Dana Stabenow - Whisper to the Blood

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WHISPER
to the
BLOOD

ALSO BY DANA STABENOW
Prepared for Rage
Blindfold Game

The Kate ShugakSeries
A Deeper Sleep
A Taint in the Blood
A Grave Denied
A Fine and Bitter Snow
The Singing of the Dead
Midnight Come Again
Hunter s Moon
Killing Grounds
Breakup
Blood Will Tell Play with Fire
A Cold-Blooded Business
Dead in the Water
A Fatal Thaw
A Cold Day for Murder

The Liam CampbellSeries
Better to Rest
Nothing Gold Can Stay
So Sure of Death
Fire and Ice

The Star SvensdotterSeries
Red Planet Run
A Handful of Stars
Second Star

Anthologies
Powers of Detection
Wild Crimes
AlaskaWomen Write
The Mysterious North
At the Scene of the Crime
Unusual Suspects

WHISPER
to the
BLOOD

DANA STABENOW

Minotaur Books

New York

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and eventsportrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or areused fictitiously.

whisper to the blood. Copyright 2009 by DanaStabenow. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Forinformation, address St. Martin's Press,

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stabenow, Dana.

Whisper to the blood : a Kate Shugak novel / Dana Stabenow.-1st ed.

p. cm ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36974-3 ISBN-10: 0-312-36974-3 1. Shugak, Kate(Fictitious character)-Fiction. 2. Women private investigators- Alaska-Fiction.3. Murder-Investigation-Fiction. 4. Alaska-Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.T1249W48 2009

813'.54-dc22 2008033959

First Edition: February 2009

10 9876 5 4321

This one is for myeditor,
Kelley Ragland,
and long overdue.

And if she doesn't mind sharing, it's also for Andy Martin and the rest ofthe Minotaur gang, too. My heartfelt thanks for the great editor, the greatcovers, and all the great wine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to IreneRowan, whose wonderful and sometimes heartbreaking stories inspired the plot ofthis novel.

My thanks to TaliaRoss, for the loan of her way-cool name.

And last but by nomeans least, my thanks to Pat and Cliff Lunneborg, who once said to me,"Do what you love. The money will come." I've been waiting to saythat in a book ever since.

... enemiesthat whisper to the blood...
THEODORE ROETHKE, "PROGNOSIS

WHISPER
to the
BLOOD

SIX MONTHS AGO

VANCOUVER, BC(AP): A Canadian-based mining firm, Global Harvest Resources Inc. (GHRI),yesterday announced the discovery of a gold, copper and molybdenum deposit onstate-leased land in Alaska'sIqaluk Wildlife Refuge. At a press conference at the company's headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, GHRI said preliminary estimates put therecoverable gold at 42 million ounces.

"That's more than seven times the total amount of gold mined during theKlondike Gold Rush," said GHRI chief executive officer Bruce O'Malley.

It's not only gold in them thar hills, according to O'Malley. "Thereare also 24 billion pounds of copper and 1.5 million pounds ofmolybdenum," a hard metal used to strengthen steel, in what GHRI has namedthe Suulutaq Mine. Suulutaq is the Aleut word for "gold."

At current prices, the gold alone in the Suulutaq Mine is worth over $38billion.

The governor's office in Juneau issued apress release that said, in part, "The people of Alaska applaud Global Harvest Resources'entrepreneurial efforts in making this discovery, and look forward to a longand profitable relationship with them."

State senator Pete Heiman (R), representing District 41, appeared optimisticwhen asked about the proposed mine. "Global Harvest has already committedto hiring locally, two thousand employees during construction and a thousandfor operation afterward, for as long as the ore holds out," he said."Anything that puts my constituents to work is a good thing."

Calls to the Niniltna Native Association's headquarters in Niniltna, thecommunity located nearest the prospective mine, were not returned as of presstime. The village of Niniltna itself isunincorporated and has no elected officials.

ONE

SEPTEMBER

G rin bought out Mac Devlin." Katelooked up from the dining room table, where she was wrestling with a time sheetfor her last job. It had required extensive surveillance, some of which she hadsubbed out to Kurt Pletnikoff in Anchorage.Kurt was turning into quite the one-man Continental Op, and while Kate was gladto see the erstwhile Park screwup make good, and while she begrudged none ofthe hefty percentage of her fee he was earning, the bookkeeping strained hernegligible mathematical skills to the red shift limit. It took her a moment tofocus on Jim's news. "Grin?"

"Global Harvest Resources Inc. GHRIn. That's what we're calling themaround the Park, hadn't you heard?"

"No. Appropriate, though. They have to be grinning from ear toear."

"To be fair, everyone is-fed, state, local."

"Not everyone local is," Kate said.

"Yeah." Jim slung his jacket around a chair and pulled off theball cap with the Alaska State Trooper insignia, running a hand through histhatch of dark blond hair. Jim was ever vigilant against hat hair. "Andnot Mac Devlin anymore, either. He's been operating on a shoestring for years,waiting on the big strike that never came. Last fall he had to sell off all hisheavy equipment to pay his outstanding bills. Well, just to gild the lily,whoever his bank is got hit hard in the subprime mortgage mess, so they calledin a lot of debt, including what they had on the land his mine sits on."

"And the Nabesna Mine also just happens to sit right on the route tothe valley where Global Harvest has its leases," Kate said.

Jim nodded. "Owning the Nabesna Mine will give them easy access."

"Hell," Kate said, "Mac's road into the Nabesna Mine getsthem partway there. And give the devil his due, it's a pretty good road."

"Better than the state road into the Park."

"No kidding. Although that's not saying much." She pointed withher chin. "The coffee's fresh. And there's gingerbread."

"Outstanding." He busied himself in the kitchen. "Mac'spretty pissed about the whole deal. You know how he was such a rah-rah boy forthe Suulutaq from the get-go? Now he's saying Global Harvest and his bank musthave been in cahoots, that they conspired to force him to sell for pennies onthe dollar."

"Where's he saying this?"

"At the Roadhouse."

"What were you doing out at Bernie's?"

"Your cousin Martin was making a nuisance of himself again, so I wentout to lay down a little law."

Kate sighed. "What'd he do this time?"

"Got stumblebum drunk, tripped over a chair, and spilled a beer on thecurrent quilt."

"Holy shit," Kate said, looking up. "Is he stillliving?"

Jim regarded the quarter section of gingerbread he had cut withsatisfaction, and not a little drool. "The aunties were pissed."

"Imagine my surprise. And Martin?"

Jim looked up and grinned. It was wide and white and predatory. "Ithink Bernie called me out more to get Martin into protective custody thanbecause Martin was misbehaving in his bar."