Free Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 02 - Capitol Offense by Mike Doogan

people in the world, much more comfortable in the world of physical objects than the world of ideas. When Kane talked like that—usually, he had to admit, after he’d had a few drinks—they gave him the fish eye and mumbled that he was crazy. And by their lights, Kane knew, he was.
    The files wouldn’t be a complete portrait of Matthew Hope. The picture would be most vivid on the day of the murder, then fade as it moved back in time. There might be half of the Matthew Hope who’d gotten off the airplane in January to begin the legislative session, only a bit of the Matthew Hope who celebrated his first election to public office, a trace of the Matthew Hope who walked across the front of the multipurpose room to take his high school diploma, nothing of the Matthew Hope who entered school for the first time clutching his mother’s hand.
    But by the time they were complete, the files would contain all of one part of Matthew Hope’s life: his future. What was in them would dictate whether he returned to the legislature or spent the rest of his life inside concrete walls topped with ribbon wire.
    Most of the prosecutors Kane had worked with had seen the detective’s job as helping them write just that conclusion to the life stories in the files. Oil Can Doyle would no doubt say that it was now Kane’s job to make sure Matthew Hope’s story ended with him walking out of the courtroom a free man. But Kane had never seen his job the way lawyers did. The question he wanted to answer wasn’t “How do I get Matthew Hope off?” It was “Who killed Melinda Foxx?”
    Kane shook his head and turned from the window. He knew he’d been staring for some time without really seeing anything. “Woolgathering,” Laurie always called it.
    Kane was suddenly overwhelmed by an urge to call her on the telephone, to hear her voice. He missed just talking with her, about things both trivial and important. But she was making a new life for herself now, just as Kane guessed he was, and she didn’t want him trying to drag her back into the old one. Maybe later, when they were both more securely the people they were becoming, he could call her and they could chat. But not now.
    He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. Now it was cold as well as watery. He dumped what was left in the sink, rinsed the cup, and set it on the room-service tray. Time to get going. His first move would be to return the files to the lawyer and ask him what he’d learned from Hope. Kane sat on the bed, picked up the pieces of the automatic, and assembled them. He thought about carrying the gun with him, but in the light of day he couldn’t imagine why he’d need it. Besides, it would be a problem at some of the places he planned to go.
    He ejected the clip, wrapped it and the gun in a towel, and set them back on the closet shelf. He got down on his knees, wiggled the wedges loose, and put them back in his suitcase. He put on his coat and left the room.
    When he got off the elevator on the ground floor, he went looking for the bellman. The day shift had taken over, so Kane gave the new man a $20 handshake.
    “I’ve got a pile of splinters where my coffee table used to be,” he said. “Can you have somebody take care of it and put it on my bill?”
    “Sure thing,” the bellman said. “Big party?”
    “In a manner of speaking,” Kane said, and asked for directions to a coffee shop and Doyle’s office.
    “We have a coffee shop right here in the hotel,” the bellman said.
    Kane gave him a look.
    “I’ve had the hotel coffee,” he said. “Try again.”
    The coffee shop the bellman sent him to was a bakery, too, so Kane breakfasted on a toasted bagel with cream cheese and a large coffee. One sip convinced him that he wasn’t going to be drinking the hotel coffee anymore.
    Fortified, Kane followed the bellman’s directions to the address Doyle had given him. He’d walked to the coffee shop on nearly level ground, but Doyle’s office was downhill and Kane