Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  This time it was the moose that veered off and, with his ungainly trot, headed into the trees.

  Nate fired, twice more, to keep it going.

  Then he dropped back on the seat, huffed out two breaths. From behind them came the sounds of hoots and cheers and laughter as kids popped out of the school doors.

  "You're crazy." Otto pulled off his cap to scrub a hand over his crew cut. "You've got to be crazy.

  I know you shot a man dead back in Baltimore and sent him to hell. And you can't put some buckshot into a moose?"

  Nate took another deep breath and pushed the image of the alley out of his mind. "The moose was unarmed. Let's go, Otto. I need to deal with the deputy mayor. You can come back and take the reports."

  * * *

  The deputy mayor had not deigned to wait. In fact, Peach told Nate, he'd stormed out after a short diatribe on why it had been a mistake to hire some lazy, puffed-up Outsider.

  Taking it in stride, Nate passed the shotgun to Otto, snagged a two-way and set out to walk to the bank.

  Somewhere in the wide, wide world, Nate imagined there was a place colder than Lunacy, Alaska, in February. And he hoped to God he never paid a visit there.

  The sky had cleared, which meant any stingy heat had lifted up and away. But the sun streamed, so with luck they might hit a sweaty twenty degrees by midafternoon. And the sun, Nate saw, was ringed by a rainbow circle, a colorful halo of reds and blues and golds. What Peter had told him was called a sun dog.

  People were out and about, taking advantage of the bright morning to do their business. Some of them called out greetings to him or flipped waves.

  He saw Johnny Trivani, the hopeful groom, chatting on the sidewalk with Bess Mackie, and Deb outside the store washing windows as if it had been a fine spring day.

  He lifted a hand to Mitch Dauber, who sat in the window of KLUN spinning records and observing life in Lunacy. He expected Mitch would have something philosophical to say about the moose before the end of the day.

  February. It struck him as he stood on the corner of Lunatic and De-nali. Somehow it had gotten to be so far into February they were nearly to March. He was coming right up on the line of his sixty days, his own point of return. And was still here.

  More than here, he thought. Settling into being here.

  Thoughtful, he crossed over and into the bank.

  There were two customers doing business at the bank counter, and another picking up mail from the post office. From the way they and the tellers eyeballed him, Nate imagined Ed had still been in a temper when he'd come in.

  In the silence that fell, he nodded, then stepped through the short, swinging gate that separated the bank lobby from the offices.

  It didn't boast a drive-through, and there were no ATMs lurking outside, but the bank had a nice carpet, a few local paintings on the wall and a general air of efficiency.

  He walked to the door that had Ed Woolcott's name on a shiny brass plaque, and knocked.

  Ed opened it himself, sniffed. "You'll have to wait. I'm on the phone."

  "Fine." When the door shut in his face, Nate simply slipped his hands into his pockets and studied the paintings.

  He noted one of a totem in a snowy woods was signed by Ernest Notti. One of Peter's relatives? he wondered. He still had a lot to learn about his Lunatics.

  He glanced around. There was no protective glass between teller and customers, but there were security cameras. He'd checked the place out already, before he'd opened his own accounts.

  Now that conversation had started up again, he tuned into snatches. Movie night, an upcoming bake sale to benefit the school band, the weather, the Iditarod. Small-town small talk, and nothing like what he would have heard if he'd walked into one of the branches of his bank in Baltimore.

  Ed kept him waiting ten minutes, a little power flex, and was stone-faced, with a little flush on his cheekbones, when he opened the door.

  "I want you to be aware I've made a formal complaint to the mayor."

  "Okay."

  "I don't like your attitude, Chief Burke."

  "Noted, Mr. Woolcott. If that's all you want to tell me, I need to get back to the station."

  "What I want is to know just what you're doing about the theft of my property."

  "Otto's handling that."

  "My property was vandalized and damaged. Expensive fishing gear has been stolen. I believe I'm entitled to the attention of the chief of police."

  "And you've got it. A report has been duly filed, and the officer in charge is pursuing the matter. The theft isn't being taken lightly by me or my staff. We have a detailed description of the stolen property, and if the thief is dumb enough to use it, talk about it or try to sell it within my jurisdiction, we'll make an arrest and recover your property."

  Ed's eyes were slits in his rawhide face. "Maybe if I was female, you'd take more interest."

  "Actually, I don't think you'd be my type. Mr. Woolcott," he continued, "you're upset, and you're angry. You've got a right to be. You were violated. The fact that it was, most likely, kids being stupid doesn't lessen that violation. We'll do everything we can to get your property back. If it helps, I'll apologize for being abrupt with you earlier. I was concerned that children might be injured, and that took priority. You have two children in that school. I assume their safety would take precedence over an update on your stolen property."

  The flush had died down, and a long huff told Nate the crisis had passed. "Be that as it may, you were rude."

  "I was. And distracted. To be frank, I've got a lot on my mind just now. Patrick Galloway's murder, Max's apparent suicide." He shook his head, as if overwhelmed. "When I signed on for this job, I expected to be handling, well, at worst the sort of theft you've experienced."

  "Tragic." Ed sat now and was gracious enough to gesture Nate to a chair. "It's so damn tragic and shocking. Max was a friend, a good one."

  He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "I thought I knew him and had no idea, no clue, that he was contemplating suicide. Leaving his wife, his kids that way." He held up his hands, a kind of silent apology. "I guess I'm more upset about it than I've wanted to admit, and it's been eating at me. I owe you an apology, too."

  "Not necessary."

  "I've let this theft build up. Defense mechanism. It's easier to get riled about that than think about Max. I've been trying to help Carrie with the details on his memorial and some of the finances. A lot of paperwork comes along with death. It's hard. It's hard to deal with it."

  "Nothing harder than burying a friend. You knew him a long time."

  "A long time. Good times. Our kids have grown up together. And this on top of finding out about Pat. . ."

  "You knew him, too."

  He smiled a little. "Before I married Arlene. Or as she'd say, before she tamed me. I wasn't always the solid citizen and family man I am now. Pat was . . . an adventure. Those were good times, too. In their way."

  He looked around his office as if it belonged to someone else, and he couldn't quite remember how he'd come to be there. "It doesn't seem possible. None of it."

  "It's been a shock for everyone to find out about Galloway."

  "I thought he'd taken off—everyone did—and it didn't surprise me. Not really. He was restless, reckless. That's what made him so appealing."

  "You climbed with him."

  "God." Ed sat back now. "I used to love to climb. The thrill and the misery. Still do love it, but I rarely have, or take, the time. I've been teaching my son."

  "I've heard Galloway was good."

  "Very good. Though that recklessness was there. A little too much of it for comfort for me, even when I was thirty."

  "Do you have any thoughts on who would've been climbing with him that February?"

  "None, and believe me, I have thought about it since we heard the news. I suspect he might have picked up someone, or a group, and taken them up for a winter climb. It was the sort of thing he might do on impulse, to ear
n a little money, and for the buzz. And one of them killed him, God knows why." He shook his head. "But aren't the State Police handling that investigation?"

  "They are. I'm just curious, unofficially."

  "I doubt they'll ever find out who it was, or why. Sixteen years. God, how things change," he murmured. "You hardly notice as they do. You know I ran the bank single-handed at one time, lived here, too. Kept the money in that safe right over there."

  He gestured to a black floor safe.

  "I didn't know that."

  "I was twenty-seven when I landed here. Going to carve my place out of the wilderness, civilize it to my liking." He smiled now. "Guess I did just that. You know, the Hopps and Judge Royce were my first customers. Took a lot of faith for them to put their money in my hands. I never forgot it. But we had a vision, and we built this town out of it."

  "It's a good town."

  "Yes, it is, and I'm proud of my part in making it. Old Man Hidel was here, with the original Lodge. He banked with me, too, after a while. Other people came along. Peach with her third, no it was her second husband. They lived out in the bush awhile, came here for supplies and company from time to time. She came back for good when he died. Otto, Bing, Deb and Harry. Takes strength of character and vision to make a life here."

  "Yes, it does."

  "Well. . . " He drew air in through his nose. "Pat had vision, of his own kind, and he was a character. I don't know about that strength. He was an entertaining bastard, though. I hope this will all be put to rest properly. Do you think we'll ever know, for certain, what happened up there?"

  "Odds aren't favorable. But I think Coben will give it the proper time and effort. He'll look for the pilot, and anyone who might have seen Galloway in the days before he went up. They might want to talk to you, about who he used as a pilot on his climbs."

  "It would've been Jacob, most usually. But surely if Jacob had taken him up, he'd have reported it when Pat didn't come back." He lifted his shoulders. "So, logically, it would have to have been someone else. Let me think . . ."

  He picked up a silver pen, tapped it absently against his desk blotter. "When we climbed with Jacob, as I recall, he sometimes used—what was his name—Vietnam vet, Lakes . . . Loukes. That's it. Then there was this maniac. Two-Toes, they called him. Do you think I should call this Coben and tell him?"

  "Couldn't hurt. I should get back." He rose, held out a hand. "I hope we're square now, Mr. Woolcott."

  "Ed. And we are. Damn auger. I paid too much for it, so it's a double annoyance. It's insured, so are the rods, but it's the principle."

  "Understood. Listen, I'll take a ride out to your ice shack, take a look around."

  Satisfaction settled over Ed's face. "Now, I appreciate that. I put a new lock on. Let me get you the keys."

  * * *

  Since moose and apoplectic deputy mayors had been dealt with, Nate swung by to see Rose. He made what he hoped were appropriate noises over the baby, who looked like a black-headed turtle swaddled in a pink blanket.

  He called in, let Peach know he was taking a run out to the lake to run another check of Ed's ice shack. On impulse, he stopped by the dog run at The Lodge, sprang Rock and Bull, and took them with him so they could have an hour of free rein.

  It was a nice ride, with the radio turned from Otto's choice of country-western to Nate's preference for alternative rock. He drove to the lake to the bouncy beat of blink-182.

  Ed's shack sat alone on a rippled plate of ice. It was, Nate estimated, about the size of two generous outhouses stuck together and was fashioned out of what he thought might be cedar shakes. A little more upscale than he'd expected, with the sides silvered by weather and topped by a peaked roof.

  And set well apart from the huddle of other shacks.

  He decided it looked like the manor house and the peasant village, amusing himself.

  The dogs raced over the ice like a couple of kids on school holiday, while Nate slipped and slithered his way across.

  The quiet was amazing—like a church—with a kind of musical hush from that light wind through the snow-drenched trees. The sun dog shimmered in the icy blue sky and had the frozen lake gleaming.

  The sense of silence and solitude was so strong that he jumped, reached for his weapon when he heard the long, echoing call overhead.

  The eagle circled, gold-brown and gorgeous against the heavy sky. The dogs bumped each other playfully, then dived into the bank of snow at the edge of the lake.

  He could see Meg's plane from here, he realized. The red flash of it just at the long curve of the frozen water. And other little snips of civilization if he cared to look. There, a stream of smoke from a chimney, a glimpse of a house through the thick trees, his own breath streaming out.

  He let out a short laugh. Maybe he should give this ice-fishing business a shot. There had to be something to be said for the primitive rush of dropping a line through a hole in the ice and sitting in the quiet on a plate of frozen water.

  He crossed to the shack and saw the sloppy spray-painted DICK SHIT! spewed across the door in virulent yellow.

  Another sign of civilization, Nate thought as he fished out the keys.

  Ed had bolted on two new padlocks, each with a fat, shiny chain.

  He dealt with them, stepped in.

  The graffiti artists had been at work inside. Obscenities squirreled around the walls. He adjusted his annoyance with Ed. He'd have been royally pissed, too, to find this sort of thing in one of his sanctuaries.

  He could see the rack where the rods had been, as well as the utter tidiness under the disorder the vandals had caused.

  The tackle, the Coleman stove, the chairs hadn't been touched, but a cabinet he suspected had held the scotch—Glenfiddich, according to Otto's report—and some food supplies was empty and open.

  He found cleats that snapped on boots and made a mental note to buy some for himself. He found a first-aid kit, extra gloves, hat, an old, worn parka, snowshoes and a couple of thermal blankets.

  The snowshoes were hung on the wall, just over a screaming yellow asshole. If they'd been used recently, Nate couldn't tell.

  There was fuel for the stove, a fish sealer and a couple of wicked-looking knives. A number of magazines, a portable radio. Extra batteries.

  Nothing, he supposed, that you wouldn't expect to find in an ice-fishing shack in Alaska.

  When he walked out again, he circled around. He looked down toward Meg's plane, then across where her woods began.

  He tried to picture Ed Woolcott—pompous, but tough—skulking around the woods on snowshoes.

  Twenty

  The moose was the hot topic for most of the week. Nate was razzed or congratulated on his moose dispersing technique, depending on the source.

  Nate considered the moose a kind of blessing. It took people's minds off murder and death, at least for a little while.

  He'd considered going back to speak with Carrie, and some strategies for getting past the probability she'd slam the door in his face and refuse to see him. The notification that the body had been released and cremated—and that Meg was flying Carrie into Anchorage to pick up the ashes—decided him.

  "I'm going to need to come with you," he told Meg.