Somebody's Secrets by L.J. Breedlove

Author:L.J. Breedlove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: alaska, Alaska Native detective, criminal justice mystery, sitka mystery, women sleuths
Publisher: L.J. Breedlove
Published: 2020-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

(Sitka. Elizabeth Kitka’s house. Present day. Tuesday.)

“I liked your father,” Elizabeth told Karin. “He was charming.”

Karin took a deep ragged breath and let it out slowly before she responded. Telling the story as her mother, a tribal storyteller, told it, as it must have happened, affected her deeply.

She managed a smile. “That’s what mom said, too. He was a good man.”

“And Duke killed him?”

Karin sighed. “He didn’t come home. Neither did Andrew Solomon. The records here mention two suicides, but there are no names attached. Which was stupid on Duke’s part. He could have pretended to put them on the plane home, and the discrepancy would have gone unnoticed. But communication was so much worse than it is now, and he thought he could get away with something like this.”

“And he did get away with it,” Elizabeth said as she got up, refilled her coffee cup, and gestured in the direction of the younger women. Both shook their heads.

“The next piece of the story is hard for me to talk about,” she said. “I’ve never connected it to your father, Karin, but now I see it must be.”

“The DA had been furious,” Elizabeth continued. “Furious over the arrests, over the lousy records the jailor kept, over Duke’s behavior in the council meeting and afterward. And over the two suicides — men whom no one could name. Nor could anyone produce their bodies. He decided to conduct a formal investigation and impaneled a committee to hold hearings.

“Luke Kitka, Jr., was going to be his star witness.

“And then the day before the hearings, Paul disappeared.”

“What?” Angela exclaimed. “How come I didn’t know anything about this?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You weren’t born yet. Paul was about four. I don’t think even he remembers it. Someone kidnapped him. Said if Luke testified, we’d get his body back. If he backed out, then Paul would be returned unharmed.”

“My God,” Karin murmured.

“Yeah. The whole tribe went looking. Discreetly of course. The note said if we reported it, they’d kill Paul. Who even thinks about killing a child to prevent an inquiry into mishandling the arrests of a mob?”

“Especially a mob of Indians,” Karin said bitterly. “I’ve been reading the arrest reports. You don’t realize how far we’ve come until you go back and read documents from 30 years ago. A bunch of illiterate, racist fucks. Excuse my language, but....”

Elizabeth nodded. “Exactly. Even the DA conceded he didn’t think anything would come of the hearings, but he wanted to at least embarrass Duke Campbell. He would have gotten state press out of it at least.”

“I take it Granddad and the rest of the village had no luck finding Paul,” Angela said, looking at her grandfather.

“No, we didn’t,” Luke Kitka, Sr., said quietly. The lines of his face deepened in remembered pain. “I have never understood how they could hide a child so effectively.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Luke agonized. Here was a chance to make a difference — perhaps — in how policing was done in this town.

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