The Woman Who Married a Bear by John Straley

Author:John Straley [Straley, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, ebook
ISBN: 9781569474013
Google: WacEAQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 156947401X
Barnesnoble: 156947401X
Goodreads: 618880
Publisher: Orion
Published: 1992-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

TEN

THERE ARE SOME tricks to hunting by industry. Deception can play a part.

The courthouse in Stellar is a small brown building set on pilings above the tundra. There is a meeting room, a business office, a courtroom, and the office of the court clerk. It’s here that the public records are kept.

That morning the courtroom was filled with the voices of several people arguing at once. In one corner of the outer lobby a young white woman in blue jeans and a flannel shirt was speaking softly in English to an Eskimo man. She was explaining the difference between nolo contendere and guilt. He had a swollen eye and bruised knuckles. He nodded his head and looked at his hands.

I asked to see the card catalog for the case files. The woman beamed up at me. The lines of her face limned various circles, her eyes sparkled. Before she could answer me her telephone rang. I waited patiently, leaning against the wall, until she was free.

“They are all on our new computer,” she told me. “Do you have a name and a case number?”

I gave her Louis Victor’s name. She quickly typed in the information and waited. There was nothing. She frowned and tapped the space bar. Then she waited, staring into the monitor. Waiting.

“There should be something. Even if we don’t have the name we should get something.”

Two of her friends came over and I helped them tap the space bar, wiggle cords, and see if things were plugged in securely. The screen stayed dark. Finally, she said, “Well, we can let you into the file room and you can see what you can find. It’s really not that big. Nita will show you in.”

Nita led the way to a door that was locked. After much fumbling with the keys, we stepped into the file room; 20-by-30 floor to ceiling, four rows of court records encompassing more than fifteen years. Nita showed me where the coffee pot was and I started in on the files. She went back to her office.

I would fix their computer on the way out, if they hadn’t already figured it out by then. At first I had just unplugged it from the wall, then I had unplugged the monitor, and then I had unplugged the computer end of the main power cord. We had all been helpful, tapping and checking the cords. All I had had to do was keep checking cords and making sure one was a little loose while the ladies made sure the others were tight. It was a lot better for me to be alone in the file room. I could almost founder in a room so full of information.

I found a file for Walt Robbins. All it showed was one appearance for driving while intoxicated. I slipped his file back into the stacks.

I found the 1966 case file on Louis Victor. The grand jury had considered a charge for assault in the second degree. There were pages of notes

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