“PETE WISE FILED a child custody petition against the governor of Alaska?” Active looked over Procopio’s shoulder at her computer screen again. “Holy shit, but what does it mean?”
“It’s what we call a putative father case. It means Pete Wise thought he was the biological father of at least one of the governor’s kids. He probably wanted a DNA test to prove it so he could get shared custody.”
“At least one? Good grief, she’s got four.”
“Maybe it’s all of them, who knows.” Procopio pointed at the screen. “CourtView doesn’t show that kind of detail.”
“I see Pete named both Mercers as defendants? Not just Helen?”
Procopio shook her head. “They’re called respondents in this kind of case. But, yeah, both of them. That’s because the First Mate is legally the father if they were married at the time of birth, no matter who she did the actual deed with. Or deeds.”
Active dropped into a chair beside her. “I suppose you caught the date Pete filed this thing?”
“Yep,” Procopio said. “Monday of last week, three days before Helen hit town for the Isignaq 400.”
“Huh. Whereas Brad had already been here a while gearing up for the race,” Active said. Procopio nodded. “So, assuming he got served reasonably fast, he had a couple days to stew about it before he got a chance to confront her.”
“Must have been a fun conversation,” Procopio said.
“And then three days on the trail to brood some more about Pete Wise in bed with his wife.”
“Maybe even giving her a warm welcome-home while he was staring at four hundred miles of dog butts,” Procopio said. “A guy could work up a pretty good head of steam picturing that out there on the trail all by himself.”
“And by Tuesday morning, maybe he decides to settle up with Pete before they go back to Juneau.”
“Highly plausible, given my limited understanding of the male brain.”
“Huh,” Active said again. “So this CourtView summary. I don’t see anything about a hearing while the Mercers were here?”
“You wouldn’t expect one so soon after the case was filed. There wasn’t even one scheduled by the time Pete died.”
“Who’s listed as Pete’s attorney? Maybe he’ll give us a copy of the file.”
“Nobody’s listed.”
“He was representing himself?”
Procopio shrugged. “I hope not, for his sake. Not against the governor of Alaska. But that’s kind of what it looks like. People sure do stupid things sometimes.”
“So it’s off to court we go?”
“You go,” Procopio said. “I got some paperwork on your honeybucket murder. Just ask the clerk to copy the file. Bring it back here and we’ll go over it.”
Active shrugged into his parka and started for the door.
“No peeksies!”
“Ha!”
BUT GETTING TO the courthouse was not simple, as things in Chukchi tended not to be. A Honda four-wheeler, it seemed, had driven into the side of a city garbage truck. The Honda sustained much damage, the garbage truck none, and the fourteen-year-old driver of the Honda a bruised, perhaps fractured, left forearm. She denied texting while driving, despite the “LMFAO” still present on the screen of her phone when Active arrived to investigate. While the passenger, uninjured, recorded the encounter on her own phone, no doubt for Facebook, he ticketed the driver for texting and underage driving before the EMTs rolled up to haul her to the emergency room.
By the time Active reached the clerk’s office, it was past two. He didn’t recognize the lumpish gray-haired white woman at the counter, but that wasn’t unusual. Turnover and absenteeism both ran high in the court clerk’s office, particularly when spring or fall hit and the sheefish or caribou passed through. The court system often had to send in temporary help from Fairbanks. This one was dome-shaped and her name was Doris, according to her nametag.
“Sorry,” Doris said when Active asked for the Wise-Mercer file. “It’s sealed.”
“Sealed?” He touched his badge and looked at hers. “Doris, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Nathan Active, the borough public safety chief here, and this is for a criminal investigation.”
Doris shook her head. “Judge Stein sealed it about thirty minutes ago.”
“But—”
“Talk to the judge. His ruling.”
Active swore to himself and started down the hall.
The front desk in Stein’s office was vacant. Active walked into Stein’s chambers, where the judge was scrawling notes in the margins of a sheaf of legal papers.
Stein had arrived in Chukchi as a lawyer representing poor people with Alaska Legal Services a couple of years before Active himself showed up. No doubt Stein had also planned to rack up some experience in the Bush, then move on to Anchorage for a bigger job with a bigger title and bigger money.
Instead, like Active, here he still was in Chukchi. Active supposed Stein had missed too many planes. But he had made a better job of it than Theresa Procopio. He was now a full-on Bush rat, complete with boats, snowgos, a wife from a Chukchi family, and a fish camp on her Native allotment up the Katonak River. He’d been clean-shaven with a decent head of black hair when Active first met him. Now the hair had started to go, but he had grown a full beard, perhaps to compensate.
Stein put down the brief and pulled off his glasses. “Nathan! Sit, sit. So good to see one of Chukchi’s finest. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Active nodded. “It’s business, actually. You sealed Pete Wise’s custody case against the governor and her husband? What—”
Stein shrugged. “The governor’s lawyer moved to dismiss and seal it on the grounds it’s moot now that Wise is dead, so I did seal it. Probably dismiss it, too, in another day or two. Pretty routine, actually.”
Stein saw the look on Active’s face and cocked his head. “Or maybe not?”
Active chewed his lip for a moment, then plunged. “Brad Mercer is a, er, person of interest in Pete Wise’s death.”
“Come again?”
Active told him about the sunken snowgo and its ownership.
Stein massaged his chin for a few seconds. “Any chance it’s just a coincidence?”
“Of course,” Active said. “Pete Wise files this putative father action claiming he had a kid with Brad Mercer’s wife and a week later he’s killed by Brad Mercer’s snowgo. And the day after that, they come in and get the file sealed. Sure, that could all be just a coincidence. Anything’s possible.”
“Something tells me I’m gonna wish I never heard this.” Stein rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on. “We should probably get Theresa Procopio on the phone.”
He studied the buttons on his desk phone for a moment, then pushed one, and in another moment Procopio was on the speaker. He let her know Active was in on the call.
“Hi, guys.” Her voice was tight and cautious. “All good at the temple of truth and justice?”
“Not exactly,” Active said. “Maybe Judge Stein can explain it better than me.”
Stein took Procopio through the story, though with more legalese than when he and Active had discussed it.
“Your honor, this is a criminal matter,” she said when Stein was finished. “We need to look at that file.”
“Yeah,” Stein said. “Nathan here explained a little about that. I understand your situation, but, now that it’s sealed, I can’t just flip a switch and unseal it. It’s gonna take a motion from your side and a hearing, at minimum. I guess I don’t need to remind you, we’re talking about the governor of Alaska here. We leave one i undotted or t uncrossed and we do so at our peril.”
“Loud and clear, your honor. It’s been an age since I did any civil work—what’s that motion you file to get in on a putative father case?”
“Right,” Procopio said. “You have to stay above the fray.”
“Right, “Stein said. “Law school just let out for spring break and it’s gonna stay out till this is over. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Procopio said. “I’ll have something to you by closing time.”
“10-4,” Stein said. “Hang on a minute and I’ll get you the contact info for the Mercers’ lawyer. Email it to us and him and that’ll cover it. You can bring the paperwork over tomorrow.”
Stein rifled through some papers on his desk then read off a name, a telephone number, and an email address. “You get that OK?”
“Can I ask a question?” Active said.
Stein raised his eyebrows. “You can try, Nathan.”
“Can you tell me which child or children Wise thought he fathered?”
“Sorry. We’re done here.”
“DON’T WORRY, THEY can’t keep it closed,” Procopio said. “It’s a murder investigation, for chrissakes.”
“You figure out what that motion is?”
Procopio nodded. “There’s this civil rule on something called Intervention of Right.” She sprayed out some legalese.
“And in English that means?”
“If you can show what your interest is and the judge thinks it’s legitimate, then you can get into the file. Ours is, so we will.”
“You couldn’t just say that? This type of thing is why Shakespeare said all you people should be killed.”
Procopio chuckled. “He was right, mostly.”
“You know this guy that’s representing the Mercers?” Active asked. “Frank McConnell, was that what Stein said?”
“Criminal defense attorney in Anchorage. Pretty well known, actually.”
“Criminal defense? In a putative father case? Why would that be?”
Procopio shrugged.
“Think maybe they hired him after our call this morning?”
“Reasonable guess,” Procopio said. “CourtView doesn’t even show him as counsel yet. But who knows why they did it and who cares? Let’s kill one snake at a time and the first one is this motion to intervene. Which I gotta finish tout de suite if we want to get it in by deadline today, thank you very much.”
“All right, but one more thing. You think there’s DNA tests from Pete and the kid or kids in evidence?”
“You never know, but probably not,” Procopio said. “Too early in the case. And how would he get samples from the Mercer progeny?”
“Good question,” Active said. “Copy me on the email when you file that motion, eh? I’d like to see it for myself.”
Active returned to his office, plowed through his email inbox, then deliberated for a few minutes, thought of checking with Procopio first, decided against it, and called the medical examiner in Anchorage to add a DNA test to his wish list for the Pete Wise case.
He had just rung off with the examiner when his email notification ponged and there was Procopio’s motion. He checked the clock in bottom corner of the computer screen. It read 4:13. They had beaten the court closing hour by seventeen minutes. Then he checked the addressees to make sure McConnell was included.
He was.
ACTIVE SLIPPED INTO Grace’s house like a movie hit man, eased the door shut and savored the normalcy for a few moments. Mukluk Messenger on Kay-Chuck coming from the kitchen, something about an urgent request for baby formula in Ebrulik, where the store had run out. Grace and Nita talking in the kitchen, something about homework from the sound of it. And a heavenly smell from the oven. God, it was good to be in from the storms of the day. He braced himself as Grace appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“I thought I sensed your presence, Chief Active.”
“Would that be sheefish I smell?”
She nodded. “You likee?”
“You know I doee. But it smells fresh. Where’d we get it? We got skunked last night, if I remember.”
“Leroy brought it over this afternoon,” she said. “He finally got his snowgo fixed and stopped on the way in and absolutely killed ’em.”
Active jerked a thumb at the blow outside the window. “With that still going on?”
“You know Leroy. Less competition in bad weather, he says, plus the sheefish come in when it’s like this.” She waved him into the kitchen and led the way. “And how was your day?” she said over her shoulder.
“Could hardly have been worse, to tell the truth.”
“Eh? Oh, the Pete Wise thing in court? What was that about?”
“I’m not sure I can tell you, what with our investigation—”
“Oh, come on. I know from my job anybody can look somebody up on the computer—what’s that system?”
“CourtView?”
“That’s it, like when we need to find out a baby daddy’s history and if he’s supposed to be paying child support, and so on. If they’ve ever been in court, they’ll be in CourtView. Do not make me look Pete Wise up myself, Chief Active.”
He cut his eyes at Nita, who was doing homework with earbuds in.
“I don’t think she can hear us, with her music on.”
“Still.”
“Bunnik,” Grace said. “Nita!”
Nita looked up and unplugged the earbuds. “Oh, hi, Uncle Nathan! When we going back to sheefish camp?”
He pointed out the window again. “When that lets up, I guess.”
“Nita, honey,” Grace said. “Weren’t we gonna watch the Barrow vampire movie with Christina after dinner? You want to go find the DVD and get it set up?”
“Sure. Maybe I’ll watch just a little bit of it while the sheefish finishes cooking?”
“Sure,” Grace said.
“The Barrow zombie movie?” Active sighed. “Again? I think I’m more burned out on that one than even the whale movie.”
“I could probably talk her into Notting Hill if you prefer.”
“Zombies will be just fine, thanks.”
“So, stop stalling. What’s so serious about the Pete Wise thing I had to exile my daughter to the land of the undead?”
“Well, it turns out to be a custody suit.”
“Really? I don’t recall Pete ever being married or having a sweetheart. And there were always those rumors about him being…well, so much for rumors, I guess. Anyway, who’s the lucky girl, allegedly?”
“Helen Mercer.”
Grace’s face froze. She dropped into a chair and gripped the edge of the dining table as if she might topple over. “Helen Mercer?”
He nodded.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“How? Which kid?”
“We don’t know how or which. Technically speaking, we don’t even know it’s just one.”
“What? Wouldn’t all that be in the file?”
“The file’s sealed.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “As of this afternoon. The Mercers’ lawyer got it sealed on the grounds the custody issue is moot now that Pete’s dead.”
She was silent. She had that look she got when she was doing life math in her head. “You mean a few hours after you and Theresa called her?”
He nodded again.
“And after she called me.”
Another nod.
“Still think this is all coincidence?”
He shrugged. “Theresa says it doesn’t matter. We just have to kill one snake at a time, as she puts it.”
“What’s the next snake?”
“She filed a motion to get us into the file, just before the courthouse closed this afternoon. Stein says it’ll take a hearing.”
A buzzer sounded from the oven. Grace got up and went over. “Just before the courthouse closed? Meaning the governor will know about it by morning, if she doesn’t already.”
He nodded again.
“Nathan, you have to get that file.”
“I know, baby, I know.”
She pulled out the sheefish and lifted the foil. “It’s done,” she said in a shaky voice. “Shall we eat? Or at least try?”