[Dalyia]

The walls were painted industrial beige, the floors were speckled

linoleum. A squat woodstove stood in the back right corner. On it a big
cast-iron kettle chugged steam from its spout.
There were two metal desks, kissing each other on the right side of
the room, and a line of plastic chairs, a low table with magazines
arranged on the other. Along the back wall ranged a counter topped
with a two-way, a computer and ceramic tabletop Christmas tree in a
green that nature never intended.
He noted the doors on either side of it, the bulletin board where
notes and notices were pinned.
And the three people who were pretending not to stare at him.
He assumed the two men were his deputies. One looked barely old
enough to vote, and the other looked old enough to have voted for
Kennedy. Both wore heavy wool pants, sturdy boots, and flannel shirts
with badges pinned to them.
The younger one was native Alaskan, with black, ruler-straight hair
falling nearly to his shoulders, deep-set almond-shaped eyes dark as
midnight, and a painfully young, innocent look to his fine-boned face.
The older was wind-burned, crew cut, sagging in the jowls, and was
squinting out of faded, blue eyes fanned by deep grooves. His thick
build contrasted with the delicacy of his counterpart. Nate thought he
might be ex-military.
The woman was round as a berry, with plump pink cheeks and a generous
bosom under a pink sweater embroidered with white snowflakes.
Her salt-and-pepper hair was braided into a top-of-the-head bun. She
had a pencil sticking out of it and a plate of sticky buns in her hands.
“Well, the gang’s all here. Chief Ignatious Burke, this is your staff.
Deputy Otto Gruber.”
Crew cut stepped forward, held out a hand. “Chief.”
“Deputy Gruber.”

“Deputy Peter Notti.”
“Chief Burke.”
Something in the hesitant smile rang a bell. “Deputy, are you and
Rose related?”
“Yes, sir. She’s my sister.”
“And last but not least, your dispatcher, secretary and bearer of cinnamon
buns, Marietta Peach.”
“Happy you’re here, Chief Burke.” Her voice was as southern as a
mint julep sipped on a veranda. “Hope you’re feeling better.”
“Fine. Thank you, Ms. Peach.”
“I’m going to show the chief the rest of the station, then I’ll leave you
all to get acquainted. Ignatious, why don’t we take a look at your . . .
guest quarters.”
She led the way through the door on the right. There were two cells,
both with bunk-style cots. The walls looked freshly painted, the floor
recently scrubbed. He smelled Lysol.
There were no tenants.
“These get much use?” Nate asked her.
“Drunks and disorderlies, primarily. You have to be pretty drunk and
disorderly to warrant a night in jail in Lunacy. You’re going to see some
assaults, occasional vandalism, but that one’s mostly from bored kids. I’ll
let your staff give you the lowdown on crime in Lunacy.We don’t have
a lawyer, so if somebody wants one bad enough, they have to call down
to Anchorage or over to Fairbanks, unless they know one somewhere
else.We do have a retired judge, but he’s more likely to be off ice fishing
than answering legal questions.”
“Okay.”
“Boy, you going to keep talking my ear off ?”
“I never could learn to keep my mouth shut.”

With a half-chuckle, she shook her head. “Let’s take a look at your
office.”
They cut back through the main area where everyone was pretending
to work. On the other side of Ms. Peach’s counter, just through the
doorway, stood the weapons cabinet. He counted six shotguns, five rifles,
eight handguns and four wicked-looking knives.
He tucked his hands in his pockets, pursed his lips. “What? No
broadsword?”
“Pays to be prepared.”
“Yeah. For the coming invasion.”
She only smiled and walked through the door next to the cabinet.
“Here’s your office.”
It was about ten feet square with a window behind a gray metal desk.
The desk held a computer, a phone and a black gooseneck lamp. Two
file cabinets were shoved against the side wall with a short counter running
beside them. It held a coffeemaker—already full—and two brown
stoneware mugs, a basket with packaged creamer and sugar. There was
a corkboard—empty—two folding chairs for visitors and pegs for hanging
coats.
The lights mirroring against the black window glass made it seem all
the more impersonal and foreign.
“Peach loaded up your desk, but if you need anything else, supply
cabinet’s down the hall. John’s across from it.”
“Okay.”
“Got any questions?”
“I’ve got a lot of questions.”
“Why don’t you ask them?”
“All right. I’ll ask this one, since the rest fall down from it anyway.
Why’d you hire me?”

“Fair enough. Mind?” she said as she gestured to the coffeepot.
“Help yourself.”
She poured mugs for both of them, handed him one, then sat in one
of the folding chairs. “We needed a chief of police.”
“Maybe.”
“We’re small, we’re remote and we pretty much handle our own, but
that doesn’t mean we don’t need structure, Ignatious. That we don’t need
a line between the right and the wrong and somebody to stand on that
line. My man worked for that a lot of years before he sank his last puck.”
“And now you do.”
“That’s right. Now I do. Added to that, having our own police force
here means we keep on handling our own. Keep the Feds and the State
out of it.Town like this can get ignored because of what it is and where
it is. But we got a police force here now, a fire department.We’ve got a
good school, good lodge, a weekly newspaper, a radio station.Weather
comes in and cuts us off, we know how to be self-sufficient. But we need
order, and this building and the people in it are symbols of that order.”
“You hired a symbol.”
“On one hand, that’s just what I did.” Her nut-brown eyes held his.
“People feel more secure with symbols. On the other, I expect you to do
your job, and a big part of the job, besides keeping order, is community
relations—which is why I took the time to show you some of the town’s
businesses, give you names of who runs what. There’s more. Bing’s got a
garage, fix any engine you bring in, and he runs heavy equipment.
Snowplow, backhoe. Lunatic Air runs cargo and people, and brings
supplies into town, takes them into the bush.”
“Lunatic Air.”
“That’s Meg for you,” Hopp said with a half-smile. “We’re on the
edge of the Interior here, and we’ve built ourselves up from a settlement

of boomers and hippies and badasses to a solid town. You’ll get to know
the people of that town, the relationships, the grudges and the connections.
Then you’ll know how to handle them.”
“Which brings me back.Why did you hire me? Why not somebody
who knows all that already?”
“Seems to me somebody who knew all that already might come into
this job with an agenda of his or her own. Grudges, connections of his
or her own. Bring somebody from Outside, they come in fresh. You’re
young; that weighed in your favor. You don’t have a wife and children
who might not take to the life here and pressure you to go back to the
Lower

48. You’ve got over ten years experience with the police. You had
the qualifications I was looking for—and you didn’t haggle over the
salary.”
“I see your point, but there’s the other side. I don’t know what the
hell I’m doing.”
“Mmm.” She finished off her coffee. “You strike me as a bright
young man. You’ll figure it out. Now.” She pushed to her feet. “I’m going
to let you get started. Meeting’s at two, Town Hall. You’re going to
want to say a few words.”
“Oh boy.”
“One more thing.” She dug in her pocket, pulled out a box. “You’ll
need this.” Opening it, she took out the silver star, then pinned it to his
shirt. “See you at two, chief.”
He stood where he was, in the center of the room, contemplating his
coffee as he heard the muted voices outside. He didn’t know what he
was doing—that was God’s truth—so the best he could think of was to
mark some sort of beginning and go from there.