Ghost Light by Stan Jones & Patricia Watts

Author:Stan Jones & Patricia Watts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bowhead Press
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

· August 29 ·

CHUKCHI

“I’LL BE DAMNED.” ACTIVE studied the Cinco de Mayo photo that Kavik had taken to Aurora Market. “Just when you think a case can’t get any crazier. The clerk is absolutely sure?”

“No doubt about it,” Kavik said. “She said, and I quote, ‘I remember him, all right. He was carrying one of them little dogs, the kind look like a rat with big ears.’”

“Fred Sullivan.” Active shook his head and looked closer at the tall man at the left end of the back row in the photo. “Does she remember if he bought anything?”

“Got a picture of the charge receipt, believe it or not.” Kavik pulled it up on his phone. “Caribou jerky, two bottles of water, and one box of assorted doughnuts. Oh—and Binaca.”

“Binaca? You can buy Binaca in Chukchi?”

“Modern times, Boss.”

“But no knife or trash bags.”

Kavik squinted the Inupiat no. “What do you think he was doing in town?”

“If he was here to see Shalene, that would be a good reason not to mention it when I talked to him.”

“Him and Shalene? I don’t see it.”

Active called up the e-mail he had received the day before from Molly and scanned the list of names. Only two Richards and one Ricky were still employed by North Slope Environmental, none of whom worked at the same location and on the same shift as Shalene had. But what was he missing? “Rick isn’t short for anything else but Richard, right?”

“Yeah, but wha - -”

“Oh, hell,” Active said. “Fred. Fred-uh-Rick, right? Let’s just see how many of those North Slope Environmental has on the payroll.”

He typed up an e-mail and sent it to Molly. “Did the clerk recognize anyone else in the photo?”

“The Banks brothers, but from church, not the store. And Kim and Shalene from seeing them around town or in the store. The file photo of McCarran didn’t ring any bells.”

“What was the date on that receipt?”

Kavik checked his phone again. “May sixteenth.”

“Huh. The day after Shalene either left for Anchorage with McCarran or stayed in Chukchi with Kim,” Active said. “And/or was killed, since we don’t know the exact date of her death.”

“Sullivan could have been in town for some reason unrelated to Shalene.”

“Yeah, like what?”

His phone pinged and an e-mail came up. He read it and said, “I think we have our RomeoRick.”

Kavik raised his eyebrows in the white expression of inquiry.

“Molly says they’ve only got one Frederick. Call up the DMV records for our Mr. Sullivan and get his home address, would you?”

“On it,” Kavik said as Active’s phone screen lit up with another message, this time from Theresa Procopio.

“Got it,” Kavik said a minute later. “He lives in Anchorage.”

“At least I’m racking up the frequent-flyer miles.”

“When you going?”

“I’ll figure that out later.” He showed Kavik the message from Procopio. “Right now, we have a great big beautiful search warrant for Kim Tulimaq’s place.”

When Active and Kavik drove up to the turquoise house a few minutes later, Kim Tulimaq was laying a sheet of plywood across the two sawhorses in the yard.

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