Read Online A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page B

loud, the dancing energetic and the drinking nonstop. “You’re not doing too bad,” she said, half-smiling.
    “Mmm. I should do all right if I can keep Billy Mike and that bunch off my back.”
    “You having problems with the tribal council again?”
    “Nah.” Bernie grinned. “I’ve been allowed a few months’ grace, seeing’s how the boys’ team brought the state championship home last March.”
    “For the second time in four years.”
    Bernie grinned and said nothing.
    “How’s the team shaping up this year?”
    He shrugged. “Too soon to tell.” Bernie never handicapped the teams he coached.
    Suzy Moonin came up to the bar, said hello to Kate and ordered a rum and Coke. Bernie looked at her and shook his head gently but with finality. “No, Suzy.”
    Suzy, a plump young woman with sparkling brown eyes and punked hair tucked behind her ears, said blankly, “What?”
    He met her eyes squarely. “You’re pregnant. I don’t serve expectant mothers.”
    She flushed. “Who told?”
    “Your mother was in last night.”
    “That bitch!” she spat.
    “True,” he admitted. “Doesn’t make any difference. You’re cut off until after the baby’s born. Would you like a Coke? Or maybe a Shirley Temple? I’ll put in an extra cherry.”
    She stared at him impotently, her body rigid with anger. Then she reached over and slapped the glass he was polishing out of his hand. It crashed to the floor in a hundred pieces, and she swung around and stamped across the room.
    “Someone’ll share,” Kate said.
    Bernie sighed and started picking up glass. “Probably. If I catch them at it I’ll throw the both of them out.”
    “Why don’t you just throw her out now?”
    “If she wants it bad enough, she’ll find it.”
    “Why don’t you just close up shop, then?”
    Bernie sighed again. “Don’t go getting sanctimonious on me, Kate. I may be the only game in town but when they lay down three bucks I give them three bucks’ worth of booze. That bootlegger you busted last winter was getting forty bucks for a bottle of Windsor Canadian that would cost seven in Anchorage. Thanks for that, by the way. Didn’t get a chance to say so, afterwards.”
    Kate couldn’t argue with him because she knew he was right. “Get any more CARE packages from your folks?”
    He brightened. “Funny you should ask. Got one on today’s mail plane.” He stooped to lift a large, cardboard U-Haul box from beneath the counter. Kate knelt on the stool so she could peer in. “Water filter? Waterproof compass? Hey, a Swiss army knife! Does it have a screwdriver?”
    He recovered the knife deftly. “Straight-edge and Phillips.”
    “Wow.”
    “Forget it. Buy your own.”
    “What’s this? Mutt, get out of the light!” This as Mutt’s large head appeared over the side of the box to peer in, too. She gave Kate a wounded look and jumped back down on the floor. “Vitamins? Doesn’t your mom think you eat right?”
    “She doesn’t think blubber can be all that nutritious as a dietary staple.”
    Kate looked at Bernie’s poker face, and he added, “And she wants to know if all my Eskimo friends live in igloos.” He pulled a down sleeping bag out of the CARE package and displayed it.
    Fascinated, Kate said, “What’d she say when you told her you’d never met an Eskimo or seen an igloo, and that muktuk was in short supply since whales got put on the endangered species list, and that Aleuts eat seal muktuk anyway?”
    “I didn’t tell her.” Bernie grinned.
    Kate looked at the box, her brow puckered. “Your mom and your sisters keep sending you all this stuff. What’s your dad say?”
    Bernie’s grin vanished. “Nothing. At least not to me.”
    She decided to chance it. “Why not?”
    Bernie was still for a moment. He relaxed and sighed, and even laughed a little. “Oh hell. I was a regular flower child, Kate, and he was regular Army. I got beat up at Chicago in ’68, I danced in the mud at Woodstock in ’69, and