murder, assault and kidnapping,” Wyckoff observed. Paul got the feeling his boss knew all of this. Had known it would come to this.
“Those charges would be handled by the civilian powers after we have determined our penalties,” Carlson said.
“And if they are found guilty of espionage or a security breach, you would allow them to stand trial in a civilian court and be sentenced to prison?” Wyckoff asked, his voice level. He didn’t look at Carlson, but at Newsome.
Carlson hesitated. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of accommodation.”
“And if they are cleared of a security breach? Then what?”
“Then they would be turned over for prosecution by civilian courts.”
Wyckoff smiled a bit. “How long will your investigation take?”
The room was silent, engrossed in the back and forth between Wyckoff and the base commander.
“The last such investigation took two years,” the AMOC director said.
“Two years?” Dace said. “Before charges can be brought?”
“Oh, we’ll press charges,” Newsome said grimly. “There will be warrants for their arrest by nightfall.”
“And where will you conduct the investigation?” Wyckoff asked.
Paul watched the AMOC director swallow hard. Here it comes, he thought.
“They’ve been sent to D.C. for prosecution,” he said.
“They’ve already been sent out of the state.” Wyckoff repeated to confirm.
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought one of them was still in the hospital?” Paul asked, forgetting he was supposed to be quiet in this.
“We did have to use medical transport,” the AMOC director said. “And we will need to have the computer with us when we return. It is significant evidence of whether a breach occurred.”
“It’s also significant evidence of the crimes that occurred,” Newsome pointed out. “Without that evidence, prosecution will be difficult.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m afraid national security takes precedence.”
Paul looked at Dace, who stood beside the door. She was shaking. “He’s killed nearly 40 women,” she said. “He named me 49. There are 10 survivors, women who spent months, even years, in a kennel for his sadistic pleasure. And you are refusing to allow him to be prosecuted?”
The men didn’t look at her. They didn’t respond either.
“If we were to look at other places Dawson has been stationed what would we find?” she asked. “He’s been doing this for a long time.”
“Since he was here 20 years ago,” Joe Bob said in support of her claim. “There was an increase in disappearances then too that coincided with his time here as an Air Force pilot.”
There was no response to that either.
“You knew,” Dace said slowly, looking at the base commander and the director of AMOC. “You knew Dawson was a sexual predator. And you looked the other way. Why? Why is Dawson so special to you?”
Carlson bit his lip, looked at his men. He didn’t answer.
“I think we’re done here, sir,” the AMOC director said. He looked at Joe Bob. “Officer Dixon, if we could have the confiscated computer?”
Carlson nodded and stood. Dixon unplugged the hard drive from his computer and handed it to the AMOC director. He said nothing which surprised Paul. Joe Bob didn’t meet Paul’s eyes, and Paul narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Son of a bitch copied it, he thought. He kept quiet.
The military people started to leave. Dace stood in front of the door for a moment and then moved aside, and opened it. Outside stood Mary Ayek.
“Commander,” she said. “I understand you have already removed the two men from the state.”
“Had no choice, Mary,” he said.
She smiled. It wasn’t a friendly one. “Don’t need anything from the people, ever, Bill,” she gently. “You’re done in this state. Put in for your transfer now.”
She looked at each man who left. They avoided meeting her eyes, except for the pilot who had ordered a warning shot. He looked at her and smirked.
Mary Ayek slapped him. Hard enough to leave a handprint on his face.
“What the hell?” he shouted. “Someone arrest this woman!”
“For what?” Wyckoff asked.
“Assault!”
Wyckoff shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to take that up with the base commander. He doesn’t think you are under my jurisdiction.”
Mary Ayek smiled.
Chapter 23
Carlos Raines sat down with Paul and went over his planned story. Paul was impressed. Given how macho he’d acted with the military pilots, his chosen clips and story line was remarkably sensitive. He said something to the younger man.
Carlos shrugged uncomfortably. “They pissed me off, swaggering about like they’re the hot cocks on the walk, when in reality they’re nothing but Bantam roosters.”
Paul got the gist of the image, although he didn’t think he’d ever actually seen a live rooster — of any kind. Carlos agreed to everyone of Paul’s stipulations. All except one.
“I can’t make Candace anonymous, Paul,” he said seriously. “I know you want to protect her. But she’s the hero in this story. And we need a hero. Because this is as dismal a story as I’ve ever reported on. Everyone failed to do their jobs, and women died. And then the military covered up for the villains and spirited them away. We need a hero. And Dace’s rescue of the women — right out from under the villains’ noses? That’s the story. Right there.”
Paul nodded reluctant agreement.
After they’d hammered out the details, Paul found Rafe, and asked him to fly Carlos and Jason Tremont back to the city. He saw Joe Bob give Tremont a package. Looked remarkably like a hard drive, he thought.
And then they settled in for a long slog of investigation work. Carlos broke the story the next day about the NSA contractor who was abusing and killing women at a remote cabin, and was spirited out of the state to avoid prosecution.
The following day, he had the story on Candace Marshall and the women who engineered their own escape, and the Air Force asshole — a term he only used off the air — who had threatened to shoot her out of the sky.
He’d captured the sound from the plane somehow.
“Mayday, mayday,” Candace’s voice could be heard. “I’m flying med-evac.”
“Turn around, or I have orders to shoot you out of the sky!”
“Mayday, mayday. I’m flying med-evac.”
She was a celebrity and hated it. Mary Ayek just laughed at her. “You already were,” she teased. “You’re the fiancé of Paul Kitka, the woman who stopped a murderer and landed a plane, who survived the Tongass National Forest with not just one Kitka but two. We like our mythmakers in this state, Candace Marshall.”
Dace blushed and smiled. Mary was staying in Talkeetna to help with the women at Longenbaugh’s clinic. But she said she needed to go home soon. She’d been away too long. Dace understood that.
Four days after Raines’ news packages started, task force leader Captain James McGuire filed charges against Dawson and Petroski based on footage from an anonymous source showing Dawson’s cabin and kennels, and the security footage of Petroski kidnapping Dace.
Apparently, the military and the NSA were furious over the leaked footage. A security breach, they howled.
“Can’t put toothpaste back in the tube,” Joe Bob said with a shrug at supper one night. Dace had invited him over, her first attempt at entertaining. She’d laughed at that.
“Do you still have a copy of it?” she asked.
“Who says I ever did?”
“Have you looked through it for faces?” Dace asked, ignoring the weak denial. “Were there other men who came out there?”
Joe Bob was silent. “Yes,” he said. “McGuire is going to be busy for a long time.”
Dace swallowed. “Was Carlson one of them?”
He shook his head. “No, not him. But others. But you were right, I think he knew.”
“Do you have any idea why they’re so protective of him?” Paul asked. He was awfully quiet these days.
Joe Bob shrugged. “I’ve been told he is a genius at cryptography. Both at creating our codes, and breaking theirs. It’s why he was here in Alaska. Those satellites dishes monitored all of the north-Pacific Rim. North Korea, in particular. Dawson speaks Korean, Japanese, a couple of Chinese languages. Apparently Petroski was tasked with keeping the man happy and productive.”
That made Dace a bit sick to think about.
“It’s rare that a local jurisdiction does get to prosecute military for local crimes,” Paul said. “Remember when Guam did a while back? And everyone was astounded they’d gotten away with prosecuting them.”
“How did you learn that, Joe Bob?” Dace asked. She frowned with exasperation. “Look,” she said. “I can’t handle the whole Joe Bob thing.” She looked at him. “You OK if I call you J.B.?”
He smiled at her. “Never had a nickname before,” he said. “Sure.”
“Oh, you had nicknames,” Paul said with a laugh. “Just not to your face.”
J.B. Dixon cracked up. “True enough.”
“So, J.B.,” Dace said starting her question over. “How did you learn all that?”
He shrugged. “Talked to folks. Listened to a few more. A lot of uneasy people right now. Some of them are trying to justify why they spirited him out so fast. Some were pretty in my face about the leaked video. I hear things.” He grinned. “And Captain McGuire is my new best friend.”
The Anchorage Police Department and Alaska State Patrol cleaned house — more or less. Paul was involved in a lot of that and worked long hours. He’d come home late at night, try to eat the dinner she’d have warming for him and then fall into bed. Sometimes he’d wake up in the night and reach for her, frightened that she was gone. She’d reassure him that she was right there.
Sometimes he’d make frantic love to her. And she loved him back. But everything seemed on hold for the two of them. Dace thought it was as if they were waiting on something, but she didn’t know what.
She had her own nightmares, but she was busy trying to provide for the women who were taken, and do her job for Purdue Flight. Busy was good, she thought. Much better than her life in D.C. where she had little she was allowed to do — just wait for Stephen to want something.
Naomi disappeared. Dace was frantic, but Sarah calmed her. “She said she had something she needed to do. And she of all of us can take care of herself.”
“But where did she go?” Dace asked.
Sarah shook her head unsure. “But I know that she walked over to the hangar and asked Mr. Purdue if he would take her. Other than that I do not know. Perhaps he would tell you?”
Dace grinned at the Mr. Purdue label. But when she asked Lanky, he shook his head. “She’s due her privacy, now, isn’t she?” he asked.
So she fretted but there wasn’t anything more to do for Naomi. And the others needed her. Needed her to just sit with them. To talk, to tell stories. She’d stumbled on that by accident. They wanted to hear about her first flight. About Sitka. And then she made them tell her stories. Stories they were taught. Stories of their lives. And gradually they all became more anchored to the real world, in this time and this place.
Mary Abbott came by most days, and most of the time she brought food. Simple things, often with desert. They all looked forward to her visits. And Dace thought her friend was surer of herself as she realized the women needed her.
But things were still grim at home. For Paul, it wasn’t just the nightmare of losing her. Although that had hit him at a deep instinctive level that he couldn’t seem to cope with, he was also dealing with a lot of the officers in both forces who had known something was amiss, or looked the other way. A hot line had been set up by Betsy and Carlos and officers could call in and be forwarded to Paul’s number to call to negotiate non-prosecution agreements. It wasn’t just the Native villages who found Paul’s word to be good, Dace thought.
But dealing with all of the men who had failed to do their jobs — and not just a few who had participated in the cover-up — was leaving him disillusioned and angry.
Dace did her best to take care of him. He seemed grateful of her efforts. And that was a new experience for her. Stephen never thought anything she did was good enough. Paul, on the other hand, thought anything she did was a gift.
Chapter 24
The fireweed was blooming all the way to the top — Dace liked that saying, meaning fall was here. Labor Day saw the beginning of the end of tourism season and Dace’s office work seemed to slow down to a more manageable pace.
Naomi showed back up one day, and resumed a life at the clinic. She didn’t talk about where she’d been for two weeks. Dace was just glad to see her. Somewhere along the line these women had become friends, not just people she needed to take care of. And she particularly liked Naomi. A fierce woman. Dace wanted to be fierce.
When the tall, older man walked into the office on the Thursday after Labor Day, Dace couldn’t quite place him.
“Lanky around?” he asked.
She recognized his voice — he’d been in uniform the last time she’d seen him. Now he was wearing chinos, a blue shirt and a brown leather bomber jacket. But she just nodded. “He’s in the hangar, Commander,” she said. “I’ll take you there.”
He walked alongside her silently, hands shoved in his jacket. Dace didn’t try to make conversation, but she would have just pointed him at the hangar if she wasn’t curious as to why he was here.
Lanky was working on something at the work bench along the back of the hangar. Dace didn’t have anything to do with maintenance and repair, except to order parts and pay the bills. But it seemed to absorb a great deal of time, and left grease everywhere, which was then brought into the office.
“Lanky?” She called out from the door into the building. “Commander Carlson is here to see you.”
Lanky turned to see his visitor. He picked up a rag to wipe his hands, and Dace wanted to roll her eyes. Rag had as much grease on it as there were on his hands. And on his coveralls. And she wondered where the grease smears in the office came from?
Carlson gave her a quick nod of thanks. And dismissal, she thought. She saw Rafe slide out from under the nearest aircraft to take a look. He gestured to her and she quietly sat on the creeper he’d used to get under the plane. He raised an eyebrow at her, silently asking if she knew what was up. She shook her head.
“Bill,” Lanky said. “What brings you out here?” He leaned against the workbench and folded his arms across his chest. He was tall, thin, with thinning gray hair, and he probably hadn’t changed much in the last 20 years. He was 68, something Dace knew because of payroll, but he looked younger. If someone had said 58 you’d believe them. But then, if they’d said in his 70s, you’d find that believable, too.
Bill Carlson was obviously uncomfortable. He might be the commander of the largest base in Alaska, and probably one of the most powerful men in the state, but he was second in command when it came to Lanky Purdue. Captain John Purdue, retired. Interesting, Dace thought.
