“Here we are,” she said at last, pulling up in front of a low-rise three-story building that would have looked perfectly at home in any self-respecting business park in the country. “The campus cops don’t much like visiting vehicles hanging around on campus, but maybe on a snow day they’ll give me a pass. If I end up having to move and park off campus, though, you can call me when you're finished.”
“I have no idea how long I’ll be,” I said. “I don’t know for sure if Professor Raines is in today, but what number should I use?”
“You called me earlier, right?” Twink replied.
I nodded.
“Use that number,” she advised. “I only have one. That’s all I need.”
Someone on the UAA campus had been busy. The walkway from the street to what turned out to be the anthropology building had been shoveled clean and deiced. I pushed the entry door open and stepped into a tiled and polished interior that mirrored buildings of higher learning all over the planet—mixed-use arrangements with classrooms and offices scattered throughout. After tracking down a building directory and learning that the Alaska State Department of Forensic Anthropology was located on the basement level, I went in search of an elevator.
When the door slid open on the B. Level, I found myself in a surprisingly chill corridor with industrial-chic overhead fluorescent fixtures lighting the long, narrow hallway. From the looks of it, I guessed this had originally been wasted space that had eventually been repurposed.
Directly across from the elevator was a wooden door topped by a milk-glass window. Stenciled on the glass in black all-cap letters were the words department head. Since Forensic Anthropology was the only office listed for the B. Level, I assumed this had to be where Professor Raines hung out. There was a combo buzzer/speaker device on the wall next to the doorframe, so I gave the button a solid push.
After a considerable pause, a disembodied voice came through the speaker. “School’s closed today. Come back tomorrow.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m only in town for today.”
“Are you a student?”
“No, my name’s J. P. Beaumont,” I answered. “I’m a private investigator from Seattle.”
Professor Raines probably knew good and well where Bellingham was, but Seattle has a slightly better ring to it.
“You’re here on a case?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was an audible click as the lock released. As soon as I opened the door to step inside, the scent of a burning cigar assailed my nostrils—cigar smoke mixed with something I suspected to be microwaved Top Ramen. Between cigars and cigarettes, as a former smoker I suppose I prefer cigarettes, and after years of living the single life, I’m all too familiar with the Top Ramen style of home cooking. I was in a dimly lit laboratory with only a few security lights providing illumination through a collection of stainless-steel tables. At the far end of the room was what appeared to be a window-walled private office with plenty of lighting inside that. When no one came to greet me, that’s where I headed.
I walked into a cluttered office where almost every flat surface, chairs included, was covered with an assortment of books and/or a scatter of papers. Seated behind a wooden desk, Professor Harriet Raines, an elfin woman if ever there was one, was barely visible behind yet another dangerously crooked mound of papers and books. In the small cleared spot directly in front of her sat a bowl of some kind with a spoon in it, a mostly-empty rocks glass, and an ashtray with a still-smoldering cigar. Nearby sat an almost-full bottle of Crown Royal.
The woman's iron-gray hair was plaited into thick braids that wound around the top of her head, creating what looked like a crown. Her bulldog face, lined and wrinkled, was reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s, including a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Professor Raines stared up at me silently for a long assessing moment, then reached down, opened a drawer, and pulled out what was presumably a clean rocks glass. She slammed it onto the desk and then looked up at me again.
“Care to join me?” she asked.
“No thanks,” I said. “I gave it up for Lent.”
“It’s not Easter—it’s Christmas,” she declared, pouring herself a generous two-shot portion into the other glass. “What can I do for you, Mr. Beaumont?”
“I’m retired Seattle homicide,” I explained. “I’m here working what may turn out to be a cold case.”
She leaned back in her chair, took a slow sip of her drink, and then shook her head. “This is Alaska,” she told me. “In the winter it turns out all our cases are cold cases.”