by Nora Roberts
She glanced toward The Lodge as the noise level grew. The shouts of countdown to midnight began. “Looks like it’s just you and me, Burke.”
“A better end to the year than I expected. You want me to pretend I’m kissing you because it’s tradition?”
“Screw tradition.” She grabbed his hair in two gloved hands, yanked him toward her.
Her lips were cold, and there was a strange, powerful thrill in feeling them warm against his. The full-throttle punch of the kiss jolted his sluggish system into drive, churned in his belly, snapped through his blood.
He heard the roar—but it was muffled, dim and distant—when midnight struck. Bells clanged, horns tooted, cheers sounded. And through them he heard, clear as a wish, his own heartbeat.
He dropped the glass in his hand, shoved the blanket away so he could reach her. The hum of frustration in his throat came from the barrier of thick layers of clothing. He wanted that strong, curvy body, the shape of it, the taste and scent of it.
Then the sound of gunshots had him jerking back.
“Celebration fire, that’s all.” Her breath streamed out in clouds as she tried to draw him back. This man could kiss, and she wanted to hold onto the punch-drunk sensation of having his lips, his tongue, his teeth ravish her.
Who needed cheap champagne?
“Maybe, but . . . I have to check.”
She gave a half-laugh, then reached down to pick up their glasses. “Yeah, you would.”
“Meg—”
“Go ahead, chief.” She gave his knee a friendly pat, smiled into those fascinating, and troubled, gray eyes. “A job’s a job.”
“It won’t take long.”
She was sure it wouldn’t. A few shots in the air were usual on holidays, at weddings, births—even at funerals, depending on the sentiments toward the dead.
But it didn’t seem wise to wait. Instead, she left the chairs, the bottle, the glasses on the front porch. She carried the blanket back to her truck, tossed it in the cab.
Then she drove toward home while the green lights played across the sky. And she knew Hopp was right. Nate Burke was going to be trouble.
SIX
THE LUNATIC
Police Log
Monday, January 3
8:03 A.M. Report of snowshoes missing from porch, residence of Hans Finkle. Deputy Peter Notti responded. Finkle’s statement “That [numerous colorful expletives deleted] Trilby’s up to his old tricks” could not be verified. Snowshoes subsequently located in Finkle’s truck.
9:22 A.M. Advised of vehicular accident Rancor Road. Chief of Police Burke and Deputy Otto Gruber responded. Brett Trooper and Virginia Mann involved. No injuries, other than the stubbed toe Trooper suffered as a result of repeatedly kicking his own mangled bumper. No charges filed.
11:56 A.M. Confrontation between Dexter Trilby and Hans Finkle reported at The Lodge. The argument, which included other various and colorful expletives, was apparently rooted in the earlier snowshoe incident. Chief Burke responded, and after some debate, it was suggested the altercation be settled through a checkers tournament. At press time, it was twelve games to ten, in favor of Trilby. No charges filed.
1:45 P.M. Report of loud music and speeding vehicles on Caribou. Chief Burke and Deputy Notti responded. James and William Mackie found to be racing snowmobiles and playing a recording of “Born to Be Wild” at a loud volume. After a brief, and according to witness reports, entertaining chase, a heated confrontation with the officers ensued, during which the CD containing the offending track was confiscated, and which included James Mackie’s claim that “Lunacy’s just no damn fun anymore.” Both Mackies were ticketed for excessive speed.
3:12 P.M. Report of screaming in the vicinity of Rancor Wood, 2.1 miles from town post. Chief Burke and Deputy Gruber responded. Turned out to be a group of boys playing war, armed with popguns and a squirt bottle of ketchup. Chief Burke declared an immediate truce and escorted the soldiers—alive, dead and wounded—home.
4:58 P.M. Report of disturbance on Moose. Chief Burke and Deputy Notti responded. An argument between a sixteen-year-old female and a sixteen-year-old male involving an alleged flirtation with another sixteen-year-old male was settled. No charges filed.
5:18 P.M. Sixteen-year-old male ticketed for reckless driving and excessive horn blowing up and down Moose.
7:12 P.M. Responding to various requests, Chief Burke removed Michael Sullivan from the curb at the corner of Lunacy and Moose where he was singing a loud and reportedly off-key rendition of “Whiskey in the Jar.” Sullivan spent the night in jail for his own safety. No charges filed.
Nate read over the single day, then the rest of his second week in The Lunatic. He’d waited for the complaints when the first issue that included the police log had come out. But there’d been none. Apparently people didn’t mind having their names printed, even if it was in conjunction with their indiscretions.
He slipped the newspaper into a desk drawer, with the first issue. Two weeks down, he thought.
Still here.
SARRIE PARKER LEANED on the counter in The Corner Store. She’d shed her bunny boots and parka at the door, then plucked a pack of Black Jack gum from the point-of-purchase display.
She was there to gossip, not to shop, and the gum was the cheapest excuse at hand. She gave Cecil, Deb’s King Charles spaniel, a little pat on the head. He lounged, as he did every day, in his cushioned basket on the counter. “Don’t see much of Chief Burke down at The Lodge.”
Deb continued to shelve packs of smokes and chewing tobacco. Her store was a clearinghouse for town news. If she didn’t know about it, it hadn’t happened yet.
“Doesn’t come around here much, either. Keeps to himself.”
“Has breakfast there every day with Rose’s boy and takes his dinner there most nights. Not much of an appetite, you ask me.”
Since she had the pack of gum in her hand anyway, Sarrie opened it. “I pick up his room every morning, not that there’s much to pick up. Man doesn’t have anything but his clothes and shaving gear. Not a picture, not a book.”
Since she did the majority of the housekeeping at The Lodge, Sarrie considered herself an expert on human behavior.
“Maybe he’s having stuff sent.”
“Don’t think I didn’t ask.” Sarrie wagged a stick of gum before folding it into her mouth. “Made it a point to. I said to him, ‘So, Chief Burke, you got the rest of your things coming up from the Lower 48?’ And he says to me, ‘I brought everything with me.’ Doesn’t make any phone calls either, at least not from his room. Or get any. Far as I can see, the only thing he does up there is sleep.”
Though there was no one else in the store at the moment, Sarrie dropped her voice, leaned in. “And despite Charlene’s throwing herself at him, he’s sleeping alone.” She gave a sharp nod. “You change a man’s sheets, you know what he’s up to in the night.”
“Maybe they do it in the shower or on the floor.” Deb had the pleasure of seeing Sarrie’s chipmunk-cheeked face register shock. “No law says you’ve got to do your screwing in bed.”
Being a professional on the gossip circuit, Sarrie recovered quickly. “Charlene was getting any, she wouldn’t still be chasing after him like a hound after a rabbit, would she?”
Pausing to scratch Cecil behind his silky ears, Deb had to concede the point. “Probably not.”
“Man comes up here, hardly more than the clothes on his back, holes up hours on end in his room, steps around a willing woman and barely says more than boo unless you corner him, well, there’s something strange about that man. If you ask me.”
“He’d hardly be the first of that type to show up here.”
“Maybe. But he’s the first we made chief of police.” She was still a little steamed he’d given her son a ticket the week before. Like twenty-five dollars grew on trees. “Man’s hiding something.”
“God’s sake, Sarrie. Do you know anybody around here who isn’t?”
“I don
’t care who’s hiding what, unless he’s got the authority to put me and mine in jail.”
Impatient now, Deb jabbed keys on her cash register. “Unless you’re planning on walking out of here without paying for that gum, you’re not breaking any laws. So I wouldn’t worry about it.”
THE MAN UNDER DISCUSSION was still sitting at his desk. But now he’d been cornered. For two weeks, he’d managed to evade, sidestep or outrun Max Hawbaker. He didn’t want to be interviewed. As far as Nate was concerned, the press was the press, whether it was a small-town weekly or The Baltimore Sun.
Maybe the citizens of Lunacy didn’t mind their names in the paper, whatever the reason, but he’d yet to wash the bad taste out of his mouth that had coated it during his experience with reporters after the shootings.
And he’d known he’d have to swallow more when Hopp had marched into his office with Max at her side.
“Max needs an interview. The town needs to know something about the man we’ve got heading up our law and order. The Lunatic goes to press this time, I want this story in there. So . . . get to it.”
She marched right out again, closing the door smartly behind her.
Max smiled gamely. “Ran into the mayor on my way over to see if you had a few minutes now to talk to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Since he’d been debating whiling away some time with computer solitaire or taking Peter up on his offer to give him another snowshoeing lesson, Nate couldn’t claim not to have the time.
He’d pegged Max as an eager nerd, the sort that had spent most of his high school days being given wedgies. He had a round, pleasant face with light brown hair receding over it. He was carrying about ten extra pounds on a five-ten frame, most of it in the belly.
“Coffee?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Nate got up, poured two cups. “What do you take in it?”
“Couple of those creamers, couple of those sugars. Um, what do you think of our new feature? The police log?”
“It’s all new to me. You’ve got the facts down. Seems thorough.”
“Carrie really wanted to include it. I’m going to record this, if that’s okay. I’ll be taking notes, but I like to have a record.”
“Fine.” He doctored Max’s coffee, brought it over. “What do you want to know?”
Settling in, Max took a small tape recorder out of his canvas sack. He set it on the desk, noted the time, turned it on. Then drew a pad and pencil out of his pocket. “I think our readers would like to know something about the man behind the badge.”
“Sounds like a movie title. Sorry,” he said when Max’s brow creased. “There’s not that much to know.”
“Let’s start with the basics. You mind giving me your age?”
“Thirty-two.”
“And you were a detective with the Baltimore PD?”
“That’s right.”
“Married?”
“Divorced.”
“Happens to the best of us. Kids?”
“No.”
“Baltimore your hometown?”
“All my life, except these past couple weeks.”
“So, how does a detective from Baltimore end up chief of police in Lunacy, Alaska?”
“I got hired.”
Max’s face stayed affable, his tone conversational. “Had to throw your hat into the ring to get hired.”
“I wanted a change.” A fresh start. A last chance.
“Some might consider this a pretty dramatic change.”
“If you’re going for something other than your usual, why not make it big? I liked the sound of the job, the place. Now I’ve got the opportunity to do the job I know, but in a different setting, with a different rhythm.”
“We just talked about the police log. This can’t be anything like what you used to deal with. You’re not concerned about being bored? Coming from the pace and action of a big city and into a community of less than seven hundred?”
Careful, Nate thought. Hadn’t he just been sitting here, bored? Or depressed? It was hard to tell the difference. There were times he wasn’t sure there was a difference since both left him with a heavy, useless feeling.
“Baltimore thinks of itself as a big small town. But the fact is, a lot of the time you’re doing the job with a certain amount of anonymity. One cop’s the same as another, one case piled on top of the next.”
And you can never close them all, Nate thought. No matter how many hours you put in, you can’t close them all and you end up with the Open and Actives haunting you.
“If someone calls here,” he continued, “they know that either I or one of two deputies is going to come out and talk to them, to help resolve the situation. And I’m going to know, after some more time on the job, who needs assistance when the calls come in. It won’t just be a name on a file, it’ll be a person I know. I think this will add another level of satisfaction to the work I do.”
It surprised him to realize he’d spoken the pure truth, without fully realizing it had been there.
“You hunt?”
“No.”
“Fish?”
“Not so far.”
Max pursed his lips. “Hockey? Skiing? Mountain climbing?”
“No. Peter’s teaching me how to snowshoe. He says it’ll come in handy.”
“He’s right about that. What about hobbies, leisure-time activities, interests?”
The job hadn’t left him much room. Or, he corrected, he’d allowed the job to consume all his time. Isn’t that why Rachel had looked elsewhere? “I’m keeping my options open there. We’ll start with the snowshoeing, see what happens next. How’d you end up out here?”
“Me?”
“I’d like to know something about the guy asking the questions.”
“That’s fair,” Max said after a moment. “Went to Berkeley in the sixties. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. There was a woman—as there should be—and we migrated north. Spent some time in Seattle. I hooked up with this guy there who was into climbing. I caught the bug. We kept migrating north, the woman and I. Antiestablishment, vegetarians, intellectuals.”
He smiled, an overweight, balding, middle-aged man, who seemed amused by who he’d been, and who he was now. “She was going to paint; I was going to write novels that exposed man’s underbelly, while we lived off the land. We got married, which screwed up everything. She ended up back in Seattle. I ended up here.”
“Publishing a newspaper instead of writing novels.”
“Oh, I’m still working on those novels.” He didn’t smile now, but looked distant and a little disturbed. “Once in a while I pull them out. They’re crap, but I’m still working on them. Still don’t eat meat, and I’m still a greenie—environmentalist type—which irritates a lot of people. Met Carrie about fifteen years ago. We got married.” His smile came back. “This one seems to be working out.”
“Kids?”
“Girl and a boy. Twelve and ten. Now, let’s get back to you. You were with the Baltimore PD for eleven years. When I spoke with Lieutenant Foster—”
“You spoke to my lieutenant?”
“Your former lieutenant. Getting some background. He described you as thorough and dogged, the kind of cop who closed cases and worked well under pressure. Not that any of us should mind having those qualities in our chief of police, but you seem overqualified for this job.”
“That would be my problem,” Nate said flatly. “That’s about all the time I can give you.”
“Just a couple more. You were on medical leave for two months after the incident last April during which your partner, Jack Behan, and a suspect were killed and yourself wounded. You returned to duty for another four months, then resigned. I have to assume the incident weighed heavily in your decision to take this position. Is that accurate?”
“I gave you my reasons for taking this position. My partner’s death doesn’t have anything to do with anyone in Lunacy.”
Max’s face was set, and Nate saw he’d underestimat
ed the man. A reporter was a reporter, he reminded himself, whatever the venue. And this one smelled a story.
“It has to do with you, chief. Your experiences and motivations, your professional history.”
“History would be the operative word.”
“The Lunatic may be small-time, but as publisher I still have to do my homework, present an accurate story and a complete one. I know the shooting incident was investigated and it was found you fired your weapon justifiably. Still, you killed a man that night, and that has to weigh heavy.”
“Do you think you pick up a badge and a gun for sport, Hawbaker? Do you think they’re just for show? A cop knows, every day, when he picks up his weapon that it might be the day he has to use it. Yeah, it weighs heavy.”
Temper licked at him, turned his voice as cold as the January wind that rattled against the windows. “It’s supposed to weigh heavy—the weapon and what you might have to do with it. Do I regret deploying my weapon? I do not. I regret not being faster. If I’d been faster, a good man would still be alive. A woman wouldn’t be a widow, and two children would still have their father.”
Max had edged back in his seat, and he’d moistened his lips several times. But he stuck. “You blame yourself?”
“I’m the only one who came out of that alley alive.” Temper died and left his eyes dull and tired. “Who else is there to blame? Turn off your recorder. We’re done here.”
Max leaned forward, shut off the machine. “I’m sorry to have hit a sore spot. There’s not much public around here, but what there is has a right to know.”
“So you guys always say. I need to get back to work.”
Max picked up the recorder, tucked it away, then rose. “I, ah, need a picture to run with the story.” Nate’s silent stare had Max clearing his throat. “Carrie can come find you a little later. She’s the photographer. Thanks for your time. And . . . good luck with the snowshoeing.”
When he was alone, Nate sat very still. He waited for the rage, but it wouldn’t come back. He’d have welcomed it, the wild, blinding heat of fury. But he stayed cold.
