Chapter Twelve
The New Year arrived without distinguishing itself from the other sixty-plus days of darkness. The days leading up to January 23rd, the first sunrise of the year, were quiet. The real crime wave happened in March. In January, everyone is happy to see the sun, but it is so damn cold, outdoor activities are challenging. By March, the sun is up for over twelve hours a day and the temperatures are still too damn cold to do much outside. Cabin fever kicks in and the crime rate triples.
The Iñupiaq word for February is Siqiññaasugruk. The literal translation is the time of extreme cold. My translation is the time to go to Hawaii.
I love to travel and hot, sunny beaches. One of the reasons I chose Barrow as my hideaway home was because it was the least likely place I’d go. My college years in Boston were cold enough for me. When I moved back to Arkansas, if the temperature dropped below fifty degrees, I insisted on a fire.
Years of hacking into Ray’s and Mama’s e-mails proved that they thought I was in the tropics. Instead, I was freezing my backside off in the Arctic. Cleaning out all their offshore accounts gave me the ability to travel to any sunny beach I wanted, when I wanted.
The first year of hiding, I didn’t leave Barrow. The second year, I got braver and ventured down to Anchorage and the Pacific Northwest. The third year, Cancun in March. Ole.
I had two trips planned for my fourth year in hiding. I rented a beach house on the North Shore of Oahu for the entire month of February. In September, I was headed to London.
The night before my aloha-departure was the police department’s awards banquet, held at the same venue as the Christmas party—Eben Hopson Middle School. Wrapped in my parka and ready to venture forth, I opened my apartment door to step into the hallway and ran into Joe who was poised to knock.
“Ah. I see you’re going to the banquet.” He looked ravishing in black pants and a royal blue shirt that made his eyes look even darker—like a raven, dark and full of secrets.
“Sure am. Want to walk with me?” I held up the bag that held my dress shoes.
He looked at my feet and laughed when he saw the boots.
“Give me a second, and I’ll grab my coat.” He ducked into his apartment and came back with his down parka.
He opened the door for me while I put on my gloves. When I stepped outside, the moonlight startled me.
“Wow. What a moon.” I stopped and admired its silvery beams washing over the frozen ocean. It was enormous and invited you to walk across the ice and shake hands with the man in the moon.
“Beautiful.” Joe touched my lower back and helped me down the stairs as if I hadn’t walked them a hundred times before. But I didn’t object.
It was a clear, cold night. The icy road glimmered in the starlight. The only sound was our footsteps crunching through the snow.
“How are you surviving FTO?” I asked him about the field training that paired him with a seasoned North Slope officer to learn the department’s procedures.
“It’s not bad.” He chuckled. “You folks sure do things differently than we do in New York.”
“Not many cases of missing mikigaq there, huh?”
“What?”
“Mikigaq—fermented whale meat, blood and tongue.”
“You heard about that?” he asked.
“Sure thing. That’s the crime of the decade. Someone going around town and raiding qanitchat.”
“When I got the call, I figured they were playing one on the newbie.” He shook his head. “I was surprised when I got to the lady’s house and she was fuming about someone pakak...” He looked at me. “Did I say that right?”
“Yeah, pakak, messing around—getting into things.” I gave my Iñupiaq-word-of-the-day lesson, thinking Fannie Akpik from KBRW, the local radio station, would be proud.
“The lady was pissed.”
“I would be too. That stuff’s not easy to make.”
“We found the pan by the Dumpster, but there was no sign of the fermented-blood stuff.”
“I’m sure she was glad to get her pan back at least.”
“That’s me. A super hero.”
When we arrived at the school, he held the door for me, then helped me off with my parka.
“Nice dress.” His assessment caused my face to redden.
It was a nice dress—dark purple with a V-neck and mid-calf flowing skirt. I wore an amethyst bracelet and necklace.
“The boots make the outfit, don’t you agree?” I joked.
“Oh yeah. They bring out your eyes.”
I laughed and then knelt down to unlace the boots so I could put on the heels I’d carried with me. I glanced up and caught Joe looking down my dress. My face flamed as I struggled to stand up straight.
He offered me a hand. He grinned and said, “Sorry. I’m a guy.”
Having him acknowledge what had happened made me blush even more. His grin got bigger.
The aroma of roast beef and apple pie lured us into the cafeteria. Most people were already there, and the tables were full. Bernadette had saved a seat for me, but there was no room for Joe. He looked around and spied an empty seat by Owen. He winked at me and walked to the other table.
The prayer was said, dinner was eaten, and the awards ceremony began. Bernadette was dressed in a pair of black pants and a lavender-and-teal atikłuk, or snow shirt. Her presentation was filled with humor and good, old-fashioned ribbing of award recipients. Sylvia received the Dispatcher of the Year Award. Darlene was named Supervisor of the Year, and Owen was awarded Officer of the Year.
The Officer of the Year is traditionally the last award given at the banquets, but Bernadette didn’t leave the podium, and her tone turned from jovial to contemplative.
“Last December, an officer was faced with a career-altering decision. A decision that meant life or death. This officer bravely and valiantly faced his inner struggle and suppressed his natural survival instinct.” She looked around the room, took off her glasses and continued to gaze at the audience instead of her note cards—her voice low and confessional. “To be honest, I don’t know if I could have done it. I lie awake nights playing the scenario over and over in my mind. Would I have made the same decision? Each time I think of the incident my respect and admiration for this officer grows exponentially.”
Silence engulfed the room. People scooted forward in their chairs. Anticipation grew.
Bernadette knew how to work a room.
She sighed, put her glasses on and looked at her notes. “This officer’s strength and determination of will caught a killer...”
Chuckles rolled through the audience as some people recognized where the story was going. Others sat in bewilderment.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this officer saved the community of a murdering mad man, but he sacrificed...” She paused for effect. “He sacrificed Anne’s brownies.”
Laughter erupted.
“Officer Carducci, could you come forward please?”
Red faced, Joe laughed. When he reached the podium, Bernadette pulled out a framed poster that was tucked between the podium and the stage. It depicted a seal on the crest of a multistoried iceberg looking down at its companions already in the water. It read: Courage is being scared to death and going for it anyway.
“Thank you so much,” Joe said. “If I’d tasted the brownies before I heard the noise, I can assure you that I would have locked myself in that cunny-thing—” Everyone laughed at his attempt to say qanitchat. “Until I’d eaten them all. Murderer be damned.”
The crowd gave him a standing ovation. Hoots and hollers accompanied him as he returned to his seat.
Bernadette continued. “There’s more to the story. Why had the murderer, who had been in hiding for fourteen hours, leave his perfect hiding spot? Officer Carducci could not have done this on his own. Truth be told, the only reason the killer is in custody is because of the lure. The bait. The tantalizing aroma that made the murderer’s mouth water and his stomach grumble. The temptation that made him forget he faced life in prison.” She smiled. “I called the State Crime Lab to check on the statistic, and folks, the North Slope Borough Police Department is officially the first department to ever successfully implement the homemade brownie technique of criminal apprehension.”
Applause filled the room.
“Anne Sutton, if you would please come forward.” She smiled at me, and I shook my head in embarrassment.
When I was by her side she said, “The North Slope Borough Police Department would like to award you this...” She reached under the podium and pulled out something wrapped in black velvet. “Gold-plated brownie pan.”
More applause and Investigator White yelled, “Why’d the new guy get brownies and not me?”
Sylvia answered for me. “My God, White, look at him. He’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Darlene contributed.
“There are a few other body parts with a direct line to the heart too,” Ambrosia said eliciting several groans.
Bernadette thanked everyone for coming and folks gathered up their coats. I was zipping up my parka when Bernadette and Joe reached my side.
“Thanks for the pan, Bernie. Great fun.” I used her shoulder for balance as I slipped off my shoes and put on my boots.
“You’re welcome.” When I was finished using her as a prop, she turned to Joe. “You two are quite the pair of crime stoppers.”
I had my boots on, shoes in a bag and gold brownie pan in another and was ready to go.
She glanced at Joe and hesitated before she said “Are you going through with the...?” She patted her nose.
I smiled and nodded. For four years, I’d agonized about my nose. At first, I thought it was a good disguise, but then realized even though Ray had never seen my face after he smashed my nose, it was a fairly consistent injury. Besides it was a feature that made me rather obvious.
“Are you sure? It’s supposed to hurt a lot.”
“I’m positive. It shouldn’t be that bad.” It certainly wouldn’t be as bad as when the damage was done. An injury that not only made it difficult for me to breathe, it had destroyed my pride, self-confidence and any hope that my mother had a heart, a soul.
Bernadette gave me a quick hug. “Well, have fun and I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
“I’ll have the mai tais ready,” I answered.
She nodded and walked over to another group of folks.
Joe and I headed toward the door. “Are you going on vacation?”
The cold air slapped our faces as we stepped outside. I shivered and said, “Yeah, Hawaii—thank you, Jesus—for a month.”
His grin turned to a grimace. “I start phase two of FTO this week, which means I’ll be working the graveyard shift. I was looking forward to working with you.”
The wind had picked up during the banquet, and the fine grains of snow acted like sandpaper on the ice-covered roads resulting in a glass-like sheen. I slipped, jerked to keep myself upright and said, “Damn it.”
“You okay?” He grabbed my arm to steady me.
“Yes. Please excuse the profanity.”
He laughed. “You really are southern, aren’t you?”
“People in New York don’t really talk like they do on TV, do they?”
He laughed and in a very authentic The Godfather-meets-Taxi-Driver accent he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?” He swaggered in front of me, turned and walked backwards. “We don’t know no fucking sentences without the word fuck, know what I mean?”
“Lovely.” I laughed.
“Oh, you think I’m funny?” He started into the Joe Pesci scene from Goodfellas. “Do I amuse you? I make you laugh? I’m here to fucking amuse you?”
His thick accent conjured up every character from Jersey Shore and mafia movie ever made. I couldn’t suppress my giggles. He continued to walk backward. I was so busy admiring the view of a hot Italian swaggering through the Arctic streets that I saw the embankment too late. “Joe...” I tried to warn him.
He slipped and fell into the large pile of snow that had been cleared from the parking area in front of our apartment building.
“Well, fuck.” This time he said it without the over-the-top accent, which cracked me up even more. I was laughing too hard to help him up.
He struggled to his feet and wiped snow off his pants. “Suave and debonair, huh?”
“Very.” I dug my keys from the expanse of my parka pocket and unlocked the outer door.
He stepped behind me and followed me up the stairs.
We stopped in front of my apartment. I was still smiling, and he touched my arm. “Ruined my bad-boy sexy image, didn’t I?”
“Those are overrated, anyway. Funny wins every time in my opinion.”
“Well, in that case, a rabbi, a shaman and a voodoo priestess walk into a bar...”
“Oh, stop.” I laughed.
The smile left his face. He gently touched the end of my nose. “It’s fine the way it is, you know?”
“Can’t breathe very well,” I explained.
“Mind if I ask what happened?”
Every time I looked in the mirror, I was reminded of Ray’s violence and my mother’s betrayal. Over four years had passed since the incident, and I still choked on the lie about the injury, still unable to suppress the surge of anger that coursed through my body when I uttered the words, “Car accident.”
Joe could clearly see my distress so he changed the subject. “So, gone for a month, huh?”
I nodded.
“See you in March, then.” He leaned forward, and I gasped in surprise.
Holy smokes. He’s going to kiss me.
He smiled, tucked a strand of stray hair behind my ear and caressed my cheek. “Send me a postcard.” Then, he turned and walked to his apartment.
I fumbled with my keys so that I could be inside and behind closed doors before he walked the ten feet to his apartment. I didn’t want him to see my burning face. I felt like such a moron. Of course the guy wasn’t going to kiss me.
I’m not sure what upset me the most, the fact that I was stupid enough to think he was attracted to me and might kiss me, or the fact that I wanted him to.