Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  Twenty-One

  They packed into Town Hall for Max Hawbaker's memorial. It was the only place big enough to hold the crowd. It was interesting to Nate how many showed up—in work clothes or Sunday clothes, in Alaskan tuxedos or bunny boots. They came because he'd been one of them, and his wife and kids still were. They came, Nate thought, whether they thought he was a small-town hero or a murderer.

  And many did believe the latter. Nate saw it in their eyes or heard it in snatches of conversation. He let it go.

  Max was eulogized with warmth and with humor—and the name Patrick Galloway was carefully omitted from any public statement.

  Then it was done. Some went back to work, and some went to Carrie's for what he always thought of as the post-funeral replay.

  Nate went back to work.

  * * *

  Charlene ambushed Meg as she off-loaded supplies from her plane. She grabbed her arm, tugged her away from Jacob. "I need to see him."

  "Who?"

  "You know who. I want you to fly me into Anchorage, to the funeral home that's holding his body till spring. I have a right."

  Meg studied Charlene's face. "Well, I can't. It's too late to fly to Anchorage today, and I've got jobs booked. Iditarod's under way. People want to fly over the route, get pictures."

  "I've got a right—"

  "What brought this on?"

  "Just because we didn't get married doesn't mean I wasn't his wife. His true wife, just the same as Carrie was to Max."

  "Oh shit." Meg paced out two tight circles. "You know, I thought you showed a lot of class going to the memorial, looking Carrie right in the eye and giving her your condolences. And here you are working up a mad because she got all that attention."

  "That's not it." Or only part of it, Charlene admitted. "I want to see him, and I will. If you won't take me, I'll call Jerk in Talkeetna, pay him to fly me down."

  "You've been stewing about this since Max's memorial, haven't you? Just stewing and churning it around since then. What's the point, Charlene?"

  "You've seen him."

  "Score one for me."

  "How do I know he's gone? How do I know it's him unless I see for myself? The way Carrie got to see Max."

  "I can't take you."

  "You'd make me go with a stranger?"

  Meg looked back at the river. There'd been some overflow. Cracks and gaps in the shifting ice that had the water below welling up, freezing thin. Dangerous business, because the new ice looked just like the rest and would break under you and take you down.

  What you thought was safe would kill you.

  There were handwritten warning signs. Nate's doing, she knew. He was a man who understood all about thin ice and the dangers of what looked safe and normal.

  "Would you settle for a picture? A photograph?"

  "What do you mean?"

  She turned back. "If I brought you a picture of him, would that do it?"

  "If you can go down and take his picture, why—"

  "I don't have to. Nate has pictures. I can get one, bring it to you."

  "Now?"

  "No, not now." She yanked off her cap, drove her fingers through her hair. "He wouldn't like it.

  Evidence or something. But I'll get it tonight. You can look at it, satisfy yourself, and I'll take it back."

  * * *

  Outside the station, Meg flipped through her keys and found the one marked PD. She'd left Nate sleeping and hoped he stayed that way until she got back. She didn't want to explain this little bit of insanity to him.

  She let herself in, pulled out her penlight. Part of her wanted to poke around and enjoy the sensation of being somewhere she shouldn't. But more, she wanted to get this little chore over with and get back to bed.

  She went straight into Nate's office. Here she risked the overhead lights, flipping them on before crossing to the covered corkboard.

  She removed the blanket carefully. And it fell to the floor from her numb hands as she took one wavering step in retreat.

  She'd seen death before and had never known it to be pretty. But those stark and graphic photos of Max Hawbaker had her breath whistling out.

  Best not to think about it, not quite yet. Better to take the photo of her father—how much cleaner his death seemed—and take it to Charlene.

  She slid the photo inside her jacket, turned the lights off and went back out the way she came.

  Charlene was in her room, answered the door wearing a floral robe. There was a scent of whiskey, smoke, perfume.

  "You'd better be alone," Meg said.

  "I am. I sent him on. Where is it? Did you get it?"

  "You're going to look, then I'm taking it back and I don't want to hear any more about this."

  "Let me see. Let me see him."

  Meg drew it out. "No, you can't touch it. You wrinkle it up or anything, Nate will know." She turned the photo face front.

  "Oh. Oh." Charlene stumbled back, much as Meg had at the cork-board. "God. No!" She shot a hand out to stop Meg from putting the picture away again. "I need to . . ."

  She stepped forward again and, at Meg's warning look, clasped her hands behind her back. "He . . . he looks the same. How can that be? He looks the same. All these years, and he looks the same."

  "He never had a chance to look different."

  "It would've been quick, do you think? Would it have been quick?"

  "Yes."

  "He was wearing that parka when he left. He was wearing it the last time I saw him." She turned, cupped her elbows with her hands. "Go away now." She shuddered, then pressed both hands to her mouth. "Meg," she began and spun around.

  But Meg was already gone.

  Alone, Charlene walked into the bath, turned on the lights and studied herself in the hard glare.

  He'd looked the same, she thought again. So young.

  And she didn't. She never would again.

  * * *

  It was March in Alaska, but the longer days didn't make him think of approaching spring, however close the calendar crept toward the official day.

  Nate awoke to daylight now and most often on the left side of Meg's bed. When he walked through town, he saw more of people's faces and less of sheltering hoods.

  The plastic eggs hanging from the branches of snow-draped trees, the plastic bunnies crouched on white carpets of lawn didn't make him think spring, either.

  But his first breakup did.

  He watched, with a kind of buzzy wonder, the little cracks creeping along the icy ribbon of river, like crazed zippers. Unlike the overflow, these didn't fill in and freeze up. It astonished him so much that it took him twenty minutes to stop staring and head back to the office.

  "There are cracks in the river," he told Otto.

  "Yeah? Little early for breakup, but we've had a warm spell."

  Maybe, Nate thought, if he lived in Lunacy for, oh, a hundred years, he'd think of a few days of forties and damp, chilly lower fifties as a warm spell. "I want signs posted. I don't want a bunch of kids playing hockey falling through the ice."

  "Kids got more sense than to—"

  "I want signs posted, like we did for overflow, but more so. Check at The Corner Store, see if they've got any more sign board. Either Peach or Peter needs to write them. Ah, 'No skating, thin ice.'"

  "It's not so much thin as—"

  "Otto, just go get me a half dozen signs."

  He grumbled, but he went. And Nate noticed Peach's lips were folded tight on a smile she was trying to suppress.

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Not a thing. I think it's a fine idea. Shows we've got concern for our citizenship, and order.

  But I think you could just write, 'Breakup, and steer clear.'"

  "Write whatever you think best. Just write it." He started through the station to head out the back and find what he could use for stakes. "And don't let Otto write it."

  When he was satisfied the signs were under way, he wrote and printed fliers off his computer and set out to d
istribute them.

  He pinned them up in the post office, the bank, the school, worked his way to The Lodge.

  There, Bing came over and read behind his shoulder—and snorted.

  Saying nothing, Nate read his own words.

  BREAKUP IN PROGRESS.

  NO SKATING, WALKING OR OTHER ACTIVITIES

  WILL BE PERMITTED ON THE RIVER,

  BY ORDER OF THE LUNACY POLICE DEPARTMENT.

  "I spell something wrong, Bing?"

  "Nope. Just wonder who you thinks stupid enough to go skating around on the river during breakup."

  "Same sort of person who jumps off a roof to see if he can fly after he's read a couple Superman comics. How long does breakup take?"

  "Depends, doesn't it? Winter started early, now spring's doing the same thing. So we'll just see. River breaks up every frigging year, so does the lake. Nothing new."

  "A kid goes out there fooling around, falls through the ice, we could be going to another memorial."

  Bing pursed his lips thoughtfully as Nate walked out again.

  He still had fliers in his hand when he saw movement behind the display window of The Lunatic.

  He crossed over, found the door was locked. Knocked.

  Carrie studied him through the glass a minute, then opened up.

  "Carrie. I'd like to post one of these in your window here."

  She took it, read it, then walked to her desk to get tape. "I'll put it up for you.

  "Appreciate it." He glanced around. "You here alone?"

  "Yes."

  He'd interviewed her twice since the memorial, and each time her thoughts and answers had been scattered and vague. He'd tried to give k her time, but time was passing. "Have you been able to remember any I more details from that February?"

  "I tried to think about it, write things down like you said, at home."

  She taped the flier, face-out on the glass. "I couldn't do it there. I couldn't seem to do it at my parents' when I took the kids down for a couple weeks. I don't know why. I just couldn't get the thoughts out or the words down. So I came here. I thought maybe . . ."

  "That's fine."

  "I wasn't sure I could come here. I know Hopp and some of the other women came in and . . . cleaned up after—when they were allowed to, but I wasn't sure I could come back here."

  "It's hard." He'd gone back to the alley, forced himself to go back. And all he'd felt was numb despair.

  "I had to come back. There hasn't been a paper since . . . it's been too long. Max worked so hard, and this meant so much to him."

  She turned around, drawing careful breaths as she looked around the room. "Doesn't look like anything really. Doesn't even look like a real paper. Max and I went to Anchorage, Fairbanks, even Juneau, to tour a real paper, real newsrooms. His eyes would just light up. Doesn't look like much here, but he was proud of it."

  "I don't agree with you. I think it looks like a lot."

  She struggled to smile, nodded briskly. "I'm going to keep it going. That's something I decided today.

  Just today before you came in. I thought I'd let it go, that I just couldn't do this without him. But when I came back here today, I knew I had to keep it going. I'm going to put an edition together, see if The Professor's got time to help me, maybe knows a couple of kids who want to work, get some journalist experience."

  "That's good, Carrie. I'm glad to hear it."

  "I'll write something down for you, Nate, I promise. I'll think back and I'll try to remember. I know you wanted to go through his papers and such. I haven't been back there yet."

  She didn't have to look at the back office for Nate to know she meant the room where Max had been found.

  "You can, if you want."

  The State cops had been through that room, Nate thought. He still wanted his pass at it, but not now.

  Not when anyone walking by would see he was inside and wonder why.

  "I'll come back for that. He kept an office at home?"

  "A little one. I haven't been through his things. I keep putting it off."

  "Anybody at your place now?"

  "No. Kids are in school."

  "Is it all right with you if I go in now, look around? If I need to take anything, I'll write you up a receipt."

  "You go ahead." She went to her purse, fished out keys and took one off a ring. "This is to the back door. You keep it as long as you need it."

  * * *

  He didn't want to park in front of the Hawbaker house. Too many people talked about something just that small.

  Instead, he parked by a bend in the river. He didn't notice any cracks in the ice and wondered if he'd jumped the gun on the ones in town. He hiked the back way, through a patch of woods. Colder here, he thought, colder under the trees where the sun couldn't fight through. There were tracks—snowmobile, skis. Cross-country team, he decided, from the high school. He spotted other tracks that weren't human and hoped he wasn't going to come face-to-face