Somebody's Secrets Read online

  There was some gossip about Hank as well. About the fact that there had been complaints in the past about him being too harsh with Alaska Natives when he made arrests. And about the fact that he’d been in Sitka for five years and was still just an officer. No promotions. No desire to move on. People wondered why. What was he hiding? Who had he been before he came here? Although it was more common in the early 1900s, people looking to make a new start found Alaska to be receptive to that kind of thing. There’d been a mayor of Sitka not long ago, rumor had it, who hadn’t existed before he was 40.

  So Paul, his mother, his father’s father and two other tribal leaders sat quietly in the back row of the courthouse. At the last minute, his mother’s best friend Rosemary slid in beside her. She reached over and put her hand over his mother’s. His mother grasped her hand tightly, but that was the only outward sign of her turmoil.

  Paul was hopeful that his father would see justice, but he was aware none of the other adults felt that way. They were there to give witness to the injustice they expected.

  Paul was unprepared for one other part of the testimony — a tape of what had happened that morning, captured by the dispatcher over the police radio in Petras’ car.

  Petras explained to the judge what happened that morning. Because it was an inquest, not a trial, no attorneys were present. No evidence required. If the judge ruled the death suspicious, then the prosecutor’s office would step in and see if charges were warranted. The adult Paul Kitka knew that, looking back, but the teenaged Paul only saw a proceeding where the police officer seemed on friendly terms with the judge, and no one was allowed to challenge his version of the events.

  “Got a call from the dispatcher about zero-seven-thirty,” Petras said. “People on their way to work at the mill reported that a large man was waiving a gun around at the pullout. One man said he thought he heard shots. A woman thought it might be Luke Kitka. I went out to investigate.

  “When I got out there, Luke Kitka was rambling up and down the pullout. I verified he did have a gun and was waving it around, and that he was a danger to society. I told him to put the gun down. He didn’t. Instead he pointed it at me. I thought he was going to shoot me, and I fired.”

  The dispatch tape was played next. The dispatcher, a no-nonsense woman from the Bronx — Paul wondered how she ended up in Alaska — confirmed how the tape was made and started the replay.

  “Drop it. Drop it!” Officer Petras’ voice said through the crackling of the radio. A shot was fired. Then a second.

  The tape was replayed at the judge’s request. And then a third time. Paul put his hand over his mother’s hands, which were clenched and trembling. Each time, she flinched with the sound of each shot.

  Police Chief Hank Campbell testified he believed the officer rightly felt in danger and was justified in using force to resolve the situation. He admitted the commands to drop the gun and the shots fired were very close together.

  “Things move fast,” he said firmly. “Calls indicated people’s lives were endangered. His life was on the line. He did the right thing.”

  The judge took very little time to rule the death justified. Everyone filed out of the courtroom. The officers shook Petras’ hand. The Kitkas were ignored.

  “Now what happens?” Paul asked his grandfather.

  “Now we bury my son,” he said.

  “No, I mean, what happens to the investigation?”

  “There is no investigation,” one of the tribal leaders said. “They have ruled the death justified. There will be no more questions.”

  “That can’t be right!” Paul said a little louder. “You heard how close together those shots were. No one could have reacted and dropped the gun. Dad didn’t have a chance.”

  A couple of officers looked their way. His grandfather shook his head. “It’s done,” he said. “They have decided.”

  Two weeks later Paul left for a job on the North Slope, to work for British Petroleum. He got an apartment in Anchorage that he shared with some others who rotated opposite his shift, made new friends, learned to drink too much and successfully flirt with women. After two years, he went through the police academy and got hired on by the state patrol. He couldn’t have articulated it then, and wouldn’t say it out loud now, but he came to see that the only way Native Alaskans were going to get a fair shake was if they were represented in all levels of the justice system.

  He never went back to Sitka. His mom and sisters frequently came to Anchorage to see him; Jonas had found his apartment a convenient escape so he could party away from the eyes that never seemed to stop watching the Kitka kids. But Paul didn’t go back.

  Until now.

  Chapter 3

  (Sitka. Present day.)

  Dace had no idea how much food was in her order — it just kept coming out. She ate and listened to Paul’s story, told with stops and starts as the waitress brought more food, refilled water glasses, and tried to tempt them with dessert. Dace groaned at the thought of it. The salmon she’d just eaten had been stuffed with crab and had some kind of sauce on it. The salad had been enough for a meal in itself. She’d made Paul help her eat it. He’d ordered a hamburger, but she could tell his heart wasn’t on eating.

  “Anything else I need to know before I meet your mother?” Dace asked.

  “Probably, but I can’t think of anything,” he said as he laid out money for the check. And for a healthy tip, Dace noticed. He flipped open his phone and called his mother to let her know where they were.

  As they stood out in front of the restaurant and waited for one of his sisters, Angela, to come pick him up, Dace asked, “Have you ever gone back and looked at the records of the case?”

  He shook his head. “I was there,” he reminded her. “Besides, there won’t be much. When the inquest found the death justifiable, there was no case to be investigated.”

  “You were there as a teenaged boy,” she said, not looking at him. “You might see things differently as one of the best investigators in the state.”

  He paused and looked at her. “What?” she said.

  “That is a very astute observation,” he said, turning to wave at a car pulling in alongside the curb. A young woman about Dace’s age bounced out of the car and up to Paul. She gave him a big hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “It’s been awful.”

  Paul had described Angela as pretty, which didn’t do her justice, Dace thought, with her dark hair caught up in a high ponytail, big dark eyes, and a figure that showed well in her blue jeans and pink T-shirt. Angela had graduated from Sheldon Jackson College before it closed, married the elementary school principal and spent her time raising eight-year-old twins and teaching math at the high school. Neither Paul nor his mother could figure out where the math ability came from.

  “This is Candace Marshall,” Paul introduced her. “My sis, Angela Kitka Theron. No girls with you? She’s got twin girls,” he told Dace.

  “If I had them, there’d be no room for you,” she retorted, smiling at Dace. “Come on, I need to get you home to Mom. She’s held it together for as long as she can, but.... Well, it’s been a long couple of days. I wanted her to call you right away, but she wanted to wait until Jonas had an attorney. Seth Jones took the case yesterday, but they wouldn’t let Jonas see him until this morning. Bastards. Picked Jonas up Friday at 5 p.m. so that he’d have to spend the weekend in jail. I’m surprised you got here this fast.”

  While Angela kept up a steady stream of words, Kitka opened the back door of an older green sedan. Dace didn’t know what kind, but it was better cared for than the taxi at least. She slid in. Paul put their bags in the far back, and then got in the front passenger seat. “Dace flew us down,” he said when Angela paused.

  Angela looked at her in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t know you were a pilot,” she said.

  “Just got my license today,” Dace said, unable to hide the pride in her voice.

  “Good for you.”

/>   Angela drove almost as fast as Kitka did, and that said something considering the narrow, winding streets of Sitka. Candace would have liked to have asked questions — was that really a church in the middle of the road? — but there didn’t seem to be time. Soon, they were through the small town and headed along the harbor.

  “How are you and Jim handling this? And Kristin and Lisa?” Paul asked.

  Angela shrugged. “The girls are bewildered, and don’t really understand. They love their uncles. Both of them,” she said meaningfully. “They got some harassment at school this morning. I’ve thought about keeping them home, but I hope it doesn’t get that bad.”

  “And you two?”

  She shrugged again, and turned east away from the water, and uphill. “I’m furious, I don’t for one minute believe Jonas did this, and I think mainly Jim is afraid that I’ll say or do something and land in the jail next to Jonas.”

  Paul snorted. “Have you heard from Deborah? Is she in town?”

  Angela parked the car. “She’s got an early flight out of Seattle tomorrow morning.” She glanced at Dace. “My sister is the only one who left Alaska. She went to the University of Washington for a master’s degree in literature and stayed to work on her PhD. Married. Got a baby.”

  “Jason and the baby coming with her?” Paul grabbed their bags out of the back. They weren’t much.

  “Not Jason. It isn’t easy for Jason to get away — he’s an attorney,” Angela said as an aside for Dace. “Deborah is working on her dissertation so she’s home. She’s bringing the baby though.”

  “How old?” Candace asked to be polite.

  “Six months. Paul hasn’t even seen him yet, and he’s named after him.”

  “The baby’s name is Paul?” Candace asked, trying not to smile. Paul grunted, and blushed a bit. But she thought he was pleased.

  “First boy of the next generation. Paul Luke.”

  Huh, Dace thought. Named after Paul’s father, too. He may have been an embarrassing drunk, but there was love in the family. She understood. She’d loved her father, even when his Alzheimer’s made him irritable and unpredictable. And she’d never doubted his love for her.

  Angela led the way up the steps to a wood-shingled house painted teal that looked out over the slope and to the bay. The door opened, and Dace assumed the woman there to greet them was Paul’s mother.

  It almost took Dace back a bit, because it was easy to forget with Paul and Angela’s coloring that their mother was white. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman wearing black leggings and an over-sized sweatshirt that read SJC on it — Sheldon Jackson College. She didn’t have any make-up on, and her graying hair had been hastily pulled back with hair clips.

  “Paul!” She came down the stairs and hugged her son tightly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Paul held her, rocking her slightly until she let go of him. “Mom, this is Dace Marshall. She flew me down. Dace, Elizabeth Kitka.”

  Dace held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Professor Kitka,” she said politely. She had been working at a university when she met and married her husband. She knew professors could be prickly about how they were addressed.

  “Elizabeth, please,” she said, and rather than shaking her hand, she pulled Dace into a quick hug. “Thanks for bringing my son down here.”

  They all ended up in the house, done in an Arts and Crafts style with lots of gleaming wood. The furniture was comfortable, and there were books everywhere.

  Another woman about the same age as Elizabeth sat in a leather recliner. She was a large woman with careful makeup and hair. She waited with a half-smile on her face.

  “Aunt Rosemary!” Paul said with pleasure. She reached up to him, and he bent over to give her a hug.

  “Paul, my dear,” she said. “Forgive me for not getting up, but I’m altogether too comfortable sitting here.”

  He nodded at the half-glass of white wine sitting on the end table next to her. “And that isn’t the first one you’ve had tonight,” he said, laughing.

  She laughed back. “You know me too well.” She looked at Candace. “Have you brought a girlfriend home to meet your family? It’s about time.”

  Paul shook his head. “This is Dace. She’s a friend. She flew me down here.”

  “Ah, Candace Marshall, right?” The warmth left her eyes as she looked at Dace. “We read about you.”

  “None of that,” Elizabeth intervened firmly. “Come, Dace, sit down. You’ve got to be tired. That’s a long flight! I really appreciate you bringing Paul home. I feel a lot better with him here.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to do, Mom,” Paul said evenly. “Jonas needs an attorney, not his brother.”

  Elizabeth Kitka glared at her son fiercely. “He’s got an attorney. And he does need his brother. He needs us to believe in him.”

  “Mom, you know I stand by you and even him. But Jonas has a hot temper. I have to say if I were investigating this case, I’d look at him seriously too.”

  “Jonas isn’t the hothead you remember, Paul,” Elizabeth said. “He’s got a good job with Fish and Game that suits him. He’s dating a very nice woman who’s doing research with Fish and Game. He’s got his life together. And what I need is for you to look at the situation as the police investigator you are now, not the sullen, rebellious teen you once were!”

  Dace winced, although Paul just snorted a bit. Obviously, Paul’s mother didn’t have trouble just putting it out there, Dace thought with some envy. Her own mother had died when she was young. She loved her father, but he’d been a quiet man even before the Alzheimer’s. And what had passed for conversation with her now-deceased husband was more a series of instructions for Dace and put-downs when she failed once again to measure up. Here it was clear that the family might argue but no one doubted the love they shared. Dace wondered what it would have been like to grow up like that.

  “He wasn’t that bad,” Rosemary said with a laugh.

  “Yes, I was,” Paul said ruefully. That made everyone laugh, and the tension lessened.

  “You said you ate at the Bayview,” Elizabeth said. “Do you want something to drink? Seth is coming over soon.”

  Paul headed to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and peered in. With a happy sigh, he pulled out an Alaskan Ale. “Dace?” he asked. “Mom, you got any coffee?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Dace said hastily.

  “No, you’re not,” Paul said. “We were up at 5 a.m. to get to Anchorage and then flew down here. So not only has it been a long day, but you’ve been without coffee for most of it.”

  Angela laughed, and started running water. “Won’t take but a moment,” she assured Dace. “I take it you’re a die-hard coffee drinker.”

  “Some people think so,” she said, glaring at Paul.

  “Everyone thinks so,” he countered. He pulled out cream for her coffee and shut the refrigerator door. Elizabeth leaned against the counters watching them with a smile on her face.

  “I drink a fair amount, too,” Elizabeth said. “Although not this late. Hell getting older. Had to cut back on coffee after supper.”

  Paul poured the coffee into a mug, added cream and handed it to Dace. She looked at the cup curiously. It was cream with terra-cotta streaks.

  “Sitka clay,” Elizabeth said. “They were made here from local clay. Pretty aren’t they?”

  Dace nodded, took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “Good coffee,” she mumbled, taking another gulp.

  “Life is too short for bad coffee,” Elizabeth said as she headed back into the living room.

  “Rosemary? Do you want another glass?” Paul called.

  “Yes, sweetie, that would be lovely.”

  He headed in with the wine. Angela looked at Dace and rolled her eyes. “She’s not really our aunt,” she said in a low voice. “She and mom have been friends forever, and we called her that when we were kids. I am not her favorite. She’s always preferred men — even when they’r
e five.”

  Dace smiled. “She reminds me of my husband’s first wife — other women don’t really exist if there are men in the room.”

  “You got it.”

  The doorbell rang, and they heard Elizabeth open it to let someone in.

  “Seth Jones,” Angela said. Dace nodded, feeling overwhelmed by all these strangers. Talkeetna was small and when it wasn’t tourist season, she went for weeks at a time without seeing a stranger. She liked it — hadn’t realized how much until now. She followed Angela back into the main room.

  Seth Jones was probably Elizabeth’s age, Dace guessed. A squarely built man, also wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, with neatly trimmed gray hair and beard. “Elizabeth,” he said, kissing her cheek. “And you must be Paul.”

  He shook Paul’s hand, and turned to her.

  “Candace Marshall,” Paul said. She mustered a smile and allowed her hand to shaken as well.

  “Let’s all sit down,” Elizabeth said. Paul tugged Dace into a sprawling love seat, while Elizabeth and Seth settled onto the couch. Angela lounged in a leather armchair with one leg tossed over the arm. Rosemary lifted her glass as if to toast Seth’s arrival. He nodded to her.

  “So, I’ve been to see Jonas,” Seth said. “He says he didn’t do it. Says if he was going to kill the bastard, he’d have done it 18 years ago. Why now?”

  “My thought, too,” Paul said. “Cops must have had something else besides ancient history to charge him.”

  Seth nodded. “Paul, what is your standing here? I don’t mean to be rude, but we need to set some ground rules before we talk any further.”

  “I’ve requested to be on administrative leave until this is over,” he said, startling Dace. So that’s what he’d been doing before they left. “But I’m a cop first and foremost. If he’s confessed to you, don’t tell me. Don’t tell me anything that you wouldn’t tell the police chief.”

  “How can you say that?” Angela exclaimed. “He’s your brother.”