Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Teaser chapter

  “Mike Doogan’s first full-length mystery, Lost Angel, kept me up till the wee hours. There is no doubt Doogan can write. This new tale, with its fascinating cast of contrasting characters, simply tells us he can write pretty much whatever he wants to, and do it with style and a convincing voice. Welcome to the mystery community, Mike. More, please.” —Sue Henry, author of The Refuge

  “Mike Doogan has taken on a theme as big as Alaska itself—lost Faith, both literally and figuratively—and has done it in this brilliant debut with humor, sincerity, and a love for his characters and his state. Lost Angel pulses with realism and a brilliant sense of place. Doogan may have created a new subgenre here: post-modern Alaska noir.” —C. J. Box, author of In Plain Sight

  “Doogan really knows the grit and the reality of living in Alaska, and with his first mystery novel, Lost Angel, he gives us an involving and hard-edged tale of life on the northern frontier.” —San Jose Mercury News

  “Gripping . . . The portrayal of a religious community that holds both secrets and dangers is fascinating. A top-notch start to a projected mystery series.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “[An] auspicious debut . . . Lost Angel has all the ear-marks of a successful series.” —Richmond Times Dispatch

  “Alaska’s wide-open beauty gives novelist Mike Doogan a portal to a solid story about people living on the fringe in his promising debut . . . Doogan excels at plot and scenery . . . Nik is a character worth rooting for.” —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  “Former Anchorage Daily News columnist Mike Doogan has created a complex character . . . The protagonist initially comes across as a Real Tough Customer but thankfully is much more than that . . . Inside he’s riddled with doubts, sorrows, and fears about the future. In other words, he’s a real human being.”

  —Anchorage Daily News

  “[A] righteously appealing hero and terrific local color.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Engaging, lucid prose.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Sign me up for the Mike Doogan fan club. This guy can really write. Lost Angel is a terrific debut novel.”

  —James Swain, author of Deadman’s Bluff

  “Alaska emerges as a tough, gritty place where danger lurks even in the most unassuming situations. Here’s hoping that first time novelist and Anchorage Daily News columnist Mike Doogan will write many more mysteries with Nik Kane, one of the truly engaging new detectives on the scene.” —Library Journal

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  LOST ANGEL

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2006 by Mike Doogan.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-1997-7

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Kathy,

  the woman who, thank God,

  lets me live with her

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not exist without the efforts of Pat Dougherty, Howard Weaver, and Gretchen Legler, who helped me learn the craft of writing; Dana Stabenow, who strong-armed me into writing mystery fiction; Kim Rich and Sue Henry, who helped me find the way to publication; my agent, Marcy Posner, whose suggestions made this a better book; Tom Colgan, my editor, who shepherded this book, and me, through the process with patience and humor; and, of course, my wife, Kathy, my reader and editor of first, and last, resort.

  1

  And the Lord God planted a garden, eastward in Eden. . . .

  GENESIS 2 : 8

  THE SINGLE-ENGINE BUSH PLANE STAGGERED ACROSS the sky, rocking and rolling on the air currents that rose from the jumbled land below. Nik Kane clenched his teeth and cinched his seat belt even tighter.

  “Saint Joseph protect us,” he muttered. Then he smiled. Some things we learn as children never leave us, he thought.

  The pilot, who looked barely old enough to shave, gave him a pitying shake of the head.

  “Don’t worry, Pops,” the pilot shouted. “These river valleys are always a roller coaster.”

  Kane could barely hear him over the engine’s clatter. They had been flying north and east from Anchorage for almost two hours, and the trip included all the things Kane hated about flying in Alaska.

  The cabin heater blew gas fumes into the cockpit, which made Kane regret the bacon and eggs he’d had for breakfast, but didn’t raise the subarctic temperature. Kane was wearing high-tech boots, insulated coveralls, and a wool cap, and he was still cold. He
had a fat Air Force- surplus fifty-below parka behind his seat, but there was no way he could put it on in the tiny cabin. Unless he shoved the pilot out of the airplane first.

  The airplane banged its way through another set of air pockets, lurched sideways, then dropped like it was falling off a table, straightening out again with a jolt that set off a cacophony of shrieks and rattles. Kane’s forefinger stroked the scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his chin. I’m accumulating quite a collection of nervous habits, he thought.

  “That’s some scar,” the pilot said. “How’d you get it?”

  Kane gave the pilot a look that made the younger man shrink back in his seat.

  “Cut myself shaving,” he said.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean nothing,” the pilot said.

  “Just fly the plane,” Kane said.

  He used the edge of a gloved hand to scrape at the frost on the small window in the passenger door. The washed-out winter landscape below was white, with streaks and patches of brown or gray.

  Looking at so much empty space made Kane feel light-headed. I got used to small spaces inside, he thought.

  To the right, he could see a flat, snowy, meandering, bluff-lined track that he took to be the Copper River. A little farther along, a smaller river angled away to the left.

  “That the Jordan?” he asked, pointing.

  “Yeah,” the pilot said sullenly.

  The pilot slouched in his seat, one hand on the yoke, like a kid cruising a low-rider down a boulevard. He had sharp features dotted with acne scars and long, curly blond hair that needed washing. He was wearing a leather jacket over a Slayer T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. He seemed not to notice the cold.

  The plane gave a series of sharp shudders. Kane cursed and gripped the sides of his seat with both hands.

  “Easy, Pops,” the pilot called. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack.”

  Here’s a guy who doesn’t stay down for long, Kane thought. I could strangle the little snot, but who’d fly the plane?

  The bouncing continued for another ten minutes, then Kane began to see clumps of lights: a small patch on one side of the Jordan River, a small patch on the other, and farther along and higher up, a blaze of bright, industrial lighting.

  That would be the Pitchfork mine, Kane thought.

  Even though it was not quite noon, the winter day was dark enough to make the lights stand out sharply. Kane knew that the Glenn Highway ran through one of the groups of lights, but he couldn’t make it out in the dim light.

  “Almost there,” the pilot said, sitting up and putting the small plane into a steep bank.

  Three sharp gusts of wind tried to stand the airplane on its head, but the pilot got it around, around again, and lined up with an unlighted runway that had been carved out of the snow. He floated the little plane down and bounced it to a stop next to a Chevy Suburban that was idling at the side of the strip.

  “Rejoice, you’re in Rejoice,” the pilot said, killing the engine.

  Kane unclamped his hands from the seat, pushed open the door, and climbed unsteadily down onto the ice and snow. It seemed warmer at ground level, so he left the parka where it was.

  A man got out of the Suburban. He was taller than Kane and bundled up.

  “Mr. Kane?” he asked, putting out a gloved hand. “I’m Elder Thomas Wright.” His voice was soft and gentle after the engine’s racket.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Kane said, shaking the gloved hand with one of his own. Their breath formed small clouds that hung in the air between them.

  Wright’s eyes fastened on Kane’s scar, then slid away. Kane was used to that. Most people were afraid to say anything. But they all looked.

  “We should all get in out of the cold,” Wright said. He climbed into the driver’s seat. Kane got in next to him. The heater whistled and blew hot, dry air over him. The pilot sat behind. Wright turned the Suburban around and headed for some lights about a mile away.

  “You’re probably wondering why we asked you here, Mr. Kane,” Wright said.

  “I am, Elder Wright,” Kane said. “But the fellow in the back is my charter pilot, not my partner. If you want to keep our business private, you might want to wait until we’re alone.”

  “I will wait,” Wright said. He looked in the rearview mirror. “No offense meant to you, sir.”

  “No problemo,” the pilot said. “But it’s lunchtime, so I was hoping to find something to eat. And I don’t want to let my bird sit there in the cold too long.”

  “We’ll stop at our cafeteria,” Wright said. “I’ll arrange lunch for you. When you are finished, I’ll have some of our brethren take you back to the airstrip with a canvas cover and a propane heater to keep your aircraft from freezing up.”

  “Sweet,” the pilot said. To Kane, he said, “We can’t take much more than an hour, or we won’t have enough light to get back to Anchorage.”

  The road had been cut through a forest of scraggly black spruce and thin, ghostly white birch. Nothing grew tall or stout. It’s like God ran out of gas here, Kane thought.

  Nature is not hospitable in interior Alaska. The climate is rigorous: sixty below zero in the winter and ninety above in the summer. Not many living things can adapt to that. But the real problem is not enough water. The coastal mountains block moisture. Much of the interior is little more than high desert. Damn cold at times, but desert nonetheless.

  A hodgepodge of buildings stood in clearings cut along the road: new wooden structures, ATCO construction trailers, mobile homes, even a few log cabins. Overhead electrical wires ran to most of them.

  The buildings stood on a bench of land that began at the river and swept away to the north, rising gently to meet the foothills of the Alaska Range.

  “This is quite a layout,” Kane said.

  “We’ve been here nearly forty years now,” Wright said. “Possessions accumulate.”

  Wright pulled the Suburban nose-in to a big white wooden building. A long row of assorted vehicles was already parked there. The men got out of the Suburban, and Wright plugged in its engine heater. Then they walked to the building and through the staggered doors of an Arctic entryway.

  They were in a well-lit hallway. In a big room to the right, about fifty people stood in a line with trays in their hands.

  “Lunch is being served,” Wright said.

  Conversation stilled as Wright, Kane, and the pilot walked along the line to where four young men dressed for the outdoors were standing. Wright explained what he wanted, and he and Kane left the pilot with them.

  “Our business is in the office building,” Wright said. “We’ll just walk through here and out the other end. ”

  The two men walked along the hallway. Opposite the cafeteria was another big room.

  “That’s our community hall,” Wright said. “We hold gatherings and other community events there. We have some rooms off of it for smaller meetings.”

  Every person they passed ran an eye over Kane.

  “I take it you don’t get many visitors, Elder Wright,” he said.

  “I’m Elder Thomas Wright,” the man said, putting a slight emphasis on his first name. “There is also an Elder Moses Wright. He is my father, and the founder of Rejoice.”

  The two men went out another set of staggered doors into the cold. They crossed an open space and went into a smaller building that looked to be four ATCO trailers clipped together. Inside was a warren of offices. Wright led Kane to a big one at the far end. Eleven men sat at a large, round table that was set for a meal. All were in shirtsleeves and wore ties. Most had close-cropped hair.

  “This is the Council of Elders,” Thomas Wright said, and made the introductions. “Elders” didn’t seem to be a term related to age. Theirs ranged from mid-thirties to what looked like early seventies. Each greeted Kane with the word “Welcome,” a handshake, and eyes that quickly left his face to stare over his shoulder.

  Elder Moses Wright, a short, fiery-eyed old ruffian with
white hair that spilled over his collar, was the only exception. No welcome from him, only a defiant stare and a handshake intended to crush knuckles. Kane held the handshake and squeezed back until the old man seemed ready to call it quits. When he got his hand back, the elder rubbed it and gave Kane a considering look, like a logger trying to figure out just where to drop a big tree.

  “I’m sure you’d like a chance to wash your hands and get out of those coveralls,” Thomas Wright said. “I’ll show you to the restroom.”

  When Kane got back, Thomas Wright was in shirtsleeves and a tie, too. Unwrapped, he was a tall, thick, slope-shouldered man in his mid-thirties with an oval face and sorrowful eyes.

  The scene looked like pictures Kane had seen of men’s groups in the 1950s, Masons or Knights of Columbus. Only Kane, wearing wool pants and a polypropylene pullover, looked like someone from the twenty-first century.

  “I guess I’m a little underdressed for the occasion,” he said as he took the empty place at the table, “but I chose warmth over formality.”

  That got a chuckle from a couple of the elders.

  Without a signal that Kane noticed, teenage girls brought food and withdrew. Lunch looked like stew of some sort. Kane picked up his spoon and dipped it into his bowl before he noticed that everyone else was waiting.

  “It is customary for us to thank God for our food before eating,” Thomas Wright said.

  Kane set his spoon down and found himself holding hands with the men on either side of him. Moses Wright said grace in a booming voice, not a short prayer but a five-minute discourse on how God’s bounty fell on even the most sinful. He seemed to be looking at Kane throughout the prayer. Kane stared back. With his wild white hair and beard, and piercing eyes, Moses Wright seemed to have stepped straight from the pages of the Old Testament.

  The stew was wild game and delicious.