Everybody Lies

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Paul Kitka was trying to keep his Corvette at 100 mph on the George Parks Highway, but the road just wasn't designed for that speed. The road was straight enough and, in the late summer, without ice, but the tourists, their Winnebagos and the tour buses, made it an obstacle course. Still, the day was crisp and clear, and it suited his mood. He grinned at himself in the rearview mirror. It had been a fine weekend; he told his mirror image. A fine September weekend.

He wasn't so euphoric that he forgot to keep his eye on the radar detectors on his dash. One detector pointed forward, the second to the back. State troopers were always embarrassed when they had to stop other troopers. Not to mention that his captain got a bit bent the last time he'd been clocked at 120 mph. He'd gone out and bought the second after that. You weren't supposed to need two radar detectors, but the back range was only a mile. At 120 mph, that gave you 30 seconds warning — not much reaction time. He hadn't been clocked since he installed the second one.

As Paul Kitka pulled into range of the station, his cellular phone rang. Figures, he thought, scowling at it. He rolled up his window, and turned down Peter, Paul and Mary blaring from his CD player.

"Kitka," he answered.

"Lieutenant, we just got a call of a dead body in Talkeetna," the dispatcher said. "Woman asked for you. Do you want to grab it, or should I get someone else?"

"Who is it?"

"Victim unknown. Gun shot. The person who found the body is Mary Abbott's new boarder, Candace Marshall."

Mary was easily the best cook within a hundred miles, and she always was willing to put on another plate for a stray cop. Paul Kitka edged up his speed. "I'll take it. I'm about 20 minutes out." He rummaged under his seat, found his emergency flasher and set it on the dashboard. A bit disgruntled, he also flipped off the radar detectors. Legitimate speeding wasn't nearly as much fun.

The dispatcher answered him with crisp professionalism. "Roger. I'll call for a back-up team to meet you."

"Thanks, Jonesy," Kitka said, disregarding protocol. Captain would be annoyed if he overhead, Kitka thought, then smiled. He flipped on the CB, listening for chatter, but no one was gossiping about the murder yet. It’d be a rare thing for him to get to a murder scene before the gossip got out.

Kitka passed the stretch of road where'd he'd helped a redheaded tourist fix a flat last Thursday. The flat tire had led to other things. A true redhead, too, he thought, smiling at the memory of the weekend. He'd gotten a later start out of Fairbanks this morning than he'd planned. He figured the late start was a worthy price.

He looked at himself in the rearview mirror again. "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," he quoted out loud.

Paul Kitka knew he was considered a good-looking man. At 35, he was grateful for it. He didn't have problems attracting women even in this state where women could be fairly scarce. A good thing. He wasn't into commitment and most women were, leading to a constant turnover problem. He wondered if he would run out of available women one day. Of course, there were always tourists.

Tourists were not particularly valued in Alaska, except for the money they brought in. Kitka found their ignorance about the state appalling, but it didn't interfere with his dalliances with the female version. They found him exotic with the Tlingit-white heritage that produced pale brown skin, straight black hair and broad muscular shoulders. He was taller than most Natives at five feet 10 inches. Being of mixed blood had to have some advantage, he thought with a snort. He'd learned its disadvantages growing up. His mother was white; in a matrilineal society like the Tlingit, he really hadn't been accepted. The whites saw only his Indian blood. His dad.... Kitka shut down those thoughts. No good thinking about the past. Just be grateful for female tourists.

He tried to focus on the dead body. Jonesy hadn't told him much. Gunshot wounds were not unusual. Damn fool tourists went hunting and shot each other as often as they did any game. He wondered about Mary's new boarder. He'd heard a little about her but hadn't met her yet. It must have been a shock to find the body. He wondered where she found it. Jonesy hadn't told him that either.

He braked sharply for the turn onto the Talkeetna Road, and slowed to a more sedate pace of 70 mph. Wouldn't do to come screeching into town in a vehicle everyone knew was his. A red Corvette was just a bit noticeable, although he wouldn't give it up for anything. Hell, he had too much money invested in parts to give the damn thing up.

Talkeetna was a very small town, 400 people according to the census. The mountain climbers and the tourists swelled the number considerably during the summer. Of course, during the winter months the whole state of Alaska was essentially one small town, Kitka thought with some sourness, as he dropped his speed to 60.

The road from the highway to town was a good road and it went through some pretty woods. But Kitka traveled the dang thing several times a day and had forgotten to look out in years. Still, the leaves of the birches were changing color, and the fireweed was in bloom along the road. Kitka glanced at Mount McKinley looming ahead, a sight he never got tired of. He slowed down some more.

Kitka nodded at the hand-lettered wooden "Welcome to Beautiful Downtown Talkeetna" sign at the south end of town as he always did. Even after ten years, the sign made him smile. Talkeetna was one paved main street, a couple of gravel side streets, and more planes than cars. The town was mostly a collection of log cabins, clapboard houses and a few businesses made prosperous by the foolhardiness of climbers from all around the world. The town and the road ended on the banks of the Susitna River to the north, where Kitka's house nestled back from the riverbanks.

Someone had a new Cub at the Talkeetna Flight Service, Kitka noticed as he went by. He could see ahead that the historic Fairview Inn with its international banners had its usual tourists standing around out front, and across the street Sally's Cafe appeared to be doing good business, especially for September. People were wandering toward the old schoolhouse museum behind the Park Service Building. Thank God, the tourists would be gone soon, Kitka thought as he slowed to a crawl to avoid a family too busy gawking around to notice that a red Corvette with a police light was about to run them over.

The Abbott house was just north of the center block of town. A big, white, two-story affair, it had an air of permanence with its front porch and flower beds. Kitka pulled into the driveway and got out, being careful to lock the car. Car thieves were not a problem in Alaska particularly, although he didn't trust tourists. He'd grown up in Sitka where the police chief had prided himself on never having had a car stolen. Of course, the only way off the island was the twice-a-week ferry. The worst it got was teenagers joyriding, something that usually resulted in the car being returned to the owner with a $10 ticket for leaving the keys in the ignition. Kitka smiled.

Still, it paid to lock the car anyway, he found, especially at the Abbotts. He'd had a bad experience with one of the kids crawling in to play and releasing the brake. Scared years off his life.

A small woman stood on the porch and watched him walk up the path. Candace Marshall, he guessed. She was wearing a white T-shirt, snug blue jeans and boots, much the same as what he was wearing himself. She was very still. No gestures, no fidgeting.

"Ms. Marshall?" he asked as he took the two steps to the porch. "I'm Paul Kitka."

He catalogued her braided brown hair, gray eyes and perfect, pale skin. Her face betrayed no emotion, however, not even the expected shock. He realized she wasn't as small as he'd first thought, probably close to five foot six. If he was any judge, and in Alaska he was a recognized connoisseur, the slim body had all the right curves. She sure didn't draw attention to them. She seemed withdrawn into herself, and that, along with her stillness, made her appear smaller than she really was. As if she didn't want to be noticed.

"You found the body?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Where? You want to show me?" He waved to Mary, hovering with concern at the front door. Now there was a woman whose curves were impossible to miss, he thought, hiding a grin.

Dace just nodded again and headed around behind the house. He fell in stride beside her, noticing that she moved away from him a bit, instinctively putting more space between them. He saw her sidewise glance at him, taking in his appearance. She almost smiled, probably at his T-shirt, he guessed, looking down at his chest. It read: "Alaska, where men are men and women win the Iditarod." A gift from a woman friend who had a dog team.

Kitka realized they were going to the tool shed Mary had converted into an apartment. "You found the body in here?" he asked, silently cursing at Jonesy for not mentioning that. He'd figured she'd stumbled over it hiking or something.

"I told the dispatcher," she said softly. He had to strain to hear her.

Kitka put his fists in his pockets and walked along behind her. She was a very contained young thing, he thought, especially for a woman who just found a dead man in her apartment. He was reminded of an otter pup he'd found in a snare once when he was a teenager. The animal had stared at him in the same long-suffering, resigned look. The pup hadn't moved, hadn't fought. Just looked. He never set another snare.

When Candace inserted the key in the door, he asked, "Was the door locked when you got here earlier?"

She nodded, then hesitated. "I think so. I used the key because I expected it to be locked. I suppose it could have just been shut, and I didn't notice."

She opened the door and let him move by. Again, she made sure he didn't brush her as he passed through the door and into the room. He tried not to breathe deeply, but the stench still reached him. A dead man is in here indeed, he thought, as the smell of urine, stale blood and death hit him. The body sprawled across the narrow, built-in bed just behind the door. Blood stained the front of his shirt. Shot from the front at close range? Kitka frowned.

Kitka kept his hands in his pockets to avoid touching anything. He slowly walked around the room. The room was tiny; it wasn't hard to see everything in one glance. The shed was probably 10 feet wide and maybe 20 feet long. Bill Abbott had added a kitchen across the back, if you could call a two-burner stove, a sink, a half-sized refrigerator and one cupboard a kitchen. A small closet in the north corner turned out to be the bathroom. He peered inside, but there wasn't room for anything beyond the toilet and a shower.

When he turned around to look again at the body, Candace Marshall was still standing in the doorway, her arms by her side, fists clenched. She didn't say anything as he continued his inventory of the room. The bed was on the north side of the door, on the south side was a pot-bellied wood stove and a simple table and chairs. She'd had a jar with wildflowers in it, but whoever had torn the room apart had knocked the table over, and the jar was on the floor. No wet spot on the plank floor; the flowers were wilted. This happened a while ago.

Someone had been looking for something — drawers were emptied in the kitchen and from the stowaway under the bed. Even all of her belongings thrown about didn't make for many things, Kitka thought. He bent over and touched some white granules on the floor. Sugar.

The one small window in the south wall was open, and Paul Kitka eyed it to see if it was wide enough for the victim to go through. Barely, he decided. The man would have to want in pretty badly. Why not jimmy the door? That door wasn't particularly secure.

"Did you touch him?" he asked as he finally approached the body.

"No," she said, barely above a whisper.

"Not even to make sure he was dead?"

She shook her head. "He is, isn't he? I mean, he didn't die because I didn't get help, did he?"

"No, he's been dead a while," Kitka said, taking pains to keep his voice reassuring. He didn't want her to fall apart, now.

The dead man was probably near 50 years old, and was about Kitka's own height, but slimmer. He had brown hair streaked with gray hair, which he wore long, probably in a ponytail, although it was mussed now. Gray eyes. He looked to be in good condition, especially for his apparent age. Good enough condition to feel comfortable wearing a T-shirt and jeans, anyway. Kitka had noticed that men of a certain age started avoiding those clothes as too revealing. He was doing everything possible to keep that day at bay, himself. Kitka glanced at the victim's shoes: Birkenstocks? He grimaced.

The victim wasn't from around here unless he was very new. He hadn't heard any gossip about such a stranger moving to town. Tourist? He'd never had a tourist murdered before. Took something to piss off the murderer, and tourists moved around too much to make that lasting of an impression. Although he'd met a few who almost qualified.

The gun, probably the murder weapon, Kitka thought wryly. Alaska State Patrol duck rule: if it looked like a duck, squawked like a duck, walked like a duck, it was probably a duck. If you have a dead body with a gunshot wound and a gun on the floor — a .38 revolver, it appeared — it probably was the murder weapon.

"Do you know who this man is, or why someone killed him in your apartment?" Kitka asked, not really expecting an answer. He looked up in surprise when a denial wasn't immediately forthcoming. "Ms. Marshall? You know him?"

She closed her eyes briefly before answering. "His name is Stephen Whitaker," she said. Her voice was barely audible. She paused, hesitating as if she had something to add but didn't really want to. With obvious reluctance, she said, "He's my husband."