Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  He had other things to worry about.

  People, he discovered, cracked, too. Some who had held onto their sanity through the dark, relentless winter appeared to think the tease of spring was a good time to let it go.

  His cells were revolving doors for the drunk, the disorderly, the domestic disturbances and the just plain dopey.

  The sound of horns tooting and catcalls brought him to the bedroom window just after dawn. A light snow had fallen during the night, hardly more than a dusting that lay thin and sparkling on the streets and sidewalks under the rising sun.

  The lights on the barricades around the two-foot pothole he'd named Lunatic Crater blinked red and yellow. Around those blinking lights he saw a man dancing what appeared to be a jig. That might have been surprising enough for sunrise entertainment, but the fact that the man was buck-assed naked added a certain panache.

  A crowd was gathering already. Some were clapping—maybe keeping time, Nate speculated. Others were shouting—encouragement or derision in equal measures.

  With a sigh, Nate toweled off his half-shaven face, grabbed a shirt and shoes and headed down.

  The dining room was deserted, with a few plates of half-eaten breakfast as testament to the draw of a naked guy dancing on Lunatic Street.

  Nate grabbed a jacket off a hook and walked out in his shirtsleeves.

  There were whistles and stomping feet—and a dawn temperature Nate judged hadn't quite come up to the freezing mark as yet. He nudged his way through the gathered crowd. He recognized the dancer now. Tobias Simpsky, part-time clerk at The Corner Store, part-time dishwasher at The Lodge, part-time disc jockey at Lunacy Radio.

  He'd changed the jig to some kind of western-movie Indian war dance.

  "Chief." Rose, with Jesse's hand in hers and the baby snuggled in a pack at her breast, smiled serenely. "Nice morning."

  "Right. Is today some particular event? A pagan ritual I might've missed hearing about?"

  "No. Just Wednesday."

  "Okay." He passed through the onlookers. "Hey, Toby? Forget your hat this morning?"

  Still dancing, Toby tossed back his long, brown hair and threw out his arms. "Clothes are only a symbol of man's denial of nature, of his acceptance of restrictions and loss of innocence. Today, I merge with nature! Today I embrace my innocence. I am man!"

  "Just barely," someone called out, giving the crowd a good laugh.

  "Why don't we go talk about that?" Nate took his arm and managed to flap the jacket over his hips.

  "Man is a child, and a child comes naked into the world."

  "I've heard that. Show's over," Nate called out. He tried to arrange the jacket while guiding Toby across the street. The man had grapefruit-sized goose bumps on every inch of exposed skin.

  "Nothing much to see here anyway," he muttered under his breath.

  "I drink only water," Toby told him. "I eat only what I gather with my own hands."

  "Got it. No coffee and doughnuts for you."

  "If we don't dance, the dark will come back, and the cold winter. The snow." He looked around, wildly now. "It's everywhere. It's everywhere."

  "I know." He got him inside, into a cell. Figuring Ken was the closest he had to a shrink, he contacted him to request a house call.

  In the next cell Drunk Mike snored away, sleeping off a toot that had had him wandering into a neighbor s house instead of his own the night before.

  Including Drunk Mike, he'd had six calls between eleven and two. Slashed tires on Hawley's truck, a portable radio turned up to full blast and left on Sarrie Parker's doorstep, broken windows at the school, more yellow graffiti on Tim Bower's new Ski-doo and on Charlene's Ford Bronco.

  Apparently even the thought of spring stirred up the natives.

  He was thinking about coffee, about his missed breakfast, about what drove a man to dancing naked on a snowy street when Bing came slamming in. He was big as a tank and looked ready to commit murder.

  "Found these in my gear." He slapped two fishing rods onto the counter, then jabbed the auger, which looked like a curly sword, before slamming it down as well. "I ain't no thief, and you better find out who stowed them there so I'd look like one."

  "Would these belong to Ed Woolcott?"

  "Got his name engraved on the damn rods, doesn't he? Just like that prissy gnat-ass to have his name plated on overpriced fishing rods. I'm telling you right now, I'm not having him say I took them. Clean his clock good and proper if he does."

  "Where did you find them?"

  He worked his hands into fists. "You try to say I took 'em, I'll clean your clock, too."

  "I didn't say you took them, I asked where you found them."

  "In my shack. Went out last night. Gonna tow my shack in for the season. Found them then. Mulled over what to do about it, and this is what I'm doing." He jabbed a finger at Nate. "Now you do what you're supposed to do."

  "When's the last time you were in your shack before last night?"

  "Been busy, haven't I? Couple of weeks, maybe. If they'd been there, I'd have spotted them right off, just like I did. I don't use that prissy-assed gear."

  "Why don't you come back to my office, Bing, and sit down." He readied meat-slab fists again, bared his teeth.

  "What for?"

  "You're going to make an official statement. Details like if you noticed if anything else was disturbed, added or subtracted, if your shack was locked, who might want to get your non-prissy ass in hot water."

  Bing scowled. "You're gonna have to take my word on it?"

  "That's right."

  Bing jutted his bearded chin. "All right, then. But it's gonna have to be quick. I got work to do, don't I?"

  "We'll make it quick. You get that crater fixed on Lunatic before it swallows a family of five."

  Since Bing was a man of few words, the statement took under ten minutes.

  "Do you and Ed have a history I should know about?"

  "I put my money in his bank, take it out as I need it."

  "You two socialize?"

  Bing's answer was a snort. "I don't get invites to dinner at his place and wouldn't go if I did."

  "Why's that? His wife a lousy cook?"

  "Likes to put on airs—both of them—like they were better than the rest of us. He's an asshole, but so's better than half the world's population." He shrugged his massive shoulders. It was like watching a mountain stretch. "I got nothing against him, particularly."

  "Can you think of anyone who'd have something against you? Enough to want to cause you trouble?"

  "I mind my own and expect people to do the same. Anybody's got a problem with that, I'll—"

  "Clean their clock," Nate finished. "I'll see Ed gets his property back. Appreciate you bringing it in."

  Bing sat another moment, drumming his thick fingers against his wide thighs. "I don't hold with stealing."

  "Me, either."

  "Don't see why you're so fired up to lock up a man who's had a few drinks or punches somebody who gets in his face, but a thief's different."

  Nate believed he spoke his own truth. There'd been violence on Bing's record, but no theft. "And?"

  "Somebody took my buck knife and my spare gloves out of my rig."

  Nate pulled up another form. "Give me a description."

  "It's a goddamn buck knife." He hissed through his teeth when Nate simply waited. "Got a five-inch blade, closed-lock back, wood handle. Hunting knife."

  "And the gloves?" Nate prompted as he keyed in the description.

  "Work gloves, for Christ's sake. Cowhide, fleece lining. Black."

  "When did you notice them missing?"

  "Last week."

  "And you're reporting it now because?"

  Bing didn't speak for a minute, then moved those mountainous shoulders again. "Maybe you're not a complete asshole."

  "I'm touched. Let me blink these sentimental tears out of my eyes. You lock your rig?"

  "No. Nobody's been stupid enough to mess with my stuff." />
  "Always a first time," Nate said.

  When he was alone, and waiting for the town doctor to come give Toby some sort of psych eval, Nate studied the reports on his desk. A decent stack of reports, he thought. Maybe not the sort of load he'd been accustomed to in Baltimore, but a definite stack. With petty theft and petty vandalism leading the pack.

  Enough so, he mused, that he'd been kept busy the last couple of weeks. So busy he'd had little time to spare for his unofficial investigation.

  Maybe it wasn't coincidence. Maybe it wasn't some cosmic reminder that he wasn't Homicide any longer. Maybe somebody was nervous.

  * * *

  He called Ed in, and watched the man's face light up when he saw the rods and auger.

  "I take it those are yours."

  "They sure are. I'd given up on them, certain they'd made their way to some pawnshop in Anchorage. Good work, Chief Burke! You've made an arrest?"

  "There's no arrest. Bing found them mixed in with his gear in his ice shack last night. He brought them in to me first thing this morning." But—

  "Is there any reason you can think of why Bing would have broken into your shack, defaced it, taken those, then brought them in to me today?"

  "No." Ed stroked a hand over each rod in turn. "No, I guess not, but the fact remains he had them."

  "The only facts are he found them and returned them. Do you want to pursue this?"

  Ed blew out a breath, stood for a moment with his face reflecting a man struggling with some inner war. "Well. . . I honestly can't see why Bing would've taken them, much less turned them in if he had.

  I have them back, and that's the important thing. But it doesn't address the vandalism or the theft of nearly a full quart of scotch."

  "I'll keep the case open."

  "Good. Good, then." He nodded toward the window, to beyond where ice floes floated on the deep, dark blue. "You survived your first winter."

  "Looks like."

  "There are some who don't expect you to put yourself through the experience a second time. I've wondered myself if you plan to go back to the Lower 48 after your contract."

  "I suppose that depends on whether or not the town council offers to renew my contract."

  "I haven't heard any complaints. Well, nothing major in any case." He picked up the rods, the auger.

  "I should get these stowed."

  "I need you to sign for them." Nate nudged a form across his desk. "Let's keep it official."

  "Oh. Absolutely." He looped his signature on the proper lines. "Thank you, chief. I'm glad to have my property back."

  Nate noticed him glance at the draped blanket, as he had twice before. But there were no questions or comments about it.

  Nate rose to shut the door himself, then he walked to the board, uncovered it. On a list of names, he penciled a line, connecting Bing to Ed. And added a question mark.

  * * *

  The clouds rolled back in by afternoon and, through them, Nate spotted the red slash of Meg's plane.

  He was on his way back from investigating a call reporting a dead body by the stream in Rancor Woods. It turned out to be an old pair of boots stuck in the snow, which the holidaying bird-watchers renting the cabin had spotted through their field glasses.

  Tourists, Nate thought, as he tossed the boots—likely abandoned by other tourists—in the back of his car.

  Then he heard the familiar thunder of the bush plane and watched Meg slide out of the clouds.

  By the time he got to the skinny dock on the river, she'd already landed. The floats on her plane were another sign of spring, he thought. He walked over, feeling the dock sway under him, while she and Jacob unloaded the supplies.

  "Hey, cutie." She dropped a box on the dock and made it shudder. "Saw you out by Rancor Woods.

  My heart went pitty-pat, didn't it, Jacob?"

  He chuckled under his breath and carried a large box down the dock to his truck.

  "Bought you a present."

  "Yeah? Give it up."

  She reached into another box, pushed the contents around and pulled out a box of condoms.

  "Thought you might be shy about buying your supply at The Corner Store."

  "Whereas I wouldn't be shy about having you wave them around on a public dock." He grabbed them out of her hand, stuffed them in his jacket pocket.

  "I got you three boxes, but I'll keep the other two in a safe place." She winked, then bent to pick up a carton. He lifted it first. "I'll carry it."

  "Careful with it. It's an antique tea set. Joanna's grandmother wanted her to have it for her thirtieth birthday." She hauled out another box, walked with him. "What are you doing hanging around the docks, chief? Looking for loose women?"

  "Found one, didn't I?"

  She laughed, gave him a little elbow jab. "We'll see if you can make me looser later."

  "It's movie night."

  "Movie night's Saturday."

  "No, they moved it, remember? Conflict with the high school Spring Fling."

  "Right, right. I've got a couple of dresses in this load for that. What's the movie?"

  "Double feature. Vertigo and Rear Window."

  "I'll bring the popcorn."

  She loaded the box in the truck, studied him as he loaded his. "You look tired, chief."

  "A lot of people seem to have spring fever. It's keeping me busy. Busy enough I haven't been able to give certain areas as much time or attention as I'd like."

  "You're not just talking about my naked body." She looked back to her plane where Jacob was getting the last of the cargo. "My father's been dead for sixteen years. Time's relative."

  "I want to close this down for you. For him. For myself, too."

  She twined a lock of his hair around her finger. He'd let her trim it for him. A sign, she thought, of a courageous man. Or one loopily in love.