Chapter 37
Sitka; the Same Day
“Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars?” Secretary Gray blinked through his monocle, then leaned closer to the ledger splayed open on Alexei’s desk.
The secretary, Mikhail, and Jonas were all in his office above the warehouse, their bellies full from the meal Bryony had cooked earlier.
Alexei had invited Secretary Gray over for dinner before he’d left Castle Hill that afternoon.
He’d made the invitation look casual, like little more than a friendly offer, but had fully intended to spend most of their time together showing the other man the seal ledgers.
“They hid two hundred and twenty thousand dollars’ worth of seals from the Department of the Interior last year?” Secretary Gray dropped his monocle, letting it dangle on its chain as he looked at Alexei.
“Technically it was from the Bureau of Fisheries.” Alexei nodded toward the ledger. “But yes. At least, that’s how it appears.”
“There are four years’ worth of records.” Jonas rapped his knuckles atop the stack of ledgers they’d piled onto his desk.
Gray’s frown deepened. He picked up the nearest ledger and flipped a page with more force than necessary. “Are they all as bad as this one?”
“No. The earliest one starts off with only a few hundred extra seals harvested.” Jonas slid the ledger from 1884 out from the bottom of the stack and opened it.
“It appears that once the ACC—or Caldwells, whoever you want to say is responsible—figured out how easy it was to take the extra seals and pay a few bribes, they scaled up their operation rather quickly.”
“Scaled it up?” Gray slammed the ledger shut, the crack echoing off the walls. “Do you have an estimate of how much money they cheated us out of in total?”
“They illegally harvested about three hundred and fifty thousand seals,” Jonas answered. “And with the US government’s bounty being two dollars per seal pelt, that means they kept about seven hundred thousand dollars by evading the bounties.”
“I have the exact tallies here.” Alexei slid the secretary one of the papers that he’d run a series of calculations on.
Gray snatched the paper, scanned it, then flung it back down on the desk.
“Three-quarters of a million dollars. Do you understand what this means? They didn’t just cheat the Bureau of Fisheries.
They cheated Washington. They cheated the whole of the American people.
” He turned to Jonas, his voice trembling with rage. “Arrest Preston Caldwell. Immediately.”
Jonas held up his hands. “I’d love to arrest Caldwell, but I don’t have the authority to make any arrests. Marshal Hibbs stripped me of my position and badge.”
“He what?” Gray’s face reddened beneath his snowy hair. “I thought you were the Deputy Marshal?”
“I was.” A muscle pulsed on the side of Jonas’s jaw. “Until Hibbs returned to Sitka and realized I’d arrested Caldwell for attempted murder and arson, and that I was planning to arrest the governor for arson as soon as he returned to the island.”
“Hibbs is one of the people listed in the payout ledger.” Mikhail flipped through a couple pages of the ledger still splayed on the desk, then pointed to one of the lines. “He’s right here.”
Deeper furrows grooved the wrinkled skin of Gray’s forehead. “Is he listed just for this year or for other years too?”
“He’s listed all four years,” Alexei answered. “And we suspect Caldwell has paid him to make other investigations and charges disappear, like when we caught Caldwell distributing false navigational maps two summers ago.”
The secretary’s head snapped up, and he narrowed his gaze on Jonas. “Redding, I hereby reinstate you, not as Deputy Marshal, but as the sole acting Marshal for Alaska. I’m relieving Hibbs of his position. Now go arrest Caldwell and Hibbs.”
If Jonas was happy to get his job back with a promotion, he didn’t show it. In fact, he didn’t even shift his stance. His jaw tightened for a brief moment, but all he said was, “We need warrants first.”
“Then get me the judge. And the district attorney too.” Gray stabbed the air with his finger. “I want a list of every person who was paid in these ledgers arrested immediately. And if the governor steps foot back in Sitka, I want him arrested immediately too.”
“I have a list here of others involved in the falsified seal numbers, as well as their bribe amounts.” Alexei handed him another piece of paper.
Gray took the list, then just shook his head. “I knew I should have made you governor last fall.”
“What?” Mikhail’s head jerked up, and he looked between him and the secretary.
“Did you just say you almost made Alexei governor?” Jonas had been heading toward the stairs, but he paused and turned back.
Heat crept up the back of Alexei’s neck. Nathan was the only one in the family he’d told about that conversation, mainly because the man had caught him in a moment of weakness. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone else. Ever.
Alexei shot Gray a dark look, hoping it would cause the secretary to shut his mouth, but the man barreled on. “Of course I almost made him governor. I’m not a fool. It’s plain to see that he’s the most qualified person for the job.”
“So why didn’t you give him the job?” Jonas cocked his head to the side.
The secretary thrust a hand toward Alexei. “He refused it!”
“You refused the governorship?” Mikhail swung his golden gaze to Alexei, his eyes filled with questions. “And then you let him bring in Simon Caldwell?”
“I didn’t realize who his second choice was.” Alexei crossed his arms, more to keep his hands from fidgeting than to look intimidating. Most of the time staying quiet and sending people a stern look would get them to leave him alone, but Jonas and Mikhail weren’t going to let this go.
The next question came from Mikhail, who was suddenly all sharp edges and angles. “Why did you refuse the governorship?”
“Because the lot of you are a bunch of Indian lovers, and we have a federal policy to uphold.” Secretary Gray absently waved his hand at Alexei. “But I might offer you the job again, if you think you can enforce the policy on hand.”
“You mean refuse to acknowledge the native tribes have any rights to the land and put my two half-Aleut siblings into an Indian boarding school?” Alexei clenched his jaw. “I told you before that I won’t do either of those things. That hasn’t changed.”
“Fine. Then I’ll find another corrupt idiot in Washington to send up here.
” Gray rubbed a hand over his snowy hair.
“He’ll last two years, and you’ll send me telegrams complaining about him the entire time.
And who knows how much money he’ll try to swindle away from the government. This sounds like a brilliant plan.”
“You said Alexei had to put Ilya and Inessa into one of those boarding schools?” Jonas’s face hardened. “How could you ask such a thing? Have you ever even visited one of them?”
The secretary blinked, a confused look crossing his face, as though he thought asking him to visit one of the schools where he insisted on sending Indian youths was ridiculous.
Then he shook his head and jabbed a finger at Jonas.
“Aren’t you supposed to be getting the district attorney and the judge?
We’ll deal with this governor business later.
I need Caldwell and Hibbs arrested tonight. ”