“Then one day, I was about forty-eight, I guess, I went back to Hong Kong to see my sifu, and he told me if I hadn’t found the answers I was looking for that maybe I was looking for them in the wrong places.” He turned around and linked his hands behind her waist. “He was right. Whatever this is, it belongs here, at home, so I came home.” He grinned at her, only a slightly less lecherous grin than before. “And you were my reward.”
She searched his face with uncharacteristically solemn eyes. “What?” he said.
She adjusted his collar. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I don’t know.” He was silent for a moment. “Yes I do,” he said finally. He jerked his head toward the cabin door. “I was looking at her this evening, wondering how bad hurt she is, wondering if maybe I shouldn’t have taken her by the emergency room before I hauled her out here.” He shifted his shoulders. “I asked the voices.”
“And?”
“And they didn’t say.”
She digested this. “Couldn’t say? Wouldn’t say?”
“I don’t know.” He fidgeted.
“Is this the first time this has happened?”
He thought, and shook his head. “No. But it doesn’t happen all that goddamn often, I can tell you that.”
“You wish they’d leave you alone, and you get nervous when they do.”
He glared at her. “I do not get nervous.”
“And when you get nervous,” she went on inexorably, “you talk too much.”
“Well, excuuuuuuse me,” he said, insulted. “I didn’t know I was boring you.”
She kissed him before he could pull away, putting everything she had into it. His pique was instantly forgotten, his response was immediate and enthusiastic. When they came up for air, breathing hard, he said, “That’s one thing those goddamn voices haven’t interfered with.”
“What?”
“Us.”
She grinned. “Right.” She kissed him again, hands roaming, seeking, finding.
“Gulp,” he said. “Good thing I’m hanging on to something, I’d probably be on my ass about now.”
“That you would, little man.”
They moved to the dock and undressed, savoring the slow shedding of clothes, the slow revelation of flesh, the slow kindling and then culmination of desire. The great thing about being old, Bill thought dreamily, was that you never had to be in a hurry. There was time to linger, time to taste, touch, feel, listen. The hitch in the breath, the murmured laughter, the bittersweet flavor of the drop of sweat that rolled into the hollow of the throat, the quick, shifting arch of the hips, the sly reach of a fingertip, the firm thrust of flesh, and then the well-remembered but always new sensation of falling off the world in a blaze of white-hot glory.
Later they cuddled beneath a sleeping bag Bill fetched from the cabin and watched the moon rise into the sky, taking its time. The flat landscape was drenched with a warm yellow light, and stars began to flicker into being. “Moses?”
“What?” he said, half asleep.
“How’s it going to turn out for them? The kids?”
She felt him come fully awake. “Don’t ask,” he said. “Don’t ask me that. You know better.”
She swallowed. “Bad for both of them? Both, Moses?”
He was silent for a moment. “The voices aren’t always right, Bill. Sometimes people actually see the freight train coming and get off the tracks before it hits them.”
She could hear the tension and the near-despair in his voice, and she let it go, but her heart ached for the two kids in the cabin, and for the man in her arms.
Nenevok Creek, September 2
Fifteen minutes after they had received the call from Alaska Airlines one-three-three, Prince put the Cessna down gently on the dirt airstrip between the three hulking mountains and Liam could breathe again. They followed the path and found the body sprawled half in and half out of the creek, facedown.
It was a man, mid-thirties, hit in the chest at point-blank range with a shotgun. Liam pulled him out of the water but there was nothing he could do; the man was cold and rigor had already set in. The body flopped on its back like a starfish. The blue eyes stared blankly at the sky. Liam tried to close them. They wouldn’t.
He yelled for Prince and she came running up the path, weapon drawn. He waved it away. “He’s long gone.”
They stood looking down at the dead man. “Same guy, you think?”
Liam hid an involuntary smile at the hopeful note in her voice. Prince had had a taste of the headlines on their last case. She’d love another one that put her there, and it was axiomatic in the law enforcement community that multiple murders, serial or mass, got all the best press. “Opal wasn’t killed with a shotgun,” he reminded her. “Did you find the cabin?”
“Yeah, come see.”
It was one room, and crowded with the belongings of two people, one obviously female. “Look,” Prince said, pointing at the counter. The remains of a meal sat there, two bowls of a clear broth with vegetables and chunks of chicken floating in it. “There is coffee in the pot,” Prince said.
“Hot or cold?”
“Lukewarm.”
The bed had been made at some point, and then someone had used the bedspread for a nap-or something more. The comforter was half on the floor and the pillows were dented.
A card table had been set up in the corner closest to the stove. Two Coleman lanterns hung from hooks over the table, and light from one of the four windows shone on it. A ray of sunshine picked up a gold sparkle, a glowing purple, and Liam walked over to find heaps of beads in sizes ranging from a cherry tomato to a grain of sand, shapes ranging from round to flat to oblong to square and everything in between, in colors reaching across the spectrum. One squat, cylindrical glass bead had faceted sides that looked blue until you held it up to the light, when it turned green. A flat, rectangular bead with rounded ends was a yellowish green that looked hideous until Liam saw it worked into a woven shape with other beads. A spill of smaller red beads had fallen to the floor in a splatter of glittering iridescence, ending in a half-empty tube, its plastic cap having rolled beneath the dining table. The beads were arranged in trays and dishes and tiny Ziploc bags. There were spools of thread in varying thicknesses, packets of needles, a coil of silver wire. There was even a miniature anvil with a matching hammer.
“A craftsman,” he said. “Did you find any ID?”
She nodded, and held out a driver’s license. Liam looked at the picture and whistled. “We definitely need to cherchez la femme.” He held out a driver’s license in his turn. “Mark Hanover,” he said.
“Rebecca Hanover,” Prince said. “Chances are, he was the miner, she’s the beader.” Prince pointed at the table. “Think our guy surprised them?”
“I don’t know.” Liam stepped outside the door and yelled at the top of his voice. “Rebecca! Rebecca Hanover! It’s safe to come out! I’m Liam Campbell, a state trooper! It’s safe to come out now!”
He called again at five-minute intervals for fifteen minutes, receiving no answer.
The two troopers followed all the trails they could find, one of which ended at another part of the creek in a narrow stretch of small, smooth rocks, many of them quartz. A flash of color caught Liam’s eye, and he stooped to pick up a stalk of fireweed, neatly severed beneath the last blooms. Three feet away he found a paring knife with a black plastic handle. The flowers were wilting now. He looked for footprints but the gravel wasn’t giving up any answers, and the mud on the path had dried hard.
In the meantime, Prince had fetched a body bag from the plane. “There’s a wheelbarrow next to the cabin.”
They loaded Mark Hanover onto the wheelbarrow. Rigor, helped no doubt by the temperature of the creek, kept the body rigid and inflexible. It kept catching on the limbs of bushes and trees on the side of the path and sliding across the edges of the barrow. Prince was swearing under her breath by the time they reached the plane, and it wasn’t easy loading hi
m into the plane either.
“You shoot,” Liam said. “I’ll draw and bag.”
“Okay,” she said, removing her cap to wipe her brow.
She used up two rolls of thirty-six-exposure film, he filled four pages with drawings and distances. Prince dusted the cabin for prints, something both of them felt was a futile gesture.
“What do you think?” she said, standing in front of the cabin when they had finished. The sun had disappeared behind one of the mountains, all warmth vanishing with it.
Liam had a map of southwest Alaska he’d found in the cabin. He looked at the distance between Kagati Lake and Nenevok Creek. “Nunapitchuk was shot yesterday morning. Our best guess for Hanover is sometime today. That creek water’s going to play hell with a time of death.” She nodded. “Nunapitchuk was shot, we think, with a small-bore handgun, probably a twenty-two. Hanover was shot with a shotgun. Nunapitchuk was alone, Hanover wasn’t.”
“On the other hand,” Prince said, “we have two people shot, maybe within twenty-four hours of each other. Both were shot at point-blank range. No shell casings at either site. It’s the same part of Alaska, although the sites are forty miles apart over some very rough territory, territory even an experienced backwoodsman would be hard pressed to cover in that time.”
Liam nodded. “And where is Rebecca?”
“Good question,” Prince said. “Should one of us stay here and keep yelling for her?”
In answer, Liam yelled, “Rebecca! Rebecca Hanover! This is Liam Campbell, of the Alaska State Troopers! It’s okay to come out! You’re safe now! We’re at the cabin, come on out of the woods!”
There was still no answer.
“Maybe she’s running,” Prince said.
“Maybe,” Liam said, frowning down at the fireweed he still held in his hand.
“Maybe she’s running from us.”
His chest rose and fell on a sigh. “Maybe,” he said.
They waited for an hour, calling her name at intervals, but Rebecca Hanover never came out of the woods.
TEN
Newenham, September 2
In the end, it took three trips in the Cessna to get all of Teddy and John’s catch home, and it was with sore muscles and a feeling of relief that Wy saw them off in John’s truck. They were still jumpy and irritable, and they still wouldn’t acknowledge it, let alone say why. It was one of their most successful hunts ever; they should have been over the moon. Instead, they were short-tempered and nervous, starting every time a plane landed or a vehicle went by.
Wy shook her head. The evidence, specifically a case and a half of empties, indicated the strong possibility of a hangover. At any rate, it was not her problem. She cleaned out the Cessna, tied it down, piled into her own truck and headed for home, wondering if Liam had beat her there. She chastised herself for being glad that Tim was at fish camp with Moses.
The old man’s truck hit a pothole and launched itself a foot in the air, and she realized she was driving a good twenty miles above the speed limit through the heart of Newenham. She hit the brakes, slowing to a more sedate twenty-five, and made herself pull into the parking lot at NC. They needed half-and-half, and her friend Olga had called this morning and told her that the recent NC shipment of Red Delicious apples was good. The Fruit Hotline, they called it; whenever NC or Eagle got in good fresh produce, phones started ringing all over town and all the way up to Icky, the village on the edge of One Lake forty miles up the road. Wy loved a crisp, juicy apple.
She hated shopping, though. Her idea of shopping heaven was a phone, a credit card and an Eddie Bauer catalogue. Unfortunately for her, NC had yet to accept phone orders. She forced herself to get a cart and walk the aisles in search of specials, too, and even found a few. She counted the items in the cart, came in at one over the limit for the express lane and scrupulously lined up in another, behind a short teddy bear of a man with a stunning brunette on his arm. They were stocking up on Bugles and Corn Nuts, and from the bags in the cart had already paid a visit to the liquor store next door in search of the best Newenham had to offer in the way of merlots. Ah, the food of love.
The brunette nuzzled the teddy bear’s ear, and the teddy bear laughed and let his hand, until then resting casually around her waist, slip as casually down to her ass in a brief and, Wy was sure he thought, surreptitious caress. Somebody get these two a motel room, fast, she thought.
At that moment the teddy bear looked around, and Wy gaped at him. “Jim? Jim Wiley?”
The teddy bear revealed himself to be a moon-faced man in his mid-forties with button eyes, plump cheeks and a full head of white hair that looked fresh off the pillow of a very comfortable bed. “Do I know you?” he said.
“No,” Wy said, “but I’ve seen pictures of you swilling beer in college, in company with a certain state trooper of our mutual acquaintance.”
The button eyes widened, and a smile spread across the moon face that creased the plump cheeks. He looked like a teddy bear from the front, too, soft, cuddly and eminently huggable. “Wyanet Chouinard?”
“Hi, Jim.”
They shook hands. Wy felt the dampness on her palms and hoped he didn’t. This was Liam’s best friend since college. This was the one person other than the two of them who knew exactly and precisely how long Wy and Liam had known each other, and how well. He’d been Liam’s college roommate. He’d been best man at Liam’s wedding. He had stood godfather to Liam’s son, Charlie. He had a history with Liam that far surpassed her own. His opinion probably counted more with Liam than hers did simply by virtue of that long history. “Liam didn’t tell me that you were coming to town,” she said, trying hard to keep the uneasiness out of her voice.
“Liam doesn’t know,” Jim said. He brought the brunette forward. “This is Bridget, a friend of mine from Ireland. Bridget, this is Wyanet Chouinard.”
“How nice to meet you, Wyanet, and what a lovely name. Does it mean something special, now?”
“It’s Lakota Sioux,” Wy said, “and, before you ask, I’m not. Call me Wy.” Bridget had a soft, lilting accent that stressed the penultimate word in every sentence. She sounded to Wy’s inexperienced ears as if she had just stepped down from the frame ofThe Quiet Man, one of Wy’s favorite movies. “So, you’re visiting Alaska?”
Bridget looked at Jim and smiled. “I’m visiting Jim.”
“Ah. Oh. Well. Where are you staying?”
“With you,” Jim said, and grinned.
It was an impish grin, cheerful and attractive, but there was something in his eyes, a considering look, that kept Wy from succumbing. “Good,” she said, summoning a return grin that she hoped didn’t look as forced as it felt. She would have loved to have shown him the door, but Liam’s friendship and Bush hospitality forbade it. “My son is out of town for the Labor Day weekend, so Bridget can have his room.” She didn’t say where Jim could sleep, deciding they could figure it out on their own. “Have you got a car?”
They nodded. “Okay, let’s pay for our groceries and you can follow me home.”
Luckily she’d set a moose roast out to thaw that morning, and it was a big one. She let Jim open and pour the wine while she got busy behind the counter, and Bridget and Jim took their glasses out on the deck and exclaimed over the view of the wide expanse of Nushagak River opening up on the limitless vista of Bristol Bay. An eagle was obliging enough to fly by at just that moment, and three ravens were even more obliging: they launched themselves from where they’d been skulking in the branches of a white spruce tree and started harassing him. The eagle flapped grimly on, ignoring the three black devils as they swooped and dove and k-kkk-raked at him.
Bridget came back in from the deck, glowing. “How amazing that you live in a house where eagles fly by the front windows, Wy!”
“It’s not bad,” Wy admitted, measuring white wine, raspberry vinegar, sugar and minced green onions into a saucepan. She turned the gas on low beneath it and rolled the roast over again in a marinade made of olive oil, g
arlic powder and crushed thyme. The thermometer in the oven read three-fifty, and she put in the roast. “I don’t know when Liam will be back. He didn’t leave a message on the machine, so it’s best if we just cook dinner and act like he’ll be home on time.”
“A cop’s life doesn’t run by the clock,” Jim intoned, raising a glass. “Let’s hear it for the chef.”
Wy raised her glass in turn. “Only for tonight. The rule is whoever gets home first has to cook. I’m later than he is most of the time.”
Bridget had been watching the preparations with an inquisitive eye. “And you said that this was moose meat, then?”
“Yeah, honey, like the big bruiser we saw that morning in my backyard,” Jim said. “Chowing down on my mountain ash.”
Bridget was properly horrified, and Wy and Jim exchanged a grin before they remembered that they were rivals for Liam’s affection. “If he’d beat me home, he would have sliced the roast into steaks, shaken them in his very own special flour mixture and fried them in an inch of peanut oil.”
“Why peanut oil?”
“You can get it hotter at higher temperatures without burning. Liam fries everything. If he could figure out a way to do it, he’d fry peanut butter.”
The two women laughed. Jim, putting on a puzzled expression, said, “And your point is?”
At eight o’clock the phone rang. “Hey, flygirl, you crash any planes lately?”
Wy grinned, a wide grin of pure pleasure. “Hey, Jo. Driven any politicians to suicide lately?”
“Give me time. Labor Day’s coming up.”
“You are one hell of a reporter, I’ll say that for you,” Wy said, one eye on the sauce.
“Smart-ass. I was thinking about coming down.”
“Oh yeah?” Wy said. “Were you thinking you might have a place to stay?”
“Smart-ass,” Jo repeated. She hesitated.
It wasn’t like Jo to hesitate. Wy turned the heat under the sauce down and took the portable phone around the corner and into the hallway. “What’s wrong, Jo?”
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