by Fire
"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. Li
am 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."
* * *
SEVENTEEN
They buried her next to Charlie, a tiny plot of land and an etched marble stone all that was left on earth of their son. The funeral was small and quiet, with Jenny's parents, a few of her closest friends, and Liam attending. John Barton came, too, with his wife.
"Don't blame yourself, Liam," John said afterward. "You didn't put her here. Rick Dyson did."
"I can't help it," Rose, his mother-in-law, whispered, her head hanging. "I'm relieved."
He hugged her. "So am I, Rose. So am I."
Alfred, not a hugger, stuck out a hand and said in his bluff way, "I'm glad you could make it, Liam."
"I wish I'd been here, Alfred. I'm sorry as hell."
Alfred Horner shook his head. "Wasn't nothing you could have done. We weren't here, either-we'd gone out to dinner. The nurse said she was breathing one moment, next moment she wasn't. Doctor said it might happen that way."
"I know. I still wish I'd been here."
"You were here," Alfred said firmly. "You were wherever Jenny was. She knew." He flushed slightly at this unaccustomed detour into fancy, and his grip around Liam's hand tightened painfully. "Don't be a stranger, you hear? You're part of the family. You stay part of the family."
Liam couldn't speak, could only nod, but it wasn't for the reasons that Alfred might have expected.
When you betrayed someone, you didn't just betray them, you betrayed your families, your community, an entire way of life. He thought of Becky Gilbert, of how her relationship with Bob DeCreft had begun a chain of events that ended twenty-two years later with three deaths. Begun in fire, ending in ice. The poet was wrong; ice was a better destroyer than fire, particularly if you were in the mood for vengeance. Fire was quick and clean, a leap of flame, a wave of heat and then nothing but a pile of soft and formless ash, dispersed with the first breeze. Ice was slow, heavy, corrosive, relentless, grating. It took a long time to get where it was going, and when it got there, it left behind a towering confusion of rubble to be sorted and identified and disposed of. Ice left baggage.
Liam knew he would never be able to look at Alfred and Rose Horner again without remembering that during the last year their daughter had lived whole and conscious and happy upon the earth, her husband had been in love with another woman.
Enough of what Wy had said to him that Monday afternoon was true, but it was not all of the truth. Liam had known Jenny all his life, had gone to grade school and high school in Anchorage with her, and when they had met again after being separated by their college years and her brief sojourn Outside, it was the coming together of old friends. There was a bond of common history, a common language; it had been so easy for them to slip into marriage, especially since it seemed so suitable to his father, her parents, his department, her family having had political connections from statehood on and the money to go with them. Jenny was attractive and amusing and rich, and Liam was deeply envied by his coworkers, which didn't hurt his ego any. Without any false modesty, he knew he had a lot to offer, too, the promise of better to come.
All this, and they were comfortable together and didn't know any better, and so they married. His father had raised him to prize his word, had utterly condemned Liam's mother for breaking hers when she had run off with the nightclub owner from Bonn. Liam couldn't
remember her, or Germany, for that matter; he'd been barely a year old and his father had requested an immediate reassignment. But his father had neither forgotten nor forgiven, and any child of his raising would take his marriage vows seriously. Liam had. Something of a rounder before his engagement, in the time between then and meeting Wy he had not strayed, had not even been seriously tempted to. He was pretty sure he never would have. Not positive, but pretty sure.
But he had met Wy, and he had learned better the levels of communication, of empathy, of desire that were possible between two human beings, and his life had forever changed from that moment. For the first time he saw his relationship with Jenny for what it was. There was nothing of either fire or ice in it; only a tepid warmth, like lukewarm water that when you first stepped in felt comfortable to the skin, but if you stayed in too long would slowly sap the life from mind and body, leaving you numb, spent, incapable even of the few strokes necessary to keep your head above water.
He thought of his father's probable reaction to his son's behavior. Liam Drusus Campbell was thirty-six years old and had been laying down the law to the citizens of the state of Alaska for the last ten years, but he was deeply grateful that Colonel Charles Campbell was safely assigned to flight training in Pensacola, as far as you can get from Alaska and still be in the same nation. Wy had been right about that much, at least.
Besides, he was enough of a disgrace to his father as it was, given his fear of flying.
There was absolutely no doubt that Fate was a woman, he thought that night, lying sleepless in the Horners' spare room. Men weren't smart enough to be this mean. No, no, you're walking the straight and narrow, coping, productive, content, maybe even happy, and Fate comes along and says, "My, don't you look smug," and gives you a big shove and the next thing you know you're wandering around in the wilderness with no idea of where you are or where you're going. You can try to figure out where you've been and how you got there but that's pushing it. All you can really do is feel your way through the brambles and pray you see daylight before you get cut to shreds.
It doesn't help your forward progress any that during all this time you can hear Fate laughing at you.
