Fire And Ice

TWELVE

Back in Newenham, Liam unfolded himself carefully from the little Cub and stood erect to blink in the sunlight. He felt strangely lightheaded, elated, possibly even erring on the side of euphoric. He'd spotted herring and survived. You are feeling your immortality, he thought, and grinned involuntarily.

"What?" Wy said, pausing in the act of tying down the plane.

"I'm just feeling my immortality," he said.

She stared at him. "What?"

He waved a hand. "Never mind. Where's the Fish and Game tie-down?"

Her gaze sharpened. "Why?"

He shrugged. "She's a fellow officer. Figured I should introduce myself."

"Oh. Okay. That way." She pointed. "That's their office, that little blue building between the Era hangar and Ye Olde Gift Shoppe."

The Fish and Wildlife Protection officer was unloading her cameras. Liam tapped her on the shoulder and stuck out a hand. "Hi, I'm Liam Campbell."

She straightened and squinted at him. "Right, the new trooper, my opposite number. Charlene Taylor. I heard you were out there with us."

"You did? How? I didn't know I was going myself until last night."

She grinned. "Never underestimate the power and scope of the Bush telegraph." She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I thought that was my job."

"It is," he said, fervently enough to make her laugh. "It's all yours. I ain't doing that again never nohow not ever."

"I don't blame you," she said with a twinkle. "It does get a little hairy during herring."

She was about fifty, a stocky brunette with laugh lines radiating from the corners of her eyes and mouth. She didn't look even the least little bit wound up, whereas Liam's legs were still shaking from the effects of the loop and he could feel the strain and stress of the past hours humming through the very marrow of his bones. Adding insult to injury, her uniform shirt wasn't even sweated through, the brown fabric holding its neat creases and sporting the requisite number of badges and patches and nameplates and insignia. Liam formed a silent resolve to have the blue shirt of his branch of their mutual service pressed and on before another day passed, if he had to force someone to get out their iron and ironing board at gunpoint.

"What were you doing up there, anyway?" Taylor said, bending back over the camera.

"Partly a favor to a friend, partly an ongoing murder investigation on Bob DeCreft."

She stood erect again, startled. "Bob DeCreft? I hadn't heard that was murder, I thought he just walked into his own prop."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"I wouldn't say a lot," the fish hawk said thoughtfully. "It happens. Not very often, but it does happen, even with old-timers who know better. Especially during breakup, when everyone's working twenty-six hours out of the twentyfour to get ready for fishing season. What makes you think it was murder?"

"His p-lead was cut."

She stared at him, shocked. "What?"

"His p-lead was cut," Liam repeated. "And cut while the power was on, so that when DeCreft switched it off the power was still connected when he walked the prop through. It killed him."

She thought this over, frowning. "You sure it was cut? You sure it wasn't just frayed?"

Liam shook his head. "It was cut."

"Well, hell," she said, and shook her head. "Who would want to kill poor old Bob DeCreft?"

"Did you know him?"

She bent back over the camera. "As well as anyone did around here, I guess. He hunted and fished, so we had some conversation over moose and caribou and salmon seasons, like that. I never had cause to haul him in, although I expect he did his share of poaching."

"What makes you say so?"

She shrugged, her back to him. "Most of the old guys out in the Bush pretty much figure that their right to fish and hunt when and where they please was grandfathered in with statehood."

Liam had to smile. He couldn't see Moses Alakuyak waiting for a clock to tick down to put his net in the water, if he was up a creek and that creek was filled with fish. Of course as an Alaska Native Moses had subsistence rights, so long as he didn't abuse them by selling the fish he caught commercially, which he probably did the first chance he got.

"I did run into old Bob up a river off the Nushagak one time," Taylor said reflectively. "Years ago, that was." She popped a roll of film out of the camera and replaced it with another.

"What, was he poaching?"

She shook her head and stood upright, rubbing the small of her back. "No. Not that time, anyway." She cocked an eyebrow at Liam and grinned. "He had a girl with him."

"A girl? Oh, the little blonde? Laura Nanalook?"

"Oh, you know about her?"

"We've met," Liam said.

She gave him a sympathetic look. "Yeah, that's right, you would have. One reason I've always been glad to stay on my side of the service, I don't ever have to tell anybody their people are dead. Anyway, it wasn't Laura."

"It wasn't?"

"No."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know." She grinned again. "He was awful anxious to get rid of me, old Bob was, and I thought for sure he had a bunch of king fillets in his cooler he didn't want me to see. King season not being open for another day," she added. "But it wasn't fish he was hiding, it was a woman."

"Who was it?"

"I don't know. I only saw her from a distance. We were on the sandbar and she was on the bank. Guess she'd waded across to tinkle or something, or maybe he'd waded back across for a beer."

"What did she look like?"

"Like I said, I didn't get all that good a look. She was short, kinda thick through the middle, dark hair." She looked at him. "One thing I know for sure."

"What's that?"

"She was somebody's wife."

"Why do you say that?"

Taylor spread her hands. "Why hide otherwise?"

Why indeed? Liam pointed at the film. "You got everything that went down out there?"

"Pretty much. Something always slips through, but I think I got everything I need. Why?"

Liam thought it over. He didn't want to mess up Wy's paycheck, but he knew a powerful wish to see Cecil Wolfe get a little of his own back again. "I saw an awful lot of boats running into each other out there."

"Yeah?"

She wasn't going to help him any. Liam said doggedly, "Some of it looked deliberate."

"That a fact," she said placidly. She saw his look and gave a snort of laughter. "Let me tell you a story, Liam. Last year during herring, season was on time instead of early like this year so it was, oh, second week of May, I guess, we had an opener down in Togiak. There was a collision between a couple of boats which involved the sinking of one of the boats' skiffs. The guy who lost the skiff filed a complaint, and Corcoran-you know Corcoran?" Liam nodded. By the very absence of emotion in her voice he could tell what Fish and Wildlife Protection Trooper Taylor thought of Public Safety Trooper Corcoran. "Corcoran arrested the other skipper for assault. It came to trial last November. Guess what the verdict was." She paused expectantly.

He thought for a moment. "Who testified?"

"Oh, the whole kit and caboodle-both skippers, the deckhands on both boats, the guys on the skiffs, both spotters, and me. We all told the same story, with slight differences of opinion on whether the ramming was deliberate." She waited.

"Where was the trial?"

Her smile was approving. "Right here in Newenham."

"Acquittal," he said.

"You got it. Just like the last six cases where anyone could be bothered to bring charges. Probably one out of every two jurors from a panel generated from this judicial district is thinking, There but for the grace of God go I. So we get acquittals, now and then a hung jury. Sometimes," she said reflectively, "sometimes, in my more cynical moments, I think they've got it worked out beforehand, before they ever go into deliberation. But that's only in my more cynical moments. Most of the time I'm a regular Pollyanna when I look at our judicial system. Innocent until proven guilty, I always say."

"And everybody out there today qualifies."

"That's right," she said cheerfully. "You just have to understand, being found not guilty in Newenham of any fishing-related crime is not exactly the same thing as being innocent."

Liam had to laugh.

She grinned, satisfied. "And if there is one thing our local state attorney hates worse than an acquittal, it's a hung jury. Both are a waste of the judge's time, both cost the state money, and both get him grief from his boss in Juneau. Makes him hard to live with."

Liam raised an eyebrow. "How would you know?"

The grin widened. "He's my husband." She pulled a small grip from the back of the Cessna and closed the door firmly. "No one will be filing charges anytime soon for anything that happened out on the water today, Liam. That's just the way it is."

Liam got the feeling she was telling him this particular story for a reason. He took her implied advice and his leave.

It didn't matter all that much. Moses was right-sooner or later Cecil Wolfe would get his. His very arrogance would cause him to cross the line again and again, until one day he did it when all the lights were on and everyone was looking.

On that day, Liam would be watching, too.

He could wait.

But could Laura Nanalook?

Wy had taxied the borrowed Cub back to its tie-down and was busy removing all traces of its most recent trip from the interior. Liam stood watching her for a moment. "You didn't ask the dentist if you could borrow his Cub, did you?"

She started and froze for a moment. "Dammit, Liam, don't sneak up on a person like that." She gave the floor of the plane a final brush with a whisk broom and folded up the door. "And I do, too, have his permission to take her up."

From her airy tone of voice, Liam guessed, "Once in awhile? Like maybe once a year? Say for a test flight just before he comes down to kill caribou?"

In that same tone of airy unconcern, Wy said, "He pretty much leaves that up to me."

"Uh-huh," Liam said. "You enter today in the log?"

Wy drew herself up to her full height and looked him straight in the eye. "Of course I did."

"Uh-huh," Liam said. He could have asked to read the log, but was unwilling to do anything so extremely foolish. About all he could hope for was that he wasn't mentioned by name. She began walking toward her own tie-down and he fell into step beside her. "You never did tell me, how much do I get paid for today's jaunt?"

As if in answer to his question, a bright red fourwheel-drive Chevy S10 long bed drew up with a flourish. Cecil Wolfe got out from one side, Kirk Mulder from the other.

Wolfe looked over her head. "Trooper Campbell."

Mulder nodded, his skeletal grin flashing out to blight the landscape.

"You made good time into port," Liam said. "I figured for another hour out at least."

Wolfe waved an expansive hand. "I've got a pilot boat on the payroll, comes out to pick me and Kirk up when we get done delivering. I let the crew bring her the rest of the way in."

Of course.

Wolfe slung a careless arm around Wy and pulled her next to him, grinning down at her. Liam noticed the stiffening of her shoulders, but he also noticed that she didn't pull away. "Hear you were up in the air with my flygirl."

"I was," Liam admitted.

"Well, by God you must be our lucky charm, because we beat hell outta the little sonsabitches today!" He lifted Wy up off her feet, wrapped both arms around her in a bear hug, and kissed her, taking a long time over it. Wy dangled limply, about as responsive as a sack of potatoes, the only thing that saved Wolfe from instant and total annihilation. Liam hung on to his temper and his patience, and eventually Wolfe dumped Wy back on her feet. Liam, watching her face, recognized the moment when she realized she couldn't spit and drag a sleeve across her mouth. Wolfe saw it, too, grinned his hard, feral grin, and chucked her beneath the chin, much as Corcoran had just before he'd boarded the Metroliner. "We done good, flygirl. We done real good."

"How good?" Wy demanded.

Wolfe pulled a spiral notebook from a pocket. "Mike got twelve, Alex got thirty-six, and I got a hundred and ten. Add 'em all up, you get-"

"One hundred fifty-eight tons," Liam said, and in spite of himself felt a little light-headed.

"The percentage stay at fifteen?" Wy said.

Wolfe nodded.

"What is this percentage business?" Liam said, remembering Wy asking Wolfe that question while they were still in the air.

"The percentage of total weight in roe," Wolfe replied. "Ten percent is considered excellent."

"And we got fifteen," Wy said, a slow smile breaking across her face. "How much did we get a ton?"

Wolfe's grin widened. "Top dollar."

"How much is top dollar?" Wy demanded.

"The most we've ever got," Wolfe replied, enjoying himself. In someone less arrogant, it might have been called teasing. In Wolfe, it was a demonstration of power on the schoolyard level: I know something you don't know, I know something you don't know.

"How much is "the most we've ever got"?" Wy demanded.

"Eighteen hundred."

"Eighteen hundred a ton?" Wy's voice scaled up. "We actually got eighteen hundred dollars a ton?"

"Eighteen hundred a ton," Wolfe confirmed. "Here's your copy of the fish ticket."

Liam moved to stare over Wy's shoulder at the sheet of paper Wolfe handed her. He also had the check from the processor with him, which Wolfe flourished like the banner of a conquering hero. So many decimal places made Liam dizzy.

"This oughta pay for fixing up that plane of yours, Chouinard," Wolfe said. "Fearsome, what a crowbar can do to the fabric on a wing."

"How did you know they used a crowbar?" Liam said. "In fact, how did you know Wy's plane had been trashed?"

Wolfe gave a practiced shrug. "Hell, trooper, it was all over Newenham five minutes later, just like all the rest of the news."

"I didn't tell anyone about the crowbar," Liam said. "The only other person who knew about the crowbar besides me was the guy using it." He looked at Mulder. Mulder looked stolidly back.

He knew for sure, now, and Mulder knew he knew, and so did Wolfe. But he couldn't prove it, and they knew that, too. Wolfe gave Wy a sly nudge. "Anyway, lucky for you we did so good today."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Wy said, lost to anything but the numbers on the fish ticket.

"Yeah, you earned your keep," Wolfe said, grin widening. "Well, I'm going to go deposit this check, clean up, and get the book work out of the way," Wolfe said, "and then I'm buying at Bill's. I'll be handing out paychecks there."

"See you then," Wy said.

Wolfe's grin widened even farther. "I just bet I will."

Master and man climbed into the Chevy and drove off. Liam liked nothing about Wolfe-not his cocky arrogance, not his cool assumption of intimacy with Wy, not his relationship, if you could call it that, with Laura Nanalook, and most especially not his air of knowing something Liam didn't. He didn't like Mulder, either, but that was personal, and would be settled personally, at a time and place of Liam's choosing. Alaskan fishing seasons were long, and so were the summer days. As with Wolfe, time was on Liam's side.

John Barton would not have approved, but then John Barton had not been coldcocked with a crowbar on a rainy airfield in the middle of the first night of his posting. In law enforcement, your reputation was even more important than your badge and your gun, and Liam had no intention of beginning his career in Newenham with the word getting around that he could be whacked with impunity. And if he read Wolfe right, word would get around.

He looked over at Wy, who was staring again at the fish ticket. Wy felt his stare and looked up. A tear slid down her cheek. She didn't notice. "You can't know what this means."

Liam remembered John Barton's call that morning. "I can guess." He gestured in the direction of the Cub. "Especially now."

She held the fish ticket up. "Ten percent of this is yours, don't forget." He started to say something, and she waved his words aside. "You earned it. You watched the sky and you didn't throw up down the back of my neck. Believe me, that's not bad for a first-time observer."

"Ten percent?" Liam said.

She smiled. It was a pale imitation of the real thing. "Ten percent. I've got to go-I want to clean up, too. See you later."

She walked off, no spring to her step, and for the first time since he had landed in Newenham no consciousness of their relationship coloring her demeanor, either. She wasn't thinking of him or of her or of them, she was thinking about her bank balance. Given what he knew of her situation, and the tattered wings of the plane parked a row up, he could hardly blame her.

She had mistaken his response. He had not been overwhelmed by his percentage; he had in fact been dismayed by it. Four thousand two hundred sixty-six dollars. That would have been Bob DeCreft's share, had he lived to earn it.

Say for argument's sake a lawyer billed at $100 an hour. It was more than that nowadays, but $100 was easy to divide into $4,266. Fortytwo hours. Liam wondered how many attorney-hours the standard adoption case averaged.

He'd investigated murders committed for the loose change in a man's jeans. Four thousand two hundred sixty-six dollars was a lot more than pocket change.

There were public showers at the harbormaster's. Liam got in at the tail end of a long line and ran out of hot water halfway through. It was after seven before he got back to the post, and when he did, he found Jim Earl pacing up and down the office in an obvious snit. "Where the hell have you been?" hizzoner barked. "I been trying to track you down all day."

"Working on the DeCreft murder case," Liam replied, which was the truth, if not all the truth. He could have added, Not that I'm accountable to anyone except my boss for my actions, but he didn't.

That slowed Jim Earl up a bit, and Liam realized why with his next words. "Oh. Jesus, I forgot. Poor old Bob." By now, everyone Liam had spoken to had called DeCreft "poor old Bob." He hadn't been that poor or that old. Liam wondered what it had been about the man that made people pity him in retrospect. Other than his sudden and violent death.

Jim Earl rallied to his cause. "I wanted to talk to you about Kelly McCormick."

"Who?" Liam said, caught off guard.

Jim Earl glared. "Kelly McCormick, the guy who shot up the post office."

"Oh. Of course. I knew who you meant, the name just slipped my mind for a moment. Press of business and all."

It was a weak defense, and both men knew it. "You even talked to him?"

"Jim Earl," Liam said, a trifle impatiently, "I've been on the ground here in Newenham for"-he checked his watch-"not quite three days. I walked into the middle of a murder and two shootings, and I haven't had time to find someone to press my uniform, much less a place to stay. No, I haven't talked to Kelly McCormick. I've asked around about him. I haven't found out much, and I haven't found him."

With awful sarcasm, Jim Earl inquired, "Did you think of looking for him on his boat? Or at his girlfriend's?"

"I didn't know he had a boat. Or a girlfriend."

"Of course he's got a girlfriend," Jim Earl snapped. "Every girl in this town is looking for a way out of it from the time she reaches puberty on, and the fastest way to get out of it is to waggle their tail feathers in front of some young rooster with a boat and a permit."

"And Kelly McCormick qualifies?"

"You bet your ass he does," Jim Earl said. "In fact the only good thing I can find to say about that boy is that when he's sober, he's one hell of a worker. He catches himself one hell of a lot of salmon. 'Course he immediately drinks it all right down, so that don't mean one hell of a lot."

"What's his boat's name?"

"Hell, I don't know. He called it after some kinda booze or other, the Wild Turkey or the Sloe Gin, something like that."

Liam sighed. "Who's his girlfriend?"

Jim Earl eyed him. "Oh, so I'm supposed to do your work for you, is that it? Listen, boy, I don't expect one hell of a lot out of the Alaska State Troopers, considering the last three to occupy your spot."

The last three? Liam thought. So far he'd only heard about two. Was John holding out on him? What other horror in the Newenham trooper post's past was he responsible for living down?

"Well, hell, all that's past praying for, and at least you can't get knocked up." Jim Earl fixed him with a steely eye. "You can do your job, however, and I expect you to, and one part of your job is to find and arrest the man who fired on our postmaster. The Reverend Gilbert is a fine, good, upstanding, moral man, who never-"

"Reverend?" Liam said.

Jim Earl was momentarily thrown off his stride. "Oh. Ah. Well. Yes. Our postmaster is also the minister of one of our local churches." He brushed this aside brusquely. "But we're getting off track. Yes, one of our young women has set her sights on Kelly McCormick, and yes, he's keeping company with her."

"Does this young woman have a name?"

"Of course she has a name. Oh. Candy. Candy Choknok."

"Where does she live?"

"With her parents, of course."

"Fine," Liam said patiently, "and they live where?"

"Mile 5 on the Lake Road, you can't miss it. The local Native association has a subdivision going in there; Carl Choknok's the chairman of the board, he got the first house. First house on the right as you turn right, big blue mother."

There was still plenty of light for a drive out the Lake Road, also known as the Icky road. Not to mention which, it was always good for a trooper stationed in the Bush to curry favor with whatever local authorities there were. Liam combed his hair and then immediately ruined the effect by pulling on the gimme cap with the state trooper insignia on the crown. The lump on his head had almost vanished, and the band of the cap settled over it comfortably.

It took him longer to find the Lake Road than it did to drive to the Choknoks' house. The road was a high, level pile of gravel packed firm and flat, with no potholes to speak of and wide turns you could take a bulldozer around in perfect confidence that you would not sideswipe any oncoming traffic. Liam got to the five-mile marker in less than ten minutes. On the right side of the road was a large sign proclaiming, THE ANGAYUK NATIVE ASSOCIATION PRESENTS THE ANIPA SUBDIVISION: AFFORDABLE HOMES FOR NATIVE SHAREHOLDERS. A HUD PROGRAM.

That portion of the Lake Road that continued on beyond the sign deteriorated significantly; from where he sat Liam could see washboarding, soft shoulders, and a dozen potholes of a size to compete with the ones on the road from the airport. He turned off it with gratitude.

The first house on the right was big and it was certainly blue, an electric blue that looked as if it might glow in the dark. It was all blue, too-the porch and the steps that led up to it, the window frames, the door, the eaves. The only thing that wasn't blue was the roof, and that was because it was neatly shingled with black asphalt tiles. Liam got the feeling that if it had been at all possible, they would have been blue, too.

As he got out, a raven backwinged to a landing in a nearby tree and was scolded by a squirrel who had thought that it was his spruce. They yelled at each other while Liam went up and knocked on the door of the blue house. A young woman answered. She was short, stocky, and dark-haired, with a round face, clear skin, and intelligent dark eyes. She looked first at the badge on his cap and then at his face. "Hello."

He doffed his cap. "Hello, ma'am. I am State Trooper Liam Campbell. I'm looking for Candy Choknok."

"I'm Candy Choknok," she said.

Someone called from inside the house. "Candy? Who is it?"

"It's all right, Dad, it's for me. We can talk on the porch," she said, stepping outside and closing the door behind her.

"All right," Liam said. They leaned back against opposite sides of the railing and regarded each other in unsmiling silence. "Nice house."

She unbent a trifle. "Thank you."

He tried to break the ice, and gestured at the sign. "I'm new in Newenham, Ms. Choknok. Is "anipa" Yupik for something?"

"Owl," she said.

"Owl," Liam said. "You get a lot of owls hereabouts?"

"A few." She regarded him steadily and without expression.

"I haven't seen any owls myself, at least not yet." The raven clicked at them from the tree. "On the other hand, I have been seeing a whole hell of a lot of ravens."

"Yes."

"Mmm." Enough small talk. "I'm really looking for Kelly McCormick, Ms. Choknok. I need to talk to him about an investigation I am conducting. I have reason to believe that you might know where he is."

"I might," she agreed. She was very much in control of herself and in command of the situation-a selfpossessed young woman, with a natural dignity and a solid presence. "I imagine you want to talk to him about the shooting at the post office yesterday morning."

In Liam's professional experience, very few people were as forthcoming as Ms. Choknok without having an agenda of their own to put into motion. "I might," he agreed cautiously, and pulled out his notebook.

"Kelly's an idiot," she said in a tone of dispassionate observation, "and he is especially idiotic when he has been drinking."

"And had he been drinking yesterday morning?"

"I'd say he'd been drinking pretty much all night," she said coolly. "He started out at Bill's, as I understand it, and then continued on at Tasha's."

"Tasha's?"

"It was a party at a friend's house. Tatiana Anayuk." She spelled it for him and gave him the friend's phone number. "He had been drinking before I got there, and when I left, he still was."

"About what time was that?"

"A little after eleven. My curfew is midnight, and Tasha lives on the bluff south of town. I didn't want to be late. My parents worry."

"I see," Liam said, making a note. "Ms. Choknok, do you have any idea why Mr. McCormick would take it into his head to shoot up the post office?"

For the first time she hesitated, glancing back at the house. "Like I said, he'd been drinking. And when Kelly's been drinking, pretty much anything goes."

There was something she was not telling him, but that was all she was prepared to say at the moment, and by the stubborn set of her very firm chin he knew there was no point in pursuing it. One thing he couldn't resist. "Why are you telling me all this, Ms. Choknok? I had heard-" He hesitated.

She stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants. "You had heard that Kelly McCormick was my blue ticket out of Newenham."

"Well, yes."

She offered him a chilly smile. "He was. My parents are so scared I'm going to marry him that they offered to send me away to the University of Washington."

Out of curiosity, Liam asked, "Where were they going to send you?"

"At first, nowhere-they didn't want me leaving home. Then, when I insisted on going to college, they decided on the University of Alaska." The chilly smile broadened, just a little. "Kelly McCormick's alma mater, or would have been, if he hadn't dropped out last year. He told my folks he still had friends there, that they'd look after me."

Not just intelligent, Liam thought, positively Machiavellian. "Well, I wish you the very best of luck, Ms. Choknok." Not that it looked like she needed any, being the kind to make her own. On impulse, he said, "What are you planning on studying?"

Her expression didn't change. "Psychology."

"Of course you are," Liam agreed cordially. "I understand they have an excellent psychology program at U-Dub."

"That is my understanding as well."

Liam folded up his notebook. "Oh, I almost forgot. One more thing, Ms. Choknok. Can you tell me the name of Kelly's boat?"

"Certainly," she said. "The Yukon Jack. She's a-"

"-white thirty-six-footer with a red trim line looks like it should be on a Nike sneaker," Liam said resignedly.

"Why, yes. She's parked right next to-"

"-the Mary J.," Liam said. He tucked his notebook into his pocket. "Thank you for all your help, Ms. Choknok. Good-bye, and good luck."

She inclined her head once, with all the graciousness of a queen at home on her own court.