Running Off Radar, page 17
A narrow path led directly to a single-story outbuilding covered in carved panels like the front of the house. Quite an advertisement for a carver. The door was ajar, so Maji knocked on the frame.
Dee looked up from a shop stool by the far wall and nodded to her to come in. Nate continued working, humming as he guided a tiny chisel. He leaned in close to the pale wood, long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, a pair of glasses pushed up above his forehead. Maji leaned a hip against a tool cabinet on the near side of the room and waited to speak until he stopped. When he straightened up, rolled his shoulders, and stretched the kinks from his back, she noticed his T-shirt. In the center of his chest, an old photo showed the legendary Apache chief Geronimo with three warriors, each holding a rifle. Above it were the words Homeland Security, and below, Fighting Terrorism since 1492.
Can’t argue with that. Maji just said, “Ayup.” She noticed Dee’s mouth twitch, one of her few tells. “Found something in the skiff. You got a minute?”
Dee nodded and stepped into the yard with her. Maji pulled out one of the two weights and held it out in her palm. “What is this?”
“Looks like a big sinker. Too small to stabilize the boat, too big to cast for a sport fish. That was in the skiff?”
Maji nodded. “Two of them. Lead, right?” At Dee’s nod, she handed it over.
“Whoo!” Dee said, her arm dropping before she adjusted to the unexpected density. “Not lead. So? What do you think then?”
Maji was tempted to joke that they’d hit gold. But that wasn’t so funny anymore, and besides, more information was not likely to make Dee safer. “I think I better send it for analysis. Thanks.”
Dee stood a few seconds, looking like she wanted to ask more. Then she shrugged and went back into the studio. Maji walked out of earshot.
On the second ring, her Navy counterpart answered, “Go for Green.”
“Rios here. I found two weights in Charlie Shakely’s skiff. Look like lead but way too heavy, and the boat’s co-captain doesn’t recognize them. You want ’em?”
“Hell, yeah. You got wheels?”
“No. I could call a cab. Or jog. I’m only four or five miles away.” And hungry.
“Well, they’re safe, right? We’re going to break for dinner soon and I can come pick you up then. Sit tight.”
“Yeah. Need my twenty?” They all used the same radio codes, regardless of the day’s tech. Which right now was the GPS tracker Maji wore. She wondered how precise it was.
“I’m showing three forty-two Spruce Street.”
Very precise indeed. “I’ll be out front.”
* * *
Rose put the salad bowl on the table, which Tristan and Danny had set for six. That was as many chairs as could squeeze around, and she wondered if the children would eat in the living room. The two too large for laps, anyway. “It’s really sweet of you to have us,” she said to Heather.
“No,” Heather said with a smile, “it’s good of you to let us thank you in some way. It’s not much, but it is from the heart.”
“Hmm.” Rose absorbed that, along with being made an honorary auntie. Feeding visitors might be traditional hospitality, but that was lifesaving special. “Is Dee really okay?”
Heather laughed. “She’s back to normal. Wish she’d be happy, instead.”
“Hey, yeah—why be normal, when you can be happy?” Nate said as he stepped into the kitchen.
Maji and Dee followed him in. Mom insisted that Maji and Rose serve themselves first, so they ladled stew from the Crockpot into their bowls and each grabbed a warm puff of fry bread from the plate by the stove.
“Thank you so much for supper,” Maji said as the others served themselves. “I have to run in ten minutes or so, but I’m really glad to be here.”
“Well, get eating, then,” Mom said, looking more amused than alarmed by the quick exit.
Maji nodded and dug in. She chewed and groaned, unabashedly blissed out.
Rose smiled and caught Heather’s eye. “That’s normal, and happy.”
The family ate for several minutes with almost no conversation. Rose found the quiet amiable, and quite restful compared to family dinners with the Benedettis. “Will you be back soon?”
Maji shook her head and swallowed, rising and heading for the Crockpot. “Don’t wait up.” She leaned down by Dee and asked quietly, “Could you see Rose safely home, on your way?”
Dee looked surprised, but nodded. “Sure.”
“What kind of work do you do, Ri?” Mom asked Maji.
“I’m with the Army,” she answered, sounding matter of fact. “I have a badge,” she added for the benefit of Tristan, who had come back into the kitchen for seconds. “You want to see?”
Tristan looked hopefully to his father, who nodded. Maji pulled it off her waistband and handed it to the boy.
“Cool,” Tristan said. “What’s Counterintelligence?”
“Military intelligence,” Maji said with a totally straight face, “is an oxymoron. If you work against the morons, then you are in counterintel.”
Nate and Dee both snorted.
Tristan squinted at her, not getting the joke. “Come on.”
“Okay,” Maji conceded. “I get information on people who try to get information on the United States. Sometimes they work for other countries, sometimes for organized crime, or even terrorists.”
“Like spy versus spy?”
“Just like that, but much less fun.”
Tristan disappeared back to the living room with the fry bread and a story to share.
“So,” Nate said, “you reckon Charlie caught those guys spying?”
Maji’s expression was so neutral, even Rose couldn’t guess her thoughts. “Too soon to say. Myself, I’m hoping whatever they’re up to is worth a terrorism charge. Then if we can collar them before they leave town, we get to keep them. No more catch and release bullshit with diplomatic immunity.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dee said before Nate could respond. “Mom, you remember who Wilbur Fred was working for when he got killed?”
Mom’s faced clouded over. “Trouble, that’s who.” She sighed. “Circus. Something like that. They said he turned the harbor into a circus and treated us like animals. New year, same shit.” She looked to see if the kids had noticed. “Sorry. Name sounded like circus.”
Sirko. Rose choked and felt Maji’s hand caressing her back. Small comfort.
“Thanks, that helps,” Maji said. She drank down the last of her water and laid her napkin on the table. “Gunalchéesh,” she said with proper pronunciation and hand gestures.
Nate eyed Maji. “So, what kind of Native are you?”
“Urban.” She gave him a look to show she was kidding. “I’m from Brooklyn—a native New Yorker.”
Nate looked serious. “Urban Indians got it rough. Know they come from someplace, from some people. Maybe they hear some stories, but they don’t get to sit with their elders, go out and learn from the aunts and uncles. Don’t learn the foods, the songs, the ceremonies. How can they know who they are?”
Maji took a beat to absorb that. “I guess I never thought of myself that way. My father’s one quarter Mapuche, and I don’t have any clue what that means. Except Central America’s full of intermarriages, like up here.”
“Huh. What part the Mapuche from then?”
“Chile. One of several indigenous peoples still trying to resist going totally Euro. Unlike the folks on my mother’s side, who were desert nomads way back. But in the generations before her time, the family started pretending they’d always lived in cities.”
Nate nodded, eyes focused past her. “Around here we say, you’re either one hundred percent Tlingit, or not at all. Whoever your folks are, you have to choose the life.”
“Yeah. Well, I don’t know enough to choose, so maybe I am an urban Indian after all.” Maji raised an eyebrow at him. “Doesn’t suck as bad as you made it sound.”
“Give it time,” Nate deadpanned.
Rose waited to see if anyone would laugh. When no one did, she just told Maji, “Be careful.”
Maji turned down three offers of a ride and let herself out the front, stopping to chat briefly with the kids. She hadn’t asked to hold the toddler, but Rose had caught her making faces across the table. Kyla seemed to find her equally entertaining.
Rose was about to clear her dishes away when Mom caught her by surprise. “You and Ri live together? Like a couple?”
Dee glowered. “Mom.”
“What? That’s a friendly question. Don’t take it personal.” To Rose she added, “We don’t get many women like you around here. Tourists, maybe—I don’t know. But not friends.”
Heather chuckled. “You’re being reverse anthropologized. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Only fair, I guess.” To Mom she answered, “No. We’re just dating.”
“Why? Don’t you want to settle down?”
“Mom…” Dee tried again.
Rose gave her a reassuring look. “I’m Italian. Questions and opinions are always like this”—she slid the fingers of one hand through the other, into fenceposts—“and there’s no escaping them.” She returned her attention to Mom. “Yes, I do want to settle down. And I am in love with Ri. But we live on different coasts, and her job may be a problem for a while. So…we’ll see.”
Mom took her hand. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Hang in there.”
Rose sensed there was some underlying tension, even when Mom let the subject go and left to help Heather with the kids. What their drama had to do with her and Ri, she wasn’t sure and didn’t plan to ask.
As Rose and Dee were washing up, Heather came back into the kitchen. “They’ve got Mom reading them Clifford the Big Red Dog on repeat,” Heather said, picking up a towel to help Rose with the drying.
Dee didn’t look up from the sudsy dishpan. “Nate’s back on the mask. Middle of a tricky bit, he says.”
“Mom doesn’t mind. She’d be tickled if you and Nate brought her more kids.”
“Well, maybe Nate will come through for her.”
The dourness in Dee’s voice struck Rose as a deep-seated unhappiness.
“My mother’s going to have to wait a while too,” she offered in consolation. Not that her mother ever pushed, but Rose had heard her own biological clock ticking for several years now. Too early for that discussion with Maji…
“You could date a single mom,” Heather said, startling Rose. “Oh, sorry, I meant Dee, not you.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” Dee said. “The only women who come to Sitka to stay are already paired up. And I’m not moving.”
“All the more reason you should ask that Liv out. You know you want to.” Heather turned to Rose. “There’s this woman who comes to buy the day’s catch off Dee’s boat, once a week like clockwork. Cute as a bug, and part Haida too.”
“What? No, she’s Okinawan. I mean, Hawaiian, but from some special group of Japanese people.”
Heather snapped her dish towel in Dee’s direction. “Only on her mother’s side. You’re going to eavesdrop, you should listen closer. Or God forbid, talk to her.”
Dee stared into the dishpan. “Why? She’ll just get transferred anyway. To Hawaii or someplace.”
“She’s already been stationed there. She asked for Sitka to get close enough to meet her father’s people. She even went to Celebration last summer.”
“Really?” Dee sounded hopeful, but then shook her head. “Won’t last. She won’t want to stay here, and I can’t leave.”
Heather sighed. “You’ll never know what she wants if you don’t talk to her. Which is a shame, because she’s really nice—and she likes you.”
“She’ll get over it,” Dee said. She went over to the coffeemaker on the counter and started puttering, conversation closed. Rose hung her dish towel over the back of a kitchen chair to dry.
“It’s your life, Dee,” Heather said, breaking the impasse. “You can’t use your old excuse of hurting Mom anymore. She wants you to be happy, and so does anybody else who really matters.” She paused, while her sister looked out the window at nothing in particular. “What’s the worst that could happen? She says no—you’re off the hook.”
Dee just stalked out the back door. They heard her say, “Coffee’s on.” If Nate replied, Rose couldn’t hear it.
“Now she can hang out and not talk, for a while.” Heather gave Rose a wry smile. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed her like that. Charlie couldn’t talk her into trying again either, and now he’s gone.”
Rose inhaled the scent of brewing coffee. “I’m so sorry.” She thought of her breakup with Gayle, and Angelo’s death. What if Maji hadn’t happened in between? “Bad relationships can hurt for a long time, even without grief on top.”
Heather went to the archway between the kitchen and living room and listened. Seeming satisfied with the quiet, she came back and pulled coffee mugs from the cabinet. “I don’t know I’d call it a relationship. Tina snuck around with her, never came to church or bingo or the dances, never met Mom or me. Shouldn’t have been a surprise when Dee found out she was married to that Coastie.”
Tina the flight attendant? Could be. “This is too small a town to think you can keep a secret, isn’t it?”
“Specially if you grew up here. But I guess this Tina thought she was in love too. At least, that’s what she said when she showed up at Dee’s boat, trying to make it right. Charlie had to keep Dee from tossing her in the water, right down on the docks in front of God and everybody.”
Rose could imagine the painful scene. “So much for secrets.”
“Worst coming-out party ever,” Heather agreed.
Rose blinked, not sure how to digest this revelation. “Tina was her first?”
Heather shrugged. “I don’t know, really. Dee’s only started opening up since she got sober. But this isn’t the easiest place to be gay, Tlingit or not. Puts you in a fishbowl, at the very least.”
“Is that why your mother gave me the third degree?” Rose asked.
Heather nodded. “She never understood why Dee and Charlie didn’t get married, living together and owning a boat together, and all. But I could never talk Dee into coming out. She was so sure that Mom would turn her away, or she’d lose her church friends if she didn’t. Something bad either way. Course, she was right to be scared, given what happened.”
“When the public breakup blew the lid off?”
“Yep. Mom was furious with those two, went on about white people, and perverts, and no values. It wasn’t pretty. But she was just worried about Dee, really.”
“All mothers worry about their kids’ happiness. And I suppose it’s already hard enough to live in two worlds, even here with so much cultural support.”
“She’s coming around, though. Mom wouldn’t get up in your business like that if she didn’t want to find some hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yeah. To see that Dee could have a normal, happy life if she found the right person.”
There was that normal again. “I guess that’s what we all want. And your money’s on this Liv?”
“She’s not ashamed of who she is. No sneaking around. She’d be proud to be seen with Dee—I’m sure of it. Dee deserves someone who treats her right.”
Maybe that was the right kind of normal to hope for. “Yes,” Rose agreed. “She does.”
Chapter Fifteen
Careful not to show her reluctance, Maji let Lt. Green drive her away from the cozy home of extended family and soul-warming food. “Did you get dinner?”
Green shook her head. “No, I need to pick something up. What stays open around here?”
It was getting dim out. After eight already. “There’s a burger joint on Katlian. Will that do?”
“Yeah. Jimmy’s hitting the cafeteria, but he’s got Jack stuck to him. We should talk privately.”
So they didn’t trust Jack. He seemed okay to her, but she knew better than most how much a person could hide in plain sight. “You think the Lieutenant Commander could be the Russians’ man on the inside? On what basis?”
“He’s just on the short list for now. Everybody who responded to the Mayday from the Russian trawler is.”
“Okay. Who’s everybody?”
“Pilot, copilot, the air mech, and the rescue swimmer. Jack, Captain Jamie Manning, AET Olivia Taira, and AST Dan Rivera. Any or all of them might have seen something, might know where the gold went, or might have been contacted by Sirko’s agents afterward.”
“That’s a lot of mights. All this on the theory that the rescue included securing the gold?”
“That’s the working hypothesis,” Green confirmed. She didn’t sound satisfied, however, and Maji empathized.
“Next left’s Katlian,” Maji said. “Look for the homemade billboard of a burger and fries on your right in about two blocks.”
“Jeez, Rios. How long you been in town?”
“Couple days. I always learn where the food is, first order of business.”
Green laughed. “Spoken like an operator.” She glanced over. “Sorry. I know better than to fish.”
“Good.” Maji spotted the sign and pointed. “That’s it.”
Maji passed on ordering a second supper. The stew and fry bread would keep her going for at least three hours, and then she had the Clif bars in her pocket if nothing else was on hand. She bought a small shake and a bottle of water, mostly to be polite while her teammate ate.
“Sure that’s all you want?” Green asked between bites.
“The Davis family fed us plenty, thanks. And fed me some solid intel, as well.”
Green glanced about, appearing to gauge the distance between them and the few other diners. “Report.”
“Historically, Russians and Tlingits are not great allies, except for a few who married into the Tribe and a couple priests who were nice enough. But nobody forgets the home invasion, the enslaved Aleuts, the kidnapped women. I talked to an elder, a woman maybe eighty or ninety, who saw the sub and immediately remembered an asshole raising hell here in town in the eighties.” Maji slurped her shake. “At dinner, Deanne Davis’s mother confirmed that asshole the elder meant was Sirko. And a Tlingit guy working for him got killed after talking about how Sirko was messing with the new cable drop. Plus a rape allegation. Anyway, his death was ruled an accident, much like Charlie Shakely’s.”
