Fire And Ice

SEVEN

It was almost one o'clock, and Bill's was riding out the lull between the draft beer crowd that came in for lunch and the evening party-hearty bunch. One man was asleep, head down in a front booth. Another man held a cold bottle of Rainier to the side of his face. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be praying. Four older women played Snerts at a corner table, slapping down cards and knocking back Coors Lights with equal enthusiasm.

Bill herself was taking the break as an opportunity for a little self-enrichment. "Did you know that the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans is the oldest building in North America?" she said to Liam.

"Uh, no, I didn't," Liam said.

"Of course, once the nuns built it up and made it nice the priests moved in and booted the nuns out," Bill said.

"Of course," Liam said obediently. The air was redolent of wonderful things deep-fried, and his stomach growled. Bill cocked an eyebrow. "Cheeseburger and fries do you?" She laughed at Liam's expression. "Pull up a stool," she said hospitably. She closed her book and went into the kitchen, and fifteen minutes later Liam was attacking a heaping plate. "Like to see a man enjoying his food," Bill said, gratified. Like any good hostess, she knew enough not to bother a hungry customer with conversation, and so retreated behind her book once more.

Liam mopped up the last of the salt on the plate with his last fry and let out a long, satisfied sigh. Taking this as a signal to resume their conversation where it had left off, Bill lowered her book and said, "Not bad, huh? Bet it's a while since you had a burger that dripped that much juice down your chin."

"You'd lose that bet," Liam said, swallowing. "I had one just as good yesterday." Bill bristled, and Liam held up one hand, palm out. "From here, Bill, takeout."

Still suspicious, Bill said, "Takeout? I don't do takeout."

"You don't?" Wy had told him she'd gotten the burgers at Bill's.

"Hell no. Too much trouble, and I hate those plastic containers-they take a million years to decompose, and we've fucked up the environment enough for one lifetime as it is. 'Course," she added, "you bring your own bag, I'll wrap your order up in tinfoil." She rubbed her chin and added meditatively, "Although I've been thinking about charging a fee for the tinfoil." She fixed him with a severe look. "Tinfoil ain't cheap."

Liam remembered the greasy brown paper shopping bag Wy had produced, and breathed again. If Wy was buying burgers at Bill's, she wasn't anywhere around when Bob DeCreft walked into the prop of the Cub. He wanted Wy's alibi to be ironclad, impenetrable, intact. More than that, he didn't want to think that she'd lied to him within minutes of seeing him for the first time in over two years.

Although everybody lied, he knew that. It was the first rule any cop learned on the job. And it would have been easy enough for Wy to cut the p-lead and leave Bob DeCreft to his fate. It was what someone had done, after all. Yes, Wy had had all the opportunity in the world, and since she did most of her own mechanical work, the means as well. And motive? No. He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't believe it. He said, "Bill, do you know Wy Chouinard?"

"Of course. Pilot. Nice gal. She's Moses'-" She paused. "She's one of Moses' students."

Liam wondered what she had been going to say. "Did she order a couple of burgers yesterday?"

She eyed him. "What is this, an interrogation? Yeah, she was in, ordered two cheeseburgers, two fries, two Cokes; she brought an NC shopping bag with her. We visited some over the bar while she waited. She told me there was still a chance Fish and Game was going to declare an opener so they were going back up, and I told her all about the Mystic Crewe of Barkis." She cocked an expectant eyebrow, but he didn't bite, and she sighed. "Anyway, that New Orleans sure is one hell of a party town. Christmas, Mardi Gras, Strawberry Festival, Jazz Fest. The Neville Brothers come from New Orleans, did you know that?"

"All I know about New Orleans is that in 1814 we took a little trip."

Bill wrinkled her nose. "Johnny Horton-good God. He ain't the Neville Brothers, I'll tell you that for nothing."

"Really?"

Bill's blue eyes narrowed. "You ever hear of the Neville Brothers?"

"No," Liam admitted.

Bill muttered something uncomplimentary under her breath and marched over to the jukebox, the very set of her shoulders indicating she was on a mission from Jelly Roll Morton his own self. A coin rolled into a slot and the sweet, sad strains of "Bird on a Wire" rolled out.

"Nice," Liam commented when the song was done.

Bill rolled her eyes and heaved an impatient sigh at his lack of enthusiasm. "Nice, the man says. Nice."

Liam liked classical music, its intricate melodies and rhythms, its careful crafting, its honest passion. Jenny had called him a throwback, displacing Beethoven for the B-52's on their stereo whenever he turned his back, and Wy-he pulled himself together. He hadn't come to Bill's for a walk down memory lane or a lesson in contemporary pop rock. He'd come for lunch and for information, in that order.

Short of a parish priest, who was bound to an inconvenient confidentiality by oath, a local bartender was more privy to more information on the native population than anyone else. Liam had cultivated bartenders in other towns, and had found them to be a source that never failed, and a much quicker route to the information he needed than going through more conventional channels. Not to mention the added advantage of Bill's position as magistrate. She'd know all the repeat offenders, would be able to fill him in where Corcoran hadn't. "Bill," he said, "what can you tell me about Bob DeCreft?"

"Bob DeCreft," she said. She sighed. "Poor old Bob." She gave Liam a sharp glance. Save for the man with his head pillowed in his arms in the front booth, the man with the Rainier bottle still pressed to his face, and the dulcet tones of Aaron Neville, they were alone in the bar. "You here to pump me for information, is that it, Liam?"

Liam smiled at her. "As much as I can get," he agreed. "That, and food-that's all I want you for."

She laughed, throwing her head back and displaying a set of teeth that were just saved from being perfect by overlapping incisors that made her look faintly vampirish.

Which, now that Liam thought about it, would explain that air of eternal youth.

"Bob DeCreft," she said, meditatively. "He moved here, oh, about five, no, six years ago now, I think it was."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Why does anyone move to Newenham? Why did you? Starting over is a time-honored Bush Alaska tradition." Liam tried not to squirm beneath the penetrating look she shot him. "You're pissed at me, aren't you?" she said suddenly. "For blabbing your story out in the bar yesterday?"

Liam said nothing, examining the glass of Coke in his hand with an air of total absorption.

She pointed her finger at him. "Best thing I could do for you. No sense in trying to make a secret of things in the Alaskan Bush, Liam."

"Five people died on my watch," he found himself saying. "Never mind they shouldn't have been driving on the Denali Highway in February in the middle of a thirty-below cold spell with no survival gear and three little kids. Never mind they should have checked the level of antifreeze in their car before not doing any such thing. Two troopers under my command ignored two calls-not one but two -alerting our post reporting those folks missing. Maybe we could have got to them in time, maybe not. Fact is, we didn't, they died, and I was in charge." He looked Bill straight in the eye, unsmiling. "I'm about as white as you can get without bleach. So were the two troopers who missed the calls. The family that died was Athabascan, from Fort Yukon. You know how hard it is to get the villagers to trust us in the first place, Bill. How much harder is it going to be for me with the villagers around here, coming in under that kind of cloud?"

"Exactly why I told your story," she replied promptly. "You think the news didn't get here before you did? The Bush telegraph is better than smoke signals or jungle drums any day. It wouldn't have been long before everybody knew it. If you'd tried to hide it, there's some would have used it against you. Best to have it all out in the open."

Liam said nothing, and Bill heaved an impatient sigh. "Give them a chance, Liam. I meant what I said yesterday-you do your job right, that's what they'll judge you on."

"Even the villagers?"

"Especially the villagers," she retorted. "The Yupik have a strong sense of family, and an even stronger sense of community. The ones that aren't head down in a bottle, which is about half of them, are firm believers in law and order; in fact, they generally try to dispense it themselves through their village councils. When the councils fail, they'll call you in. They'll do everything they can to avoid it, but when the elders can't resolve the problem, or when the offense is just too much for the village to stomach, they'll call you in. You'll be their last hope, their last resort. They want to trust you. They want to believe that you'll do right by them."

"If you say so."

"I do say so," Bill said, "but I can tell that the only way you're going to be convinced is to see for yourself. You will. Anyway," she said, jumping back to the original subject in a way that he would come to recognize was characteristic of her conversation, "I could go outside and throw a rock and be guaran-damn-teed to hit somebody who got sick of their spouse, their marriage, their job, their home, or all of the above, and subsequently got on a plane going north and got off here, ready to start over."

She refilled Liam's Coke and drew one for herself. "Had three of 'em in the bar last night. One woman was living in Denver, Colorado, walked out on her air force husband with the clothes on her back and their daughter, and wound up sliming fish on a processor off Newenham. Now she's opening an espresso stand down to the docks. Another woman walked out on an abusive husband in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a week later was dispatching for the cop shop in Newenham."

"That'd be Molly?" Liam said, remembering the pudgy little woman, her brown hair flattened by the headset, talking nonstop into the mouthpiece, dispatching emergency services to those in need all over the town. She'd looked harried, true, but not the least bit victimized.

"That'd be Molly," she confirmed. "One guy had two businesses, three Mercedes, and four ulcers in Missouri, threw in his hand and came up; now he's a cop for the Newenham P.d."

Liam hazarded a guess. "Roger Raymo?"

She shook her head. "Cliff Berg."

"Oh yeah. He's got the wife with the shotgun."

Bill laughed, tossing her head back, her full silver mane shaking behind her shoulders. She looked even more zaftig close up, Liam thought.

He felt a presence next to him, and turned to look up at the man who had been holding the cold bottle to his face. This close, you could see why. There was an angry-looking weal down the side of his face, beginning on his forehead, continuing over his left eye, and ending in a torn left earlobe. The man himself was tall, six-six, Liam estimated, with the shoulders and forearms of a lumberjack. His face was heavy and bluntfeatured beneath close-cropped white-blond hair, and his eyes were a light blue so pale they seemed almost colorless. His grin was a cross between the Joker's and Yorick's, wide and mirthless. He threw down a five. "Thanks, Bill."

"You're welcome, Kirk." Bill was civil but not friendly. "You met the new trooper? Kirk Mulder, Trooper Liam Campbell."

"How do, Trooper Campbell."

"Mr. Mulder." Liam inclined his head, every nerve on alert. At some visceral level, he was aware of being in the presence of the enemy.

The colorless gaze looked him over. "Where's your uniform?"

Liam, in an unaccustomed moment of bravado, pulled his badge. "Figure this is all I need."

"Maybe so." This is all I need, his mocking gaze seemed to say.

Liam took the war into the enemy's camp. "Nasty scratch you got there."

The rictus grin flashed again. "Nothing a cold beer can't fix."

Bill handed over change, Kirk shoved it back. "That's fine, Bill. See you next time."

Bill and Liam watched the young giant saunter out. "I swear to God, I think Wolfe's got some place he breeds 'em up special for his crews." She nodded at the change. "He could have left the five on the table, or even on the bar. But no, he has to stand there and wait for me to make change, so he can make the magnanimous gesture, so I have to thank him for it. They're all like that, that bunch."

"Which bunch?"

"Cecil Wolfe's bunch," she said.

"Cecil Wolfe of the Sea Wolfe?"

She sneered. "Yeah, probably the only book he's ever read in his life." She nodded at the closing door. "That's his first mate, Kirk Mulder. Arrogant little bastard."

There was nothing little about Kirk Mulder, but then Liam didn't think the reference had been to Mulder's physical size.

And he worked for Cecil Wolfe. So did Wy, Liam thought.

The scratch on his face looked like it had been left by an animal. A cat, maybe? Mulder didn't look the type to have a cat around, or the type any self-respecting cat would stay around for long. A dog? Same thing. An eagle? Eagles didn't attack humans, or not in Liam's experience.

A raven? For a moment Liam was back beneath the wing of the 206, with the rain falling on his face and a big black bird peering down at him. He shook himself. Get a grip, Campbell.

Making another of her conversational leaps, Bill got back to Liam's question. "I figure Bob DeCreft was no different than any of the rest of us. He came looking for a life with a little more freedom in it, a little more color, a little more adventure." She cocked an eyebrow at Liam. "It can still be had in the Alaska Bush, you know."

She swept both hands up over her long fall of gray hair, and Liam couldn't help noticing how the movement thrust her very nicely shaped breasts against her shirt. She noticed him noticing and flashed a flirtatious smile with no hint of encouragement in it. "Anyway, one year Bob flew in and bought himself a little house on the bluff."

"What year, exactly? Do you remember? were you here then?"

She grinned at him. "Honey, I been here forever, and I'll be here when you've been and gone." She knitted her brows. "Let's see now, when would that have been? Five years ago? No, six-he showed up the same year that prick Cecil Wolfe did. Bob got a job spotting herring for him that day. Pissed off a lot of the local pilots-for a while, anyway, until they knew what Cecil was like. Then they figured they'd been saved by a higher power."

The buzz on Wy's employer was not encouraging. "Did DeCreft have another job? Other than herring spotting, I mean?"

"He had about twenty of them, like everybody else in the Bush. He fished some, he hunted, might maybe even have done a little prospecting up in the Wood Mountains. He did the finish work on the bar when I remodeled it last year." Her hand stroked the polished oak surface lovingly. "He was a good craftsman. And reliable. If he gave you a bid he stuck to it, and if he said he'd show up at eight, he was here and had the hammer in his hand at eight oh-one. Unlike some people I could name," she added with bitter emphasis.

"Did he have any enemies?"

She shook her head.

"Any friends?"

She shook her head again. "Not particularly. Bob kept himself pretty much to himself."

"Was he married?"

Bill shook her head. "Nope."

"Oh." Well, hell. If Bob DeCreft had been murdered, Liam needed to know a lot more about the man than this.

"Had a live-in, though," Bill said, and in her turn enjoyed the way the rangy, wellmuscled body went on alert.

"He lived with a woman?"

Bill pursed her lips. "Best you go see for yourself." She leveled a threatening forefinger. "You go easy on Laura, you hear? She's had a lot to bear in her life, one way and another, and now this. She didn't take the news well. I won't have her harassed."

Liam drew himself erect. "Alaska state troopers are not in the habit of harassing witnesses."

Bill's features relaxed into an infuriating grin. "Now, don't get on your high horse, Liam Campbell. Go on, you're liable to miss her-she's due at work at five, and it's after two o'clock now."

She tried to shoo him out of the bar then, saying she had to make ready for the serious spenders of the evening. Her shooing woke her sleeping patron. He rubbed his face with rough hands, stretched until his bones cracked, and limped to the bar for a refill. The limp identified him; this was the older man Liam had seen talking to Wy at the airport the day before. "Hi," he said as the man leaned on the bar next to him.

The man stared at him blearily. "Hi. 'nother beer, Bill?" He waved a generous hand at Liam. "And for my friend, too."

Bill's voice was gentle but firm. "I think you've had enough for today, Darrell."

Darrell drew himself upright, wavering a little on his feet. "Sennonse. It's the evening of the shank. We're getting started just here."

"It's after two o'clock in the afternoon," Bill said dryly, "and we're getting finished just here."

Darrell said craftily, "My leg's paining me something fierce, Bill."

"I know, Darrell. Why don't you go home and take a couple of aspirin?"

Darrell's face crumpled. "Ain't got no home. Mary threw me out."

"Never knew she had that much sense," Bill said beneath her breath, and in a louder voice said, "How about the officer gives you a ride down to your boat, then?"

Darrell squinted. "Officer? Don't see no officer around here."

Bill was about to introduce them when Liam said smoothly, "My name's Liam, Darrell. I've got a truck; how about I give you a ride down to the harbor?"

Darrell leaned across the bar. "You sure about that beer, Bill?"

"I'm sure, Darrell."

Darrell heaved a sigh. "Well, okay then. Might's well go hit the bunk, I guess."

Moses Alakuyak came in as they went out, and they paused on the doorstep. "How long'd you stand post after I left?" Moses asked.

"Too goddamn long," Liam said.

Moses grunted. "Not long enough to teach you respect for your teacher, obviously."

He went inside, not slamming the door behind him exactly, but certainly closing it firmly.

A croak sounded from the top of a tree, and Liam looked up to see the enormous raven looking down at him with a knowing black eye. He croaked again. "Oh shut up," Liam said.

"What'd I say?" Darrell asked in dismay.

Darrell more or less folded up on the Blazer's front seat. Liam went around the other side and got in, to find his passenger blinking at the upright shotgun locked against the dash between the front seats. "What the hell?" Darrell asked, looking around. "I'm in a police car?"

"It's okay, Darrell," Liam said soothingly. "I'm just giving you a ride."

"Yeah, just giving me a ride to the pokey!" Darrell clawed at the door.

"No, just giving you a ride down to your boat."

"Forget it, I can get home on my own," Darrell said, but he was unable to figure out the Blazer's door handle and gave up, whimpering a little.

"Darrell," Liam said.

Darrell cringed. "Don't you hit me. Don't you hit me, I ain't done nothing wrong."

"I'm sure you haven't," Liam said soothingly. "I'm not going to hit you."

Darrell plucked up some spirit from somewhere. "Like hell. I rode with the last guy to drive this rig. He always hit. Always."

Liam met Darrell's rheumy eyes and said with all the persuasion he could muster, "I'm not him, Darrell. I don't hit." With slow, nonthreatening movements, Liam started the car. "Now, which way to the boat harbor?"

"Boat harbor?" Darrell stared around vaguely. "That way, I guess." He pointed up the street.

Liam estimated that Darrell's directions took him a good ten minutes out of their way, but he was starting to make some sense of the series of deltaic hills that held up the town of Newenham and its snakelike road system, and they did pull up at last in front of the dock that led to the ramp down into the harbor. He went around and helped Darrell out. "Which one's your boat?"

Darrell shook off Liam's hand and stood up, wavering a little. "I can get there; I don't need any help."

Liam said diplomatically, "Of course you can, Darrell. I'd sure like to see your boat, though. I hear she's a pretty little thing."

"Not so little-she's thirty-two feet," Darrell said indignantly. "I'll show you."

It was an enormous harbor, the largest Liam had ever seen, featuring row upon row of boat slips attached to row upon row of floating docks. It was full, too, jam-packed from stem to stern and fore to aft, if that was the correct terminology, with boats of every shape and size, from hundred-foot processors docked near the mouth of the two enclosing rock arms of the harbor to open skiffs clustered closest to shore. Seagulls squawked overhead, and a harbor seal surfaced and blew near the edge of the ramp, hoping for scraps.

Liam followed Darrell out onto the dock and down the ramp, and was ready with a steadying arm when Darrell tripped, lost his balance, and nearly pitched headfirst into the harbor. A passing fisherman, toting a cardboard box loaded with spindles of green mending twine, laughed and said, "I see Jacobson spent the morning up to Bill's again."

"Looks that way," Liam agreed.

The fisherman pointed. "The Mary J.'s down there-the gillnetter with the pink trim line." He grinned again. "His wife made him do it."

"And then she kicked me out," Darrell said mournfully, relapsing into melancholy.

"Thanks," Liam told the fisherman, and took Darrell by one arm. Together they made their way down the wooden slips to the gillnetter with the pink trim and the matching pink letters spelling out her name in fancy script. Liam helped him up over the gunnel and onto the deck. Darrell shoved the hatch back and tumbled down the stairs into the cabin. Liam followed him and muscled him into one of the two bunks tucked into the bow. The other bunk was already taken. The lump beneath the open sleeping bag never stirred. "You okay, Darrell?"

"Sure am," Darrell muttered. "Awfully early to be going to bed, though." He raised his head and said hopefully, "You sure you don't want a beer? There's a liquor store not a mile from the harbor."

"Never touch the stuff," Liam said. "I'm allergic."

"Allergic to beer?" Darrell said incredulously. "You poor bastard."

"Yeah," Liam said. He waited for Darrell to settle down before saying in an offhand voice, "How do you know Wyanet Chouinard, Darrell?"

"Who?" Darrell said fuzzily, already half asleep.

"Wyanet Chouinard. The pilot. I saw you talking to her at the airport yesterday."

"The pilot? Oh sure, Wy." Something, some instinct of self-preservation, shook Darrell from sleep. He sat up, banging his head on the bulkhead. "Ouch. Goddammit all, anyway."

The lump in the starboard bunk stirred and grunted.

"Oh shut up, Mac," Darrell told it. He rubbed his head and said almost tearfully, "You'd think a man would get used to sitting up careful in a bunk he'd slept in off and on for ten years, now wouldn't you?"

"You'd think," Liam agreed. "How'd you come to be at the airport yesterday, Darrell?"

Darrell rubbed his head some more and avoided Liam's eyes. "Oh, I guess I heard about all the commotion when I got into port and wandered on up. Damn, my head hurts."

"You out fishing for herring yesterday, too?"

"Well, yeah, sure, wasn't everybody?"

"How'd you do?"

"Lousy, same as everybody-there wasn't no opener. Goddamn Fish and Game, they say the roe ain't ripe. My ass. Look, I'm tired, I want to go to sleep now." Darrell flopped back on the bunk and pulled the blanket up over his head.

Liam regarded his recumbent form. "Okay, Darrell," he said after a moment. "I'll see you around."

"Sure," came Darrell's muffled voice. "See you around. And thanks for the ride."

"No problem," Liam said cheerfully. He went forward and climbed the steps to the aft cabin. Sink, stove, table, chemical toilet, and bunks were in the forward cabin; the controls were in the aft cabin, including the steering wheel, what looked to Liam's inexperienced eye like a throttle, and a bunch of unidentified knobs and levers and gauges set into a control panel. There was a marine radio bolted above the panel; the receiver locked into a hook fastened to its side, with a small black plastic handheld radio lying next to it. A fathometer and a compass were bolted to the overhead. A lot of tattered charts were rolled and tucked into a rack that was also bolted to the overhead.

"Who the hell are you?" a voice said.

Liam turned to see a young man dressed the same as Darrell watching him suspiciously from the open hatch. "Liam Campbell," he said.

"What are you doing here?"

Liam examined the young man's face. "You must be Darrell Junior."

"It's Larry; Darrell's my dad. Who are you, and what are you doing on my boat?"

"I thought this was Darrell's boat."

The young man snorted. "Yeah: his, mine, and the bank's."

"I'm Liam Campbell. Your father was up at Bill's, needed a ride home." Liam jerked his head toward the forward cabin. "He's lying down."

"Shit. Is he drunk again?"

"I wouldn't say drunk," Liam said tactfully. "He's feeling no pain. He ought to sleep it off in a couple hours or so." He stuck his hands in his pockets and cocked his head. "You fish with your dad?"

"Yeah, I fish with him. What of it?"

"You go out with him yesterday?"

The young man looked suddenly wary. "Yes."

"Fishing herring?"

"Yes."

"How'd you do?"

"Lousy, like everybody," Larry said, echoing his father's words. "There weren't no fishing, since Fish and Game couldn't make up its mind to declare an opener. Guess they want to let all the goddamn fish spawn before we can get a crack at them." Larry came the rest of the way down the steps. "Why all the questions?"

Liam figured he'd taken things about as far as he could without revealing his identity and turning this into an official interview. He shook his head and smiled. "No reason. Just making conversation. Well, gotta go. Nice meeting you, Larry." He went past him and up the steps.

"Yeah, sure," Larry said, and added, almost reluctantly, "and thanks for giving Dad the ride."

Liam gave him a cheery wave. "No problem. Anytime." He stepped from boat to slip and walked away.

It wasn't until he was fifty feet down the float that he realized he was going in the wrong direction. He paused next to a dapper white thirty-six-footer with a swooshy red trim line that looked like the detailing on a hot rod, which rejoiced in the intoxicating name of Yukon Jack. He looked around, getting his bearings, and excused himself to a man with a coil of new line over one shoulder and a seven-pound Danforth dangling from one hand. "Could you point me toward the gangway?"

The man jerked his chin in the opposite direction. "Don't matter, though," he said, changing the anchor from one hand to the other. "There's another gangway up ahead. Just keep on straight; you'll see it on your right."

He thanked the fisherman and found the second gangway leading to the second dock. Made sense in a harbor this big to have two docks, Liam thought, but then he had to walk all the way back to where he'd parked the Blazer.

One way or another, he'd been lost since he got off the plane.

It was after three o'clock when he pulled up in front of the deceased Bob DeCreft's log house on the bluff. He stopped the engine and got out. It was very still but for the occasional inquiring chirp of a bird and the distant rumble of fast-moving water. Liam looked up and caught the steely blue flash of a tree swallow as it swooped and dived in the aerial hunt for mosquitoes, although it seemed far too early for either and the thicket of alder, birch, spruce, and willow appeared much too dense for such acrobatic maneuvers.

He turned to survey the yard. Newenham must be the banana belt of Alaska. There was no snow or ice left, and the sun glittered off the river and through the bare limbs of the trees like a benediction. It was most definitely spring.

He climbed the front steps and knocked on the door.

At first there was no answer. He looked around at the two cars parked next to his. One was a rusted-out mint green Ford pickup, an '81 Super Cab F250 short bed with four-wheel drive. It looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet more than once, or in other words in about as good a shape as any primary vehicle was in the Alaska Bush. The second car was a study in contrasts, a bright red Chevy S10 long bed with an extended cab, also with four-wheel drive, that was so new Liam was surprised to see it had tags.

Somebody had to be home. He turned to knock again.

He sensed rather than heard the movement from behind the door, and cocked his head. There was a sound like a muffled cry, filled with pain. He raised a fist and hit the door three times. "Alaska state troopers, open up! Now!"

There was an exclamation, male this time, a curse perhaps, and then a scraping sound, as if someone had bumped into a piece of furniture and shoved it a couple of inches across the floor. Liam was in the act of raising his fist again when the door opened.

A man stood in the center of the living room, hands on his hips, surveying Liam with irritation. "Well?" he said. His voice was hard-edged and impatient, the set of his chin arrogant and too self-assured. He looked like a man accustomed to giving orders.

Liam had never been a man who liked taking them. "I'm looking for Laura Nanalook."

"And you are?"

"State Trooper Liam Campbell, Mr.-"

"Cecil Wolfe," the man said without hesitation. He didn't hold out his hand, making it manifestly obvious he felt it unnecessary to curry favor with the police by displaying even the rudiments of good manners.

Well, well, Liam thought. The prick himself.

Wolfe surveyed him. "You don't look much like a trooper. Where's your uniform?" He grinned, a wolfish grin, hard and hungry. "Your Smokey the Bear hat?"

Liam produced his shield. He offered no explanation for his lack of uniform.

Cecil examined the shield carefully, and handed it back with a grunt that was an offense in itself. He waited, arms folded.

Liam, like all good police officers, knew the value of an expectant silence, and did not rush to fill it, instead looking over the cabin.

The logs had been Sheetrocked inside, and taped, mudded, and painted a soft eggshell white by an expert hand. The floor was linoleum, a close match in color for the walls, and probably more practical for a Bush lifestyle of skinning out game and tanning hides than a carpet. There was a brown overstuffed couch and matching love seat and a cheap oak veneer coffee table. An entertainment center featuring a twenty-five-inch television and a library of videotapes dominated one wall. A gun rack with one rifle and one shotgun on it hung from a second, and several painfully amateurish gold pan oil paintings of caches and cabins in the snow beneath the Northern Lights were mounted on a third. One door led into a kitchen, another down a hallway.

A toilet flushed and water began to run into a sink, which explained where Laura Nanalook was. It might have been his imagination, but he thought Wolfe started a little at the sound. He covered it up by saying in a too hearty tone, "Women. Always primping."

Since Liam had scored a tactical victory by not speaking first, he could now ask pleasantly, "What are you doing here, Mr. Wolfe?"

Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "Bob DeCreft was one of my spotters. I came out to offer my condolences to his next of kin." He grinned his wolfish grin again. "Such as she is."

He was daring Liam to comment. Liam said, "And how has the herring season been for you this year, Mr. Wolfe?"

"When the fish hawks let me put my nets in the water, high boat," Wolfe said, adding, inevitably, "as usual."

"Of course," Liam said agreeably. "I hear tell that is often the case for you."

"You've heard of me then," Wolfe said.

"Of course," Liam repeated, still agreeably.

Wolfe preened. He was tall and well proportioned, but his neck was too thick for his collar, his arms too long for his sleeves. His features were strong and should have been pleasing to the eye, but a too heavy brow and an even heavier jaw threw them out of proportion, leaving the viewer with the impression of raw, crude, almost bestial strength, an impression strengthened by the wolfish grin. In repose the grin relaxed into a small, pink rosebud of a mouth startlingly at odds with the rest of his face. He wore buttonfront Levi's, almost new but washed enough times to fit snugly to his crotch. His blue shirt perfectly matched the blue of his eyes, and his fair, straight hair was fashionably cut in a style designed to downplay the thinning on top. He was cleanly shaven, his socks and Reeboks dazzlingly white. The package was well wrapped, but the wrapping wasn't bright or shiny enough to hide what was inside.

A brute, Liam decided. Crafty rather than smart, fearless, and as devious as the day was long. Everything about Wolfe was a little too well controlled, giving the impression that there was a great deal there to be controlled, as if it might go out of control without a strong enough hand on the reins.

Liam, falling back into his habit of assessing everyone by what crime they would be most likely to commit, decided that anyone who took that grin at its face value did so at his own peril. Wolfe was a predator out only for himself, who would flatten anyone in his way and wouldn't care who he hurt or what laws he violated in the process. He would have strong appetites, for money, for power, for toys.

The water stopped running in the bathroom, and the door opened. Both men looked around.

And for sex, Liam thought. Definitely a strong appetite for sex. Especially when faced with this kind of hors d'oeuvre.

She looked vaguely familiar to him, and then he had it. It was the impatient blonde in the bar from the day before. Her impact was much stronger and more visceral at closer quarters. She had hair like spun gold and skin like a velvet rose with just a hint of the dew on it. Her eyes were a dark velvety brown and widely set on killer cheekbones, her mouth red and full-lipped, her neck a long and graceful stem that flowed into graceful shoulders. Today she wore a white T-shirt whose soft knit fabric lovingly cupped the large, round breasts beneath, and did nothing to hinder the jutting nipples that crowned them, either. The T-shirt was tucked into a pair of chinos cinched in at the impossibly small waist with a woven leather belt. The long, lithe pair of legs that were made to lock around a man's waist and stay there for the rest of his natural life was just a bonus.

Liam made a heroic effort and managed to get his tongue back into his mouth. She didn't do anything to help, standing hipshot, chin down, one thumb hooked into her belt, staring at Liam with an up-from-under look designed to smelt steel. When the steam dissipated a little, his professional instincts kicked in, and something in him went on alert.

Laura Nanalook was trembling. It was a fine, almost imperceptible shaking that he wouldn't have noticed, and didn't at first, until she had cause to lean slightly against the arm of the couch to steady her knees. He looked back at her face with a cop's eye. Her lower lip was slightly swollen beneath its coat of red paint. Her wrists had the beginnings of bruises around them.

He turned to look at Cecil Wolfe and caught the man in the act of giving her a warning stare, filled with menacing promise. Liam noticed something else that he hadn't noticed before, too: Wolfe's shirt had been a little too hastily tucked into his jeans-one corner of the hem was caught between a button and a hole of his fly.

He looked at the room again. The cushions on the couch had been pushed to the floor, and the slipcover of the couch wedged deeply down into one crack, as if the couch had seen some recent rough and hasty use.

Liam took a smooth step forward, inserting himself between the two of them, and smiled down at her. "Excuse me, ma'am, we haven't been introduced. I'm Liam Campbell, the new state trooper assigned to Newenham."

"Trooper?" Her head whipped up and a panicky look came into her eyes. "Why are you here? What do you want? I didn't call you."

"Well," Liam said, and shuffled his feet, giving her his best aw-shucks, apologetic look. "I'm investigating the death of Bob DeCreft."

The panicked look faded, and her shoulders slumped infinitesimally. "Oh."

"You're Laura Nanalook, is that right?"

"Yes."

She volunteered nothing further. This was worse than pulling teeth. Liam produced what had never failed him before, his trusty pad and pencil. "And you lived here with Bob DeCreft."

She eyed notebook and pencil without interest. "Yes."

"Just what is the problem here, officer?" Wolfe said. Liam looked around and found himself nose to nose with the other man. "Little Laura here and I are friends. I'd hate to think you thought she was in any way responsible for the awful accident which befell poor old Bob."

Wolfe was crowding him, physically and verbally. Liam regarded him thoughtfully without moving, and without answering. Wolfe was unaccustomed to this kind of response, and his look intensified into a glare.

With superb indifference, Liam turned back to Laura. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Nanalook, and I'm very sorry to have to bother you at a time like this, but in cases of this kind, I'm afraid there are questions that must be asked."

"Cases of what kind?" Wolfe said.

Liam, careful to keep his voice as neutral as was humanly possible, said, "Mr. Wolfe, just what is your interest here?"

He regretted the words as soon as they were out. Wolfe looked at the blonde, and smiled, slowly, a predatory smile full of anticipation and arrogant assurance. She didn't flinch away from that look, but Liam did. He said, "I understand Mr. DeCreft was spotting herring for you, Mr. Wolfe."

Wolfe's smile faded. "What of it?"

"Had he worked for you before?"

Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "This was the second year. Him and that flying dyke of his. And he wasn't working for me, he was working for her."

It didn't take an Alaska state trooper with ten years of investigatory experience behind him or a prior relationship with Wy to deduce that Wolfe had come on to Wy and been summarily dismissed. In spite of the situation Liam had to bite back a smug smile. Ah, testosterone, he thought, and this time the inner smile was directed more toward himself. He said, "I was given to understand that he had worked for you before."

Wolfe was surprised. "And how would you know that?"

Liam shrugged, and waited.

"Yeah, he worked for me, spotted for me, one season about six years ago. So what?"

The woman moved away, navigating a large, careful circle around both men, and subsided into a straight-backed chair pushed against one wall. She folded her arms, hugging herself, knees pressed tightly together.

Liam turned to find Wolfe looking at him with a speculative gleam in his eye. "When was the last time you spoke to Mr. DeCreft?" Liam said.

Wolfe gave a careless shrug that was a little too studied for Liam's taste. "I don't know, probably the last time they were in the air for me."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"I don't really know," Wolfe said, still careless. He was watching Liam from beneath lowered brows, an intent, speculative gaze. "Might have been last year when I settled up with the two of them." He added condescendingly, "You see, officer, in herring fishing you don't ever have to see your spotters. They're up in the air, telling you where the fish are. You're on the water, going after the fish where they tell you."

"How do you settle up?" Liam was curious to know how Wy had been earning her living.

"What with the quotas nowadays, the seasons never last long. Chouinard usually met me at the dock. I'd show her the fish tickets"-some hidden joke amused Wolfe for a moment-"we'd add up the tonnage, multiply it by the going rate, figure her percentage, and then I'd write her a check."

"And she'd settle with Mr. DeCreft."

"That's how it works." Wolfe looked around and found his jacket, a leather bomber jacket with a fleece-lined collar that had never seen the inside of a Flying Fortress. "I'm off. Laura? Thanks for the-visit. I'll catch you later."

He emphasized the last words. Her head snapped up and he grinned at her. Her face went white.

With difficulty Liam remembered his sworn oath, and managed to refrain from taking out that grin, and the man along with it.

The door slammed shut behind Wolfe, leaving the little cabin vibrating in his wake.

Liam crossed the floor to kneel in front of Laura Nanalook. "Ms. Nanalook. Ms. Nanalook, are you all right?"

She raised her head again and smeared away a tear with the back of one hand. "Yes, of course. I'm fine." He regarded her steadily, and she added, "I'm just upset about Bob, is all."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, and waited. When she offered nothing further, he said, "What was your relationship to Bob DeCreft?"

Pausing in the act of pushing back her hair, she gave him a look that puzzled him with its sudden suspicion. "We lived here together."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, remembering the dead man's age. He wondered what attraction an older man might have had for such a young and beautiful woman. The cabin didn't show signs of affluence, and with her extraordinary looks Laura Nanalook could have sold herself to a much higher bidder.

Cecil Wolfe, for example.

"When was the last time you saw Mr. DeCreft, Ms. Nanalook?"

"Yesterday morning," she said steadily.

"About what time?"

"Late morning, around ten or so, I guess. He was headed out to the airport. Fish and Game said there might be an opener yesterday afternoon, and he and Wy were going up to do some scouting."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, making a note of the time. "Ms. Nanalook, I'm afraid there are some questions about Mr. DeCreft's death."

"What questions? He walked into a prop," she said. Her full, beautiful mouth tightened. "He walked into a goddamn prop, the stupid bastard." Tears formed in her eyes, and the anger was gone and as quickly replaced with grief. A mercurial temperament, difficult to live with. Or at least difficult for Liam to live with.

He refrained from telling her about the p-lead. A little pompously he said, "Alaska state law requires a thorough investigation of any accidental death." He folded up his notebook and stowed it. "So Mr. Wolfe just stopped by to offer his condolences?" He ended the sentence on a faintly interrogatory note.

She stared at him, brown eyes overflowing with tears. "Yeah," she said, "that's it. He wanted to comfort me in my loss." She started to laugh then, and it was an ugly sound, high-pitched, hysterical, uncontrolled. She must have heard how it sounded to Liam, and fought a visible battle it was painful to watch to bring herself back under control. She did it, a piece at a time. She might be volatile, but she was strong.

"I'll get you some water," Liam said, and rose to his feet before she could protest.

He went into the kitchen, a small room with an oil stove, a table with four matched chairs, and cupboards all showing signs of being lovingly crafted by hand, and ran a glass of water. There was a box of Kleenex on the counter, and he snagged a handful of them, too.

On his way back into the living room he took the opportunity to peek into the other rooms. Two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Both bedrooms sported twin beds, one each, both neatly made up. The closet in one room was lined with Blazo boxes stacked on their sides and filled with jeans, shirts, shoes, shorts, T-shirts, and socks, everything neatly folded. The closet in the second room was a riot of color and fabric and there was nothing neat about it. This room had a dresser, too, plus a mirror festooned with necklaces and a large stand hung with dozens of pairs of earrings. The dresser looked handmade, and matched the headboard of the bed and the small nightstand next to it, all three smooth as silk and gleaming with polish.

When he got back into the living room, Laura Nanalook had her head back against the wall. Her eyes were closed.

"Here," Liam said.

She opened her eyes and blinked up at him. In her grief and confusion, she looked about ten years old. So long as he kept his eyes above her chin.

He held out the glass. "Some water for you," he said.

"Oh," she said, looking bewildered as he pressed the glass into her hand, but she drank obediently.

He took the glass back and set it down on an end table. On the table was a homemade picture frame made of light oak, as carefully crafted and polished as the furniture in the kitchen and the second bedroom. It held a picture of Laura Nanalook and an older man Liam realized must be Bob DeCreft. He picked it up.

Bob DeCreft was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick blond hair that had resisted aging along with the rest of him. His eyes were narrowed against the sun, so that Liam couldn't see what color they were. He had crow's-feet but no laugh lines, a broad brow, a firmlipped mouth, a strong chin. His smile was tentative, and he had an arm around Laura's shoulders, resting somehow gingerly on them, as if he couldn't quite believe his luck. Between them Liam could see over the bank of the river and down into the river itself. Laura had her arms folded across her chest, standing hipshot, chin up, staring straight into the camera with an I-dare-you look in her eyes.

DeCreft reminded Liam of someone, but he couldn't remember who, so he put the picture down. He knew it would do no good, but he couldn't stop himself from saying, "You could press charges against Wolfe, Ms. Nanalook." He held out the Kleenex.

She blew her nose ferociously. "I've got to get to work-it's after four o'clock. Bill'll skin me if I'm late."

"You could press charges," he repeated. "I'm a witness, at least after the fact."

"He'd kill me," she whispered.

"No he wouldn't." Liam's voice rose slightly, as if volume alone could banish her demons. "I wouldn't let him."

"You don't know him," she said. "You couldn't stop him."

"I can take you to the hospital, where you can be examined, pictures taken, evidence gathered. And then I will arrest him. He won't be able to hurt you again."

She shook her head, slowly at first and then faster, her hair tumbling wildly around her face. He didn't make the mistake of offering any gesture of physical sympathy; he had interviewed rape victims before. "You don't know him," she repeated.

"By God," Liam said, realization breaking over him. "This isn't the first time, is it?"

"You don't know him," she said for the third time. She looked exhausted. "He'd kill me."

Liam tried his only remaining shot. "Ms. Nanalook, you know if you don't press charges against him, he'll come back."

A shudder ran over her. She wouldn't look up, glorious golden hair still hiding her face.

"I know." She squeezed the Kleenex into a tight little ball. "They always do."

Liam left the house in a simmering rage and slammed the door to the Blazer hard. It didn't relieve his feelings, and it didn't do the Blazer door any good.

Sighing, he started the engine and shifted into reverse. A white station wagon came barreling down the game trail that passed for a driveway to DeCreft's cabin and nearly rear-ended him. He stamped on the brakes, slapping his head into the headrest on the rebound.

The station wagon went around him, clipping a slender birch in the process, and slid to a halt in front of the cabin. Without wasting a glance on the Blazer, Rebecca Gilbert shot out of the driver's seat and ran through the front door of the house without knocking.

Liam stared at the house for a moment, but it didn't yield up any secrets. He sighed. So what else was new. He was a stranger in a strange land.

The white station wagon, a little Ford Escort, was idling in park. Liam got out to turn off the ignition and close the driver's side door, and then he went on his way.