Northern Lights - Nora Roberts

[Dalyia]

“Sure you could. Then I’d add stealing police property to the mix.”
Jim sulked some more. He was a bony man of about thirty, with a
shaggy mop of brown hair, a narrow face sunken at the cheeks. His eyes
were brown, with the left puffing up nicely from one of those shortarmed
punches. His lip was split and continued to dribble blood.
“I don’t like you,” he decided.
“That’s not against the law. Disturbing the peace, destroying property,
assault. Those are.”
“ ’Round here, a man wants to pound on his fool of a brother, it’s his
business.”
“Not anymore. ’Round here, these days, a man’s going to show respect
for private property, and public property. He’s going to show
respect for duly designated officers of the law.”
“Peter? That little shithead.”
“That’s Deputy Shithead now.”
Jim blew a sighing breath that had blood spitting out along with the
air. “Christ’s sake, I’ve known him since before he was born.”
“When he’s wearing a badge, and he tells you to settle down, you settle,
whether or not you’ve known him in vitro.”
Jim managed to look both interested and baffled. “I don’t know what
the hell you’re talking about.”
“I get that.” He glanced over as Peach came in.
“Got the first-aid kit and an ice pack.” She flipped the ice pack to
Jim, set the kit on the desk in front of Nate. Then she fisted her hands
on her hips. “Jim Mackie, you just don’t grow any smarter, do you?”
“It was Bill started it.” Flushing, he pressed the ice pack to his bleeding
lip.
“So you say.Where is Bill?”
“Peter’s bringing him along,” Nate said. “When he wakes up.”
Peach sniffed. “Your mother’s likely to blacken your other eye when
she has to bail you out.”With that prediction, she walked out, snapped
the door closed.

“

Jeez! You’re not going to put me in jail for punching my own

brother.”
“I could. Maybe I’ll cut you some slack, seeing as this is my first day
on the job.” Nate leaned back. “What were you fighting about?”
“Okay, listen to this.” Gearing up for his own defense, Jim slapped
his hands on his knees. “That brainless jackass said how

Stagecoach was

the best Western ever made when everybody knows it’s

Red River.”

Nate said nothing for a long moment. “That’s it?”
“Well,

Christ’s sake! ”

“Just want to be clear.You and your brother whaled on each other because
you disagreed about the relative merits of

Stagecoach versus Red

River

in the John Wayne oeuvre.”

“In his what?”
“You were fighting over John Wayne movies.”
Jim shifted on his seat. “Guess.We’ll settle up with Charlene. Can I
go now?”
“You’ll settle up with Charlene, and you’ll pay a fine of a hundred
dollars

each for creating a public nuisance.”

“Oh hell now. You can’t—”
“I can.” Nate leaned forward, and Jim got a good look at cool, quiet
gray eyes that made him want to squirm in his seat. “Jim, listen to what
I’m saying to you. I don’t want you or Bill fighting in The Lodge. Anywhere
else for that matter, but for just this minute, we’ll pinpoint The
Lodge. There’s a young boy who spends most of his day there.”
“Well, hell, Rose always takes Jesse back in the kitchen if there’s a
ruckus. Me and Bill, we wouldn’t do nothing to hurt that kid. We’re
just, you know, high-spirited.”
“You’ll have to lower those spirits when you’re in town.”
“A hundred dollars?”
“You can pay Peach, within the next twenty-four hours. You don’t,
I’m going to double the fine for every day you’re late meeting the terms.
If you don’t want to pay the fine, you can spend the next three days in
our fine accommodations here.”
“We’ll pay it.” He muttered, shifted, sighed. “But Christ’s sake.

Stagecoach.

”

“Personally, I like

Rio Bravo.”

Jim opened his mouth, shut it again.Obviously he took a moment to
consider the consequences. “It’s a damn good movie,” he said after a
moment, “but it ain’t no

Red River.”


if nuisance calls

were to be the norm,Nate considered he might

have made the right decision in coming to Lunacy. Sibling brawls were
probably his top speed these days.
He wasn’t looking for challenges.
The Mackie brothers hadn’t posed one. His round with Bill had
gone along the same lines as his round with Jim, though Bill had argued
passionately, and with considerable articulation, regarding

Stagecoach.


He hadn’t seemed nearly as upset at being punched in the face as he was
about having his favorite movie dissed.
Peter stuck his head in the door. “Chief ? Charlene says you should
come over and have lunch on the house.”
“I appreciate that, but I’ve got to get ready for this meeting.” And
he hadn’t missed the gleam in Charlene’s eyes when he’d hauled off
Jim Mackie. “I’d like you to follow this one through, Peter. Go on over
there, get a list of damages and replacement costs from Charlene. See
that the Mackie boys get it, and pay the freight within forty-eight
hours.”
“Sure thing. You handled that real slick, chief.”
“Wasn’t much to handle. I’m going to write the report. I’m going to
want you to look it over, add anything you feel necessary.”
He looked around when he heard a window-rattling roar. “Earthquake?
Volcano? Nuclear war?”
“Beaver,” Peter told him.
“I don’t care if it is Alaska, you don’t have beavers big enough to
sound like that.”
With an appreciative laugh, Peter gestured to the window. “Meg
Galloway’s plane. It’s a Beaver. She’s bringing in supplies.”
Swiveling around,Nate caught sight of the red plane, one that looked
the size of a toy to him. Recalling he’d actually flown on one of about
the same size, he felt the little pitch in the belly and turned away again.
Grateful for the distraction, he pressed his intercom button when it
buzzed. “Yes, Peach.”
“A couple of kids pitching ice balls at the school windows. Broke one
before they ran off.”
“We got ID?”
“Yes indeed. All three of them.”
He considered a moment, worked down the order of things. “See if
Otto can take it.”
He looked back at Pete. “Question?”
“No. No, sir.” Then he grinned. “Just nice to be doing, that’s all.”
“Yeah. Doing’s good.”
He kept himself busy doing until it was time to leave for the meeting.
They were primarily housekeeping and organizational chores, but it
helped Nate feel as if he was making his place.

[Dalyia]

For however long the place was his.
He’d signed on for a year, but both he and the town council had a
sixty-day grace period when either side could opt out.
It steadied him to know he could leave tomorrow if he chose. Or next
week. If he

was here at the end of two months, he should know if he’d
stick for the term of contract.
He opted to walk to Town Hall. It seemed wimpy somehow to drive
so short a distance.
The sky was a clear, hard blue that had the white mass of mountains
standing against it as if etched with a thin, sharp knife. The temperatures
hovered at inhuman, but he saw a couple of kids burst out of The
Corner Store with candy bars in their fists just as kids everywhere burst
out of doors with candy. Full of greed and anticipation.
The minute they raced down the sidewalk, hands appeared at the
door to turn the Open sign around to Closed.
More cars and trucks were parked on the street now, and others easing
along the snow-packed road.
It looked like they’d have a full house at the town meeting.
He felt a quick twist in his gut, one he recognized from his public
speaking course in college. A hideous mistake as an elective. Live and
learn.
He enjoyed a reasonable amount of conversation. Give him a suspect
to interrogate, a witness to interview, no problem—or it hadn’t been
once upon a time. But ask him to stand up in front of an audience of
some sort and speak in coherent sentences? Flop sweat was already
snaking a line down his back.
Just get through it, he ordered himself. Get through the next hour,
and you’ll never have to do this again. Probably.
He stepped inside, into heat and a hubbub of voices. A number of

people stood around a lobby area dominated by the biggest fish Nate
had ever seen. He was baffled enough to focus on it, wonder if it was,
perhaps, some sort of small, mutant whale—and how in God’s name
someone had caught it much less managed to mount it to the wall.
The distraction saved him from worrying overmuch about the number
of people looking in his direction, and the number already inside the
meeting area, sitting on folding chairs and facing a stage and lectern.
“King salmon,” Hopp said from behind him.
He kept staring at the enormous silver fish that showed its black
gums in a kind of sneer. “

That’s a salmon? I’ve eaten salmon. I’ve had
salmon in restaurants. They’re like this big.” He held out his hands to
measure.
“You haven’t eaten Alaskan king salmon, then. But truth to tell, this
one’s a big son of a bitch. My husband caught it. Came in at ninety-two
pounds, two ounces. Short of the state record, but a hell of a prize.”
“What did he use? A forklift?”
She let out her foghorn laugh, slapped him merrily on the shoulder.
“You fish?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“Got nothing against it, just never have.” He turned then, and his
brows shot up. She’d decked herself out in a sharp-looking business suit
with tiny black and white checks. There were pearls at her ears, and a
slick coat of red lipstick on her mouth.
“You look . . . impressive, mayor.”
“A two-hundred-year-old redwood looks impressive.”
“Well, I was going to say you look hot, but I thought it would be
inappropriate.”
She smiled broadly. “You’re a clever boy, Ignatious.”

“Not really. Not so much.”
“If I can look hot, you can be clever. It’s all presentation. Now why
don’t we get this show on the road by me introducing you to the town
council members. Then we’ll do our little speeches.” She took his arm
the way a woman might as she led a man through a cocktail party crowd.
“Heard you dealt with the Mackie brothers already.”
“Just a little disagreement over Westerns.”
“I like those Clint Eastwood movies, myself. The early ones. Ed
Woolcott, come over here and meet our new chief of police.”
He met Woolcott, a tough-looking man in his fifties who gave Nate’s
hand a politician’s shake. His hair was gray and full, brushed back from
a craggy face. A tiny, white scar cut through his left eyebrow.
“I run the bank,” he told Nate—which explained the navy blue suit
and pinstriped tie. “I expect you’ll be opening an account with us shortly.”
“I’ll have to take care of that.”
“We’re not here to drum up business, Ed. Let me finish showing
Ignatious off.”
He met Deb and Harry Miner, who ran The Corner Store, Alan B.
Royce, the retired judge,Walter Notti, Peter’s father, musher and sleddog
breeder—all of whom were on the town council.
“Ken Darby, our doctor, will be along when he can.”
“That’s okay. It’s going to take a while to keep this all straight anyway.”
Then there was Bess Mackie—a beanpole with a shock of hennacolored
hair who planted herself in front of him, crossed her arms over
her thin chest and sniffed.
“You roust my boys today?”
“Yes, ma’am, you could say that.”
She drew another sharp breath through her thin nostrils, nodded twice.
“Good.Next time, you knock their heads together, save me the trouble.”

It was, Nate decided as she strode off to find a seat, a warm enough
welcome, considering.
Hopp worked him toward the stage where chairs were set up for her
and Nate, and for Woolcott who served as deputy mayor.
“Deb’s going to start things off with some town business, announcements
and such,” Hopp explained. “Then Ed’ll have his say, introduce
me. I’ll have mine, introduce you. After you say your piece, we’ll close it
down. Might be some questions here and there.”
Nate felt his stomach sink. “Okay.”
She motioned him to a chair, took her own, then nodded at Deb
Miner.
Deb, a stocky woman with a pretty face framed by wispy blond hair,
stepped onto the stage, took her place behind the lectern.
The mike buzzed and squeaked while she adjusted it, and her throat
clearing could be heard echoing through the hall. “Afternoon, everybody.
Before we get to our main business, I have some announcements.
The New Year’s Eve celebration at The Lodge is going to get rolling
about nine o’clock. Live music’s provided by The Caribous. We’ll be
passing the hat for the entertainment, so don’t be stingy. The school’s
holding a spaghetti supper a week from Friday, proceeds going to the
uniform fund for the hockey team.We got a good chance at making regional
champs, so let’s put the team in uniforms we can be proud of.
They start serving at five. Dinner includes the entree, a salad, a roll and
a soft drink. Adults six dollars, children six to twelve, four dollars. Under
six eat free.”
She went from there to details about an upcoming movie night being
held at Town Hall.Nate listened with half an ear, tried not to obsess
about his turn at the mike.
Then he saw her walk in.

The red parka, and something about the way she moved told him he
was looking at the same woman he’d seen out his window the night before.
Her hood was back, and she wore a black watch cap over her hair.
A lot of black, straight hair.
Her face seemed very pale against the two strong colors, her cheekbones
very high in that black frame. Even across the hall he could see
her eyes were blue. A bright, glacial blue.
She carried a canvas satchel over her shoulder and wore baggy, mannish
trousers with scarred black boots.
Those icy blue eyes zeroed straight to his, held as she strode down
the center aisle formed by the folding chairs, then scooted into one beside
a whippily built man who looked to be Native.
They didn’t speak, but something told Nate they were—not intimate,
not physically—but in tune. She shrugged out of the parka while
Deb moved from movie night to announcements about the upcoming
hockey game.
Under the parka was an olive green sweater. Under the sweater, if
Nate was any judge, was a tough, athletic little body.
He was trying to decide if she was pretty. She shouldn’t have been—
her eyebrows were too straight, her nose a little crooked, her mouth was
top-heavy.
But even as he mentally listed the flaws, something stirred in his belly.
Interesting, was all he could think. He’d stayed away from women the
last several months, which, given his state of mind, hadn’t been a real
hardship. But this chilly-looking woman had his juices flowing again.
She opened the knapsack, took out a brown bag. And to Nate’s baffled
amusement dipped a hand in and came out with a fistful of popcorn.
She munched away, offering some to her seat companion while
Deb finished up the announcements.

[Dalyia]

While Ed took the lectern, made his comments about the town council
and the progress they’d made, the newcomer pulled a silver thermos
out of her sack, and poured what looked to be black coffee into its cup.
Who the hell was she? The daughter of the Native guy? The ages
were about right, but there was no family resemblance he could see.
She didn’t flush or flutter when he stared at her, but nibbled her
snack, sipped her coffee and stared right back.
There was applause as Hopp was introduced. With an effort, Nate
forced himself to put his head back in the game.
“I’m not going to waste time politicking up here.We decided to incorporate
our town because we want to take care of our own in the tradition
of our great state.We voted to build the police station, to form a
police department. Now we went through a lot of debating, a lot of hot
words on all sides and a lot of good, hard sense, too, on all sides. The upshot
was, we voted to bring in a man from Outside, a man with experience
and no connection to Lunacy. So he’d be fair, so he’d be smart, so
he’d enforce the law without prejudice and with equality. Proved that
much today when he slapped cuffs on Jim Mackie for wrestling around
with his brother at The Lodge.”
There were some chuckles over that, and the Mackie brothers, faces
battered, grinned from their chairs.
“Fined us, too,” Jim called out.
“And that’s two hundred in the town coffers.Way you two carry on,
you’ll pay for the new fire truck we’re wanting by yourselves. Ignatious
Burke comes to us from Baltimore, Maryland, where he served on the
Baltimore Police Department for eleven years, eight of those years as
detective.We’re lucky to have somebody with Chief Burke’s qualifications
looking after us Lunatics. So put your hands together and welcome
our new chief of police.”
As they did, Nate thought: Oh, shit, and pushed himself to his feet.
He stepped toward the lectern, his mind as blank as a fresh blackboard.
And from the crowd, someone called out, “Cheechako.”
There were murmurs, mutters and a rise of voices poised on argument.
The irritation that spiked through him carved away the nerves.

“That’s right, I am. Cheechako.An Outsider.Fresh from the Lower

The murmurs quieted as he scanned the crowd.

“Most of what I know about Alaska I got out of a guidebook or off
the Internet or from movies. I don’t know much more about this town
except it’s damn cold, the Mackie brothers like to pound each other and
you’ve got a view that’ll stop a man’s heart in his chest. But I know how
to be a cop, and that’s why I’m here.”
Used to know, he thought. Used to know how. And his palms went
damp.
He was going to fumble—he could feel it—then his gaze met those
glacier blue eyes of the woman in red. Her lips curved, just a little, and
her eyes stayed on his as she lifted the silver cup to sip.
He heard himself speak. Maybe it was just to her. “It’s my job to protect
and serve this town, and that’s what I’ll do. Maybe you’ll resent me,
coming from Outside and telling you what you can’t do, but we’ll all
have to get used to it. I’ll do my best. You’re the ones who’ll decide if
that’s good enough. That’s it.”
There was a sprinkling of applause, then it grew.Nate found his gaze
locked with the blue-eyed woman’s again. His stomach knotted, unknotted,
knotted up again as that top-heavy mouth tipped up at one
corner in an odd little smile.
He heard Hopp adjourn the meeting. Several people surged forward
to speak to him, and he lost the woman in the crowd.When he caught
sight of her again, it was to see the red parka heading out the back doors.
“Who was that?” He eased back until he could touch Hopp’s arm.
“The woman who came in late—red parka, black hair, blue eyes.”
“That would be Meg. Meg Galloway. Charlene’s girl.”
she’d wanted a good look

at him, a better look than the one

she’d caught the day before when he’d stood in the window looking like

the brooding and bitter hero of some gothic novel.
He was good-looking enough for the part, she decided, but up close
he seemed more sad than bitter.
Too bad really. Bitter was more her style.
He’d handled himself, she’d give him that. Rolled with the insult—
that asshole Bing—said his piece and after a little hitch, moved on.
She supposed if they had to have a police force poking around Lunacy,
they could’ve done worse. Didn’t matter to her, as long as he didn’t
stick his nose in her business.
Since she was in town, she decided to run a few errands, load up on
supplies.
She saw the Closed sign on The Corner Store, sighed heavily. Then
fished her ring of keys out of her bag. She found the one marked CS,
then let herself in.
Grabbing a couple of boxes, she began to work her way through the
aisle.Dry cereal, pasta, eggs, canned goods, toilet paper, flour, sugar. She
dumped one box on the counter, filled the second.
She was hauling over a fifty-pound bag of Dog Chow when the door
opened, and Nate walked in.
“They’re closed,” Meg huffed out as she set the bag on the floor by
the counter.
“So I see.”
“If you see they’re closed, what’re you doing in here?”
“Funny. That was my question.”
“Need stuff.” She walked behind the counter, picked out a couple of
boxes of ammo to add to her box.
“Figured that, but generally when people who need stuff take it from
a closed store it’s called stealing.”
“I’ve heard that.” From under the counter she took a large record book,
flipped through. “I bet they arrest people for that down the Lower

“They do. Regularly.”

“You intend to implement that policy here in Lunacy?”
“I do. Regularly.”
She gave a quick laugh—the fog to Hopp’s foghorn—found a pen
and began writing in the book. “Well, just let me finish up here, then
you can take me in. That’ll be three arrests for you today. Gotta be a
record.”
He leaned on the counter, noted that she was neatly listing all the
items in her two boxes. “Be wasting my time.”
“Yeah, but we got plenty of that around here. Damn, forgot the Murphy’s.
You mind? Murphy’s Oil Soap, right over there.”
“Sure.” He walked over, scanned the contents on the shelves and
picked up a bottle. “I saw you last night, out my window.”
She wrote down the Murphy’s. “I saw you back.”
“You’re a bush pilot.”
“I’m a lot of things.” Her gaze lifted to his. “That’s one of them.”
“What else are you?”
“Big city cop like you should be able to find that out quick enough.”
“Got some of it. You cook. Got a dog. Probably a couple good-sized
dogs. You like your own space. You’re honest, at least when it suits you.
You like your coffee black and plenty of butter on your popcorn.”
“Not much of a scratch on the surface.” She tapped the pen against
the book. “You looking to scratch some more, Chief Burke?”
Direct, he thought. He’d left out direct. So he’d be direct back.
“Thinking about it.”
She smiled the way she had in the hall, with the right corner of her
mouth lifting before the left. “Charlene jumped you yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m wondering if you got Charlene’s special welcome to Lunacy last
night.”
He wasn’t sure which irritated him more, the question or the cool
way she watched him as she asked. “No.”
“Not your type?”
“Not so much, no. And I’m not real comfortable discussing your
mother this way.”
“Got sensitivity, do you? Don’t worry about it. Everybody knows
Charlene likes to rattle the headboard with every good-looking man
comes through here. Thing is, I tend to steer clear of her leftovers. But
seeing the way it is, for now, maybe I’ll give you a chance to scratch.”
She closed the book, replaced it. “Want to give me a hand loading
this stuff into the truck?”
“Sure. But I thought you flew in.”
“Did. A friend and I switched modes of transportation.”
“Okay.” He hauled the dog food bag over his shoulder.
She had a brawny red pickup outside, with a tarp, camping gear,
snowshoes and a couple of cans of gas already in the bed. There was a
gun rack in the cab, loaded with a shotgun and a rifle.
“You hunt?” he asked her.
“Depends on the game.” She slapped the gate of the truck bed into
place, then just grinned at him. “What the hell are you doing here,
Chief Burke?”
“Nate. And I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“Fair enough. Maybe I’ll see you New Year’s Eve.We’ll see how we
socialize.”
She climbed into the truck, turned the key. Aerosmith blasted out
about the same old song and dance, and she pulled into the street. She
headed west, where the sun was already sliding behind the peaks, turning
them flaming gold while the light went soft with twilight.
It was three-fifteen in the afternoon.

[Dalyia]

journal entry

. February 14, 1988

Fucking cold.We’re not talking about it, or we’ll go crazy, but I’ll write
about it here. Then I can look back one day—maybe in July, when I’m
sitting out with a beer, covered in bug dope and slapping at the sparrowsized
mosquitoes—and staring out at this white bitch.
I’ll know I was here, that I did it. And that beer will taste all the
sweeter.
But right now it’s February, and July’s a century away. The bitch
rules.
Wind’s taking us down to thirty or forty below. Once you’re down
that far, it doesn’t seem like a few degrees one way or another matters.
Cold broke one of the lanterns and snapped the zipper on my parka.
With night lasting sixteen hours, we make and break camp in the
dark. Taking a piss becomes an exercise in exhaustion and misery. Still
our spirits are holding, for the most part.
You can’t buy this kind of experience.When the cold is like broken
glass lacerating your throat, you know you’re alive in a way you can only
be alive on a mountain.When you risk a moment outside shelter and

see the northern lights, so brilliant, so electric that you think you could
reach up and grab some of that shimmering green and pull it inside
yourself for a charge, you know you don’t want to be alive anywhere else.
Our progress is slow, but we’re not giving up on the goal of reaching
the summit. We were slowed by avalanche debris. I wondered how
many had camped there, under what is now buried and barren, and
how soon the mountain will shift or shimmy and bury the snow cave
we fought to hack into her.
We had a short, screaming argument over how to circumvent the debris.
I took the lead.We spent what seemed like two lifetimes getting
through and around it, but it couldn’t have been done any faster, no
matter what anyone else thinks. It’s a hazardous area, known as Quicksand
Pass because the glacier’s moving under you. You can’t see it, can’t
feel it, but she’s slipping and sliding her way under you. And she can
suck you down, because beneath that world of white are crevices just
waiting to make themselves your coffin.
We picked our way up Lonely Ridge, ice axes ringing, frost clinging
to our eyelashes, and after battling our way around Satan’s Chimney,
had lunch on a picnic blanket of untouched snow.
The sun was a ball of gold ice.
I risked a few pictures, but was afraid the cold would break the camera.
There was little grace but plenty of passion in the post-lunch climb.
Maybe it was the speed we’d popped for dessert, but we kicked and
cursed the mountain and each other. We beat steps into the snow for
what seemed like hours, while that golden ball began to sink and turn a
vicious, violent orange, that set fire to the snow. Then left us in the killing
dark.
We used our headlamps to give us enough light to chop a tent ledge

into the ice.We’re camped here, listening to the wind blow like a storm
surf through the night, easing our exhaustion with some prime weed
and the success of the day.
We’ve taken to calling one another by code names from

Star Wars.

We’re now Han, Luke and Darth. I’m Luke.We entertained ourselves
pretending we were on the ice planet Hoth, on a mission to destroy an
Empire stronghold. Of course, that means Darth’s working against us,
but that adds to the fun.
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
We made good progress today, but we’re getting jumpy. It felt good
to carve my ice ax into No Name’s belly, inching my way up her. There
was a lot of shouting, insults—motivational at first, then turning on an
edge as ice chunks rained down. Darth took some in the face, and
cursed me for the next hour.
For a minute today I thought he was going to lose it and try to
bloody my face as I had his. Even now I can feel him stewing about it,
boring the occasional dirty look at the back of my head while Han’s
snoring starts to compete with the wind.
He’ll get over it.We’re a team, and each one of us has the others’ lives
in his hands. So he’ll get over it when we start climbing again.
Maybe we should ease off the speed, but a couple of pops gives you a
nice rush and helps beat off the cold and fatigue.
There’s nothing like this in the world. The blinding sparkle of snow,
the sound of axes slapping ice, or squeaking through snow, the scrape of
crampon on rock, the free-falling wonder of the rope, and watching the
ice fire with sunset.
Even now, huddled in the tent as I write this, my belly roiling from
our dinner of freeze-dried stew, my body aching from the abuse, and

fear of frostbite and death gnawing like a rat at the back of my brain, I
wouldn’t be anywhere else.

by seven, nate figured

he’d put in a long enough day. He carried
a radio phone with him. If anyone called the station after hours, the call
would be bounced to his phone.
He’d have preferred eating in his room, alone, in the quiet, so his
brain could unclog from all the details jammed into it throughout the
day. And because he’d prefer alone.
But he wasn’t going to get anywhere in this town by secluding himself,
so he slid into an empty booth in The Lodge.
He could hear the crack of pool balls, and the whining country on
the juke from the next room. Several men were hoisted on bar stools,
downing beers while they watched a hockey game on television. The
eating area was more than half full with a waitress he’d yet to meet serving
and clearing.
The man Hopp had introduced as The Professor wound his way
through tables to Nate’s booth.
He wore his tweed jacket with Ulysses tucked in the pocket, and carried
a mug of beer. “Mind if I join you?”
“Go ahead.”
“John Malmont. You’re after a drink, you’d get it faster going to
the bar. You’re after food, Cissy’ll work her way around here in a
minute.”
“Food’s what I want, no hurry. Place is busy tonight. Is that usual?”
“Only two places you can get hot food you don’t have to cook yourself.
Only one you can get hard liquor.”

“Well, that answers that.”
“Lunatics are a fairly social lot—with each other, in any case. Add
the holidays, you get full tables. Halibut’s good tonight.”
“Yeah?” Nate picked up the menu. “You lived here long?”
“Sixteen years now. Pittsburgh, originally,” he said, anticipating the
question. “Taught at Carnegie Mellon.”
“What did you teach?”
“English literature to ambitious young minds. Many of whom enjoyed
the smug position of dissecting and critiquing the long-dead white
men they’d come to study.”
“And now?”
“Now I teach literature and composition to bored teenagers, many of
whom would prefer to be groping one another rather than exploring the
wonders of the written word.”
“Hey, Professor.”
“Cissy. Chief Burke, meet Cecilia Fisher.”
“Nice to meet you, Cissy.” She was skinny as a broomstick with
short, spiky hair in several shades of red, and a silver ring pierced into
her left eyebrow.
She offered him a sunny smile. “You, too.What can I get for you?”
“I’ll have the halibut. I hear it’s good.”
“Sure is.” She started scribbling on her pad. “How do you want it
cooked?”
“Grilled?”
“Fine. You get a house salad with that, choice of dressing. House
dressing’s real special. Big Mike makes it himself.”
“That’d be fine.”
“Got your choice of baked potato, mashed potato, fries, wild rice.”

“I’ll take the rice.”
“Get you a drink?”
“Coffee, thanks.”
“I’ll be right back with that.”
“Nice girl,” John commented, giving his glasses a quick polish with a
snowy white handkerchief. “Came into town a couple years ago, hanging
out with a bunch here to do some climbing. Boy she was with
slapped her around, dumped her out with nothing but her knapsack.
She didn’t have the money to get home—said she wasn’t going back
anyhow. Charlene gave her a room and a job.”
He sipped his beer. “Boy came back for her a week later. Charlene
ran him off.”
“Charlene?”
“Keeps an over-and-under back in the kitchen. The boy decided
to leave town without Cissy after looking down those barrels for a
minute.” John turned his head, and the amusement in his eyes turned to
longing—just for an instant.
Nate saw the object of it gliding across the room with a coffeepot.
“Look at this. The two handsomest men in Lunacy at the same
table.” Charlene poured Nate’s coffee, then slid cozily into the booth
beside him. “And what would you two be talking about?”
“A beautiful woman, naturally.” John picked up his beer. “Enjoy your
dinner, chief.”
“So . . .” Charlene angled her body so her breast brushed Nate’s arm.
“What woman would that be?”
“John was telling me how Cissy came to be working for you.”
“Oh?” She traced her tongue over her freshly slicked bottom lip. “You
got your eye on my waitress, Nate?”

“Only with the hope she brings my dinner out soon.” He couldn’t
scoot away without looking, and feeling, like an idiot. He couldn’t move
without bumping up against some part of her body. “The Mackie brothers
pay you damages yet?”
“They came in about an hour ago, made it good. I want to thank you
for taking care of me, Nate. Makes me feel secure knowing you’re just a
phone call away.”
“Having an over-and-under in your kitchen ought to make you feel
pretty secure.”
“Well.” She dipped her head, smiled. “That’s really just for show.”
She angled her body closer, so that the come-get-me perfume seemed
to rise out of her cleavage. “It’s hard being a woman alone in a place like
this. Long winter nights. They get cold. And they get lonely. I like
knowing a man like you’s sleeping under the same roof. Maybe you and
I could keep each other company later.”
“Charlene. That’s . . . That’s an offer, all right.” Her hand slid up his
thigh. He grabbed her hand, pressed it on top of the table, even as he
went hard and hot. “Let’s just take a minute here.”
“I’m hoping it’ll take longer than a minute.”
“Ha ha.” If she kept rubbing that body against him, reminding him
how long he’d been celibate, he might not make the full sixty seconds.
“Charlene, I like you, and you’re a pleasure to look at, but I don’t think
it’d be a good idea for us to . . . keep each other company. I’m just feeling
my way around here.”
“Me, too.” She twined a lock of his hair around her finger. “You get
restless tonight, you just give me a call. I’ll show you what I mean about
this being a full-service establishment.”
She kept her baby blues on him as she wiggled out of the booth—
and managed to slide her hand suggestively along his thigh again. Nate
waited until she’d crossed the room in that hip-rolling gait before he let
out a hoarse whistle of breath.

[Dalyia]

he didn’t sleep well.

The mother-daughter tag team kept him
churned up and edgy. And the dark was endless and complete. A primitive
dark that urged a man to burrow in a warm cave—with a warm
woman.
He kept a light burning late—read through town ordinances by it,
brooded by it, and ultimately slept by it until the alarm shrilled.
He started off the day as he had the one before, breakfasting with little
Jesse.
It was routine he wanted. More than routine, he craved a rut where
he wouldn’t have to think, one that got deeper and deeper so he didn’t
have to see what was beyond it. He could go through the motions here,
handling minor disputes, easing through the day with the same faces,
the same voices, the same tasks repeating like a loop.
He could be the mouse on the wheel. And maybe the ridiculous cold
would keep him from decomposing. That way no one would know he
was already dead.
He liked sitting in his office, hours on end, juggling among Otto,
Peter and himself the scatter of calls that came in.When he went out
on one, he took one of the deputies with him to let him fill in background
and set the rhythm.
He was getting a handle on his staff, in any case. Peter was twentythree,
had lived in the area all of his life, and appeared to know
everyone. He also appeared to be liked by everyone who knew him.
Otto—staff sergeant, USMC, retired—had come to Alaska for the
hunting and fishing. Eighteen years before, after his first divorce, he’d

decided to make it his permanent home. He had three grown children
in the Lower

48, and four grandchildren.
He’d married again—some blonde with a bustline bigger than her
IQ , according to Peach—and had divorced again in under two years.
Both he and Bing had considered themselves qualified for the position
Nate now held. But while Bing had gotten pissy about the town
council’s decision to bring in an Outsider, Otto—perhaps more accustomed
to taking orders—had accepted the job as deputy.
As for Peach herself, the source of most of his information, she’d
lived more than thirty years in Alaska, ever since she’d eloped with a
boy from Macon and hightailed it with him to Sitka. He’d died on her,
poor lamb, lost at sea on a fishing trawler less than six months after the
elopement.
She’d married again and had lived with husband number two—a
strapping, handsome grizzly bear of a man who’d taken her into the
bush where they’d lived off the land, with occasional forays into the
fledgling town of Lunacy.
When he’d died on her, too—went through the overflow on the lake
and froze to death before he could get back to their cabin—she’d packed
up and moved to Lunacy.
She’d married again, but that was a mistake, and she kicked his drunk,
cheating ass all the way back to North Dakota, where he’d come from.
She’d consider husband number four, should the right candidate
come along.
Peach gave him tidbits on others. Ed Woolcott would’ve liked the
job of mayor, but he’d have to cool his heels until Hopp decided she’d
had enough. His wife, Arlene, was snooty, but then she came from
money, so it wasn’t surprising.

Like Peter, Bing had lived here all of his life, the son of a Russian
father and a Norwegian mother. His mother had run off with a piano
player in ’

74, when Bing had been about thirteen. His father—and that
man could down a pint of vodka at one sitting—had gone back to Russia
about twelve years later and taken Bing’s younger sister,Nadia, with him.
Rumor was she was pregnant, and there’d been whispers the father
had been married.
Rose’s husband, David, worked as a guide, a damn good one, and did
odd jobs when he had time on his hands.
Harry and Deb had two kids—the boy was giving them some
trouble—and Deb ruled the roost.
There was more. Peach always had more. Nate figured in a week,
maybe two, he’d know whatever he needed to know about Lunacy and
its population. Then the work would be another routine digging itself
into a comfortable rut.
But whenever he stood at his window, watched the sun rise over the
mountains, sheening it with gold, he felt that spark simmer inside him.
The little flare of heat that told him there was still life in him.
Afraid it would spread, he’d turn away to face the blank wall.
On his third day, Nate dealt with a vehicular accident involving a
pickup, an SUV and a moose. The moose got the best of the bargain and
stood about fifty yards from the tangle of metal as if watching the show.
Since it was the first time Nate had seen an actual moose—bigger
and uglier than he’d imagined—he was more interested in it than the
two men currently bitching at each other and passing blame.
It was eight-twenty a.m. and black as pitch out on the road the locals
called Lake Drive.
He had the deputy mayor and a mountain guide named Hawley go-

ing nose to nose, a Ford Explorer tipped into a ditch with its wheelbase
buried in the snow, its hood crinkled like an accordion, and a Chevy
pickup lying on its side as if it had decided to take a nap.
Both men had blood on their faces and mayhem in their eyes.
“Settle down.” Deliberately, Nate shined his flashlight into the eyes of
each man in turn. Both, he noted, were going to need stitches. “I said settle
down! We’ll sort this out in a minute.Otto? Anybody got a tow truck?”
“Bing’s got one. He’s the one handles this sort of thing.”
“Well, give him a call. Get him out here to haul these vehicles into
town. I want them off the road ASAP. They’re a hazard. Now . . .”
He turned back to the men. “Which one of you can tell me what
happened in a calm, coherent manner?”
They both started to rant at once, but since he smelled the whiskey
fumes on Hawley, he held up a hand, then pointed at Ed Woolcott.
“You start.”
“I was driving into work, in a reasonable and safe manner—”
“Load of bullshit,” Hawley commented.
“You’ll get your turn. Mr.Woolcott?”
“I saw the headlights coming toward me, entirely too fast for safety.”
Even as Hawley opened his mouth, Nate stabbed a finger at him.
“Then the moose came out of nowhere. I slowed and swerved to avoid
collision, and the next thing I know, this, this

heap is barreling down on
me. I tried to cut over to the side of the road, but he, he aimed at me.Next
thing I know, he ran me off the road, crashed my car. That car’s only six
months old! He was driving recklessly, and he’s been drinking.”
With a sharp nod, Ed folded his arms and glowered.
“Okay.”
“Bing’s heading out,” Otto announced.
“Good. Mr.Woolcott, why don’t you step over there, give your state-

ment to Otto. Hawley?” Nate jerked his head, wandered over to the
pickup. And stood there a moment exchanging baleful glances with the
moose. “You been drinking?”
Hawley stood about five-eight and sported a golden brown beard.
The blood that had trickled down from the gash on his jaw had frozen.
“Well, sure, I had a couple of belts.”
“It’s shy of nine

a.m.”
“Shit. Been ice fishing. I don’t pay attention to what the hell the time
of day is. I got some good fish in the cooler in my truck. I was heading
home to store them, get something to eat and turn in. Then bankerman
sees a damn moose in the road and goes into a tailspin. He’s all over the
damn road, doing doughnuts, and the moose is standing there—they’re
brainless animals, you ask me—and I have to swerve.Went into a little
skid, and Woolcott spun right into me.We smashed, and this is where
we ended up.”
It had been a long time since he’d been on Traffic, and he’d never had
to do an accident reconstruction in the dark, in the snow, at somewhere
under zero degrees. But when he played his light over the road, studied
the tracks, Hawley’s version hit closer to home.
“Fact is, you’ve been drinking.We’re going to have to do a sobriety
test. You insured?”
“Yeah, but—”
“We’ll sort it out,” Nate repeated. “Let’s get out of the cold.”
Nate drove back to town with Hawley and Ed sitting, stonily silent,
in the back. He pulled off at the clinic, left Otto with them while they
got patched up and went back to the station for a Breathalyzer.
While he was there, he called up the driving records of both parties.
Working out the solution in his head, he carted the Breathalyzer back
to the clinic.

There were a couple people in the waiting room. A young woman
with a sleeping baby, an old man wearing dirt brown coveralls and gnawing
on a pipe.
There was a woman sitting at a chair behind a low counter. She was
reading a paperback novel with a mostly naked couple in passionate embrace
on the cover. But she looked up when he entered.
“Chief Burke?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Joanna. Doc said you could come on back when you got here, if you
want. He’s in exam room one doing Hawley.Nita’s in two, stitching Ed.”
“Otto?”
“He’s using the office. Checking on Bing and the tow.”
“I’ll take Hawley.Which way’s that?”
“I’ll show you.” She marked her book with a shiny foil tab, then got
up to lead him to the door directly to her right. “Right in there.” She
gestured, then gave a quick knock. “Doc? Chief Burke’s here.”
“Come on in.”
It was a standard exam room—table, little sink, rolling chair. The
doctor wore an open flannel shirt over a thermal, and glanced over from
his work on the cut over Hawley’s eye.
He was young, mid-thirties, trim and fit-looking, with a sandy beard
to go with the thatch of curly hair. He wore little round metal glasses
over green eyes.
“Ken Darby,” he said. “I’d shake hands, but they’re busy.”
“Nice to meet you. How’s the patient?”
“Few cuts and bruises. You’re a lucky bastard, Hawley.”
“Say that when you see my truck, goddamn it. That damn Ed drives
like an eighty-year-old city woman who lost her bifocals.”
“I’m going to need you to blow into this.”

Hawley eyed the Breathalyzer dubiously. “I ain’t drunk.”
“Then it won’t be a problem, will it?
Hawley grumbled but complied as Ken fixed a butterfly bandage on
the cut.
“Well, Hawley, you’re right on the edge here. Makes this a judgment
call for me as to whether or not I charge you with driving under the
influence.”
“Ah, crock of shit.”
“But the fact is, since you’re on the border here, and show no signs of
being under the influence, particularly, I’m going to issue you a warning
instead. Next time you go ice fishing and have a couple belts, you don’t
get behind the wheel.”
“Ain’t got no damn wheel to get behind.”
“Since I can’t write the moose a citation, your insurance company’s
going to have to battle it out with Ed’s. You’ve got a couple of speeding
tickets on your plate, Hawley.”
“Speed traps. Anchorage bastards.”
“Maybe. Once you get that wheel back, you keep your speed to the
posted limit and get yourself a designated driver when you’re drinking.
We’ll get along fine. Are you going to need a lift home?”
Hawley scratched his neck while Ken treated a scrape on his forehead.
“Guess I will. I need to take a look at my truck, talk to Bing.”
“Come by the station after you’re done.We’ll get you home.”
“Guess that’s fair as it gets.”

[Dalyia]

ed wasn’t as pleased

with the decision. He sat on the exam table,
the air bag burns scoring his cheeks, and his lip puffy from where he’d
bitten into it on impact.

“He’d been

drinking.”
“He was under the legal limit. The fact is, the culprit here’s a moose,
and I can’t give a ticket to the local wildlife. It comes down to bad luck.
Two vehicles meeting a moose on a stretch of road. You’re both insured,
which is more than the moose is, I’d expect. Neither one of you is seriously
injured. Comes down to it, you both got off lucky.”
“I don’t consider having my new car in a ditch and my face smashed
by an air bag lucky, Chief Burke.”
“I guess it’s a matter of perspective.”
Ed slid off the table, jerked up his chin. “And is this how we can expect
you to handle law enforcement in Lunacy?”
“Pretty much.”
“It seems to me we’re paying you to do little more than warm a seat
in your office.”
“I had to warm the seat in my vehicle to come out and look at the
wreck.”
“I don’t like your attitude. You can be sure I’m going to discuss this
incident and your behavior with the mayor.”
“Okay. Do you need a ride home or to the bank?”
“I can get myself where I’m going.”
“I’ll let you get there, then.”
He met up with Otto outside the exam room. Otto’s only sign of
having heard the conversation was a lift of eyebrows. But when they
walked out together, he cleared his throat.
“Didn’t make a friend there.”
“And I thought I was being so friendly.” Nate shrugged. “You can’t
expect a man to be in a cheery mood when his car’s smashed and he’s
getting his face sewn up.”
“Guess not. Ed’s a bit of a blowhard, and he likes to throw his weight

around. Got more money than anybody else in the borough and doesn’t
like you to forget it.”
“Good to know.”
“Hawley’s all right. He’s a good man in the bush, and he knows how
to climb. Colorful enough to please the tourists who want to take on a
mountain and keeps to himself most of the time. He drinks, but he
doesn’t drink himself drunk. My opinion? You handled that fair.”
“That matters.Appreciate it.You write this up,Otto? I think I’ll ride
out, check on the tow.”
Checking on the accident scene was an excuse, but nobody had to
know but himself.
He found Bing with a gnarled plug of a man working on digging the
SUV out of the ditch.Duty meant he had to stop, get out and walk over
to ask if they needed any more help.
“We know what we’re doing.” Bing tossed a shovelful of snow on
Nate’s boots.
“Then I’ll let you keep doing it.”
“Asshole,” Bing muttered under his breath as Nate walked back to
his car.
Nate turned, considered briefly. “Is asshole a step up or step down
from cheechako?”
The little man snorted out a laugh but only shoved the blade of his
shovel into the snow, leaned on it as Bing measured Nate. “Same damn
thing.”
“Just checking.”
Nate got back in the car and left Bing sneering after him.
He kept driving, away from town, around the sharp curve of the lake.
Meg lived out this way, he’d checked, and since he could see her
plane resting on the frozen surface, he was in the right place.

He turned into what looked like it might be a road hacked out of the
trees and bumped his way along it to a house.
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. The seclusion
wasn’t a surprise, nor were the heart-stopping views in all directions.
Those went with the territory.
But the house was pretty, a kind of sophisticated cabin, he supposed.
Wood and glass, covered porches, bright red shutters framing the
windows.
A walkway had been dug through the snow from drive to front
porch. He could see where other paths had been tramped down from
the house to outbuildings. One of those buildings, midway from the
house to the edge of the forest, rose on stilts.
On the porch was a neatly stacked mountain of split wood.
The sun was coming up now, gloriously, bathing the scene with that
eerie dawn. Smoke pumped out of three stone chimneys into the lightening
sky.
Fascinated, he shut off the engine.
And heard the music.
It filled the world. A strong, sweet female voice, twined around strings
and pipes lifted with sunrise over the endless white.
It soared over him when he stepped out of the truck and seemed to
come from the air or the earth or the sky.
Then he saw her—the sharp red of her parka, walking over the white,
away from the frozen lake with two dogs trotting beside her.
He didn’t call out to her, wasn’t sure he could have. There was a picture
here, and his mind clicked the shutter. The dark-haired woman in
red, wading through the pristine white with two beautiful dogs flanking
her, and the glory of the morning mountains at her back

The dogs saw, or scented, him first. Barking cut the air, sliced through
the soaring music. They shot toward him like two blurry gray bullets.
He considered leaping back into his truck and wondered if that
would cement his status as cheechako asshole.
There was always the possibility that his outer gear was thick enough
to protect his skin from canine teeth should it become an issue.
He stayed where he was, saying, good dogs, nice dogs, over and over
in his head like a mantra.
He braced for a leap, hoped it wouldn’t be at his throat. Both dogs
spewed snow into the air, then stopped a foot in front of him, bodies
quivering, teeth showing. Full alert.
Both pair of eyes were blue, ice crystal blue, like their mistress’s.
Nate’s breath streamed out, a cloud on the air. “Well, God,” he murmured.
“You’re a couple of beauties.”
“Rock! Bull!” Meg shouted out. “Friend.”
The dogs relaxed immediately and moved forward to sniff at him.
“Will they take my hand off if I touch them?” he called.
“Not now.”
Taking it on faith, he stroked a gloved hand over each head. Since
they seemed to enjoy it, he crouched down and gave them both a good
rub while they pressed against him.
“You got balls, Burke.”
“I was hoping that wouldn’t be the part they’d chomp on. Are they
sled dogs?”
“No.” Her cheeks were pink with cold when she reached him. “I’m
not a musher, but they come from a good line of them.They just live the
high life out here with me.”
“They have your eyes.”

“Maybe I was a husky in a former life.What’re you doing out here?”
“I was just . . . what’s that music?”
“Loreena McKennit. Like it?”
“It’s amazing. It’s like . . . God.”
She laughed. “You’re the first man I’ve met who’ll admit She’s a
woman. Out for a holiday drive?”
He straightened. “Holiday?”
“New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh. No. Had a little vehicular out on Lake Drive. I’m looking for
the primary witness. Maybe you’ve seen him. Big guy, four legs, funny
hat.” He made antlers out of his fingers.
Cutie, she wondered, why do your eyes look so sad even when you
smile? “As it happens, I’ve seen a couple of guys like that in the vicinity.”
“In that case, I should come in, take your statement.”
“I might enjoy having you take my statement, but it’ll have to wait.
I’ve got to fly. I was just bringing the dogs back, about to shut off my
music.”
“Where you going?”
“I’m taking some supplies into a village in the bush. I’ve got to move
if I want to get there and back before party time.” She cocked her head.
“Want to ride along?”
Nate glanced toward the plane and thought: In that? Not even for a
chance to sniff at your neck. “I’m on duty. Maybe another time.”
“Sure. Rock, Bull, home! Be right back,” she told Nate.
The dogs raced off, and Nate realized one of the outbuildings was an
elaborate doghouse, decorated with totem figures painted in a primitiveart
folksy style.
High life, all right.
Meg disappeared into the cabin. A moment later, the music shut off.

She came out again with a pack slung over her shoulder.
“See you, chief.We’ll see about you taking my statement sometime.”
“Looking forward to that. Fly safe.”
She tossed her hair back, hiked down to the plane.
He stayed, watching her.
She tossed the pack inside, climbed up.
He heard the engine catch, the stunning roar of it bursting through
the stillness. The prop whirled, and the plane began to skate over the
ice, circling it, circling, tipping onto one ski and circling until it lifted
off, nosed up and climbed.
He could see the red of her parka, the black of her hair, through the
cockpit window, then she was just a blur.
He tipped his head back as she circled, in the air now, and dipped a
wing in what he assumed was a salute.
Then she was spearing off, over the white, into the blue.

[Dalyia]

nate could hear

the celebration getting underway. Music—a
kind of jivey honky-tonk—piped up the stairs, even through the floor
vents of his room. Voices hummed, seemed to press against the walls
and floorboards. Laughter slapped out, as did the occasional thud he
took as dancing feet.
He sat alone, in the dark.
The depression had crashed down over him, without warning, without
a snicker. One minute he’d been sitting at his desk reading through files,
and the next the smothering black weight had dropped down on him.
It had happened that way before, with no vague sense of unease, no
creeping sadness. Just that swamping wave of black rolling him under.
Just that harsh switch from light to dark.
It wasn’t hopelessness. The concept of hope had to be a factor before
you could embrace its absence. It wasn’t grief or despair or anger. He
could have handled or battled any of those emotions.
It was a void. Immeasurable, black, airless, and it sucked him in.
He could function through it; he’d learned how. If you didn’t function,
people wouldn’t leave you alone and their concern and worry only
drove you deeper into the pit.

He could walk, talk, exist. But he couldn’t live. That’s how it felt to
him, when he was in the silky clutches of it. He felt like walking death.
The way he’d felt in the hospital after Jack, with the pain bubbling up
under the drugs, and the awareness of what had happened smearing the
path to oblivion.
But he could function.
He’d finished the day, locked up. He’d driven back to The Lodge,
walked up to his room. He’d spoken to people. He couldn’t remember
what or who, but he knew his mouth had moved, words had come out.
He’d gone up to his room, locked the door. And sat in the winter
black.
What the hell was he doing here, in this place? This cold, dark, empty
place? Was he so obvious, so pathetic, that he’d chosen this town of perpetual
winter because it so perfectly mirrored what was inside him?
What did he possibly expect to prove by coming here, pinning on a
badge and pretending he still cared enough to do a job? Hiding, that
was all he was doing. Hiding from what he was, what he’d been, what
he’d lost. But you couldn’t hide from what was with you, every minute
of every day, just waiting to leap out and laugh in your face.
He had the pills, of course. He’d brought them with him. Pills for
depression, pills for anxiety. Pills to help him sleep, down deep where
the nightmares couldn’t follow.
Pills he’d stopped taking because they made him feel less of who he
was than the depression or anxiety or insomnia.
He couldn’t go back, couldn’t go forward, so why not sink here?
Deeper and deeper, until eventually he couldn’t, wouldn’t, crawl out of the
void anymore. He knew, a part of him knew, he was comfortable there, all
settled into the dark and the empty, wallowing in his own misery.
Hell, he could set up housekeeping there, like one of the crazies liv-

ing in an empty refrigerator box under a bridge. Life was pretty simple
in a cardboard box, and nobody expected you to do anything.
He thought of the old saw about a tree falling in the woods and
twisted it around to suit himself. If he lost his mind in Lunacy, would
he ever have had it to lose?
He hated the part of him that thought that way, the part of him that
wanted to live there.
If he didn’t go down, someone would come up. That would be worse.
He cursed at the effort it took just to get to his feet. Had those little stirrings
inside him, those quick sparks of life been a kind of mocking?
Fate’s way of showing him what it was to be alive, before it kicked him
into the hole again?
Well, he still had enough anger to crawl out this time, this one more
time. He’d get through this night, this last night of the year.And if there
was nothing in the next, he sure as hell wasn’t any worse off.
But tonight he was on duty. He closed a hand over the badge he’d yet
to take off and knew it was ridiculous that a cheap piece of metal should
steady him. But he’d taken even that, and he’d go through the motions.
The light burned his eyes when he switched it on, and he had to deliberately
step away before he gave into the temptation to just turn it off
again. Just settle down in the dark again.
He went into the bath, ran the water cold. Then splashed it on his
face to fool himself into believing it washed away the fatigue that
snaked around the depression.
He studied himself in the mirror for a long time, searching for any
tells. But he saw an average guy, no worries. A little tired around the
eyes, maybe, a little hollow in the cheeks, but nothing major.
As long as everybody saw the same, that would be enough.

The noise washed over him when he opened his door. As with the
light, he had to force himself to move forward instead of retreating back
into his cave.
He’d given both Otto and Peter the night off. Eat, drink and be
merry. They both had friends and family, people to sweep out the old
with. Since Nate had been struggling to sweep out the old on his own
for months, he didn’t see why that should change tonight.
He carried the lead in his belly down the stairs.
The music was bright and better than he’d expected. And the place
was packed.Tables were rearranged to make dancing room, and the patrons
were taking advantage of it. Streamers and balloons festooned the
ceiling, and the dress of the people was just as celebratory.
He saw some of the old-timers in what Peach had described for him
as an Alaska tuxedo.They were sturdy work suits, cleaned up for the occasion.
Some were worn with bolo ties and, oddly, paper party hats.
Many of the women had fancied things up with sparkly dresses or
skirts, upswept hair, high heels. He saw Hopp, spruced up in a purple
cocktail dress dancing—fox-trot, two-step? Nate hadn’t a clue—with a
slicked-up Harry Miner. Rose sat on a high-backed stool behind the
bar, with the man he concluded was her husband, David, standing beside
her, gently rubbing the small of her back.
He saw her laugh at something the receptionist from the clinic said
to her. And he saw the way she looked up, met her husband’s eyes. He
saw the warmth of love beat between them, and he felt cold, felt alone.
He’d never had a woman look at him like that. Even when he’d been
married, the woman he’d thought was his had never looked at him with
that open, unrestricted love.
He looked away from them.

His eyes scanned the crowd as cop’s eyes do—measuring, detailing,
filing. It was the sort of thing that kept him apart, and he knew it. It was
the sort of thing he couldn’t stop doing.
He saw Ed, and the allegedly snooty Arlene. Mitch of KLUN, with
his streaky blond hair in a ponytail, and his arm around a girl who wasn’t
as pretty as he was. Ken was wearing a Hawaiian lei and having a lively
discussion with The Professor, who wore his usual tweed.
Fellowship, Nate thought. Some of it drunken at this point, but it
was still fellowship. And he was Outside.
He caught a hit of Charlene’s perfume, but she followed up on it too
fast for him to brace or evade. Curvy female was wrapped around him,
warm, glossy lips were sliding silky over his, with a sly hint of tongue.
His ass was stroked and squeezed, his bottom lip gently nipped.
Then Charlene slithered off, smiled sleepily at him. “Happy New
Year,Nate. That was just in case I can’t get my hands on you at midnight.”
He couldn’t quite form a word and was half afraid he might be blushing.
He wondered if her obvious, and inappropriate, come-on had
pushed embarrassment through the black.
“Just where have you been hiding?” She laced her arms around his
neck. “Party’s been in gear more than an hour, and you haven’t danced
with me.”
“I had . . . things.”
“Work, work, work.Why don’t you come play with me?”
“I need to speak with the mayor.” Please, God, help me.
“Oh, this isn’t the time for town politics. It’s a

party. Come on, dance
with me. Then we’ll have some champagne.”
“I really need to deal with this.” He put his hands on her hips, hoping
to nudge her back out of intimacy range, and searched the crowd for
Hopp—his savior. His gaze struck, and locked onto Meg’s.

She gave him that slow, two-step smile, and lifted the glass she held
in a mock toast.
Then dancing couples whirled in front of her, and she was gone.
“I’ll take a rain check. I—” He spotted a familiar face, and latched on
like a drowning man. “Otto. Charlene wants to dance.”
Before either of them could speak, Nate was beating a fast retreat.
He made it to the other side of the room before he risked taking a
breath.
“Funny, you don’t look like a coward.”
Meg stepped up beside him. She held two glasses now.
“Then looks are deceiving. She scares me to death.”
“I won’t say Charlene’s harmless, because she’s anything but. Still, if
you don’t want her tongue down your throat, you’re going to need to say
so. Loud, clear, in words of one syllable. Here. Got you a drink.”
“I’m on duty.”
She snorted. “I don’t think a glass of cheap champagne’s going to
change that. Hell, Burke. Just about every soul in Lunacy’s right here.”
“Got a point.” He took the glass, but he didn’t drink. He did, however,
manage to focus on her. She was wearing a dress. He supposed the
technical term was dress for the skin of hot red painted on her. It
showed off that tight, athletic body he’d imagined in ways that might
have been illegal in several jurisdictions. She’d left her hair down. Black
rain to milk-white shoulders. Sky-high heels the same color as the dress
showcased slim, muscular legs.
She smelled like cool, secret shadows.
“You look amazing.”
“I clean up good if the occasion warrants it. You, on the other hand,
look tired.” And wounded, she thought. That’s how he’d struck her
when she’d seen him come down the stairs. Like a man who knew there

was a huge, gaping wound somewhere on his body, but didn’t have the
energy to find it.
“Haven’t got the sleep pattern down yet.” He sipped the champagne.
It tasted like flavored soda water.
“Did you come down to relax and party or to stand around looking
dour and official?”
“Mostly door two.”
Meg shook her head. “Try the first for a while. See what happens.”
She reached out, unpinned his badge.
“Hey.”
“You need a shield, you can pull it out,” she said as she tucked it into
his front pocket. “Right now, let’s dance.”
“I don’t know how to do what they’re doing out there.”
“That’s okay. I’ll lead.”
She did just that and made him laugh. It felt rusty in his throat, but
lightened some of the weight. “Is the band local?”
“Everybody’s local. That’s Mindy on the piano. She teaches in the elementary
school. Pargo on the guitar. Works in the bank. Chuck’s on
fiddle. He’s a ranger in Denali. A Fed, but Chuck’s so affable we pretend
he’s got a real job. And Big Mike’s on drums. He’s the cook here. Are
you committing all that to memory?”
“Sorry?”
“I can see you tucking those names and faces into a file in your head.”
“Pays to remember.”
“Sometimes it pays to forget.” Her gaze flickered to the right. “I’m
being signalled. Max and Carrie Hawbaker. They run

The Lunatic, our
weekly paper.They’ve been out of town most of the week.They want an
interview with the new chief of police.”

[Dalyia]

“I thought this was a party.”
“They’ll just hunt you down the minute the music stops anyway.”
“Not if you sneak out with me, and we have our own party elsewhere.”
She shifted, looked straight into his eyes. “I might be interested, if
you meant that.”
“Why wouldn’t I mean it?”
“There’s the question. I’ll ask you sometime.”
She didn’t give him much choice as she angled around, waved. She was
pulling him along with her, to the edge of the impromptu dance floor. Introductions
were made, then she slipped away, leaving him trapped.
“Really good to meet you.” Max gave Nate’s hand an enthusiastic
shake. “Carrie and I just got back into town, so we haven’t had a chance
to welcome you. I’m going to want a piece of your time for an interview

for

The Lunatic.”

“We’ll have to work that out.”
“We could sit out in the lobby now, and—”
“Not now, Max.” Carrie beamed a smile. “No work tonight. But before
we get back to the party, I’d like to ask you, Chief Burke, if you’d
have any problem with us running a police log in the paper. I think it
would show the community what you do, how we handle things here.
Now that we’ve got an official police department, we want

The Lunatic

to document it.”
“You can get that information from Peach.”
Meg wound her way back to the bar, got another glass of champagne
before sliding onto a stool where she could watch the dancing while she
drank.
Charlene slid onto the one beside her. “I saw him first.”

Meg kept watching the dancers. “More who he sees, isn’t it?”
“You’re only looking at him because I want him.”
“Charlene, if it’s got a dick, you want it.” Meg tossed back champagne.
“And I’m not looking at him, particularly.” She smiled into her
glass. “Go ahead, make your play. It’s no skin off mine.”
“First

interesting man who’s come along in months.” Feeling chatty

now, Charlene leaned closer. “Do you know, he has breakfast with little
Jesse every morning? Isn’t that the sweetest thing? And you should’ve
seen the way he handled the Mackies. Plus, he’s got

mystery.” She

sighed. “I’m a sucker for a man with mystery.”
“You’re a sucker for a man as long as he can still get it up.”
Charlene’s mouth twisted in disgust. “Why do you have to be so
crude?”
“You sat down here to let me know you’re hoping to fuck the new
chief of police. You can put ribbons on it, Charlene, it’s still crude. I just
leave off the ribbons.”
“You’re just like your father.”
“So you always say,” Meg murmured as Charlene flounced away.
Hopp took Charlene’s stool. “The two of you would fight about how
much rain came down in the last shower.”
“That’s a little philosophical for us.What’re you drinking?”
“I was going to get another glass of that lousy champagne.”
“I’ll get it.” Meg walked around the bar, poured another glass and
topped off her own. “She wants to take a nice, greedy bite out of Burke.”
Hopp looked over at Nate, saw he’d managed to escape from the
Hawbakers only to be caught by Joe and Lara Wise.
“Their business.”
“Their business,” Meg agreed, and clinked her glass to Hopp’s.
“The fact that he looks to be more interested in taking one out of you
isn’t going to improve your relationship with your mother.”
“Nope.” Meg sipped, considering. “But it should make things exciting
for a while.” She saw Hopp cast her eyes to heaven and laughed. “I
can’t help it. I like trouble.”
“He would be.” Hopp turned on the stool when she saw Nate being
pulled onto the floor again by Charlene. “All that business about still
waters, blah blah. Those broody types can be hard to handle.”
“He’s about the saddest man I’ve ever seen. Sadder than that drifter
stopped in here a couple of years ago.What was his name? McKinnon.
Blew his brains out up in Hawley’s cache.”
“And wasn’t that a mess? Ignatious might be sad enough to put the
barrel of a .

45 in his mouth, but he’s got too much spine to pull the trigger.

Think he’s too polite, too.”
“That’s what you’re banking on?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m banking on. Well, hell. I’m going to do my
last good deed of the year and go save him from Charlene.”
Sad, polite men were anything but her type, Meg told herself. She
liked reckless men, careless men. Men who didn’t expect to stay the
night after. You could have a couple drinks with a man like that, tangle
up the sheets if the mood struck, then move on.
No bumps, no bruises.
A man like Ignatious Burke? A roll with him was bound to be
bumpy, and it was bound to leave bruises. Still, it might be worth it.
In any case, she liked conversations with him, and that couldn’t be
overvalued in her opinion. She could happily go days, weeks without
talking to another human being. So she appreciated interesting conversation.
And she liked watching the sorrow that haunted his eyes come
and go. She’d seen it lift a few times now.When he’d stood in front of
her house that morning, listening to Loreena McKennit, and again for
a few moments when they’d danced.
Sitting there now, with the music and the heat of humanity all
around her, she realized she wanted to see it lift again.And that she had
a good idea how to make it happen.
She went behind the bar, found an open bottle and two glasses.
Holding them down at her side, she slipped out of the room.
Hopp tapped Charlene briskly on the shoulder. “Sorry, Charlene, I
need an official moment with Chief Burke.”
Charlene only pressed closer to Nate. He wondered if she’d just pop
out the back of him. “Town Hall’s closed, Hopp.”
“Town Hall’s never closed. Come on now, let the boy out of that
stranglehold.”
“Oh, all right. I expect you to finish this dance, handsome.”
“Let’s find ourselves a corner, Ignatious.” Hopp waved people aside,
cut a swatch through the crowd. She hunkered down at a table someone
had pushed into the pool area. “Want a drink?”
“No, I think I want the back door.”
“You can run, but you can’t hide in a town this size. You’re going to
have to deal with her sooner or later.”
“Let’s go with later.” He wanted to go upstairs, back to the dark. His
head was pounding, his stomach queasy with the stress and effort of just
being.
“I didn’t just pull you away to break Charlene’s headlock. You’ve got
my deputy mayor well and truly pissed.”
“I know it. I handled that situation as seemed most prudent and
within the confines of the law.”
“I’m not questioning how you do your job, Ignatious.” She waved
that off as she’d waved off people. “I’m just giving you the facts. Ed’s
pompous, self-important and a pain in the ass more than half the time.
Still, he’s a good man and works hard for this town.”
“Doesn’t mean he can drive worth a damn.”
She grinned at that. “He’s always been a lousy driver. He’s also powerful,
rich and a grudge-holder. He won’t forget you crossed him on this
business. It might seem small potatoes to the type of thing you’re used
to dealing with, but in Lunacy, this was major.”
“I can’t be the first to cross him.”
“You’re not. Ed and I butt heads all the time. But the way he’d see
that, he and I are on equal footing. I might even have a leg up. You’re
Outside, and he expects you to kowtow some. On the other hand, if
you’d kowtowed, I’d have been very disappointed. Puts you between a
rock and a hard place.”
“I’ve been there before. Does kowtow really have anything to do
with cows?”
She stared for a moment, then barked out a laugh. “A polite and
sneaky way to tell me to mind my own. Before I do, let me add something.
Getting yourself caught between Charlene and Meg means that
rock and hard place are both going to be very hot, very sticky, and mean
as a demon from hell.”
“Then I’d better not get caught.”
“Good thinking.” Her eyebrows lifted when his cell phone beeped.
“Calls to the station get transferred to my personal,” he said as he
pulled it out of his pocket. “Burke.”
“Get your coat,” Meg said. “Meet me out front in five minutes. I’ve
got something I want to show you.”
“Sure. Okay.” He stuck the phone back in his pocket as Hopp
watched him. “It’s nothing. I think I’m going to duck out.”
“Mmm-hmm. Use the door there, go through the kitchen.”
“Thanks. And Happy New Year.”
“Same to you.” Hopp shook her head as he walked away. “Going to
be trouble.”
it took him

more than five minutes to get to his room, pile on his

gear, slip out, then walk around to the front of The Lodge. He was
halfway there when he realized he hadn’t been tempted to just lock the
door behind him and burrow back in the dark.
Maybe it was progress. Or maybe lust was stronger than situational
depression.
She was waiting, sitting on one of two folding chairs she’d set dead
center of the street.
The bottle of champagne was screwed into the snowpack. She
sipped from her glass, and a thick blanket covered her lap.
“You can’t sit out here in that dress even with your coat and the
blanket—”
“I changed. I always carry extra clothes in my pack.”
“Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing you in that dress again.”
“Another time, another place. Have a seat.”
“Okay.Why are we sitting outside in the street at . . . ten minutes to
midnight?”
“Not much for crowds. You?”
“Not really.”
“They can be fun for a while, on a special occasion. But it wears
thin for me after a few hours. Besides.” She handed him a glass. “This is
better.”
It amazed him the champagne wasn’t frozen solid. “I think it would
be better if we were inside, where frostbite isn’t a factor.”
“Not that cold out. No wind. Hovering around zero. Besides, you
can’t really see this from inside.”
“See what?”
“Look up, Lower

48.”

He looked where she pointed and lost his breath. “Holy God.”
“Yeah, I always thought it was holy. A natural phenom caused by latitude,
sunspots and so on. Scientific explanations don’t make it less
beautiful, or magical.”
The lights in the sky were green with shimmers of gold, hints of red.
The long, eerie streaks seemed to pulse and breathe, bathing the dark
with life.
“The northern lights show best in the winter, but it’s usually too damn
cold to appreciate them. Figured this was a good night for the exception.”
“I’ve heard of them. Seen pictures. It’s not like the pictures.”
“The best things never are. They show better out of town. Even better
when you’re camped up on one of the glaciers. One night when I was
about seven, my father and I hiked up into the mountains and camped
just so we could be up there to see.We lay on our backs for hours, damn
near freezing, and just watched the sky.”
The otherworldly green continued to shift, glow, expand, shimmer.
It was raining liquid jewels of color. “What happened to him?”
“You could say one day he took another hike and decided to keep going.
You got family?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, we won’t spoil this by telling our sad stories.We’ll just enjoy
the show.”
They sat in silence in the middle of the street, spindly chairs balanced
on the snowpack while the heavens flamed.
The flames sparked something inside him, stroked away the tension
headache, settled him on the ridge of wonder where he could breathe.
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.

[Dalyia]

the lunatic
Police Log

Monday, January

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

p.m. Sixteen-year-old male ticketed for reckless driving and excessive

horn blowing up and down Moose.

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 fold-
ing 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

’

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 smalltown
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.”

[Dalyia]

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 underestimated 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.
He knew what would happen if he stayed frozen. He got up, his
movements slow and controlled. He stepped out, picked up a two-way.
“I’ve got to be out awhile,” he told Peach. “Something comes up, you
can reach me on the two-way or my cell.”
“Weather’s coming in,” she told him. “Looks to be a bad one. You
don’t want to stray so far you’re not tucked back in by dinnertime.”
“I’ll be back.” He walked out into the entry, piled on his gear. He
kept his mind a blank as he got into his car and drove. He pulled over
again in front of Hopp’s house, walked to her door and knocked.
She answered, wearing a pair of reading glasses on a chain over her
thick corduroy shirt. “Ignatious. Come on in.”
“No, thanks. Don’t ever ambush me like that again.”
Her fingers ran up and down her eyeglass chain as she studied his
face. “Come in, we’ll talk.”
“That’s all I have to say. All I’m going to say.”
He turned, left her standing in the doorway.
He drove out of town, pulling over when he was clear of houses.
There were some people skating on the lake. He imagined they’d be
coming in soon, as the light was already going. Farther out on the plate
of ice was somebody’s ramshackle ice-fishing house.
He didn’t see Meg’s plane. He hadn’t seen her since they’d watched
the northern lights.
He should go back, do what he was paid to do. Even if what he was
paid to do wasn’t a hell of a lot. Instead, he found himself driving on.
When he reached Meg’s, her dogs were standing at alert, guarding

the house. He climbed out, waited to see what their policy on unexpected
company might be.
Their heads cocked, almost in unison, then they loped forward with
a friendly edge to their barks. After some leaping and circling, one of
them raced off toward the doghouse, bounded up the steps and through
the doorway. And came back carrying a huge bone in its mouth.
“What’s that from? A mastodon?”
It was gnarled and chewed and slobbered on, but Nate took it, deducing
the game, and hurled it like a javelin.
They took off, bumping and bashing each other like a couple of football
players racing for the pass. They dived into the snow, came up covered
with it. The bone was clamped in both of their jaws now. After a
quick and spirited tug-of-war, they pranced back as if they were harnessed
together.
“Teamwork, huh?” He took the bone again, hurled it again and
watched the replay.
He was on his fourth pass when the dogs raced away from him, making
beelines for the lake. Seconds later, he heard what they had. As the
rumble of engine grew, Nate followed the path of the dogs down to
the lake.
He saw the red flash and the dull glint of the lowering sun on the
glass.To Nate’s eye she seemed to be coming in too fast, too low. He expected
her skis to catch on the treetops at best, for her nose to crash into
the ice at worst.
The noise swallowed everything.With nerves dancing over his skin,
he watched her circle, angle, and slide down on the ice. Then there was
silence so complete he thought he could hear the air she’d displaced
sighing down again.