Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  "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."

  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 snow-shoeing, 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 ringers 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.

  Beside him the dogs quivered, then bunched, then leaped from snow to ice. They sprawled and slid and barked in utter and obvious joy when the door opened. Meg jumped down, her boots ringing. She squatted, allowed herself to be licked while she energetically rubbed fur. When she straightened, she grabbed a pack out of the plane. And only then did she look at Nate.

  "Somebody else crash fenders?" she called out.

  "Not that I know of."

  With the dogs dancing around her, she crossed the short span of ice, climbed up the slight slope of snow. "Been here long?"

  "Few minutes."

  "Your blood's still too thin to handle this cold. Let's go inside."

  "Where were you?"

  "Oh, here and there. Picked up a party a few days ago. They've been shooting caribou—photographically. Took them back to Anchorage today. Just in time," she added with a glance toward the sky. "Got a storm coming in. Air was getting very interesting."

  "Do you get scared up there?"

  "No. But I've gotten pretty interested from time to time." Inside the entry, she pulled off her parka.