Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  She'd sketched in other houses, other businesses, and written the appropriate names across the buildings in her careful script.

  "Good work, Peach. What we're going to do now is set up a case board." He picked up his file and walked to the freestanding corkboard he'd borrowed from Town Hall. "Anything we get that applies to Galloway or Hawbaker gets copied. A copy gets pinned up to this board. The State's already gone through the paper, but, Otto, you and I are going over there and go through everything again, in case they missed something. Peach, I'm going to want to get inside the Hawbakers', go through Max's things there. Carrie's not going to be receptive to that, not for a while. Maybe you can try to smooth that way for me."

  "All right. It's sounding like you don't believe what it said in that note. And if you don't believe that—"

  "Best not to believe anything until you have all the details lined up," he interrupted. "Peter, I want you to contact the paper in Anchorage where Max worked. I want you to find out what he did there, who he did it for and with, and why he left. Then you type it all up in a report. Two copies. I want one on my desk before you leave today."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And all three of you have homework. You were here when Pat Galloway disappeared; I wasn't. So you're going to spend some time thinking back to the weeks before and after that event. Write down everything you remember, no matter how irrelevant it might seem. What you heard, what you saw, what you thought. Peter, I know you were a kid, but people don't always see kids, and they say things, do things around them without thinking."

  He finished pinning up the photographs, Galloway on one side of the board, Hawbaker on the other. "There's one vital piece of information I want. Where was Max Hawbaker when Galloway left town?"

  "Not that easy to pin that down, after all this time," Otto said. "And the fact is Galloway could've been killed a week after he left. Or a month. Or six damn months."

  "One step at a time."

  "Hard as it is to take when you've drunk beer and fished out of the same hole with somebody, if Max confessed to murder, then shot himself, what are we trying to prove?" Otto pressed.

  "That's supposition, Otto. It isn't fact. The facts are we've got two dead men, some sixteen years apart. Let's just work from there."

  * * *

  Nate didn't even stop by his room on the way out of town. There would be too many questions he couldn't, or wouldn't, answer waiting at The Lodge. Better to evade them until he'd worked out an official line.

  In any case, he wanted the open space, the frosty dark and the icy shine of the stars. The dark was beginning to suit him, he thought. He couldn't remember what it was like to begin or end his workday with any hint of the sun.

  He didn't want the sun. He wanted Meg.

  He had to be the one to tell her, the one to shake her world a second time. If, once he had, she tried to shut him out, he'd have to push to stay inside.

  He'd managed, with little effort, to close people out for months. He wasn't quite sure if the ease of his solitude had been because he'd been unable to hear people trying to break down the walls, or if there'd simply been no one who'd cared enough to try.

  Either way, he knew how painful it was to come back. How all those atrophied emotions and sensations burned and twisted as they struggled back to life. And he knew he cared enough to do whatever it took to spare her from that.

  And there was more. He could admit that as he drove alone, with only the rumble of the heater breaking the silence. He needed her knowledge, her memories of her father to fill in gaps in the picture he was creating.

  Because he needed the work, the headachy, exhausting, frustrating buzz of police work. Those muscles were flexing again, painfully. He wanted that pain. Needed it. Without it, he was afraid, very afraid, he'd just slide silently back into the numbness again.

  Lights were on in her house, but her plane wasn't there. He recognized the truck outside as Jacob's. A whip of worry slapped down his spine as he pushed out of his car.

  The door of the house opened. He saw Jacob in the stream of light an instant before the dogs flew out. Over their noisy greeting, he called out: "Meg?"

  "Picked up another job. She'll be camping out tonight in the bush with a hunting party she took in."

  "That typical?" Nate asked when he reached the porch.

  "Yes. I came to see to her dogs, and check the heat block on her car. That, too, is typical."

  "She called you then?"

  "Radioed. There's stew if you're hungry."

  "Wouldn't mind."

  Jacob walked back to the kitchen leaving Nate to close the door. The radio was on, tuned to KLUN.

  The dj announced a round of Buffy Sainte-Marie as Nate tossed his coat over the arm of a chair.

  "You've had a long day," Jacob commented as he spooned up stew.

  "You've heard, then."

  "Nothing travels swifter than bad news. A selfish last act, to take his own life so brutally, leaving his wife to find the shell. The stew's hot, the bread's good."

  "Thanks." Nate sat. "Was Max a selfish man?"

  "We all are, and most selfish when we despair."

  "Despair's personal, that's not necessarily the same as selfish. So, do you remember when Max came here to start the paper?"

  "He was young and eager. Persistent," Jacob added, and poured coffee for both of them.

  "Came here by himself."

  "Many do."

  "But he made friends."

  "Some do," Jacob said with a smile. "I wasn't one of them, particularly, though we weren't enemies. Carrie courted him. She set her sights on him and pursued. He wasn't handsome or rich or brilliant of mind, but she saw something and wanted it. Women often see what doesn't show."

  "Guy friends?"

  Jacob raised his eyebrows as he slowly sipped his coffee. "He seemed to be comfortable with many."

  "I heard he used to climb. You ever take him up?"

  "Yes. Summer climbs on Denali and Deborah, if I remember, when he first came. He was a fair climber. And once or twice I flew him and others into the bush for hunting parties, though he didn't hunt. He wrote in his book or took photographs. Other flights for other stories and photographs. I flew him and Carrie to Anchorage both times she was ready to deliver their children. Why?"

  "Curious. He ever climb with Galloway?"

  "I never took them together." Jacob's eyes were intense now. "Why would it matter?"

  "Curious, that's all. And since I'm curious, would you say Patrick Galloway was a selfish man?"

  "Yes."

  "Just yes?" Nate said after a moment. "No qualifications?"

  Jacob continued to drink his coffee. "You didn't ask for qualifications."

  "How'd he rate as a husband, a father?"

  "He was, at best, a poor husband." Jacob finished his coffee, turned to the sink to wash the mug.

  "But some would say he had a difficult wife."

  "Would you?"

  "I would say they were two people with a strong bond, who pulled and twisted that bond in their individual pursuits of opposing desires."

  "Would Meg be that bond?"

  Carefully, Jacob laid a cloth on the counter and the cup on it to dry. "A child is. They were no match for her."

  "Which means?"

  "She was brighter, stronger, more resilient, more generous than either of them."

  "More yours?"

  Jacob turned back, and there was nothing to read in his eyes. "Meg is her own. I'll leave you now."

  "Does Meg know what happened with Max?"

  "She didn't mention it. Neither did I."

  "She say when she thought she'd be back?"

  "She'll fly the party out the day after tomorrow, weather permitting."

  "You got any problem with me staying out here tonight?"

  "Would Meg?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Then why would I?"

  * * *

  He kept company with her dogs and made use of her fitness e
quipment. It felt good, better than he'd imagined, to pump iron again.

  He didn't intend to pry into her things, but when he was alone, Nate found himself wandering the house, poking into closets, peeking into drawers.

  He knew what he was looking for—pictures, letters, mementos that pertained to her father. He told himself if Meg had been there, she'd have given them to him.

  He found the photograph albums on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. Above a wardrobe that fascinated him with its mix of flannel and silk. Beside the album was a shoe box crammed with loose pictures she'd yet to organize.

  He sat down with them on the spare bed, opened the red cover of an album first.

  He recognized Patrick Galloway immediately in the snapshots behind the clear, sticky plastic. A younger Galloway than the one he'd seen in the digitals. Long-haired, bearded, dressed in the uniform of bell-bottom jeans, T-shirt and headband of the late sixties and early seventies.

  Nate studied one where Galloway leaned against a burly motorcycle, an ocean behind him, a palm tree to his right—and his hand lifted, fingers veed in the peace sign.

  Pre-Alaska, Nate thought. California, maybe.

  There were others of him alone, one with his face dreamy and lit by a campfire while he strummed an acoustical guitar. More of him with a very young Charlene. Her hair was long and blond and curling crazily, her eyes laughing behind blue-tinted sunglasses.

  She was beautiful, he realized. Seriously beautiful, with a streamlined body, soft, smooth cheeks, a full and sensual mouth. And couldn't have reached her eighteenth birthday by his estimation.

  There were several others—traveling photos, camping shots. Some were of one or both of them with other young people. A few urban pictures where he thought he recognized Seattle. Some, where Galloway was clean-shaven again, were taken inside an apartment or small house.

  Then he came across one with Galloway. The beard was back and he was leaning against a road sign.

  WELCOME TO ALASKA

  He could track their trail by the photos. Their time in the southeast of the state, working the canneries, he supposed.

  And he got his first glimpse of Meg—so to speak—with the photo of a hugely pregnant Charlene.

  She wore a skimpy halter and jeans cut below her enormous and naked belly. Her hands were cupped on the mound, protectively. She had the sweetest look on her face, a painfully young face, Nate thought, that radiated hope and happiness.

  There were photos of Patrick painting a room—the nursery—others of him building what looked like a cradle.

  Then, to Nate's shock, there were three pages of photos detailing labor and delivery.

  He'd worked Homicide and had seen, he considered, just about all there was to see. But the sight of those up-close images had the stew rolling dangerously in his belly.

  He flipped past them.

  The sight of baby Meg settled his stomach and made him grin. He wasted time skimming through those—or maybe not, he thought, as he could study the tender or joyful way one or both of the new parents held the child. The way they held each other.

  He could watch the seasons change, the years pass, as he moved to the next album. And he saw the young, pretty face of Charlene grow harder, leaner, the eyes less full of light.

  Photos per year began to diminish into those taken more on holidays, birthdays, special occasions.

  A very young Meg grinning gleefully as she hugged a puppy with a red bow around its neck. She and her father sitting under a straggly Christmas tree, or Meg by a river, arms full of a fish almost as big as she.

  There was one of Patrick and Jacob, arms slung around each other's shoulders. The shot was fuzzy and badly cropped, making Nate wonder if Meg had been behind the camera.

  He dumped the shoe box and began to sort through the loose snapshots. He found a series of group shots, all of which obviously were taken the same day.

  Summer, he thought, because there was green instead of snow. Did it get that green here? he wondered. That warm and bright? The mountains were in the distance, their peaks gleaming white under the sun, the lower reaches silver and blue and dotted with green.

  Someone's backyard cookout, he thought. Or a town picnic. He could see picnic tables, benches, folding chairs, a couple of grills. Platters of food, kegs of beer.

  He picked out Galloway. The beard was gone again, and the hair was shorter, though it still nearly reached his shoulders. He looked tough and fit and handsome. Meg had his eyes, Nate thought, his cheekbones, his mouth.

  He found Charlene, dressed in a tight shirt that showed off her breasts, brief shorts that showed off her legs. Even in the photo he could see her face was carefully made-up. Gone was the fresh, lovely young girl laughing out of tinted lenses. This was a woman, beautiful and sharp and aware.

  But happy? She was laughing or smiling in every shot, and posed as well. In one she sat provocatively on the lap of an older man who looked both surprised and overwhelmed by the armful of her.

  He saw Hopp sitting beside a gangly, silver-haired man. They were both drinking beers and holding hands.

  He found Ed Woolcott, banker and deputy mayor—leaner, sporting a moustache and short beard, mugging for the camera with the silver-haired man Nate took as Hopp's dead husband.

  One by one, he identified people he knew. Bing, looking just as burly and sour as he did today, but about fifteen pounds lighter. Rose, that had to be beautiful Rose, fresh and young as the flower she was named for, holding the hand of a handsome little Peter.

  Max, with more hair and less belly, sitting beside Galloway, and both of them about to bite into enormous slices of watermelon.

  Deb, Harry and—jeez, a fifty-pounds-lighter Peach—arms linked, hips cocked, smiles blazing for the camera.

  He went back through them again, concentrating on Galloway. He was in nearly every shot. Eating, drinking, talking, laughing, playing his guitar, sprawled on the grass with kids.

  He culled shots of the men. Some were strangers to him, others looked too old, even then, to have made that arduous winter climb. And some had been too young.

  But he wondered as he scanned from face to face, if it would be one of them. Had one of the men who'd celebrated that bright, shiny day, who had eaten and laughed with Patrick Galloway and Max Hawbaker, killed both of them?

  More loose shots were individuals, groups, holidays. He found Christmas again, and again a picture or two of Max with Galloway. Jacob with them, or Ed or Bing or Harry or Mr. Hopp.

  Ed Woolcott, still with a moustache and beard, a fuming bottle of champagne, Harry in a Hawaiian shirt, Max draped in Mardi Gras beads. He spent another hour with the pictures before putting them back, exactly as he'd found them.