Read Online Midnight come again by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dana Stabenow
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Women Sleuths, Mystery, Private Investigators, Detective and Mystery Stories, Hard-Boiled, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Women Private Investigators, Women Detectives, Fiction - Mystery, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective - Police Procedural, alaska, Mystery & Detective - Series, Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character), Shugak; Kate (Fictitious chara, Women private investigators - Alaska, smuggling
Ads: Link
these people are all that bright. Just homicidal."
Jim remembered a couple of summers ago, when Kate Shugak had run headlong into one of the radicals Gamble was referring to, a right-wing Christian pastor who had assumed the offices of judge and jury, and anointed his parishioners as executioners. Pastor Seabolt and his gang made Gamble's story at least plausible, if not entirely convincing.
He looked over at Carroll and Casanare. "What are Boris and Natasha here going to be up to while I'm in Bering, probably getting my ass shot off by renegade remnants of the Red Army?"
Carroll flushed and opened her mouth. Gamble's glance silenced her, but her eyes promised retribution.
"They'll be stationed in Anchorage," Gamble said. He didn't see Carroll and Casanare exchange glances, but Jim did. "Reaching out to informers,"
Gamble went on. "Gathering information. Amassing evidence. Building a case." Carroll stifled a yawn, Casanare a grin.
With sudden gravity, Gamble said, ' isn't a case we can afford to let slip, Jim. And we need your help to make it."
The silence stretched out. It was after ten, and the miles he'd flown and driven that day were starting to catch up to him. He rose to his feet and stretched. Through the window he could see a bunch of kids shooting hoops across the street. A truck went around the makeshift court very slowly, and speeded up once it was past. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear the music from the Tap down the road. His mouth felt dry. He could use a beer. Or three.
"I'll go. For a month," he said, turning and raising an admonitory finger, "and only a month. If I don't find something in thirty days, there isn't anything to be found, and I'm just wasting my time and the state's money." He put his hands in his pockets and regarded them placidly. ' it or leave it."
He waited for his boss to tell Jim that Jim would stay however long his boss told him to, but the squawk box remained silent. With the price per barrel of oil more in the toilet than out of it these days, and the attendant legislative funding cutbacks, Colonel Gordon's willingness to cooperate with a brother law enforcement organization went only so far.
"Great," Gamble said, breaking into a smile. "We'll take it." Yeah, right, Jim thought, great.
Bering.
Jesus. bering, july 1
We live long time, We live on salmon, bear. We care for land. Gissak come, he go.
--Gissak Come, He Go From Norton Sound to Kuskokwim Bay, the western coastline of Alaska bulged southwest, pushing out like the belly of a pregnant woman very near her time. The drainage basin for the two-thousand-mile-long Yukon River and the eight-hundred-mile-long Kuskokwim River and all their tributaries, the Delta stretched two hundred and fifty miles from Norton Sound to Kuskokwim Bay, and two hundred miles inland from sea's edge to the Kuskokwim Mountains. The river channels doubled back upon themselves to form lakes and flow through others until from the air the area resembled nothing so much as a basket of silver snakes, skins shining in the sun. Jim Chopin, looking out the window of an Alaska Airlines 737, in fact found it hard to tell where the water left off and the land began. Most of both looked below sea level as it was.
He'd been boning up on the area during the seventy minute flight from Anchorage, courtesy of the Alaska Geographic Society. Gamble had made him spend a week in Anchorage for something he called orientation, which consisted of looking at a bunch of mug shots and Russian Mafia organizational charts, which did not seem very organized and which seemed to chart mostly demises of said Mafia members.
He'd had to sign up at Job Service, too, one of the more humiliating experiences in his life. It didn't matter that he wasn't really out of work and that the fix was in for him for a particular job; the people behind the counter greeted all applicants with the same weary, disillusioned expression that said they'd heard it before, save
Jim remembered a couple of summers ago, when Kate Shugak had run headlong into one of the radicals Gamble was referring to, a right-wing Christian pastor who had assumed the offices of judge and jury, and anointed his parishioners as executioners. Pastor Seabolt and his gang made Gamble's story at least plausible, if not entirely convincing.
He looked over at Carroll and Casanare. "What are Boris and Natasha here going to be up to while I'm in Bering, probably getting my ass shot off by renegade remnants of the Red Army?"
Carroll flushed and opened her mouth. Gamble's glance silenced her, but her eyes promised retribution.
"They'll be stationed in Anchorage," Gamble said. He didn't see Carroll and Casanare exchange glances, but Jim did. "Reaching out to informers,"
Gamble went on. "Gathering information. Amassing evidence. Building a case." Carroll stifled a yawn, Casanare a grin.
With sudden gravity, Gamble said, ' isn't a case we can afford to let slip, Jim. And we need your help to make it."
The silence stretched out. It was after ten, and the miles he'd flown and driven that day were starting to catch up to him. He rose to his feet and stretched. Through the window he could see a bunch of kids shooting hoops across the street. A truck went around the makeshift court very slowly, and speeded up once it was past. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear the music from the Tap down the road. His mouth felt dry. He could use a beer. Or three.
"I'll go. For a month," he said, turning and raising an admonitory finger, "and only a month. If I don't find something in thirty days, there isn't anything to be found, and I'm just wasting my time and the state's money." He put his hands in his pockets and regarded them placidly. ' it or leave it."
He waited for his boss to tell Jim that Jim would stay however long his boss told him to, but the squawk box remained silent. With the price per barrel of oil more in the toilet than out of it these days, and the attendant legislative funding cutbacks, Colonel Gordon's willingness to cooperate with a brother law enforcement organization went only so far.
"Great," Gamble said, breaking into a smile. "We'll take it." Yeah, right, Jim thought, great.
Bering.
Jesus. bering, july 1
We live long time, We live on salmon, bear. We care for land. Gissak come, he go.
--Gissak Come, He Go From Norton Sound to Kuskokwim Bay, the western coastline of Alaska bulged southwest, pushing out like the belly of a pregnant woman very near her time. The drainage basin for the two-thousand-mile-long Yukon River and the eight-hundred-mile-long Kuskokwim River and all their tributaries, the Delta stretched two hundred and fifty miles from Norton Sound to Kuskokwim Bay, and two hundred miles inland from sea's edge to the Kuskokwim Mountains. The river channels doubled back upon themselves to form lakes and flow through others until from the air the area resembled nothing so much as a basket of silver snakes, skins shining in the sun. Jim Chopin, looking out the window of an Alaska Airlines 737, in fact found it hard to tell where the water left off and the land began. Most of both looked below sea level as it was.
He'd been boning up on the area during the seventy minute flight from Anchorage, courtesy of the Alaska Geographic Society. Gamble had made him spend a week in Anchorage for something he called orientation, which consisted of looking at a bunch of mug shots and Russian Mafia organizational charts, which did not seem very organized and which seemed to chart mostly demises of said Mafia members.
He'd had to sign up at Job Service, too, one of the more humiliating experiences in his life. It didn't matter that he wasn't really out of work and that the fix was in for him for a particular job; the people behind the counter greeted all applicants with the same weary, disillusioned expression that said they'd heard it before, save
Similar Books
