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  Bill sipped her Coke. “Want another beer?”

  Wy looked at the bottom of her now empty glass. “No. I’m just trying to put off going home.”

  “Want some takeout?”

  Wy brightened. Tim was notoriously susceptible to Bill’s fatburgers and greasy fries. “Make it two, and a double order of fries for Tim.”

  Bill raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, all right,” Wy said. “Three.” Not that Liam Campbell deserved any special consideration in the way of meals. Or a roof. A roof it looked like he wouldn’t be under for longer than it took to pack for a move back to Anchorage.

  “Hey, big spender.”

  Wy looked around and a smile broke out across her face. It was a good smile; it displayed white teeth saved from perfection by overlapping incisors, crinkled the corners of her brown eyes, and seemed somehow to make her bronze-streaked brown hair curl out of its long braid even more than it already did. “Jo!”

  The two women hugged. “What are you doing in Newenham?” Wy said. “I can’t believe your editor let you come down again so soon. Is there some story going on around here I don’t know about that theAnchorage News is crying out for copy on?”

  “No, I just grabbed a couple of vacation days ’cause I could,” Jo said. She was a chunky blonde with intense green eyes and a short cap of curls. A newspaper reporter with the wit of Dorothy L. Parker and none of the nastiness, she’d been Wy’s closest friend since college and, for a few months, her sister-in-law. “Gary’s back in Anchorage.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yeah, he came down with me.” Jo didn’t look at Wy when she said this, thanking Bill for the draft beer instead. “Don’t worry; we’re not going to land ourselves on you-we’ve got a room at the Bay View. But we were hoping you’d have time for us.”

  “Sure,” Wy said, and managed a smile. “Always time for you, Jo. And you wouldn’t be landing yourselves on me, either one of you. So long as one of you doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

  Jo laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “How about I order up a couple more hamburgers?”

  “How about we eat right here and have a steak?”

  Wy cocked an eyebrow at Bill, who shouted a cancellation through the pass-through to the kitchen. Dottie, her fry cook, growled an acknowledgment and slammed the burger patties back into the fridge.

  “Let me call Tim.” Wy went to the pay phone in the corner and dialed her home number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Tim.”

  “Hi, Wy.”

  He had been calling her Mom right up until the first time she’d admitted Natalie to their home. “Jo’s here, and her brother, Gary. We’re going to have dinner at Bill’s. I’ll be there in ten.”

  She hung up and turned to Jo, standing just behind her. “Don’t worry; he’ll come. The combination of his favorite auntie and one of Bill’s steaks will offset having to sit next to me.”

  Jo followed Wy out to her truck. “What’s the problem with Tim?”

  Wy sighed. “It’s not just Tim.”

  Jo went very still. “Liam?”

  Wy nodded.

  Jo bristled. “What’s that prick up to now?”

  Wy turned. “Why do you always automatically assume the worst about Liam, Jo?”

  “Let’s just say I stand on his record. He’s always beating up on my best friend.”

  “He doesn’t beat up on me.”

  “Emotionally he sure as hell does.”

  Wy was silent. Jo’s fierce loyalty to the people she loved was one of her best qualities. It could also be one of her worst.

  “What’s wrong this time? His wife is still dead, isn’t she?” Jo said in sudden suspicion. “He didn’t go and get married again just so the two of you could have another hopeless love affair?”

  “No, no, no,” Wy said. “Cut him some slack, Jo, Jesus.”

  “He hurt you,” Jo said. “What hurts you, hurts me. When I get hurt, I get pissed off. When I get pissed off, I get even. I’m not square with Liam yet.”

  “That why you brought Gary to Newenham with you?”

  Jo ignored the question with a dignity that didn’t look quite natural on her pugnacious face. “What’s up, Wy? What’s going on?”

  Wy leaned back against the door of the truck. “You know this last case, the serial killer?”

  “Hairy Man? Sure. He’s still in jail, so far as I know. It’s been a month. Got to be some kind of record.”

  Jo Dunaway’s ideal Supreme Court would have had all the justices named Scalia, but then she was a reporter and had seen firsthand the evil that men do far too often. Had she but known it, Liam’s ideal Supremes would all have been named Rehnquist. Wy thought about making the obvious comment but her courage failed her.

  “Anyway,” Jo said, “what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “John Barton, Liam’s boss, called. Said Liam had done so well in Newenham that John was promoting him back to sergeant.”

  Jo digested this. “Wow. That was quick.”

  “It’s partly your fault. You wrote that story with all those quotes making Liam sound like a hero.”

  Jo looked at her. “So you’re not just pissed at Liam, you’re pissed at me, too.”

  “Shit.” Wy smoothed back the curls that had escaped the braid falling down her back. “I’m not, Jo. Really, I’m not. It’s just that things were… It’s not like we don’t have other issues to deal with, you know? And now we’ve got to deal with this, too.”

  “Liam must feel like a yo-yo,” Jo said.

  “Yeah, well, apparently you’re only disgraced in the Alaska state troopers so long as you’re not clearing cases. When you are…”

  “You’re undisgraced. Back in favor. Back on the fast track,” Jo said in sudden realization. “Okay. Got that. What else?”

  “John offered him his old job back.”

  “His old job?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “His old job, as in, his old job in Anchorage?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Oh.”

  “So you see.”

  “I sure do. Where can I buy a gun?”

  “Jo.”

  “If he dumps you again, Wy, I swear I’ll-”

  “He didn’t dump me last time; I dumped him.”

  “He could have left his wife, and he didn’t.”

  “He had a baby son at the time. He couldn’t leave both of them.”

  “He could if he’d loved you enough.”

  “He could if he was a total slimeball, Jo, and that wasn’t the guy I fell for. Now knock it off. I’m done with that, and you should be, too.”

  A brief silence while Jo battled her baser self. “So what’s he going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jo raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” Wy said. She knew that eyebrow.

  “You haven’t asked him.”

  “He hasn’t said.”

  “You haven’t asked him?” Jo said, making it a question this time.

  “I don’t think he knows.”

  “You haven’t asked him!”

  Wy gave a quick glance around to see who was listening. “Stop yelling. He hasn’t given John an answer, okay? And John asked almost a month ago.”

  “Ahuh. Well.” Jo put her hands on her hips and surveyed Wy from head to toe. “Things must be pretty tense around the Chouinard household. You let Liam move in yet?”

  Wy hunched a shoulder.

  “Right. Why not?”

  Wy didn’t answer.

  “Yeah,” Jo said. “So, getting so much in the way of solid commitment from you, naturally he would leap at the chance to blow off his boss’ offer of promotion and spend the rest of his life in Newenham.”

  Wy was as affronted at this turnabout on the part of her first, best friend as she had been annoyed at Jo’s attack on Liam. “So now you’re on his side?”

  “Somebody has to be, poor bastard.”
/>   “Up yours, Dunaway.”

  “Backatcha times two,” Jo said promptly. “Okay, enough with this. You go get Tim, I’ll go get Gary, and don’t worry, all will be well.” She waved all-inclusive hands. “Leave it to me; Auntie Jo will fix everything.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Wy said, but she was saying it to Jo’s back going away.

  November 30, 1941

  A C-47 came in today with the heat exchanger out. One of the passengers kept his feet warm with a blowtorch all the way from Watson Lake. Man Im glad I wasnt on board that flight.

  The airstrip isnt even paved and everytime we land we kick dirt and ice up against the fuselage. I hope none of that stuff is making it up into the props or the engines.

  To cold today to snow. Gray overcast about ten thousand feet. Saw a dozen moose laying next to a frozen river southwest of Anchorage. They looked like theyd laid down to die and I dint blame them but theres an old Eskimo guy who hangs around the base doing odd jobs for cash who says the moose are conserving energy and that they dont move around much in the winter.

  He says hes a gold miner and that he sells it to Russians because their money is no good and they pay more than Americans will. He has to be careful because its illegal anymore for private citizens to own gold. Im wondering what the Russians buy the gold with if their money is no good but thats what he says.

  THREE

  Liam and Diana were still recovering from the fit of giggles caused by the vampire-disposal kit when they pulled up in front of the small square building with the Last Frontier Bank sign over the door. A burly man waited for them on the steps. He had a belly like a beer barrel, a head like a rectangular bullet, hair that stood up all over it in stiff white bristles, and a scowl carving lines into his cheeks and forehead. He wore button-fly jeans and a blue cashmere sweater with a button-down collar peeking out from underneath the crew neck. Liam suspected that the laces on his boots were ironed. “Brewster,” he said as he stepped out of the white Chevy Blazer with the badge of his service emblazoned on its door.

  The burly man gave a curt nod. “Campbell. Took your time getting here.”

  Liam felt rather than saw Diana stiffen. “We had some things to take care of at the post.” He hitched up his gun belt. “Molly says somebody tried to steal your ATM again.”

  Brewster Gibbons, manager of Newenham’s only bank and general pain in the civic ass, watched Liam’s hand settle on the butt of the nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson strapped to his right hip. “Yes.”

  Liam ambled forward to inspect the machine secured to the wall of the bank. Its corners were dented. Further investigation found a length of heavy galvanized chain tossed in a careless heap beneath the porch, as well as a horizontal burn in the right-hand upright of the porch railing, and two deep ruts in the driveway. The last two links of the chain were bent open, as if the chain had been made from clay. “Looks like someone tried to haul it off, all right.”

  In spite of its wounds, the machine’s screen continued to flash advertisements for credit cards and car loans and home mortgages. Liam got out his wallet and inserted his cash card. Obediently, the machine spit out fifty dollars. “Although it doesn’t seem to have hurt it much.” He stuffed the cash into his wallet and the wallet back into his pocket. “My turn to cook dinner,” he told the bank manager. “I’m thinking take-out chicken from the deli counter at Eagle.”

  Prince made a face. “I don’t know, sir, that burrito I got from there was pretty awful. You might want to reconsider.”

  “What I want to know,” Brewster said, his face tight and his eyes angry, “is what you intend to do about it.”

  “I don’t know,” Liam said. “Probably pick up some Maalox on my way through the checkout counter.”

  Brewster Gibbons took a visible breath, looked again at the hand resting on the gun butt, and bit back what he had been about to say.

  A raven’s soft croak sounded from a nearby tree, followed by a series ofclick-click-click s andcraaaa-ack s. A stiff breeze blew on shore from Bristol Bay, dropping the already crisp chill factor to a temperature close to freezing. After a summer’s absence the stars had returned to the Alaskan sky, and Liam looked up to let the Big Dipper show him the way to the North Star.

  Brewster stood it for as long as he could. “Well? Somebody tried to rob my bank! I want to know what you’re going to do about this! When Anchorage finds out, they’re going to want some answers, and they’re going to be talking to our friends in Juneau!”

  Diana Prince hadn’t been working with Liam Campbell for even four months, but it was long enough to look at Brewster Gibbons and think, You poor dumb bastard. Every two years Brewster Gibbons contributed five hundred dollars to the campaign of anyone of the Democratic, Republican or Libertarian persuasion running for state office from the Newenham district and thought that bought him influence. It was the maximum amount allowed by law, as anyone in Alaska could have told him, and was standard operating procedure for any businessman covering his political bets. It hardly rated a thank-you note. But then, she’d always been something of a cynic when it came to politics.

  Without ceasing communion with the celestial beings overhead, Liam said, “Trooper Prince? How many times has someone attempted to kidnap Mr. Gibbons’ cash machine?”

  “I believe this makes it four times, sir.”

  “Uh-huh. And the first time was, when, exactly?”

  “That would be June. June sixth, I believe.”

  “Hmmm. And the method used?”

  “The first time they wrapped an electrical cord around the machine and pulled. The cord snapped.”

  “I see. And the second?”

  “The second time was eight days later, the fourteenth. This time they tried to open it up with a saw.”

  “A saw. Refresh my memory. What happened?”

  “The blade snapped in two. Mr. Gibbons found pieces of it on the porch when he came in in the morning.” She added, “The night before, a Ferdinand Volinario called to say that his shop had been broken into, and that he was missing some tools, including an electric Skilsaw.”

  “I’d forgotten all about Nando,” Liam said. “Well done, Trooper Prince. And the third time?”

  She hesitated just long enough to make it interesting. “We think a sledgehammer, sir, but we’re not absolutely sure. The machine was pretty severely dented. You can still see some of the dents.” She pointed.

  Liam lowered his eyes to peer at the machine. “So you can.” He laid hands on the machine and tried to rock it loose. It wouldn’t budge. “Pretty sturdy piece of equipment,” he told Gibbons, his tone congratulatory. “You’ve got it fastened down pretty solid, too.”

  “We can only hope they ripped their axle out,” Prince said.

  “Your security camera working yet?” Liam said.

  Gibbons’ flush was easy to see from the light over the door. “I need to pull it and send it to Anchorage to get it fixed.”

  “Yeah. Camera on the machine itself working yet?”

  “Not since June.”

  “Uh-huh. Did you see anything yourself?”

  Gibbons lost patience. “I didn’t have to! It was Teddy Engebretsen or John Kvichak or Paul Urbano or Mac MacCormick or one of that worthless bunch, or maybe the whole boiling lot of them together! You know it as well as I do! I want you to go over there and arrest them!”

  “Did you see Teddy Engebretsen this evening, Brewster?” A brief silence. “Brewster? Did you see Teddy Engebretsen trying to kidnap your ATM machine?”

  “No,” Gibbons said, his face sullen.

  “How about John Kvichak? No? Then Paul Urbano? Again no? Brewster, I know you watch a lot of television, with that fancy new satellite dish and all, so I know you have at least a speaking acquaintance with probable cause. Absent witnesses, absent evidence, I have no reason to suspect Teddy or John or Paul of anything except smoking a little dope at Tasha Anayuk’s Saturday-night party.” Not lately, anyway, he thought. “In the meantim
e, in spite of someone’s best efforts, it doesn’t look like your machine is going anywhere. Get your security cameras fixed or hire a security guard or both, and maybe we’ll catch them in the act next time.”

  “Next time! I don’t want there to be a next time! And where the hell am I supposed to hire a security guard in Newenham?”

  “Job Service in Anchorage always has clients looking for employment,” Liam said, and tipped his flat-brimmed Mountie hat in grave salute on his way back to the Blazer.

  “Job Service! Sure, if I wanted hire a moron who-” The rest of Brewster Gibbons’ words were cut off when Liam’s door closed.

  “All the same,” Prince said when he put it in gear, “it probably was Teddy or John or Paul. Or Art Inga and Dave Iverson. Or-”

  “Probably,” Liam agreed. “Which is why we’re going over to John’s to say hi.”

  “Did I mention that I have a hot date tonight?” Prince wondered out loud. “And that I’m already late?”

  “Did I mention that so do I, and so am I, and that I’ve got a better chance of getting laid at the end of it than you do?” Liam said, wondering if it was true.

  “Just a passing comment,” Prince said, and slumped in her seat with a sigh.

  Liam pulled out onto the road and put the Blazer into a skid over the icy ruts. The road looked like his life. He hit the gas and powered out of the skid, the rear wheels missing the ditch by a hair. Next to him Prince let out a pent-up breath.

  Things had cooled off considerably between Liam and Wy since John Barton’s offer to bring Liam back to Anchorage. It was the difference between fire and ice, and ice, as the poet foretold, for destruction was also great and would suffice. He knew it was partly his fault; he was holding both Wy and Tim in limbo, which made him feel guilty. He was pissing off John Barton, too, who was calling on average once a day before breakfast to bellow down the line for Liam to shit or get off the pot in tones clearly audible all over Wy’s house. The job wasn’t helping much, either. He and Prince had been hard at it for a solid month, responding to a series of burglaries, robberies and assaults aggravated by the rapidly weakening economy. It was the first practical lesson Liam had learned in the practice of law enforcement: It was easy to obey the law when your kids had full bellies. He understood, but it was not comforting to watch the lives of the people under his protection fall apart. Especially while he seemed to be helpless to stop the deterioration of his own.