Elements of Kill Read online

  ELEMENTS

  OF A KILL

  AN INUPIAT ESKIMO MYSTERY

  CHRISTOPHER LANE

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  GLOSSARY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  THE CABLE SLIPPED over the collar and around the icy gray neck like a giant hangman’s noose. Two hooded figures labored in a pool of halogen light, long shadows performing an erratic dance as their clumsy, mitten-clad hands struggled to secure the load. Seconds later, one of them shouted something, his words quickly stolen by the howling wind. Forty feet away, obscured by blowing snow, the floorman knelt inside the rig enclosure and began wrapping rope around the cathead. A motor groaned from up above, gears grinding. The slack, three-quarter inch catline jinked once, twice … Suddenly it jerked taut, the loop shrinking to grip the pipe.

  A thermometer on the outer wall read 57 degrees—below zero. The simple device failed to account for the chill factor, the thirty-mile-an-hour wind driving the temperature down to minus 134.

  When the pipe had been pulled from the rack, up the wooden walk, and into the enclosure, a crew member hurried to shut the door against the cruel night.

  Inside the rig, the pipe continued its journey, one end tipping skyward, following the cable up the derrick. Three stories up, perched on a monkey board, a small man in coveralls and a hard hat awaited its arrival. He would “stab” the pipe, guiding it into a similar piece of casing already seated in the ground.

  When the pipe reached him, he took it in two gloved hands and aimed it at the hole thirty-five feet below. He quickly lined it up and shouted, “Go!” his mind busy calculating the time it would take them to set the remaining 1300 feet of pipe. They were behind schedule, but if things went well today, they might be able to …

  As the piped jiggled slightly and floated away from him, he noticed something.

  “Hold it!”

  Peering into the pipe, he swore.

  “Swing it over!”

  The crew did, two men pulling the pipe to one side. The man stepped across the monkey board and reached for a sledgehammer.

  Still cursing the pipe, he warned the men below, “Got mud in it! I’m gonna give it a whack. Hang on!”

  The steel cylinder rang like a chime with each tap. When that had no effect, he lifted the hammer and took a bigger swing. A gong echoed through the enclosure, but the interior of the pipe was still dark.

  He cursed the black hole and swung at it as if it were his enemy. Clang! Clang! Clang! Nothing. Tossing the hammer aside, he examined his watch. An expletive escaped from his lips. Another delay. And all because the jerks back at the main camp didn’t have the sense to check the pipes before sending them out to the location. He considered a hot, fiery resting place for the entire bunch. They were back in Prudhoe, residing in relative luxury, eating pastries and watching first-run movies, while he was here on a blasted ice island, sleeping in a crummy prefab building across the yard from the rig.

  He retrieved a flashlight from his tool kit and took another look inside the pipe.

  “Dang mud,” he muttered.

  “Did you get it?” a voice called from below.

  “Heck no, I didn’t get it!”

  “What’s the holdup?” The drilling foreman was aggravated.

  “Some sort of obstruction,” the man shouted back. “I can’t tell what it is.”

  “What is it?” the foreman asked. “I said,

  I can’t tell!”

  “What?”

  “Probably mud!” the man answered.

  He heard someone swear. “Can you get it loose?” the foreman wanted to know.

  “I’m trying!”

  “Use a sledge!”

  “I did!”

  “Use it again!”

  The man took up the hammer and beat on the pipe with renewed energy, with vengeance. It teetered and swung away from him; the man chased it, whacked it, reared back and … missed—a full swing of air that nearly sent him off the monkey board. Regaining his balance, he told the pipe what it could do to itself.

  “Any luck?” the foreman shouted up.

  “No!”

  “Then let’s get it out of here. Bring in another section!”

  On the floor of the rig the foreman climbed into his down parka, zipped up the hood and face mask, and pulled on a pair of gauntlet mittens. He followed the pipe back outside to its resting place on the rack. Waving to a man driving a forklift, he yelled, “Clear this thing!”

  The roustabout hopped out of the lift and ran toward him. “What?” Two dark, almond-shaped eyes looked out from under the fur-lined hood, past the neoprene mask and clear goggles. Even with the cold weather disguise, it was obvious that he was a Native.

  “Clear this thing! It’s full of mud!”

  The roustabout nodded. “Want us to finish this first?” He pointed to a stack of equipment crates that had been dumped unceremoniously near the center of the yard.

  The foreman glanced at the crates, then back at the pipe rack. “Yeah. I think we’ve got enough casing to set the hole, but make sure it’s clear before morning. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The foreman trotted back to the rig enclosure, hunched against the wind, ice pellets assaulting his parka. When the roustabout reached his vehicle, he used the short-wave radio to contact his partner, another Native operating a lift just twenty yards away, somewhere behind the veil of snow.

  “Hey, Sam, we got a pipe here we’re supposed to clear.”

  There was a burst of static, then, “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. After we get these crates into the hanger.”

  Sam swore through the static. “But Jim, the next shipment’s due around three.”

  “Maybe we can finish this load and get the pipe cleared before the truck shows up.”

  “Maybe.” Static crackled. “I really don’t want anymore overtime. I haven’t slept in two days. I feel like a zombie.”

  “Hey, man, me too. But the way we’re gettin’ paid, who cares?”

  They both laughed at this.

  “I’ll bet we can move these crates, fix the pipe, and still have time to grab some coffee before the next shipment,” Jim boasted.

  “How much?”

  “Twenty dollars.”

  “You’re on.” Both lifts grunted to action.

  Two hours later, at 2:30 A.M., it looked like Jim was going to be twenty dollars richer. Having spread the equipment around the yard and stacked it into the sheds, they parked the lifts and approached the clogged pipe.

  Jim shined a light inside. “What the heck’s in there?”

 
“Huh? What’s that?” The wind and their tight hoods made conversation almost impossible.

  “I said …” he leaned toward his partner and shouted, “What the heck’s in there?!”

  “Mud?” Jim shrugged. “Stand back.” He picked up a ten pound hammer and swung it as if he were splitting wood with an ax. The resulting clank was muffled, lost in a powerful, arctic gust.

  “Hit it again!”

  He took another half dozen swings at it, the smooth surface of the pipe refusing to wrinkle or scar. Sam sent the beam back into the pipe. “Still there. We need … um … a rod.”

  “A what?” Jim cupped his mittens over the spots on his hood where his ears would have been.

  “Something long! To poke it out with!”

  Across the yard, the crew emerged from the rig. Having finished one phase of their work, they were taking a break, trudging toward the camp building in search of food, warmth, nicotine, and caffeine. Faces toward the ground, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, they looked like prisoners of a Siberian gulag on a forced march.

  The two roustabouts set out in the opposite direction, toward an equipment shed. Huddling against the far outer wall of the structure, they examined a pile of discarded junk in the beam of the flashlight: a carburetor from a pickup, oversized rubber hoses, a dented metal box, broken wrenches, empty fifty-five gallon drums, a cracked exhaust pipe off of a pump truck, a dozen shredded tires, a scattering of broken two-by-fours …

  “Here.” Sam wrestled a piece of steel rebar from the pile. “Too short.”

  He considered it, then tossed it back like an undersized fish. “How about this one?” He pulled on another. It was longer, almost ten feet with a crook in the end. Jim nodded.

  They returned to the pipe. “Here goes nothing,” Sam said. He commando crawled into the cramped space, pushing the rebar out in front of him. His torso, then his waist disappeared into the cavity. Only his legs were still visible when the rebar struck something.

  “Got it!”

  “What?”

  Sam jabbed with the rebar. Whatever it was that was clogging the pipe, it was solid. Probably hardened, frozen mud. He continued jabbing, sweat matting his hair beneath the hood and mask. Winded and tired of fighting something he couldn’t see, he decided it was time to make his escape from the pipe. Wiggling backward, he swore. “I’m stuck! Pull on my feet!”

  “What?”

  His shoulders rubbed the sides of the pipe as he worked himself out, clumsily, inch by inch. He bruised a knee, then an elbow before spilling to the ground. Righting himself, he realized that Jim was shaking, muffled laughter making it through his outfit.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Jim promised, still snickering. “Just that … Well … I thought that steel snake was gonna eat you alive!”

  “Shut up!” Sam brushed himself off and rubbed at his elbow. “Get one of the lifts. Let’s tip this mother. Maybe I loosened it a little.”

  His partner vanished into the whiteout. A minute later Jim was back, piloting a forklift that belched trails of thin black smoke into the wind.

  Sam guided him in, pointing to a good spot for the forks. “Okay. Up!”

  The yellow lift coughed, the motor grunting as it strained to raise one end of the heavy pipe into the air.

  “Anything?”

  Sam shook his head. “Higher!”

  The fork lurched up another two feet. When nothing came out of the pipe, Sam took the hammer and beat fiercely on the side. After ten swings, he swore and gave up. Abandoning the sledge in favor of the rebar, he was about to direct Jim to lower the lift so that he could climb back inside, when he noticed it: a thick, sticky substance oozing down the bar. It was dark red, almost black.

  “What the heck?” Jim shouted.

  Sam was in a trance, watching as thick globs of reddish black goo slowly dropped to the snow at his feet.

  Jim hopped out of the lift. “Must be an animal in there.”

  “What?”

  “A rabbit or a fox,” he shouted, “in the pipe.”

  Sam shook his head and shoulders at this. “A rabbit or a fox wouldn’t clog a twenty-incher!” he shouted back.

  “Polar bear? They got ‘em out here.”

  Sam studied the opening of the pipe thoughtfully. “Maybe. But I’m not sure a bear would fit.”

  They were standing at the foot of the tipped section, still gawking at the rebar, when something slid out of the pipe. It was round, about three inches in diameter, and shiny: a frost-encrusted jewel sparkling in the halogen spotlights.

  “What is it?”

  Sam bent and picked it up. Wiping it against his parka, he lifted it toward one of the lamps: gold band, round face with inset stones, gold hands … a watch! Letters on the face marked it as a Rolex.

  He presented it to his partner.

  “Hot dog!” Jim took it and tried it on over his mitten. “Perfect fit!”

  “You know what this means?”

  Jim’s mask was twisted, thick lips grinning beneath the neoprene. “We’re a couple of lucky guys?”

  “No. It means that ain’t no animal stuck in there.” He gestured to the pipe, then held up the rebar. With gloved fingers, he rubbed at the blood. “And it ain’t mud either.”

  TWO

  “RAYMOND?”

  Delilah was smiling at him from across the club: pearly teeth framed by full, pouty lips, bedroom eyes inviting him to approach. When he didn’t, she began floating in his direction, a drink in one hand, hips swaying to the music. Wisps of long blond hair cascaded down over her bare shoulders, down upon her buxom …

  “Raymond!”

  Even atop six-inch spike heels, she was graceful … alluring … seductive … She arrived at his table, exuding sensuality, took his hand and …

  “Ray-mond!”

  Draping both arms over him, she giggled, then purred, “Let’s dance.” He just stood there, frozen, his heart pounding out a heavy, accelerated beat, as her fingers played at his shoulder, drifted down the buttons on his shirt, gripped the loops of his blue jeans …

  “Raymond!”

  The temptress pushed her body against his, let him breathe in her sweet perfume, then danced away, teasing him with a look. Long firm legs twirled, hips wriggled. Drawing near again, she whirled, a slow-motion blur of smooth skin and golden hair … and magically transformed herself into …

  “Raymond! Wake up!”

  … a petite brunette … Delilah had become … Margaret?

  “Wake up!”

  She was enraged. Her full, smooth cheeks were flushed, her brow furrowed into a scowl. She looked like she was going to bite his head off, to punish him severely for dancing with another woman—a naluaqmiu at that. And rightly so. Margaret was, after all, his fiancée, the lady he had promised to marry. Her fiery eyes glared at him. Then, without warning or explanation, her expression softened. She grinned, her face glowing. Leaning forward, she placed her lips against his and …

  “Wake up!”

  Suddenly the entire world was shaking, bouncing madly. Margaret flickered and vanished like a skittish ghost. He felt blankets, a pillow, cool air moving past his face.

  “Wake up! Answer radio!” an irritated voice was saying.

  Ray opened his eyes and blinked up at a pale yellow light washing across the sod ceiling. His groggy mind was trying to decide where he was when a shadow leaned over him. Deep-set brown eyes glared down from a leathery, wrinkled face.

  “You wake up!”

  He jerked to a sitting position. “Huh? What’s the matter? What happened?”

  “Radio wake me up!”

  “What?” Disoriented, still under Margaret’s spell, Ray stared at his grandfather. “What time is it?”

  “Not matter. What matter, radio wake me up! I wake you up!” With that, the old man stumbled out of the room. A door slammed down the hall and the light retreated. Ray found himself sitting alone in complete darkness. From the corner, he heard the ra
dio hissing and popping.

  Depressing the Indiglo button on his watch, he squinted at the numbers. When they refused to come into focus, he let up on the button and sighed. It had to be early. Five. Maybe five-thirty, Saturday morning. He had left Barrow around four on Friday afternoon, driven hard on poorly maintained, snow-covered roads, and reached Nuiqsut around eleven. After abandoning his truck, it was another forty-five minutes on snow machine before he pulled up outside Grandfather’s remote sod house. Then, as was the ritual, they had spent the next three hours chewing the fat, the old man complaining energetically about all things modern. That meant that Ray had managed a whopping two hours of sleep. No wonder he felt like whale dung.

  After lighting the kerosene lamp next to the bed, he wrapped himself in a blanket and crouched on the dirt floor, next to the radio. The room was cold, his breath visible in the dim glow of the lantern.

  The speaker on the radio flared to life, crackling with snatches of a faraway conversation.

  From the other end of the house, a gruff voice muttered, “Adiii … kill radio …”

  The light on the device was blinking, signaling an incoming call. It was supposed to beep an alert, to make him aware that someone was trying to reach him, but the thing was ten years old and had spent most of that time stored in subfreezing temperatures. As a result, it routinely self-activated, erupting like a popcorn cooker gone haywire whenever a call came in.

  As he reached for the receiver, the device snapped with a fresh pulse of static. From down the hall he heard his grandfather offer an Inupi curse.

  “This is Officer Attla. Over.”

  Waiting for a response, he tilted his watch toward the lantern: 3:42. Good grief! No wonder his eyes were burning, his head throbbing.

  “Raymond? This is dispatch. Over.”

  “Betty? What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?”

  “Same as you, honey. Workin’.” Betty was Athabaskan, just under five foot, somewhere around 250 pounds. Even over the radio she sounded big, her weight talcing the form of a deep, throaty voice.

  “Didn’t the captain tell you?” He paused to yawn. “I’m off till Tuesday.”

  “Not anymore.”

  He suppressed an expletive. “Why?” he groaned. “What’s up?”

  “Got a call from the Slope. They got a popsicle.”