Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  change my mind, I'll try to let you know first."

  "Feeling better these days?"

  "Some days. Ready now?"

  Ken squared his shoulders. "Yeah, thanks." He stepped over. "Can I touch him? Move him at all?"

  He had the photographs and had outlined the body in crime scene tape for lack of something better.

  So he nodded.

  Leaning down, Ken lifted one of Max's hands. Pinched the skin. "I'd do better if I could get him to the clinic, strip the body, do a more thorough exam."

  "You'll get your chance. Give me an approximation."

  "Well, digging back into my student days, and figuring the temperature of the room, the state of rigor, I'd guess between eight and twelve hours. That's really rough, Nate."

  "So, that would be somewhere between nine p.m and one a.m. Good enough. We might be able to close that in some with Carrie's statement. I'm going to send Peter for a body bag. I need you to put the body somewhere secure—and cold."

  "I've got the area we use as a makeshift morgue when we have a death."

  "That'll work. I don't want you talking about this to anyone. Keep him under wraps until I get there."

  He supervised the transfer of the body, made a printout of the note on the computer before shutting it down. Once he'd locked the doors, he started back to the station.

  Hopp ran him down.

  "I need to know what the holy hell is going on."

  "I'm still working that out. What I can tell you is that Max Hawbaker was found dead at his desk at the paper, apparently from a gunshot wound to the head. Possibly self-inflicted."

  "Oh, God. Oh, goddamn it. Possibly?" She trotted to keep up with him and plucked at his sleeve when he outdistanced her. "What do you mean possibly? You think he was murdered?"

  "I didn't say that. I'm looking into it, Hopp. The State Police have been notified and will be here in a few hours. When I have answers, I'll let you know. Let me do my job." He hauled open the door of the station. And shut it in her face.

  He took the time in the Arctic entry to pull off his gear and try to clear his mind. The sun was up now, and the day as clear as the forecasters had promised.

  They'd be heading up to retrieve Galloway today, he thought. And maybe, they'd be flying in to pick up the body of his killer. Two for one.

  He'd see about that.

  He opened the inner door and found John sitting in one of the wait chairs, reading a paperback copy of Watership Down. John got to his feet, stuffed the book in his back pocket without marking his place. "Peach has Carrie back in your office. Otto's with Jim back in a cell. Not locked up," he added quickly. Then sighed. "Hard to think."

  "Otto get your statement?"

  "Yes. There wasn't that much to tell. I left The Lodge, took a walk, heading to school. I saw Jim and Carrie, stopped for a minute to talk to them. Carrie had breakfast in a bag—and the light was on in Max's office. You could see the backwash of it through the window. She went in, and Jim and I stood there another couple minutes talking. He was going to pick up some bait. Going fishing. He likes to rib me about it because I don't hunt or fish."

  He began to rub the left side of his jaw as if it ached. "Next thing we knew, Carrie's screaming. We ran in, and we saw him. Saw Max."

  He closed his eyes, drew a couple of breaths. "I'm sorry. I've never seen anyone dead before—not until they were . . . prepared for viewing."

  "Take your time."

  "I, ah, I pulled Carrie back. Didn't know what else to do. Yanked her away, and I said, 'Jim, the chief's at The Lodge. Go get him.' Carrie was hysterical. I sat her down, held her down at first because she wanted to go back to Max. Then I got her some water and just stayed there until you came in. That's it."

  "Any of you go in the room?"

  "No. Well, Carrie was just inside the room. She was standing maybe, I don't know, a step or two inside. She was holding a paper plate in each hand. She'd dropped the sandwiches and was just standing there screaming, with a plate in each hand."

  "How long between the time you heard her screaming and the time you reached her?"

  "Maybe thirty seconds. Nate, she sounded like someone was carving her up with a knife. We both reacted. We were through the door fast. Probably less than thirty."

  "Okay. I may need to talk to you again, and the State cop who's coming in will want to. Stay reachable. And I'd like to keep this quiet. Not much chance of it, but I'd like to."

  "I'm going to go on into school." He checked his watch in an absent gesture. "Already late, but maybe it'll keep my mind off it. I'll be there most of the day."

  "Appreciate the help."

  "He always seemed so harmless," John said as he reached for his coat. "Benign, if you know what I mean. Always looking for a story in a place like this. Town gossip, local color, births. Deaths. I'd have said he was a contented man, running his little paper, raising his children."

  "Hard to see under the surface sometimes."

  "No doubt about it."

  He went in to Jim next, corroborated John's story. Once he'd sent the man on his way, Nate sat down on the bunk next to Otto.

  "I've got Peter down at the clinic. I'm going to leave him there for now. He's a little shaken, and I was hard on him. I need you to start a canvass. Work your way out from the paper, talk to people who live nearby. Ask if anyone heard a gunshot last night. We're working on between nine p.m. and one a.m.. right now. I want to know if anyone saw Max or anyone else around the building. When, where, who.

  If they heard a car, if they heard voices, if they heard or saw any damn thing, I want to know."

  "State coming in?"

  "Yeah."

  Otto's face settled into bulldog lines. "I don't think that's right."

  "Right or not, that's the way it is. Give Peter an hour, then pull him in to work the canvass with you.

  Ken can be trusted to keep the body locked away. Did you talk to Carrie?"

  "Tried to. Didn't get much."

  "It's all right. I'll talk to her now." He rose. "Otto, did Max know Patrick Galloway?"

  "I don't know." He frowned. "Yeah, sure he did. It's hard remembering back that far. But it seems to me Max came along the summer before Pat disappeared. Was murdered," he corrected. "Max worked for a paper in Anchorage and decided he wanted his own rag, small-town deal. That's the story, anyway."

  "Okay. Start the canvass."

  As Nate approached his office door, he thought he heard singing. Crooning, he corrected, the way you might croon to a baby. Opening his door, he saw Carrie stretched out on a blanket on the floor, her head pillowed in Peach's ample lap. Peach stroked her hair and crooned.

  She looked up when Nate entered. "Best I could do," she murmured. "Poor thing's broken to bits. Sleeping now. I, ah, happened to find some Xanax in your desk drawer. I cut one in half for her."

  He had to ignore the twist of embarrassment. "I need to talk to her."

  "Hate to wake her up. Still, she should be a little calmer than she was when Otto tried. You want me to stay?"

  "No, but don't go far."

  When he sat on the floor, Peach closed a hand over his wrist. "I guess I don't have to tell you to be gentle. You'd know, and you've got that in you. But all the same . . . " She trailed off, stroked Carrie's cheek. "Carrie? Sweetie, you need to wake up now."

  Carrie opened her eyes, and they were unfocused and dull. "What is it?"

  "Nate's got to talk to you, baby. Can you sit up?"

  "I don't understand." She rubbed her eyes like a child. "I had a dream . . . " She focused on Nate now, and those eyes filled. "Not a dream. Max. My Max." When her voice broke, Nate took her hand.

  "I'm sorry, Carrie. I know this is hard, and I'm sorry. You want some water? Anything?"

  "No. No. There's nothing." She pushed herself up, buried her face in her hands. "There's nothing."

  Nate rose, helped Peach struggle her way to her feet. "I'll be right outside if you need me," she said and went out, closing the d
oor quietly behind her.

  "Do you want a chair, or do you want to stay where you are?"

  "I feel like I'm still in a dream. Everything's floating inside my head."

  He decided the floor would do, and he sat again. "Carrie, I need to ask you some questions. Look at me. What time did Max leave the house last night?" .

  "I don't know. I didn't know he was gone until I got up this morning. I was annoyed. He always leaves me a note on the pillow when he goes in to work at night or early in the morning."

  "When did you see him last?"

  "I saw—this morning—I saw—"

  "No." He took her hand again, tried to lead her away from that im-age. "Before. Was he home for dinner?"

  "Yes. We had chili. Max made it. He likes to brag about his chili. We all had dinner together."

  "What did you do then?"

  "We watched TV. Or I did. The kids watched a little, then Stella got on the phone with one of her friends, and Alex got on his computer. Max was restless. He said he was going to read a book, but he wasn't. I asked him what was up, and he was irritable with me."

  A tear spilled over, tracked a lonely line down her cheek. "He said he

  was working something out, and couldn't I leave him the hell alone for five minutes. We got snappy with each other. Later, when the kids were in bed, he said he was sorry. He had something on his mind. But I was still mad and shrugged him off. We hardly spoke to each other when we went to bed."

  "What time was that?"

  "About ten-thirty, I guess. But no, that's not right. I went up to bed then, and he muttered something about staying up to watch CNN or something. I didn't pay attention because I was annoyed. I went up to bed early because I was mad and didn't want to be with him. Now he's gone."

  "He was still home at ten-thirty. You didn't hear him leave?"

  "I just went straight to bed. I fell asleep. When I got up this morning, I knew he hadn't come to bed.

  He always pulls the sheets out from the bottom of the mattress. Drives me crazy. I thought maybe he'd been sulky and slept on the couch, but he wasn't there. I got the kids off to Ginny's. It was her turn to drive them in. Oh, my God. My God, the kids."

  "Don't worry. They're being looked after. I'm going to get all of you home once we're done here.

  You went into town."

  "I decided to forgive him. You can't stay mad at Max. And I was going to make him an appointment for a checkup. He's been off his feed for the last few days. I stopped to get us some breakfast, then I drove to the paper. I saw Jim and John, then I went in and found him. I found him. How could anybody hurt Max that way?"

  "Carrie, did he ever leave the back door of the paper unlocked?"

  "All the time. He never remembered to lock up. Why bother, he'd say. If somebody really wanted to get in, they'd just kick the door in anyway."

  "Did he own a handgun?"

  "Sure. A few of them. Everybody does."

  "A .22? A .22 Browning pistol."

  "Yes. Yes. I need to get my kids."

  "In a minute. Where did he keep that gun?"

  "That one? In the glove compartment of his truck. He liked to use it to target shoot, mostly. Sometimes he'd like to stop on the way home from work and shoot a few cans. Working out a story idea, he'd say."

  "Did he ever say anything to you about Patrick Galloway?"

  "Of course. Everybody's talking about Galloway these days."

  "I mean specifically. About himself and Galloway."

  "Why would he? They only knew each other for a little while before Pat left."

  Nate weighed his options. She was next-of-kin and had to be told. It might as well be now. "There was a note written on his computer."

  She knuckled at tears. "What kind of a note?"

  Nate rose again, opened the file he'd put on his desk. "I'm going to let you read a copy of it. It's not going to be easy, Carrie."

  "I want to see it now."

  Nate handed it to her, waited. He saw what little color that had come back into her face drain off again. But her eyes, rather than going dull with shock, went hot.

  "This is wrong. This is crazy. This is a lie!" As if to prove it, she sprang to her feet and ripped the printout into shreds. "This is a terrible lie, and you should be ashamed. My Max never hurt a living soul in his life. How dare you? How dare you try to say he killed someone and killed himself."

  "I'm just showing you what was on his computer."

  "And I'm telling you it's a lie. Somebody killed my husband, and you'd better do your job and find out who did this. Whoever hurt my Max put this lie on there, and if you believe it for one second, you can go to hell."

  She ran out of the room, and seconds later, he heard her fractured weeping.

  He slipped out, saw her enveloped in Peach's arms. "See that she and her kids get home," he said quietly, then eased back into his office.

  For a time he just stood, studying the torn shreds of paper on the floor.

  Fourteen

  Hopp kept an office at Town Hall. It wasn't much bigger than a broom closet and was furnished in that same haphazard style, but since Nate wanted to keep the meeting formal, he arranged to meet her there.

  As she was wearing full makeup and a dark suit, he figured they were on the same page..

  "Chief Burke." The words were two quick bites, the gesture of her hand toward a chair a short jab.

  He could smell the coffee from the mug on her desk, and the pot behind her on the short counter was nearly full. He wasn't asked to help himself.

  "I'm going to apologize for being abrupt with you this morning," he began, "but you got in my way at the wrong time."

  "I'll remind you that you work for me."

  "I work for the people of this town. And one of them's stretched out on a table in our part-time morgue. That means he's my priority, mayor. You're not."

  The mouth she'd painted a bold crimson tightened. He heard her long, hissing inhale, and the slow expulsion of air. "Be that as it may, I am mayor of this town, which makes its residents my chief concern as well. I was hardly sniffing around for gossip and resent being treated as if I were."

  "And be that as it may, I had a job to do. Part of that was the full intention of giving you a report once I'd completed my preliminary. Which I'm prepared to do now."