Nobody Cares, page 3
Lanky hesitated, and he looked sober. “I was flying in a nurse who was doing measles vaccinations,” he said. “During that big outbreak in, what... 1990?”
Mary Ayek nodded. “Thank you, then,” she said somberly. “We are so few, and so many things kill us.”
Then she looked at Dace, “So you got to experience the great Tongass forest with the two Kitka boys! How was that?”
“Wet,” she said. “Steep. Amazing.”
Dace laughed, but she obligingly described their adventure with prodding questions from Mary. Mary glanced at Paul once or twice, her shrewd eyes evaluating his reactions to Dace’s comments. Damn the woman, he thought, she’ll have ferreted out every bit of information about Dace and I, and Dace will be completely oblivious about how much she’s revealed.
He decided maybe he should pay closer attention. Might learn a bit, myself, about us if I pay attention, he thought morosely. Then he mentally gave himself a shake. You are being an ass, he told himself. You are at dinner with some of the most fascinating people in Alaska, and you’re feeling sorry for yourself? Get over it!
And he set out to be charming, if for no other reason than to remind himself he knew how.
Much later, Mary asked Thomas if he would mind escorting her to her room. Thomas Wyckoff said he would be delighted. Paul caught Lanky rolling his eyes as the three of them left the hotel.
“Goodnight all,” Lanky said with a sloppy two-fingered salute, as he headed toward his car.
“Goodnight,” Dace replied, and she tucked her arm inside of his, and snugged in close to walk home. He tightened his arm around her as they headed home. It was a nice night out, just at sunset. He hesitated. She so rarely initiated contact with him — with anyone, really, except for the Abbott kids. Maybe he should take her out more often. Wine seemed to have loosened things up. He smiled to himself.
“Look at the mountain,” he said, and they stopped along the way to watch the sun set behind Denali. He never tired of it. The sun’s brilliant orange streaks stretched out across the horizon, light saffron at the bottom, darkening to deep cinnamon at the top. Mount Denali jutted up in the midst of all of that, its white peak gleaming even now, in August. And all of it reflected in Susitna River that meandered behind the Lodge and defined most of Talkeetna’s boundaries.
He glanced at his watch: 10:30 p.m. Plenty of time to enjoy the setting sun with a girl, and still be up at the office when his boss showed up. As the sunset faded, they started walking again, toward his house — their house? — nestled in the woods along the river to the north of town.
That would require walking through town — six blocks chock full of tourists, all intent on having a good time. Someone hollered angrily at someone else on the patio at the Fairview, and Paul reminded himself he wasn’t on duty. He didn’t even break his stride.
“So, will Thomas come down from escorting Mary Ayek to her room before breakfast?” she asked conversationally.
Paul grinned. “Probably not,” he conceded. “Not if he’s lucky.”
Dace laughed, and blushed a little. “She’s amazing,” Dace said. “I want to be like her when I grow up.”
“She is amazing,” Paul said. “I feel like it’s been a privilege to know her.”
“She calls you grandson, but you’re not really, right?”
Dace had met his grandparents in Sitka a few months ago. And since his mother was white, it was pretty obvious it wasn’t a biological relationship. But then? He wasn’t sure biology vs adopted vs designated mattered much to Mary Ayek.
“I’m not sure when she started doing that — generally — I remember the first time she called me that, and I was honored,” Paul said slowly. And sad, because it had marked a change in their relationship. “But she often refers to the youngest generation of her village, or the young people she’s mentored or put through school, as her grandchildren. I’ve never been sure who is biologically her grandchild — or great-grandchild at this point — and who is someone she’s adopted at some point. Informally adopted. Although she’s raised plenty of children as well.” He shrugged.
“Sounds like there are many layers to her,” Dace observed.
And Paul told her about the first time he met her, and how his friend had ordered him to rent a tux and take his grandmother to the symphony. Dace giggled. So, Paul told her other stories, and then they were home.
Paul unlocked the door, and once they were inside, he said quietly, “Candace?”
She looked at him, a half-smile on her face, and raised an eyebrow quizzically.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Please,” she whispered, moving closer to him. “I thought....” She didn’t continue with that. Instead she reached up and kissed him, and for a moment, he stood there, feeling the rightness of it, the pleasure of being kissed by a woman he loved, and yes, he thought, I love her.
And then he kissed her back.
And Thomas Wyckoff wasn’t the only man who didn’t leave until breakfast.
Chapter 4
Paul Kitka cooked Dace breakfast, and then he apologized for having to leave to go to the office. She brushed off his apology.
“What you all said last night?” she said, her expression troubled. “Doesn’t anyone care that all these women are missing? That women are being abused like that right now?”
Paul frowned. “People care,” he said slowly, “but not in necessarily a useful way. More of a ‘that’s terrible, why doesn’t someone do something’ kind of way than ‘let’s collect the data, pass some laws, require enforcement’ way.”
She nodded and said nothing more. But she smiled when he bent over and kissed her before leaving.
Paul thought that was a very good sign.
What he found when he started digging through the Alaska State Patrol database was not a good sign, however. Troubled, he called his partner, who actually liked working with data, and explained the problem.
Joe Bob was silent for a moment. “I’m coming in,” he said finally. “You can barely look up a phone number online, never mind open cases across four databases.”
“Four?” Paul asked.
“Probably more than that, actually,” Joe Bob said. “See you in a few.”
Paul started making a list. Well two lists. One, what did he know? Two, what did he want to know?
Not much on the first list, he conceded. Not really a lot on the second yet. He didn’t know enough to ask good questions.
Start with the case in front of him. What could he learn about Sarah Itee?
By the time Joe Bob showed up, Paul had confirmed the simple description of Sarah that Mary Ayek had given them last night. Sarah was 21, a junior at University of Alaska, Anchorage. He had reached one roommate who said Sarah still hadn’t come home. Troubling, as this was now Tuesday, and she’d been missing since Saturday afternoon. That worried him.
He set that aside to begin to flesh out a portrait of the young woman.
Sarah Itee lived with three other roommates in an on-campus apartment. She was majoring in nursing, had a part-time job at the Alaska Native Medical Center. Her roommate said she wasn’t dating anyone that she knew of.
“To be honest, Sarah doesn’t go out much,” she said. “Sometimes we can get her to go out with all of us, but even then, she doesn’t drink. She’ll have a Coke or something. Don’t get me wrong, Sarah is a lot of fun. She has a lot of friends. But she just isn’t into the night life. A member of the UAA hiking club? Sure. Read to kids in the cancer ward? Yup. But go dancing at a bar? Not her thing.”
Paul thanked her, and she agreed to have the other two roommates call him. She found Sarah’s class schedule and gave him the names of some of her professors. “All four of us are in various medical programs,” she said. “That was how we found each other. It helps, because we’ve had classes together, or we can help someone through a class. Stats is a killer!”
He laughed and agreed that stats was hard enough with help much less without.
He tracked down her professors and left messages. The professor of her Monday class confirmed she’d missed it.
“I was troubled by it,” she said. “Sarah doesn’t miss classes. And if she were sick, she would have sent me an email. I called her number, but there was no answer. And I didn’t have anyone else to call. Is she in trouble?”
He asked her what she meant by trouble.
“I teach a class in Native Alaskan health,” she said slowly. “It’s an elective, but most Native Alaskans in the various health majors probably take it. I get to know a lot of Native Alaskan young women. They come here from small villages, and they are overwhelmed by the city. I’m not sure the university does enough to help them cope with that. But I’m not sure they’d welcome the university’s intrusion into their personal lives, either. I wouldn’t have at 18.”
“No,” Paul said, thinking of himself at 18. He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have.”
“So, things happen. And I hear about a lot of it. I’m seen as approachable,” she said ruefully. “But I’m not in any position to do anything about it except listen.”
“That can be enough,” he said, liking this woman. He looked at the name he’d written down. Caroline Trent, associate professor of health sciences. “And has Sarah been one of those who have sought you out?”
“Yes, but not for problems,” Dr. Trent said. “She’s very focused. Maybe too much so, but I worry more about those who find the temptations of the city, right? But if she’s disappeared, as you say, that surprises me. She isn’t the type.”
“Type?” he asked, neutrally.
“When a girl stops attending class permanently, she’s already shown some signs of problems,” she said slowly. “Coming to class hung over. Being erratic on attendance or on the quality of her work. You know? You say, uh oh, here’s someone who’s headed for trouble. And I might try speaking to her, or even establishing an advisor relationship. But Sarah? There’s none of that, she’s just gone.”
“I will probably head up to Anchorage in the next few days. Would you be willing to talk in person?” Paul asked, and Dr. Trent agreed. He started to hang up, then thought of another question. “Dr. Trent? If someone goes missing like you say, who do you report it to?”
She sighed. “To the registrar, who marks them as a withdrawal from class. Sometimes if it’s a student I’ve had interactions with or I think has serious potential I might shoot an email to their academic advisor. But truthfully? There is no set procedure for what to do.”
He got the name of Sarah’s advisor and added it to his growing list. Really, he thought, it is so easy to fall through the cracks it’s surprising there are only 18 reports. And he felt a growing sense of dread. This is just the university, he thought. That represents a small number of the young Native Alaskans who left the villages looking for work or for a good time.
What had the Captain said last night? He wondered what the name of that file was? Paul was beginning to wonder just how many files were there? He checked his own division, Alaska State Patrol, which had an online data base. He frowned: there were 200 plus missing from Anchorage. But Sarah’s name wasn’t there. He didn’t see 18 missing young women. He wondered how did someone get labeled “missing” enough to warrant being passed on to the database.
Well, he had the right person to figure that out. Joe Bob came in and pulled up a chair at the computer next to Paul’s desk. “OK, tell me what you’ve got and what you need me to look for,” he said.
“She’s a shy young woman who is dedicated to becoming a nurse and returning to her village,” Paul said, handing him a piece of paper with her name, age, social security number, school ID number, driver’s license — all the forms that documented a person’s existence. “She’s got a part-time job at the Alaska Native Medical Center. She left there Saturday at 5 p.m. and hasn’t been seen since. Roommates were worried, and when she didn’t show up by Sunday morning they called the police. Got blown off. So, they called Mary Ayek who considers Sarah her granddaughter, and she flew out Monday when there was still no sign of Sarah. And no concern by the police it appears either. And so here we are on Tuesday.”
“And why are we involved?” Joe Bob Dixon asked.
“Because Mary Ayek asked, and smart people don’t turn her down,” Paul said. “And so, she said Sarah had expressed a desire to come to Talkeetna. Captain said good enough, find her.”
Joe Bob Dixon nodded. “OK. What do you need me for?”
“When Mary Ayek went to the police, she was told Sarah had been added to the file. She asked to see it, and with a bit of creative fiction, got the Captain to show her — a computer file with 18 missing women between 16 and 30. That troubles her. And it infuriated her that the police didn’t seem to care.” Paul looked at his partner, wondering how to explain all this. Maybe later. Right now? He had questions to be answered. “I talked to a professor at UAA and they don’t track disappearances there either. I’m wondering how many files are there? Is there really no attempt made to close them? Do they even cross-check with the morgue, or see if they went back to their villages? Is it just women who are disappearing? Or do young men disappear as well?”
Joe Bob nodded. “OK, let’s start with that. The problem is that there isn’t one database. There are dozens. But I’ll start with Anchorage PD, build a list of names, start a cross-check to see how many are still missing. You going to tell Anchorage PD we’re doing this?”
Paul hesitated. “Can you do it without their knowledge?” he asked. “And then we’ll sic the Captain on them when we get some data?”
“I’m good with that,” Joe Bob said. “They won’t be, but fuck them. They blew off the disappearance of a girl on her way home from work? Hell of a thing.”
And that’s what made everything else about his partner bearable, Paul thought; his heart is in the right place. He cares about people. And Paul went back to his lists and continued to make calls and add more names.
Sarah’s supervisor was deeply troubled by her disappearance. “She’s a very serious young woman,” she said. “I guess I mean mature, not serious. She works hard, gets along with others. She’s good with patients, especially the children. So, Saturday? Nothing seemed unusual. Since Ms. Ayek called me Monday, I keep trying to think if there was something unusual, but Lieutenant, there just wasn’t. She was done at 5 p.m., and she headed home. I asked the younger women if they’d noticed anything or had she been afraid of someone, and no one knows anything. We’re all very upset.”
“I’ll probably go into Anchorage tomorrow,” he said. “Would you mind if I came to talk to the young women she works with?”
“I’m sure that would be fine,” she said. “I want her found and found safely.”
Paul would settle for alive. He thanked her, jotted the name down — Eunice Peters.
He looked at the time, and thought about going home to eat lunch with Candace — if Lanky would let her go. He shook his head at how she managed the old man. His phone rang.
“Kitka,” he said.
“Lieutenant?” a cautious young woman said.
“Yes, sorry. Lieutenant Paul Kitka, how may I help you?” he said, lightening his voice a bit.
She giggled. “I’m Ruth, one of Sarah’s roommates? Rebecca told me I needed to call you?”
“Thank you for calling me back,” Paul said, hoping she wasn’t going to be one of those girls who ended every sentence as a question. It annoyed the hell out of him. “I’m trying to narrow down when Sarah disappeared. Near as anyone can tell, she left work and didn’t make it home. Would you agree?”
“There’s no sign that she did,” Ruth said. “We were all out that evening. But you can tell if someone has been home, you know?”
“Yes,” Paul agreed. “Was there anything weird or different about Saturday?”
“Not Saturday,” she said slowly. “But Friday? Friday, Sarah was upset because she said some car followed her home. But the man — I guess it was a man — didn’t holler at her, or do anything, so Sarah didn’t feel like she could report it. She joked it was like the little boys she works with who get in a fight because ‘he looked at me,’” she said. “But now? I wish we’d taken it more seriously. But the reason I called you, is I found the piece of paper where she’d written down his license plate number. Do you want it?”
“That would be very helpful,” Paul said, thinking, of course, I want it! He really needed to get something to eat if he was this grouchy with a young woman. He jotted down the number. “Your other roommate didn’t think Sarah was dating anyone. Do you agree?”
“Not recently. To be honest, I think there was someone back home she was sweet on,” Ruth said. “She came back from Christmas, glowing a bit, you know?”
Paul laughed, and Ruth giggled. “Has she been back home since then?”
“Spring break? And then a week after spring term ended, I think. It’s expensive to go home,” and Paul could hear the homesickness in Ruth’s voice.
“Hard when you can’t,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what village she’s from?”
“Somewhere near Bethel,” she said. “But I don’t remember the name of it. Some of those villages are so small! Mine is, to be honest. I’m from a small village up by Utqiagvik, myself.”
“Long ways from home,” he said. “How long have you been in Anchorage?”
“Two years,” she said softly. “But I’m almost done with my LPN, and then I can go home. I’m needed.”
“Yes,” Paul said. “Yes, you are.”
He thanked her for calling and hung up. He looked at the license plate number, and thought about lunch, and sighed. He called up the database and ran the plate.
Blocked. He frowned. “Blocked?” he said out loud.
“What?” Joe Bob said, not looking away from what he was doing.
Paul explained about Sarah being followed, and that the number was blocked. “That means some kind of law enforcement, doesn’t it?” Paul asked, troubled.
“Yeah,” Joe Bob said slowly. “Or maybe a politician?”
