“Colonel,” he said, turning the camera on me, “how did you feel when you found poor Kelley Harmon?”
“You know about that?”
“Do you think the bear guard suffered from post-traumatic stress? I understand he was an Army veteran.”
“Where did you hear this stuff?” I asked.
“The checkout girl was talking in the Value Center.”
“The checkout… how did she know?”
“The police dispatcher temp is her cousin,” he said with pride, as if he’d just won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting. His series on women explorers would run nationally six months from now, and Karen hoped it would help her raise funds for a land trip next winter along the Northwest Passage. That meant the documentary was important to her, and so, by extension, was Mikael.
Mikael began coming closer, still filming, stuck to the eyepiece. Sometimes I wondered how he communicated with people in social situations with no machine around. He said, “I understand there was illness at that research station. Do you think it was connected to the murders?”
“No one has called what happened murder.”
“Accident? Surely you can’t think that.”
“Too early to say anything,” I replied.
“Do you think that possible sexual rivalry at the camp set the man off?”
“I think if you don’t put that camera down,” I snapped, “I’ll do it for you.”
He lowered it quickly, Of course, sir, you are upset… but irritation flashed in the intelligent eyes. Mikael emanated casual stylishness, a one-day growth of beard on the pale, blue-eyed face, the thick, black, wild hair combed with his hands, the brand-name, tight sweaters that emphasized the swimmer’s shoulders and lean hips, the sense that he was always leaning forward, either fascinated, or hungry. He had the speed-talk of a Manhattanite, the smooth friendliness of a man who made his living by getting along with others. Allegedly he had a wife, but never mentioned her, and he wore no ring.
And the feeling he had for Karen showed in his lingering reluctance to stop filming. It wasn’t professional. Not to me. He was the tourist gaping at the movie star, wanting to touch.
Karen had watched our exchange with no expression, which meant she was getting mad. The only disagreements we had recently regarded Mikael, his questions and appearances at inopportune moments. My dislike wasn’t helped by his regular references to me — in their interviews — as “the Marine” or “your boyfriend.”
I told Mikael, for Karen’s sake, or more accurately, household peace, “Sorry I snapped at you. Tough afternoon.”
“No problem. Karen, we can get more exercise shots tomorrow, on the tundra. You walking. Looking east, toward the Northwest Passage, contemplating the danger ahead.”
I groaned inwardly. Jesus Christ!
Karen said, “Stay for coffee, Mike.”
But the weasel was smart. He put down the camera and said he would come back later. After all, only fifty feet separated us from his neighboring Quonset hut. He said he’d give us time together, as if it was his to bestow. He said I should “recover from shock,” maybe “lie down a bit.”
Mikael waved at the door. “Ciao, guys.”
“Mike, don’t be shy. You’re always welcome,” she said.
When the door shut, she did not look happy.
“Joe, you embarrassed me. Are we going to have this discussion again?”
“He’s in love with you.”
“So? What’s the problem?”
“That’s the problem.”
“I’m supposed to stay away from anyone who likes me?”
“No, it’s…”
She poked me, angry. “I’m supposed to tell him, go away? I’m not interested in the documentary? I don’t want to raise any more money for the trip? I’ve decided to retire and be a hermit and not talk to other men because my fiancée doesn’t like it? Me Tarzan. Me Joe Rush. My woman stay in cave.”
“Me in trouble,” I said, smiling despite things.
“Goddamnit,” she said, but after a moment — things could go either way here — she smiled back. Our relationship was recent enough for anger to go away that fast. But you need to watch it. That happy phase doesn’t last.
“Karen, I have to tell you something about Clay Qaqulik.”
She gasped when I did. She said, “Graduated with honors from Vanderbilt? Army intelligence. Two years in the FBI? And then he quits and comes back here and hires out as the guy who cooks meals and fixes engines? I don’t get it.”
I nodded, frowning, envisioning him, a big, shambling, quiet man, mustached, usually in baggy old jeans and a ratty sweater, who looked like he’d never worn an FBI-style suit in his life… and played electric guitar with the Barrowtones at their Saturday night gigs at the roller rink… a sometime mechanic on base, fixing snowmobiles or truck suspensions, a handyman available to help out scientists, satellite repair folks, Arctic adventurers, visitor VIPs.
Now my computer folks had painted a picture of a crackerjack Phi Beta Kappa student, an award-winning FBI agent. A comer in Washington any way you looked at it, who up and left and returned to the North Slope and now used a socket wrench instead of a 9mm Glock.
Karen asked, “Is there a reason he quit?”
“They tried to talk him out of it.”
“Personal problems?”
“Maybe he just didn’t like it.”
“Something happened. Cultural differences. Or, just because he was smart doesn’t mean he didn’t have problems adjusting. He just killed three people and himself. I’d say there were mental problems in there somewhere.”
“I keep thinking about Kelley’s phone call. They were all sick. All of them.”
“The sickness could have exacerbated pre-existing stress.”
“Yes.”
“He’s sick. With underlying problems. Add personal differences. Everything escalates. He picks up the shotgun. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“No. It wouldn’t,” I said.
“Then what’s bothering you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the ‘but’ is. Maybe it’s that I feel like I owe something to Kelley. Maybe it’s that Merlin never mentioned the FBI. Merlin going on as if Clay Qaqulik spent his life here except for the Army. There’s something else. Maybe the diary will help, if we ever find the damn thing.”
Karen thought about it. “Did you get his tax records? If there’s some other link there,” she said, meaning, like a mission, like his records are like yours, sheep-dipped, “you might see who is paying him.”
“We’re not supposed to access tax records.”
“I didn’t ask what you’re not supposed to do. I asked what you did do.”
So much for protecting her from knowledge that would make her legally culpable. “I told Valley Girl to dig up tax records. That takes time. She has to sneak around to get them in order to leave no computer trail behind.”
Karen and I met last year on an icebreaker that had suffered sabotage. She was security cleared and no stranger to espionage, or even to spies, one of whom we’d uncovered on that ship.
She said now, considering, “You’ll talk to Merlin about this.”
“First thing.”
“Or the admiral can find out more.”
“I’ve pushed him enough for one day.”
I remembered the dead man in that cabin, that lone remaining eye as stiff and lifeless as a marble. I also remembered the admiral’s words back in Washington. That town looks like the end of the planet, but it is less than five hundred miles from resurgent Russia, and along the longest unprotected coastline in the U.S. Military maneuvers coming. Shipping. Oil drilling offshore. You want to know the state of our Arctic satellite technology? Landing points in remote areas? You want to meet scientists whose work will impact national policy? It’s presumed that the other powers want to know what we’re doing up there.