A Grave Denied

Everyone knew Len Dreyer, a handyman for hire in the Park near Niniltna, Alaska, but no one knew anything else about him. Even Kate Shugak, who was planning to ask him to help build a small second cabin on her property, knew him. But she, the Park's unofficial P.I., seems to have known less about him than anyone.
When Len Dreyer's body is discovered, frozen solid, in the path of a receding glacier with a hole from a shotgun blast in his chest, no one even noticed that he was missing for months. Alaska State Trooper Jim Chopin asks Kate to help him dig into Dreyer's background, in the hope of finding some motive for his murder. She takes the case, mindful of the need for gainful employment as she copes with her responsibility for Johnny, the teenage boy in her care and a constant reminder of his father, her dead lover. Little does she imagine that by trying to provide for him she just might put him right in the path of danger.
"Ms. Doogan wants us to keep a journal this summer for freshman English next fall. What we write about is up to us. Great, no pressure there. She says she wants a page a day from each of us. Glad I don’t have to read them all. I didn’t know what to write at first, I mean I’m just not that interesting. But I was over at Ruthe’s cabin the other afternoon, looking through all the pictures she has of animals in the Park. I told her about the journal and she gave me a copy of My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, this kid who lived on an island off the coast of Greece way back before World War II. This kid never met a bug he didn’t like, plus animals and birds. Plus his family was crazy. I can relate. It’s kind of fun, or it would be if every time I put it down Kate didn’t pick it up and start reading it. I don’t mind living with her but I wish she’d keep her hands off my books. At least till I’ve finished reading them. So anyway, this journal. I’m starting it even before school is out, that ought to get me extra points. I’m going to be like Gerry, I’m going to write about the birds and animals I see every day on the homestead. Like today I watched a moose cow have a calf in the willows out back of the cabin. Talk about disgusting, he sort of oozed out in this gooey sack and then his mom licked it off him. The calf is so tiny, I’ve never seen a moose so small. He was totally gross at first, all bloody and icky from being born. The cow kept licking him until he was clean and his hair was standing up in cowlicks (now I know what that word means) all over his body and finally she nudged him to his feet. His legs were so skinny they looked like pick-up
sticks. He couldn’t stand up straight on them, one always kept bending out from under him and down he’d go on his nose. I couldn’t tell if he was a boy or a girl at first, I had to go get the binoculars to see if he had a penis. He did."