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(Sitka. Mt. Edgecombe Coast Guard station. Wednesday.)
It was early when Wyckoff roused the Coast Guard commander out of bed. He explained very succinctly what he needed. Or rather who.
“You’ll have them,” the commander said. “They’ve been on deck duty ever since they got back. But that’s when I thought it was just hijinks.”
Wyckoff took Lanky with him. Lanky seemed to think he was his guard dog, Wyckoff thought with amusement. But he was grateful for the man’s company. And he didn’t doubt the old man could hold his own in a fight if necessary. Not that it should be necessary at the Coast Guard base, but as screwed up as this whole investigation was, who knew?
The base still looked like Army surplus Wyckoff noted. Metal buildings, mostly hangars and repair shops, and one building of offices. That’s where they headed.
The commander himself greeted the two men.
“They’re waiting for you,” he said sourly. “I didn’t tell them a thing.”
Wyckoff was unprepared for how young they looked. Mid-20s, probably. When did that start looking so young? He wondered. It made him a bit grouchy.
“Attention!” the boatswain’s mate in the room called when the commander walked back in. The sailors straightened, eyes forward.
Wyckoff walked in front of them. He’d worn his uniform for the occasion. And he saw one of them mouth “oh shit” at the sight.
“All right, two nights ago, you gentlemen took a helicopter out unauthorized, dropped three people out somewhere in the wilderness, and left them to die,” he said coldly. “Why?”
He looked them over. “Which one of you is Marc DuChamp?”
“Sir,” one of them said, startled.
“Explain.”
The tall young man swallowed. “Yes, sir. Uh. I received a call from the assistant police chief requesting our assistance.” He stopped, looked at the base commander and then at the state patrol captain in front of him. He swallowed again. “He said he had knowledge that there was going to be an attempted jail break of a man who had killed a police officer. And that the killer was too well-connected to ever stand trial. He wanted our assistance in...,” he paused, swallowed again, and blurted the rest out, “what he termed frontier-style justice.”
The base commander made a sound that was a cross between a moan and fury, but he said nothing.
“I see,” Wyckoff said. “And what did this justice consist of?”
“We were at the jail conducting surveillance, when sure enough, a young woman approached the jail and returned with the suspected killer. We intervened and took all three people into custody.”
Wyckoff could see the base commander out of the corner of his eye. He hoped the man didn’t have a heart attack.
“So, you believed that the young woman was able to overcome the jailor and release the suspect?” Wyckoff asked. The men stared at him startled. Apparently thinking through the logistics of this hadn’t occurred to them. “Never mind. Give my companion the coordinates.”
When he hesitated, Wyckoff barked, “Now!”
One of the other young men pulled a notebook from his pocket and rattled off longitude and latitude.
Lanky Purdue nodded. “On it,” he said, and ducked out the door.
“OK, you were telling me why you thought this was a legitimate operation of the Sitka Police Department,” Wyckoff said, his tone dry. “Well?”
“We know Mike Anderson, sir,” Duchamp said, barely above a whisper. “He was one of us. So, we did what he asked.”
“Did you ask who they were?”
“One of them, the one who stayed with the car, said he was a lieutenant in the Alaska state patrol, but that was obviously a lie.” He trailed off, looking at Wyckoff’s uniform. “Shit.”
“Why did you think that was a lie, sailor?” Wyckoff asked him.
“He was an Alaskan Native,” another young man volunteered when it was obvious that DuChamp wasn’t going to. “Never seen a Native cop around here.”
“I see,” Wyckoff said. His fury threatened to rise up and choke him before he got through this.
“And the girl? That didn’t seem strange to you?”
Another man spoke up. “That bothered me. I slipped her my knife and made sure her ropes were cut before we left them. That wasn’t right.”
Wyckoff saw the base commander close his eyes. The tragedy was these weren’t bad men. Young. Stupid. So very stupid. Easily led. And their careers were over. They’d be lucky not to serve time.
“So, you dumped three people in a remote area in Southeast Alaska, tied in ropes, and generously gave them a knife.”
DuChamp swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he whispered. “Mike said it would teach them a lesson. That he’d collect them and haul them back for trial.”
“For your information, one of those men was indeed my officer. His brother, a Fish and Game warden. And the woman was a pilot who flies for the man who just left here. I suggest you avoid him at all costs, because he would kill you all right now and not give it a second thought.” And he’d help him, Wyckoff thought grimly. The chances of finding them alive was small. Very small.
“What was your officer doing breaking a man out of jail?” one of the men asked indignantly.
“Shut up, Jim,” DuChamp said. “We were misled, sir,” he said to Wyckoff.
“Misled?” the commander roared. “Misled? I don’t think you realize what trouble you’re in. You face court martial. You will probably face criminal charges of kidnapping. Your lives are effectively over.”
Wyckoff felt like he was re-enacting a scene from A Few Good Men. As restaged by Gomer Pyle. He felt sick. And he’d have his justice when Assistant Police Chief Mike Anderson was in jail for the rest of his life. Not just for the deaths of Paul and the others, but for the destruction of these men’s lives as well. People he called friends, apparently. Duke still knew how to spot a sociopath and turn him to his advantage.
“You’d better pray they’re found alive, or I’ll have you up on murder charges,” Wyckoff said.
The men looked at each other. The one who had given Dace his knife looked sick. Wyckoff didn’t feel sorry for him. He’d known what they were doing was wrong. But they’d come back to base, and he hadn’t said a word.
“Why didn’t you say something when you got back?” Wyckoff asked him.
He shook his head. “Mike. Mike was our buddy,” he said. “I figured it had to be OK. He wouldn’t...,” he trailed off.
“Wouldn’t set you up to take the fall for murder?” Wyckoff asked softly. He looked at the commander.
“I’ll need copies of your interrogation,” he said. “It’s time to clean house at the Sitka Police Department.”
Wyckoff’s driver was still waiting outside. “Lanky?” he asked.
The man, Bobby Kitka, nodded toward the airport. “I took him down there, came back for you. He was calling in his pilot,” he said. “But he didn’t sound happy. Not good news?”
Wyckoff hesitated. “How are you related to Paul and Jonas?” he asked.
The driver started the car. “That bad, aye?” he said, using a British Columbia slang. Southeast Alaskan Tlingits had more relatives in BC than they did in Alaska. “I’m their uncle. Luke Jr., was my older brother.”
“It’s not good,” Wyckoff admitted. “They dumped them bound and helpless out in the Tongass. Left them a knife, because one felt sorry for the girl. We’ve got the coordinates but who knows what we’ll find. Bodies, I’m afraid. God damn it.”
Bobby Kitka shook his head. “I doubt it. Jonas armed with a knife? Paul may have gotten soft working for you all,” he said, with a teasing side look, “but Jonas hasn’t forgotten his upbringing. I helped train him. He’ll be alive. And he’ll keep the other two alive as well.”
Wyckoff felt better. “Let’s go talk to the police chief.”
“I can tell you one thing,” Bobby added as he drove back across the bridge to Sitka. “Those guys who dumped three people in the Tongass had better stay on base. They’re dead men in this town. And no jury will convict. White, brown, makes no difference. The land here is unforgiving, and you just don’t set up anyone for that kind of risk. Not even your worst enemy.”
Wyckoff closed his eyes. He didn’t think the commander was planning on letting those men out of the brig — did they have a brig? — but he’d talk to him just in case. “They thought the assistant police chief had authorized it.”
Bobby Kitka snorted. “Mike Anderson? Yeah, I just bet he did. That man is bone crazy. Duke found himself a kindred spirit and took him home to meet his daughter. Maybe Duke can keep him in line for his daughter’s sake. Or maybe...,” he trailed off. “Or maybe she was looking for a man like her father.”
Ripples, Wyckoff thought. He came here to find his officer. Now he had a police department to clean up. A Coast Guard base in turmoil, with some sailors up on charges, and a psychopath. Two psychopaths to tend with.
Unlike Lanky, who had shadowed him yesterday when Wyckoff went into the police station, Bobby Kitka had just laughed. “Nope,” he said. “I won’t do you any good, not in there. You put my number on speed dial, and your finger on the dial button, and I’ll send in the Indians to rescue you from the cavalry.”
He laughed at his joke. It even made Wyckoff chuckle. “You do that,” he said.
The dispatcher wasn’t making any jokes this morning. She was a woman from the Bronx approaching retirement — and Wyckoff bet that was a story worth hearing — who sounded like she was a chain smoker in her off hours.
“Chief in?” Wyckoff asked, heading toward the back.
She nodded, picked up the phone and let Duke know he had a visitor.
Duke came around his desk and stuck out his hand. “Been awhile, Andrew,” he said. Wyckoff shook his hand.
“Yes, it has,” he said. “What progress have you made in locating my officer?”
Duke Campbell went back around his desk and sat down. “My assistant chief Mike Anderson is leading the manhunt for both Kitkas,” he said. “We have a BOLO out for their arrests.”
Wyckoff grew still. “On what charges?”
“What charges? Jonas was charged with murder, remember? Now he’s got breaking out of jail to go with it, and assault on my jailor. And your ‘officer’ is charged with aiding and abetting.”
“Cut the shit, Duke,” Wyckoff said. “The jail called Dr. Kitka’s house and told her Jonas was being released. Seth Jones was there and heard the whole thing. Paul and the pilot who flew him here, Candace Marshall, went to pick Jonas up. They were kidnapped and dumped in the Tongass on the orders of your assistant chief.”
“You don’t know that!” Duke stood up, put his hands on his desk and roared back at Wyckoff. “You’re making shit up to cover for your officer!”
Wyckoff shook his head. “You stupid fuck,” he said in a low enough voice so that Duke’s officers wouldn’t overhear. “If you planned this, you did a piss poor job, because it’s got holes all through it. And if you didn’t plan it, you’ve got an assistant chief staging a coup and planning to take you down. Either way? You’re done here.”
“This is my town, Wyckoff,” Duke Campbell hissed at him. “You don’t come into my town and make threats. I’ll throw you in jail, too. See if I won’t.”
Wyckoff laughed at him. “You can try. You tried to get me pulled from town already, didn’t you? How did that go? I’m still here. Now where is this Anderson? I want a progress report on his ‘manhunt’.”
Duke said down, leaned back in his chair. “He’s out hunting, Wyckoff,” he said with a half-smile. “He’s out hunting.”
Wyckoff stopped cold. The two men locked stares.
“Listen to me, now, Campbell,” Wyckoff said. “I will hold you personally responsible for the well-being of my officer and his companions. Do you hear me? You. No matter who looks to be at fault. No matter what the details are or the facts you try to present to the state inquiry board when it’s convened.
“No don’t interrupt me,” Wyckoff said, in a deadly quiet voice. “There will be a state inquiry board, and I will have your badge for the mismanagement I’m seeing here. And you’d better pray that Paul Kitka is present to testify at the inquiry, or I will have you up on murder charges. And there’s a whole lot of men at the state pen who would be eager to see you.”
Duke leaped to his feet, but Wyckoff didn’t flinch. “Get out,” Campbell shouted. “Get out of my office. I run the tightest ship in the state. Have you ever looked at our serious crime stats? We’re so god damn low people can’t believe them. I take care of this city. Good care — and have for nearly 40 years. No one comes in here and threatens me. Especially not some state patrol pussy like you. Get out.”
“Oh, I’m going,” Wyckoff said. “You’ve got some calls to make. Find that man of yours, Campbell. And find mine.”
Three grim-faced officers were standing in the main office when Wyckoff walked out. Bobby Kitka was standing at the window bullshitting with the dispatcher, who was laughing while keeping a wary eye on the officers arrayed behind her.
Bobby looked up. “Good,” he said. “I was just going to have her interrupt you two. Lanky radioed the tower with a message. They found the landing site, found where they’d been. But they’re gone. They’re going to do flyovers and see if they can spot them, but they’re not hopeful they’ll be spotted in that old growth forest. Probably won’t be able to see them until they reach the beach.”
Wyckoff closed his eyes in relief. “That’s good news.”
“Yeah. But you know what’s odd? It’s the same tiny island where Hank Petras disappeared last week. Weird, huh?” Bobby Kitka said. His eyes were cold, and he held himself as if he were prepared to be jumped.
Wyckoff marched through the officers, and they parted for him. He didn’t even pause. “That is weird,” Wyckoff said. He turned back toward the officers, “Don’t you think that’s weird? That Anderson would have his Coast Guard buddies kidnap folks and dump them in the same place where he took out an orienteering group and got one of his officers killed? Don’t you think that’s strange?”
He looked at each one, memorizing their faces. One was the young officer who had stopped them last night on the road home from the bar. “Any of you on that orienteering trip?”
No one said a word.
“You guys sure got those lab results back fast on that blood sample,” he added conversationally. “You all got an in with the state labs? Why, it can take us weeks to get results back.”
Silence.
Wyckoff nodded. “If anyone has information you’d like to share, dispatch has my phone number.”
He walked out side by side with Bobby Kitka.
“Man, I don’t know if you’ve got the biggest balls I’ve seen — and I did two tours in Kuwait — or if you’re just crazy,” Bobby said in a low voice as he unlocked the car.
“He had the goddamn audacity to brag about how low his serious crime stats are!” Wyckoff fumed.
Bobby Kitka started laughing, the bent-over, laughing-until-tears-came kind of laugh. Wyckoff stared at him.
“Oh my God, he didn’t,” he said. “He throws that in everyone’s faces. And they back down, because shit? He must be doing something right, yes? Do you know why he has such low stats for serious crime? Because there has never been a felony car theft in this city probably since the first car arrived. I mean where are they going to go with it?”
Wyckoff started laughing.
“So, you have Anchorage with the second highest auto theft rate in the god-damn country, and you have Sitka with none? Of course his stats look good! You know what you get charged with here? Misdemeanor joy riding — usually kids or a drunk. Was a rash of them when Toyota only made a few keys and people would come out of the bar, get in a car, and drive off — in the wrong car. Remember that? Here, it’s the owner who is likely to get charged — with leaving the key in the car. I can’t believe he pulled that shit on you!”
Wyckoff snorted. “And now everyone in there, including Duke, just got a look at us out here laughing like hyenas, and thinking we’re laughing about them?”
Bobby Kitka grinned at him. He got in the car.
“And you did that deliberately, too,” Bobby said.
Wyckoff walked around the car and got in the passenger seat. He studied the man and grinned. “OK, increase their paranoia and who knows? Maybe someone will talk.”
Then he sighed. “If you’ve served, you know what you’re seeing then,” he said. He sat for a moment, his head tipped back against the head rest, his eyes closed.
Bobby didn’t start the car. “Pack behavior. Us against them. They see themselves as an exclusive team and everyone is their enemy. They pride themselves on taking care of their own, but their own isn’t this town, or the people who live here, it’s them. The blue brotherhood.”
Wyckoff nodded. “And it’s not even uncommon in police forces for that to develop. If you have a good leader, they can stop it. But Duke Campbell has been encouraging it. He’s been building it in, for decades.
“He hires men from out of town — fresh out of academy. They get here, they’re young, they’ve got families, some of them, and they probably can’t afford to leave even if they wanted to. The older cops help the new ones settle in. There’s an apartment in the same complex as some others live. Here’s a good daycare center for your children, run by the lieutenant’s wife. We’re having some people in Friday, help you get acquainted. All officers and their families, you’ll like them,” Wyckoff paused.
“They never get to know the community,” Bobby acknowledged. “Some have tried, Dad said, but they don’t last long.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do. Either Campbell ran them out, or they could see what kind of a department it was and got out as soon as they could afford to,” Wyckoff said. “So, isolation. And then, cultural norms. You protect your fellow officers. So what if he roughed up a drunk? Well the drunk swung at him, you saw it, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Then at some point you cross into a gray zone yourself, and someone covers for you, and you’re grateful.”
Wyckoff shook his head. “I heard a police reform consultant talk once. A former cop, a Black guy out of Baltimore.”
“Rough city,” Bobby observed.
“Yeah. He said something that stuck with me. He said 20 percent of the cops in any department are good cops. They’ll do what’s right, no matter the pressure, no matter the cop culture. And 20 percent are bad apples. The other 60 percent will follow the leader. If the chief is a good leader, then you’ll have good cops, a good department. If he’s a shitty leader? You get bad cops.
“Reform is simple, he said,” Wyckoff continued. He was beginning to come down off the adrenaline rush of the confrontation. “You hire good police chiefs. You get rid of the bad apples, and you don’t let anyone else hire them. That’s it. That’s what you have to do.”
“And if you have a narcissistic megalomaniac personality that is spiraling out of control?” Bobby asked as he started up his car.
Wyckoff stared at him. “What exactly is it that you do when you’re not chauffeuring people for your father?”
Bobby Kitka laughed but didn’t answer. “Well, am I wrong about him?”
Wyckoff shook his head. “No, I think that’s exactly what’s going on. The problem with a psychopath like that is they have such a tight grasp of their view of reality that they suck others into it. You lay out an argument, and they nod and agree. And then they reiterate how they see it, and you realize they didn’t hear a word. Then you give up and go along, because what’s the use in fighting it? And the next thing you know, you’ve destroyed your career like those Coast Guard sailors have for Mike Anderson.”
“That may be what the flashpoint is,” said Dr. Robert “Bobby” Kitka, psychologist at the Native Health Clinic – and sometime chauffeur for his father. “He saw Mike Anderson as his protégé. But Anderson has the same ideation as Campbell. And he’s younger. Hungrier. He marries the boss’s daughter. He’s moving in for the kill. Campbell can’t face it. He knows someone is coming for him, but he can’t believe it’s a man he treats like a son. So, he attacks Petras. Then Jonas. The threat is real, it’s the source he can’t see.”
Wyckoff nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, exactly like that.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Kitka said with challenge in his voice.
“I’m going to see it dismantled, brick by brick, cop by cop,” Wyckoff said. “Get rid of the bad apples — and at this point they are all bad apples — and find a good man for Sitka to hire as a chief.”
“Then let’s go get Lanky Purdue,” Bobby Kitka said, and headed back out to the airport. “Or he might start that dismantling project all by himself.”
Lanky looked old and tired when they picked him up by the dock where his float plane was tethered.
“I thought it would be a safe, easy trip for her to solo on,” he said. “I thought her worst problem would be this airport, because it’s got a rep for being tricky, especially if there is any weather to speak of. So, I focused on weather reports, and didn’t think about Kitka going home. Damn me.”
“You knew about Paul’s past here?” Wyckoff asked. He was having some of the same kind of moments.
“Remembered there was a past. You know how Alaska is. One small town spread across nearly 700,000 square miles. Been 20 years, though. Didn’t remember the details. But a Native Alaskan in trouble in Sitka — should have been enough. She wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t said it was OK.”
“Someone would have to have brought Paul down to Sitka,” Wyckoff said.
“Could have been me,” Lanky said morosely.
“Oh, stop with the blame,” Bobby said disgustedly. “Neither of you are at fault. Blame goes where it needs to: Duke Campbell and Mike Anderson. Focus, people!”
Lanky stared at him, then looked at Wyckoff, who just shrugged. “You heard the man.”