Then I turned on the computer I'd bought myself last Christmas-my major concession, to date, to the twenty-first century. I'd learned basic skills during my journalism stint, but I'd phased out of that a decade ago, and I had a lot of catching up to do. It was a no-frills Compaq desktop, but at first I'd felt like a Neanderthal piloting an F-16, and I still spent a fair amount of time trying to extricate myself from blunders I didn't have a clue how I'd made. But by now I could get around reasonably well on the Internet, which was my main interest. It wasn't much of a substitute for a warm and breathing companion, but an agreeable time-passer for a solitary night, and it spurred me to dig into matters I was curious about but otherwise wouldn't take the time to pursue.
I spent the next couple of hours, with a break to savor my elk concoction, trying to refresh my memory about Astrid Callister's murder. I didn't really learn anything new. The online archives of Montana newspapers didn't go back that far, and I wasn't able to find much on the national archiving services I tried. There were a few breaking stories on the crime itself, but nothing about the follow-up investigation. I decided I'd stop by the Independent Record when I got a chance; probably they'd have their older records on microfiche.
I'd fallen into that near-trance state of being like a lab animal trained to press a bar for a pellet of food or a jolt of pleasure to the brain. I kept clicking my finger, dancing the arrow across the screen, hoping for my own little reward in the form of a morsel of intriguing information.
Then, on a whim I hadn't even realized was in my head, I typed the name Seth Fraker into the search window.
About four hundred entries turned up, fewer than I'd expected. Most involved minutes of the current legislative session or other business where his name was attached in some perfunctory way. He was also mentioned in political websites, occasional news articles, and a few blogs, although he didn't seem to generate much interest with those. There were a couple of photos and snippets of personal information. His looks defined the term "clean-cut." He enjoyed wholesome sports like skiing and boating, and had played on the golf team at Arizona State. He believed piously in God, his country, and, of course, family values.
The single factor that at first seemed to stand out was his claim to be a moderate in a Republican party that generally leaned far to the right. But even that started looking like just a way to play it safe. I didn't see any record of him taking a strong stand on any controversial issue, or even speaking out. In a couple of instances when he was pinned down by questions from the press, he'd hedged, saying that he was still giving the matter serious thought. But his voting record was straight party line.
None of that was surprising or interesting, and my brain and vision were dulling toward slumber. But my robotic finger kept clicking the mouse, and after a few more pages, I caught an entry that opened my eyes again.
It was in French, apparently from a newspaper on St. Martin, in the Caribbean. The heading read only Le St. Martin Courrier, and was dated way back in February 1997.
Tragique noyade accidentelle au Lagon Blanc… La victime se baignait toute seule le soir et a disparu…malgre l'insistence de son ami M. Seth Fraker qu'il a fait tout effort pour la sauver…
I'd studied French through high school and some in college; my grasp of it had never been anything to brag on, and like most of my other formal education, had suffered with the passage of time. But I got the gist.
A woman had drowned in a tragic accident, while swimming alone at night in White Lagoon. A man named Seth Fraker had tried to save her.
My first hit was that this was unrelated to the Seth Fraker I was checking out-that it referred to another guy who happened to have the same name.
Still, I opened the file.
The Courrier was a small weekly that billed itself as "The Voice of French St. Martin." It had a semi-tabloid presentation, with graphics that tended toward garish and catchy headlines, the lowdown that you wouldn't find in the mainstream press. In fact, most of it consisted of ads; the news was limited to a roundup of a dozen items from the previous week, none much over a hundred words. The drowning story was one of those, and, at least via my clumsy translation, as tame as hand creme.
Guests had been staying at a seaside villa. Late in the evening, they'd noticed that a young woman, one Lydia Korzina, had slipped away. They found her clothes on the beach. Seth Fraker had swum into the night-bound lagoon and searched for her until police arrived. Her body was recovered next morning. She wasn't a St. Martin resident-it was thought that she was originally from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Authorities were trying to locate her family.
That was all.
I clicked on the link to the newspaper's website to see if there was a follow-up story, but got a "can't be displayed" message. The same thing happened when I tried a general search. At a guess, Le St. Martin Courrier was defunct. I took a stab at penetrating the archives of the island's major paper, the English language Daily Herald, but the names Seth Fraker and Lydia Korzina turned up nothing. I drew another blank going through the remaining entries on Fraker. Maybe there was information in there, but I wasn't the guy to find it.
But why would there be? If it even was the same Seth Fraker, he had simply happened to be present when a sad accident occurred, long ago and far away. There was no hint of scandal; his political opponents surely would have brought that to light.
Although one bit of nuanced phrasing, in such a brief account, struck me as a little odd-Fraker "insisting" that he'd made every effort to save her.
As if maybe there'd been a suggestion otherwise.
8
Madbird pushed my old worm-drive Skilsaw horizontally across a plaster wall in the Callisters' carriage house, with a sound like a freight train braking hard along a mile of rusty track. Sparks flew out in sprays when the blade hit lath nails, and clouds of stifling white dust billowed forth, hanging in the air like they had a half-life. I followed along behind him, digging my hammer claw into the plaster and ripping out chunks.
By now, it was early Sunday afternoon. We'd already checked the obvious places where the photos might be hidden, then sifted through the toxic Zonolite insulation in the attic. Next came the walls. Since it was impossible to guess where somebody might have eased a piece of siding loose and slipped something inside, we'd decided to open them up-carve channels that later could be filled with drywall, taped, and textured to match the plaster. There was an additional benefit: The ancient knob-and-tube wiring was a fire hazard, and this would clear pathways for rewiring.
Besides the main room that the Professor had converted into his study, there was also a small bathroom and an unimproved back area. The rats hadn't left a square inch of it untouched. Cleaning up the mess just so we could walk around, every bit the ugly job I'd warned Madbird about, took us half the morning. We'd managed to tear up the sodden carpet and drag it into the yard, then mucked out the rest with shovels. A couple of armchairs and a small couch were far beyond saving, so they'd gone, too. The resulting heap of trash would damn near have filled a Dumpster.
I'd never dealt much with pack rats before. Between my tomcat and predators like a resident badger family, my premises stayed pretty clear of varmints. But I knew other people besides Madbird who'd had run-ins with them, and as often as not come out second best.
They tended toward the large end of the North American rodent family, almost the size of cats. They could chew like chain-saws. A construction pal had told me about a ceiling that collapsed under the weight of dog food they'd hoarded up there. Another friend from northern California reported that they loved marijuana plants and were a bane to the region's growers-an army of feral four-legged narcs, stealthily searching and destroying by night. Like most critters, they avoided humans, but while others would run if you surprised them, pack rats tended to stand their ground and stare right back at you, even if you were pointing a gun. Whether this was because they were bold or stupid, nobody seemed sure.