Fire And Ice

SIXTEEN

Early the next morning, a Monday, the phone rang. Liam sat up from his sleeping bag nest on the post floor and groped for the receiver. "Hello? I mean, Alaska State Troopers, Newenham post, Trooper Campbell speaking."

A vaguely familiar voice, raspy and irascible, said, "You got a pencil I got those buyers for you."

Liam blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"This Campbell or what?"

"This is Campbell, who's this?"

"Sparky, and I've got those buyers for you." The voice began reciting names, spelling out the last names as if it didn't trust Liam to get them right.

"Whoa, hold it, slow down, let me find a paper and pencil."

"Hurry it up, I haven't got all day."

Liam got to his knees and scrabbled around his desktop, shivering in the early morning chill. "Okay, go."

Again, the voice read out the names. "That's Wolfe with an e on the end of it."

"Got it." Two six-hundred-dollar Icom handheld radios had been purchased by Cecil Wolfe, along with four Kings, in February of this year. "Because we only had two Icoms in stock," Sparky growled in answer to Liam's question. "Wolfe didn't care about the brand, he just wanted 'em tuned to the same frequency, so that's how I sent 'em to him. I got the notes on the order form right here."

Six handhelds all together. That fit: one each for two planes and three boats, plus a spare for the plane. If a radio on one of the boats went out, they could signal to each other from deck to deck. Hell, Liam thought, as close as they were traveling the day before, they could shout from deck to deck.

But the spotter was on his, or her, own. Hence the set bolted to the dash, plus the handheld backup, plus the backup for the backup. Wolfe wasn't a guy willing to miss out on an opener due to problems with electronics. And a man who paid a million bucks for a boat wasn't going to boggle at an extra six hundred for another radio. "What about the two Sonys?"

"The cheapies? Got them, too, but it was three of them. They were one order, sold over the phone to a Larry Jacobson, that's Just-a-can-"

"Jacobson; I've got it," Liam said. Three radios: one for the Mary J., one for the Yukon Jack, one for Wy and Bob.

"His address is-"

"I've got that, too."

"Want his phone number or you got that, too?"

"No, I've got that, too. Uh, sir, what is your name?"

"Sparky-why do you think we call it Sparky's Pilot Shop?"

"Okay, Sparky, thanks a-"

Click.

"-lot," Liam said to the dead line. "You've been a big help. I really appreciate it." He put the receiver down and stared at the opposite wall with a meditative expression. Outwardly calm, he was experiencing a slow, steady interior burn. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he had already memorized. "Hi, it's Liam. Can you come down to the post? Yes, right now. No, it can't wait; find someone else to take them to Manokotak."

Fifteen minutes later she walked in the door, apprehension combined with belligerence in her eyes.

Liam was dressed by then, and sitting at his desk with the contents of the inventory of her Cub spread out neatly in front of him. "Hello, Wy. Have a seat."

She perched on the edge of a chair. "I haven't got much time, Liam, I-"

"You'll make time for this."

Her eyes widened a little as she took in his expression, one she had not seen on his face before today. His gaze was hard, his mouth held in a stern line, and suddenly she saw what had frightened many a perpetrator into surrender and a blurted confession over the years. "What?"

He waved his hand at the inventory before him. "Recognize this stuff? I took it out of your plane the last day you flew it. The day Bob DeCreft died."

She nodded, wary now. "So?"

"So, does anything seem to be missing?"

A slight flush rose into her cheeks. "Not that I can see."

He beckoned her forward. "Take a closer look; be sure." His eyes met hers. "Be very sure."

Slowly, she rose to her feet and stretched out a hand to pick through the items.

The wrappings from the Pop-Tart, the Snickers bar, the MandMore's, the Bazooka bubble gum, the Reese's peanut butter cup. "Regular junk food junkies," she said, trying to smile. He didn't smile back, and her eyes dropped to the desk.

"The new map's mine, the old map was Bob's. You know where and how we got the floats. Same with the walrus tusk. Not a very good one-it's broken off near the root-but it's ivory, so… Okay, my survival kit: two firestarter logs, Bob's parka, my parka, my Sorels, Bob's Sorels." She pointed at the plastic Pepsi bottle. "Bob's pee. Ick, I can't believe you've still got that. That's my clam gun and bucket; I always carry them with me when I know I'm making a beach landing. You never know when you'll hit the tide just right." She picked up the gloves one at a time. One was a cotton painter's glove, the second a woman's Isotoner, and the third a man's worn leather work glove. None of them fit Wy's hand. "I don't know where these came from. Probably passengers dropped them." She paused. "And those are the two radios."

"The radios you used for backup in case the big radio you have bolted to the dash fails." She nodded. "What about the third handheld?"

She went very still. "What third handheld?"

He shot to his feet so abruptly that his chair shot backward and crashed into the wall. She flinched. "The third handheld I found shoved beneath the backseat. The Sony. The cheapie, as Sparky of Sparky's Pilot Shop refers so affectionately to it. The cheapie Sony bought by Larry Jacobson in March of last year, along with another one exactly like it that I saw sitting on the control panel of the Mary J.! The handheld I found tucked away in your bedroom dresser night before last! Wrapped in a blue silk scarf that I vividly remember being used for something other than concealing material evidence in a murder investigation, by the way!"

He was shouting by the time he finished. He paused, glaring at her. She stared back at him, stricken.

"You were spotting for the Jacobsons and McCormick on the side, weren't you? I've been up there with you, Wy, I know what it's like now. Bob sat in the backseat and talked to Larry, you sat in the front and talked to Wolfe. Didn't you? Didn't you!"

She was white-faced and trembling, and mute.

"Jacobson bought the radios before last year's herring season, and you said Bob DeCreft observed for you last year, too, so I figure you tried it out last year and worked all the bugs out of it and tried it on again this year. Wolfe figured it out, didn't he? And he didn't waste time getting mad-he got even. First he had your Cub trashed, then he sank the Jacobsons' boat, beating up Kelly McCormick in the process, who I figured caught Wolfe's man in the act and got the shit kicked out of him for it, and then-" Liam reached in the drawer and slammed the envelope containing her check down on the desk. "And then Wolfe stiffed you for over half of what he owed you. Right?"

"He was dead when I got down to the boat," she said steadily.

"And aren't you lucky he was!"

"What?"

"Jesus, Wy, you're a walking, talking motive for murder! You contracted to Wolfe to spot herring for him and his boats, and only for him and his boats, and then your very first year on the job you double-cross him with one of his rivals. He finds out about it and wrecks your plane and takes half this year's paycheck in retaliation. Nice of him not to take it all, but then he probably wanted to keep you on the leash for next year, and what better way to do that than to keep you just broke enough to stay in business but to still need his to get by?"

She said nothing. "And," he said, his voice rising again, "and he hits on you. You had three good reasons to kill the guy, Wy, and those are only three that I know of. How many more are there?"

She still had no answer for him. He could feel his temper bite into him, and battled it back. "Also lucky for you, at two a.m. this morning Becky Gilbert confessed to the murder of Cecil Wolfe."

She looked up then, shocked. "What?"

"Becky Gilbert killed Cecil Wolfe," he repeated.

She was having difficulty taking it in. "Becky Gilbert? The minister's wife? You've got to be kidding!"

"She's Laura Nanalook's mother," Liam said curtly. "Wolfe raped Laura the day her father died. He'd done it before. He would have done it again. Becky found out, and killed him. Tell me why you did it, Wy." Their eyes met. "Tell me why, goddammit!"

"I needed the money," she said simply.

He watched her with angry eyes, arms folded, waiting.

She sighed. Her eyes closed and her head fell back. "The business took every dime I had. You know, I told you back then that I wanted to run my own air taxi someday." She opened her eyes and looked at him.

He gave a curt nod.

She sighed again. "This was it. I knew it as soon as I met Jeff Webster and he showed me around, as soon as I saw the office and the hangar and the house, and the planes. And met the people. And got to know the place." She paused. "And I had to have something. I had to be busy. I had to not think of you."

"Save that," he said shortly.

"All right," she said, submissive. "But it's true." She blinked back what might have been a tear. He'd seen Wy cry only twice, that last day in Anchorage and yesterday when she heard how much she was going to make on her herring check, but the hard knot of anger burning in his gut wouldn't let him acknowledge the emotion he thought he saw now. "And then there was Tim. I found him, I-I guess you could say I rescued him." She tried to smile. "You know that old saying, about how if you save someone's life, you're responsible for it forever after? It's true." She added urgently, "It is true, Liam. Tim is mine now, and I would do anything, I will do anything to keep him safe."

The same way Bob DeCreft would have done anything to provide for Laura. He said, "Anything, including double-crossing your employer."

"Yes," she said simply.

"Anything, including lying to me."

"Liam-"

"You should have trusted me," he said implacably. "After all we had together, you should have trusted me."

She lost her own temper then, shoving her chair back in turn. She leaned forward, hands flat on his desk. "After all we had together? You smug, selfish, self-righteous jerk! I'll tell you what we had together, Liam! We had a thousand dollars in phone bills, most of which I paid because I had to call you so it wouldn't show up on your phone bill, and a four-night stand in Anchorage! That's all we had together!"

He was struck to the heart, and stung into retaliation. "So what are you doing hanging around me now? You figure having a state trooper on a string is going to make you look better to the judge when it comes time for the adoption to go to court? Just a little something to make up for nearly being charged with murder?"

"And afterward you didn't call, you didn't try to come after me, nothing, it was like I didn't exist!"

"I was honoring your decision! You said it was over!"

"And you searched my house! I invite you in for dinner and you search my house! Where the hell do you get off turning a social invitation into an opportunity to invade my privacy!"

"Gee, forgive me for doing what I'm required to do when I'm trying to find a murderer!"

She wasn't listening. "You know what I hate? Not the lies, and the deception, and the sneaking around, although all that was bad enough. What I really hate is that I fell for a coward."

He was outraged. "What!"

"I fell for a coward," she said, as implacable as he'd been. "You came after me like a freight train, there was no stopping you-and if there is any truth in you at all, you'll admit that I tried to, more than once." Her furious brown eyes bored into his blue ones. "You roared into my life and flattened everything in it and roared out again. You're just pure hell at roaring through, Campbell."

"What was I supposed to do, I-"

"You were supposed to leave me alone in the first place!" she shouted. "And if you were too weak to do that much, then the instant you realized what was happening between us you should have marched right home to Jenny and said, I'm sorry, I've met someone else, I want a divorce!"

Liam opened his mouth, and closed it again.

"Instead, you arranged that little getaway in Anchorage. "To see if it's real," you said." She curled her lip. "Like we needed proof. You were just hedging your bets. Admit it, you wanted me, but you were afraid of what would happen if you asked for a divorce, afraid of what your friends would say, of what your boss would say." She paused, readying herself for the cruelest cut of all. "You were afraid of what your father would say. You were afraid he would say that you were just like your mother."

He was so angry that he feared he would hit her. "Get out," he said in a rusty voice.

"Don't worry, I'm gone," she said. "You stick with what's safe, Liam. That's what you're good at."

The door closed silently behind her on its hydraulic hinge.

Liam stood there, impotent with rage. It boiled over. "Goddammit!" he bellowed, and swept everything from the top of his desk to the floor.

The cap on the Pepsi bottle came loose and Bob DeCreft's piss spilled all over Wy's sleeping bag.

It turned out that Bill Billington had an industrial-sized washing machine and dryer in the back of her bar. She was pleased to offer Liam their use. When he saw the ironing board and the iron, he went back to the post and fetched his uniform. It took two refills for the iron to generate enough steam to smooth the wrinkles from the dark blue slacks and the blue jacket.

The shirt was easier. When he finished, he held it up, admiring it. After Liam's mother had left, his father, the complete air force officer to whom an unpressed uniform was an act of sacrilege against God and country, had taught himself how to iron a uniform shirt so that the creases down the arms were sharp enough to draw blood. He had passed this skill on to Liam as soon as the boy was tall enough to stand over the ironing board. Jenny, a child of wealth and privilege, hadn't known an ironing board from a lawn mower, and the knowledge had come in handy before and after his marriage.

The washing machine cycle ended and he loaded the sleeping bag into the dryer.

And then he put on his uniform-light blue shirt, dark blue slacks with a gold stripe down the outside of each leg, dark blue tie-adjusting badge and nameplate, buckling on his belt and holster, shrugging into the shiny dark blue jacket, getting the round crown of the flat-brimmed hat just so.

For the first time since landing in Newenham, he felt dressed.

When he stepped out of the back room into the bar, Bill was arguing politics with a patron. "I don't care what those goddamn Europeans are doing to each other. We've already saved their asses twice-three times if you count the Marshall Plan. Enough! As far as I'm concerned the only thing worth going to war over in recent memory was Jamaica shooting down Jimmy Buffett's plane. We should have invaded the sonsabitches over that."

She gave the bar a swipe with the bar rag for emphasis and caught sight of Liam in all his glory. She paused, subjected him to a comprehensive study from head to toe and back again, and pursed her lips in a long, low whistle that managed to be admiring and salacious at the same time. "Damn, Liam. I don't know whether to salute or just genuflect and get it over with."

"I'm starving, how about making me a burger and fries instead?"

"Anything for Alaska's finest," she said, and bustled into the kitchen. "Is it true what I hear: Becky Gilbert's hired Patrick Fox to defend her?"

"Is that what you hear?"

Her head popped into the pass-through, and bright blue eyes regarded him shrewdly. "That's what she's done. Where'd she get his name, I wonder."

"Beats me," Liam said unhelpfully.

"Uh-huh," she said. "She sure had plenty to say for herself when I arraigned her."

"That's okay, Pat'll put the lid on her pronto."

"Pat," is it?" Bill said, and Liam tried not to look self-conscious. "Yeah, I figured," she said with satisfaction. "Well, what the hell. Wolfe's no loss; it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Not going to hurt my feelings if all Becky Gilbert gets is a slap on the wrist."

Her head vanished again. Soon thereafter followed the tantalizing sizzle of deep fat frying and the arousing aroma of charred beef.

He was going to get tired of burgers and fries if he didn't start cooking his own meals soon, but it hadn't happened yet. He sniffed the air with gusto, and the smell went partway toward easing the ache around his heart that'd been there since Wy had left his office that morning.

"Did you hear?" Bill yelled into the pass-through. "Laura Nanalook's moving to Anchorage."

"Oh yeah?" Reluctantly, Liam removed his hat, smoothing the nap of the crown with an affectionate hand. He set it on the stool next to him. "Her father leave her enough so she could go to school?"

"She tells me that with what she can get for the house and the plane and what she has saved up, she can afford a little condo in Anchorage. She just wants gone. Can't say I blame her. When I get to New Orleans, I might never return."

She bustled back into the bar, plate in hand, and set it in front of Liam. He looked at the juicy fatburger and attendant fries spilling over the side of the plate and said, "Bill, I want you. Marry me now."

She laughed and tossed her long gray mane over her shoulders. Then she said, eyes twinkling, "You could have me today, trooper, so long as you stay in that uniform."

"I thought the whole idea was to get me out of it," he retorted.

She laughed again, a full-throated joyous sound, her breasts shaking beneath her denim blue shirt. The woman was a walking, talking incitement to riot. He remembered the various and sundry ways Moses Alakuyak could hurt him, and reached for his burger.

Serious now, she said, "I don't suppose you're any closer to learning how Bob DeCreft died. Laura's not interested now, but she might be someday. And I'd like to know myself."

He chewed and swallowed. "I'm starting to think it was Cecil Wolfe."

She stared. "What? How do you figure?"

He took another bite, organizing his thoughts. "Sub rosa, Bill, okay? I can't prove hardly any of this, mostly because none of the people involved will ever testify to any of the facts."

She nodded, curious. "Okay. I can keep a secret."

"Here it is, then. Bob and Wy were spotting herring for the Jacobsons and Kelly McCormick at the same time they were spotting for Wolfe. This year for sure, maybe last year, too."

She looked at him in disbelief. "They were double-crossing Cecil Wolfe? Please tell me you're joking."

"I wish. The way I figure it is, Wolfe caught on early this season, right after the first opener." Liam used the same words he had with Wy. "He skipped getting mad and went straight to getting even. He got his crew to trash Wy's Cub and to sink Kelly McCormick's boat in the harbor. I think Kelly caught him at it, and that's why he's lying up at the hospital with about eleven broken bones. And he stiffed Wy on half her herring settlement, probably what he figured was adequate recompense for how much she'd helped cheat him out of."

She listened, a rapt expression on her face. "So you think Wolfe sabotaged Wy's plane, too? Was he trying to kill her?" She added dryly, "That'd be getting even, all right."

"Maybe he wasn't trying to kill anyone, maybe he was just sending a message. Maybe he figured all that would happen was that someone would lose a finger."

"Still," Bill said. "Seems a bit excessive, even for Cecil Wolfe."

"Well, then, you tell me, Bill. What else is there? Who else is there? Look at the pattern. Wolfe left big tracks. He wanted Wy and Bob and Larry and Darrell and Mac to know that he knew they were double-crossing him, and that he was after them. Kelly knew who beat him up, all right-they didn't even try to hide themselves, and you bet he knew why. Poor little bastard," Liam added. "You should see him up there in that hospital bed, sweating with fear." That was another score to settle with Kirk Mulder, when the time came.

Bill was still dissatisfied. "It's just so, I don't know. So neat," she said.

"Nothing wrong with neat," Liam said, and rubbed a french fry into the salt on the bottom of the plate. "Neat's what wins in court."

"Yes, but in this case there is no one left alive to try."

"Save the taxpayers some money," Liam agreed.

"Well," Bill said. "At least Laura doesn't have to worry about Cecil Wolfe coming around anymore. Which reminds me-poor little Gary Gruber, he was in here when Laura told me she was leaving, I thought he was going to grab for one of my steak knives and hurt himself."

Liam paused, french fry in hand. "What?"

"Gary Gruber-you know, the young fella who manages the airport. Don't tell me you haven't noticed. He's been in love with Laura Nanalook from the first time he walked into my bar and saw her waiting tables." She reflected. "Of course, you could say that about most of the men who walk into this place."

Liam sat very still.

Gary Gruber had been the second person he had seen at the airport. First Wy, standing over Bob DeCreft's body, and then Gary Gruber, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Chewing that fat pink wad of gum like a cow whose cud was on her third stomach.

And then nearly every time he came into the bar, there was Gary Gruber, perched on a stool and watching Laura Nanalook.

But Laura was Bob's lover.

But Laura was really Bob's daughter.

But no one except Bob and Laura and Richard and Becky Gilbert knew that.

So Gary Gruber might think that if Bob DeCreft were out of the way…

All about Laura, Becky Gilbert had said.

It was all about Laura.

He put the french fry down. "What do you know about Gary Gruber?" he said.

"Gary Gruber?" Bill was confused but willing. "Well, hell, the same as everybody, I guess. He moved here from Homer in 1993. He's a pilot; he was spotting herring."

"He was a pilot?" Liam said quickly.

"I just said so, didn't I? He came here on a herring spotting job, and he came into the bar after the season opener, took one look at Laura, and moved here, lock, stock, and barrel. Got the job of managing the airport."

"She like him?"

Bill gave him a look. "Laura Nanalook doesn't like any man. The only one who ever got close to her was Bob, and I'm not sure how close they were, to tell you the truth, no matter what their relationship was. To get close to someone, you have to be able to trust, and given her upbringing I don't know that she's ever going to trust anybody."

"The Nanalooks?" Liam said.

"You know about them?"

"I was told."

Bill gave a grim nod. "Yeah, the Nanalooks. Laura was placed with them as a baby. They didn't have the kind of screening for foster parents then that they do now. They might as well have placed Laura with Hannibal the Cannibal and been done with it."

"So she never had anything going with Gary Gruber?"

Bill shook her head. "She never had anything going with anybody."

But that didn't mean Gary didn't have hopes.

And wouldn't act on those hopes.

All about Laura.

Liam stood up and reached for his hat.

"Hey, where you going, what about the rest of your food?" He threw down a ten. "That's not what I meant and you know it!" she said indignantly.

"Sorry. I've got to run."

In the doorway, inevitably, he ran into Moses, who looked him over sardonically. "You sure are slow."

"I'm a good student," Liam retorted. "Slow, smooth, unbroken, flowing, that's how I'm supposed to be moving, right?"

Moses stopped to stare. A smile crept across his face. "You're learning, boy. You're learning."

From overhead a raven croaked agreement. Liam tossed him a salute before getting into the Blazer and heading for the road to the airport.

There was a crowd of people at the check-in counter. Heads turned, one, two, five, until they were all staring at him, startled and a little apprehensive. He walked forward and the crowd parted naturally, as if before an undeniable force of nature. The office at the back of the airport terminal was unlocked and, when Liam knocked and went in, empty but for a desk, some filing cabinets, and a couple of chairs. He didn't have a shred of a legal right to do so but he tossed the desk on general principles anyway. The bottom-right-hand drawer held a half-empty plastic bag of Bazooka bubble gum.

He thought of the omnipresent pink wad in Gruber's mouth, and the pink wrapper scooped from the floor of 78 Zulu during the inventory.

It wasn't proof, but it wasn't bad. Gary Gruber was on the scene, he worked there every day, so he had opportunity. He was in love with Laura Nanalook, and Bob DeCreft lived with Laura Nanalook, so he had motive. He was a pilot, and could be presumed to be familiar with the innards of a Super Cub and to have tools to go along with that knowledge, so he had means.

If it looks like a motive, if it acts like means, if it quacks like opportunity…

Liam strode back through the terminal like a ship under full sail, and reached the double glass doors at the same time Gary Gruber did, only from the other side. They both grasped the handle. The door wouldn't budge. They looked up and their eyes met.

Liam's appearance in uniform had been noticed before. "The man's a walking recruitment poster," John Barton had told a colleague privately, and it was true. Liam didn't just put on his uniform, he merged with it. When the last snap was fastened and the hat set just so, Liam Drusus Campbell became an Alaska state trooper from the bone marrow out. The uniform was sword and buckler, an outward manifestation of the full power and majesty of the law, with Liam as its tool. In uniform Liam looked capable, incorruptible, and virtually invincible.

To Gary Gruber, he looked like the wrath of God.

Gruber ran.

Liam, a heartbeat behind, wrenched the door open and ran after him. "Gruber, stop! Stop!"

It had rained again that morning and the pavement was slick beneath their feet. People stopped, turned, stared as first Gruber ran past and then the trooper in full regalia followed in hot pursuit. Gruber had the advantage-he knew the airport-and he almost lost Liam when he dodged between two buildings and slipped behind a pile of white plastic totes.

Liam skidded to a halt and looked in both directions. He almost missed it, the top of Gruber's head bobbing just above the line of totes. He began to run again.

Gruber ran out onto the apron and crossed the taxiway. A large single-engine craft taxiing for takeoff skidded around in a circle to avoid him. Liam looped around the back of the plane, heart in his mouth. The prop wash blew his hat off and he cursed briefly. The pilot was gesturing and yelling but his voice couldn't be heard above the sound of the engine.

Ahead of him Gruber ran across the runway, casting a white-faced, desperate glance over his shoulder as he did so. Liam was gaining on him, and they both knew it.

A Fairchild Metroliner, possibly the same one that had brought Liam to Newenham the previous Friday, had just landed and was rolling down the runway, gradually decreasing speed. Panicked, Gary Gruber ran out in front of it. The pilot kicked the rudder, too late, and Gary Gruber ran face-first into the portside propeller.

The plane kept turning from the kicked rudder, and Liam, running full tilt too close behind to avoid it, caught the full extent of the prop wash and everything with it-bone, brain, hair, skin, but especially and most copiously blood. It sprayed him from head to toe. There was blood in his eyes, his nostrils, his mouth, and all down the front of his uniform.

He managed to slow down enough to avoid running into the prop himself, barely. He came to a halt next to Gruber's body, heart pounding, gasping for breath, trying not to vomit.

The pilot cut the engines of the Metroliner. The hatch popped and the pilot stumbled down the stairs of the plane, his face white. "He ran out onto the runway," he said numbly. "There was nothing I could do."

His copilot, another fresh-faced, squarejawed young man, was standing just behind him. He leaned over the railing and threw up.

At Liam's feet, Gary Gruber lay like a broken toy, without a head, missing most of his right shoulder, his right arm lying ten feet away.

Liam was back in his office, washing Gruber's blood and brains out of his hair in the rest room sink, when the phone rang. It was John Barton. "Brace yourself, Liam," John said.

His tone was enough to tell Liam what was coming.

"Jenny's dead."