Northern Lights

by Nora Roberts

  "No." Joe sighed. "Well, maybe a few times when he was a puppy. He used to bark if a leaf stirred.

  And he got out once and chewed up Tim Tripp's boots from off his back stoop. But that was years ago, and Tim got kind of a kick out of it because the damn boots were almost bigger than Yukon. He settled down, after he got out of the puppy stage, he settled down."

  "How about the two of you? Have you had a problem with anyone lately? An argument?"

  "I got into it some with Skinny Jim over the Iditarod. It got pretty heated. But that sort of thing happens. People get worked up over the Iditarod, and they've got their favorites."

  "I had to call Ginny Mann into the school because her boy hooked twice." Lara fumbled out a tissue. "She wasn't happy about it or with me."

  "How old is her boy?"

  "Eight." She blinked rapidly. "Oh God, Joshua couldn't have done that to Yukon, Nate. He's a good kid—just doesn't much like school, but he wouldn't have killed my dog because he was mad at me. And Ginny and Don, they're good people. They couldn't. . ."

  "Okay. If you think of anything else, you let me know."

  "I want—I want to apologize for the way I jumped on you before."

  "Don't worry about that, Lara."

  "No, it wasn't right. It wasn't right and it wasn't. . . You saved my son's life."

  "I wouldn't go that far."

  "You helped save it, and that's the same thing to me. I shouldn't have come in here the way I did. Joe tried to calm me down, but I wouldn't be calmed. I loved that damn dog."

  * * *

  After they'd left, Nate uncovered his case board. As he pinned up the pictures he'd taken the night before, Peter came in. "Okay, chief?"

  "Yeah."

  "I feel like I should've been able to handle Mrs. Wise. I got twisted up. I, well, Steven and I hung out together a lot, and . .-. I grew up with that dog. My dad, he has the sled dogs, and they're great. But not the same as a pet. Even when Steven went to college, I'd go over and see Yukon sometimes. I guess that's why I had some trouble with everything last night, too."

  "You could've told me."

  "I just. . . I was just twisted up. Um, chief? Is that going to be just an open case board now? I mean, should we put copies of notes and other case-related items on the board?"

  "No."

  "But. . . you've got Yukon up there now."

  "That's right."

  "You think what happened to Yukon's related to the others? I feel stupid, but I don't understand."

  "Thinking they're related might be stupid."

  Peter stepped closer. "Why do you?"

  "At this point I've got no clear motive for anyone killing that dog." Nate walked around to his desk, unlocked a drawer and took out the sealed knife and gloves. "These belong to Bing. He reported them stolen yesterday morning."

  "Bing?" Peter's eyes widened. "Bing?"

  "He's got a temper on him. He's got a sheet, and most of it deals with assaults. Violent behavior."

  "Yeah, but. . . God."

  "We've got a few ways to look at this. Bing gets in an argument with Joe somewhere along the line.

  Or Joe and Lara do something that aggravates him. He stews about it, decides to teach them a lesson.

  So he decides to kill the dog, reports the knife and gloves as stolen, then goes off after intermission last night, knowing the Wises are inside. He gets the dog, brings him back. Kills him, leaves the knife and gloves figuring he's covered because he'd reported them stolen. Then he goes home and works in his garage."

  "If he was mad at Mr. or Mrs. Wise, why didn't he just punch Mr. Wise in the face?"

  "Good question. Another way we can look at it is, somebody wanted to cause Bing some trouble.

  He pisses a lot of people off, so that's no stretch."

  He eased a hip onto his desk, his eyes on the board. "They steal his knife and gloves. They use them to kill the dog, leave them where they'll be found. Or . . ."

  He moved to the counter, started a pot of coffee. "We ask ourselves how Galloway's murder, Max's death and the killing of a dog might be connected."

  "That's just it. I don't see."

  "The killer left us one big clue. Cryptic or obvious, depending on which angle you look from. The dog's throat was slit. That's what killed him. But the killer doesn't toss the knife aside. He takes another minute. Had to roll the dog over to do it. To bury the knife in its chest. Why?"

  "Because he's sick and he's mean and—"

  "Put that aside and look at the board, Peter. Look at Galloway. Look at the dog."

  He struggled with it, Nate could see. With looking close at the grisly pictures. Then he let out a little breath, as if he'd been holding it. "Chest wound. They both have a blade of some kind in the chest."

  "Could be coincidence, or maybe somebody's trying to tell us something. Now, take another step. Where's the connection between Galloway, Max and the Wises?"

  "Well, I don't know. Steven and his parents moved here when I was about twelve, I guess. That was after Galloway was gone. But they knew Mr. Hawbaker. Mr. Wise ran an ad in The Lunatic most weeks for his computer servicing. And Mrs. Wise and Mrs. Hawbaker took some classes together. The exercise class at the school and the quilting class Peach has going."

  "Something else connects them. To our knowledge they didn't know Patrick Galloway, but for sixteen years everyone believes Galloway just took off. Now they don't. Why?"

  "Well, because they found him when . . . Steven. Steven's the one who found him."

  "Get away with murder for sixteen years, then some dumbass college boy and his idiot friends screw it up for you." Nate listened to the coffee plop into the glass pot. "A pisser, all right. If they hadn't been up there—that time, that place—odds are things would be fine. Another avalanche—nature's or one the State set off to clear the mountain—that cave could ve been buried again. For years. Maybe forever, if your luck held."

  He eased a hip down on his desk while the coffee brewed. "Now you've got to go and kill again. Kill Max, or induce him to kill himself. You'll get away with that, too. You believe that. You have to believe that, but there are cops in Lunacy now. Not just state, but town cops, right underfoot. What do you do about that?"

  "I. . . I can't keep up."

  "You distract them. Vandalism, petty thievery. Little things that keep them occupied, just in case they're thinking about more important things. You pay that dumbass college boy back, and you give the cops something else to worry about at the same time. Two birds. But you can't resist being a little fancy, giving them an elbow in the ribs. So you mimic your first murder by shoving the knife in the dog's chest."

  He got up, poured coffee for both of them. "Now, it could be you're so fucking arrogant and full of yourself that you use your own knife, your own gloves. Strong possibility when you profile Bing Karlovski. Or you're so clever, so full of yourself, you plant them so the finger points elsewhere.

  If that's the case, why Bing? Where's he connect?"

  "I swear I don't know. I'm trying to get all this into my head. Maybe it doesn't have to connect. Bing's ornery. He irritates people. Or there was just an easy chance to steal the knife."

  "None of it's chance. Not this time. We need to find out where Bing was—exactly where he was in February of 1988."

  "How?"

  Nate sipped his coffee. "For a start, I'm going to ask him. Meanwhile I want statements from everyone who was at movie night, and everyone who wasn't. That's going to take time. You tell Peach to make a list that divides the township and outlying into three parts. We'll each take one."

  "I'll tell her right now."

  "Peter?" Nate stopped him at the door. "Weren't you scheduled to work last night? To cover the desk?"

  "Yeah, but Otto said he didn't feel like going to the movies so we switched. That's okay, isn't it?"

  "Sure." Nate sipped his coffee again. "That's fine. Go ahead and get Peach started on that list."

  Nate crossed to the board and drew li
nes connecting Joe and Lara Wise with Max and with Bing.

  "Nate?" Peach peeked in. "You still want me to hold things out here?"

  "No, whatcha got?"

  "Had a report of gunfire and a bear sighting. Same people who reported the dead body that was a pair of boots. I gave both of them to Otto, since he was already out on patrol. Gunfire was Dex Trilby's truck, which is older than I am, backfiring."

  "And the bear was what, a squirrel standing on a log?"

  "No, the bear was a bear. Those idiot Outsiders put up a bunch of bird feeders around the cabin, draw the birds in. Well, a bear can't resist fresh bird feed. Otto ran it off, and made them take down the feeders. He's a little irritable after having to go out there twice already today. So if something else comes in, I thought I'd hand it off to you or Peter."

  "You do that."

  "Well, then, Carrie Hawbaker just came in and wants to see you. She wants me to give her the items for the police log."

  "Good, go ahead. I guess we'll have The Lunatic up and running again."

  "Looks that way. She says she wants the official statement on what happened last night for the paper.

  Do you want me to take care of it?"

  "No." He flipped the blanket over his board. "Send her on back."

  She looked better than the last time he'd seen her. Steadier and not quite so sunken around the eyes. "Thanks for seeing me."

  "How are you doing?" he asked and closed the door.

  "Getting through, getting by. It helps to have the kids—they need me—and the paper." She took the chair he offered and set the canvas briefcase she carried on her lap. "I'm not just here about the items for the police log. Though, God, it's an awful thing about Yukon."

  "It is."

  "Well. I know you wanted me to think about back when Pat disappeared. To write down details. I did some." She opened the bag to take sheets of paper. "I thought I'd remember it all. I thought everything would just coming flooding back. But it didn't."

  Nate saw the papers were neatly typed and written in a formal outline style. "It looks like you remembered plenty."

  "I put down everything. A lot of things that couldn't matter. It was long ago, and I have to admit now that I didn't pay much attention to Pat's leaving. I was teaching, and wondering how I was going to get through another winter—my second—here. I was thirty-one, and I'd missed my goal of being married by my thirtieth birthday."

  She smiled a little. "That was one of the reasons I'd come to Alaska in the first place. The ratio was in my favor. I remember feeling a little desperate, a little sorry for myself. And annoyed with Max because he hadn't asked me. That's why I remember—you'll see it written there— that he was gone a couple of weeks that winter. I think it was that February, I'm not absolutely sure. Days tend to freeze together in the winter, especially if you're alone."

  "Where did he tell you he was going?"

  "That I do remember, because I got snippy about it. He said he was going to Anchorage, down to Homer—a few weeks in the southeast, interviewing bush pilots and getting some of them to fly him around. For the paper, and research for the novel he was writing."

  "Did he do a lot of traveling back then?"

  "He did. I put that down, too. He said he'd be gone maybe four or five weeks, and that didn't sit well with me, especially with things still up in the air between us. I remember because he was back sooner than he said, but he didn't even come to see me. People told me he'd holed up at the paper. Was practically living there. I was too mad to go see him either."

  "How long before you did see him?"

  "It was a while. I was pretty mad. But finally I got mad enough to see him. I know it was the end of March or the very start of April. We had the classroom decorated for Easter. Easter hit the first Sunday in April that year. I looked it up. I remember sitting there with all those colored eggs and bunny drawings while I was stewing about Max."

  She ran her hand over her stack of papers. "This part I remember perfectly. He was at the paper, locked in. I had to bang on the door. He looked terrible. Thin and unshaven, his hair all which way. He smelled. There were papers all over his desk."

  She sighed a little. "I can't remember what the weather was like, Nate. What it looked like in town, but I can remember exactly how he looked. I can remember exactly how it looked in his office. Coffee cups, dishes all over the place, trash cans overflowing, trash on the floor. Ashtrays full of butts. He used to smoke.

  "I wrote it down," she said, and smoothed the papers again. "He was working on his novel—that's what I assumed—and looked like a madman. Damn if I know why I found that so appealing. But I gave him what-for. Told him I was done. If he thought he could treat me that way, he could just think again, and so on. I just raved and ranted, and he didn't say a thing. When I'd run out of steam, he got down on one knee."

  She stopped a moment, pressed her lips together. "Right there, in all that mess. He said he wanted a second chance. He needed one. And asked me to marry him. We were married that June. I wanted to be a June bride, and since I'd already missed the thirtieth-birthday deadline, a couple more months didn't matter."

  "Did he ever talk about the time he was away?"

  "No. And I didn't ask. It didn't seem important. All he said was that he'd learned what it was like to be alone, really alone, and he didn't want to be alone again."

  Nate thought about the lines connecting the names on his list. "Did he ever have a particular run-in or a particular friendship with Bing?"

  "Bing? No, not a buddy sort of thing. Max tried to stay on his good side, especially since he knew Bing had asked me out."

  "Bing?"

  "Asked me out' is probably a euphemism. He wasn't interested in dining and dancing, if you follow me."

  "And did you ever . . ."

  "No." She laughed, cutting herself off in midstream and looking shocked at herself. "I haven't laughed, not really, since . . . It's terrible to laugh at this."

  "The thought of you and Bing strikes me funny. How'd he take being turned down?"

  "Oh, I don't think it was a big deal." She brushed it off with the back of her hand. "I was handy, that's all. New female in the very small pack. Men like Bing would try to cut the new one out of the herd, see if he could get some sex and maybe a couple of home-cooked meals out of it. Nothing against him, it's natural enough in a place like this. He wasn't the only one who made moves. I went out with a few that first winter. Even The Professor and I had dinner a couple times, though it was plain as plain he had a major crush on Charlene."

  "That would be before Galloway left?"

  "Before, during, after. He's always had a thing for her. But we had dinner a couple of times, and he was a perfect gentleman. Maybe a little more gentlemanly than I was looking for, to tell the truth. But I wasn't looking for someone like Bing."

  "Because?"

  "He's so big and crude and rough. I went out with John because I liked his looks and his intellect. And with Ed once because, well, why not? Even Otto, after his divorce. A woman—even one who's