The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  “I signed on as deputy, not as a maid.”

  She had a soft, motherly face. And, like any mother worth her salt, could sear a hole through steel with one firm look. “And I’m being paid to work as dispatcher and secretary, not to scrub toilets. But what has to be done, has to be done.”

  “Why don’t we rotate those chores for the time being?” Nate interrupted as he could see combat fire light both faces. “And I’ll talk to Mayor Hopp about our budget. Maybe we can squeeze out enough to hire somebody to come in and swab us out once a week. Who has the keys to the weapon cabinet?”

  “They’re locked in my drawer,” Peach told him.

  “I’d like to have them. And I’d like to know what weapons each of you deputies is qualified for.”

  “If it’s a gun, I can shoot it,” Otto retorted.

  “That may be true, but we’re wearing badges.” He tipped his chair back so he could see the gun Otto wore in a belt holster. “You want to stick with the .38 for your service revolver?”

  “It’s my own, and it suits me.”

  “That’s fine. I’m going to take the 9mm SIG from the cabinet. Peter, you comfortable with the nine you’re carrying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Peach, can you handle a firearm?”

  “I’ve got my father’s Colt .45 revolver locked in my desk, too. He taught me how to shoot when I was five. And I can handle anything in that cabinet, the same as GI Joe here.”

  “I served in the Corps,” Otto retorted, with some heat. “I’m a Marine.”

  “Okay then.” Nate cleared his throat. “How many residents, would you say, own weapons?”

  The three of them stared at him until, finally, Otto’s lips quirked up. “That’d be about all of them.”

  “Great. Do we have a list of those residents who’re licensed to carry concealed?”

  “I can get that for you,” Peach offered.

  “That’ll be good. And would there be a copy of town ordinances?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “One last,” Nate said as Peach got up. “If we have occasion to arrest anyone, who sets bail, decides on the term, the payment of fine, and so on?”

  There was a long silence before Peter spoke. “I guess you do, chief.”

  Nate blew out a breath. “Won’t that be fun?”

  He went back into his office, taking the paperwork Peach gave him. It didn’t take long to read through it, but it gave him something to pin up on his corkboard.

  He was lining up pages, tacking them on when Peach came in. “Got those keys for you, Nate. These here are for the gun cabinet. These are for the station doors, front and back, the cells and your car. Everything’s labeled.”

  “My car? What’ve I got?”

  “Grand Cherokee. It’s parked out on the street.” She dumped keys into his hand. “Hopp said one of us should show you how you work the heat block for the engine.”

  He’d read about those, too. Heaters designed to keep an engine warm when at rest in subzero temperatures. “We’ll get to it.”

  “Sun’s coming up.”

  “What?” He turned, looked out the window.

  Then he just stood, his arms at his side, the keys weighing down his hand, as the sun bloomed orange and rose in the sky. The mountains came alive under it, massive and white with the gold streaks sliding over them.

  They filled his window. Left him speechless.

  “Nothing like your first winter sunrise in Alaska.”

  “I guess not.” Mesmerized, he stepped closer to the window.

  He could see the river where he’d landed—a long, saggy dock he hadn’t noticed before, and the sheen of ice under the lightening sky. There were hills of snow, a huddle of houses, stands of trees—and he noted, people. There were people, bundled up so thickly they looked like globs of color gliding over the white.

  There was smoke rising, and Jesus, was that an eagle soaring overhead? And as he watched, a group of kids went running toward the iced ribbon of river, hockey sticks and skates over their shoulders.

  And the mountains stood over it all, like gods.

  Watching them, he forgot about the cold, the wind, the isolation and his own quiet misery.

  Watching them, he felt alive.

  THREE

  MAYBE IT WAS too damn cold, maybe people were on their best behavior, or it might have been that the holiday spirit was entrenched in that week between Christmas and New Year’s, but it was nearly noon before the first call came in.

  “Nate?” Peach came to his door holding a couple of knitting needles and a hank of purple wool. “Charlene called from The Lodge. Seems a couple of the boys got into a ruckus over a game of pool. Some pushy-shovey going on.”

  “All right.” He got to his feet, fishing a quarter out of his pocket as he walked out. “Call it,” he said to Otto and Peter.

  “Heads.” Otto set down his Field & Stream while Nate flipped the coin in the air.

  He slapped it on the back of his hand. “Tails. Okay, Peter, you’ll come with me. Little altercation over at The Lodge.” He snagged a two-way, hooked it to his belt.

  He stepped into the entry, began dragging on gear. “If it hasn’t broken up by the time we get there,” he said to Peter, “I want you to tell me the players straight off, give me the picture. Is it something that’s going to turn nasty or can we resolve it with a few strong words?”

  He shoved out the door, into the blast of cold air. “That mine?” he asked, nodding toward the black Jeep at the curb.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that cord plugged into that pole there would be attached to the heater on the engine.”

  “You’ll need it if it’s going to sit for any time. There’s a Mylar blanket in the back, and that’ll cover up the engine and keep the heat in for up to twenty-four hours, maybe. But sometimes people forget to take them off, and then you’re going to overheat. Jumper cables in the back, too,” he continued as he pulled the plug. “Emergency flares and first-aid kit and—”

  “We’ll go over all that,” Nate interrupted, and wondered if navigating down a road called Lunatic Street would entail the need of emergency flares and first aid. “Let’s see if I can get us to The Lodge in one piece.”

  He climbed behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition. “Heated seats,” he noted. “There is a God.”

  The town looked different in the daylight, no doubt about it. Smaller somehow, Nate thought as he maneuvered on the hard-packed snow. Exhaust had blacked the white at the curbs, and the storefront windows weren’t exactly sparkling, and most of the Christmas decorations looked the worse for wear in the sunlight.

  It wasn’t a postcard, unless you looked beyond to the mountains, but it was a few solid steps up from dreary.

  Rugged was a better term, he decided. It was a settlement carved out of ice and snow and rock, snugged tight to a winding river, flanked by forests where he could easily imagine wolves roaming.

  He wondered if forest meant bear, too, but decided it wasn’t worth worrying about until spring. Unless all that hibernation talk was bullshit.

  It took less than two minutes to drive from station house to lodge. He saw a total of ten people on the street and passed a brawny pickup, a clunky SUV, and counted three parked snowmobiles and one set of skis propped against the side of The Italian Place.

  It seemed people didn’t exactly hibernate in Lunacy, whatever the bears did.

  He went to the main door of The Lodge and walked through it just ahead of Peter.

  It hadn’t broken up. He could hear that plainly enough through the shouts of encouragement—kick his fat ass, Mackie!—and the thud of bodies and grunts. What Nate calculated was that a Lunacy-style crowd had gathered, consisting of five men in flannel, one of which turned out to be a woman on closer inspection.

  Encircled by them, two men with shaggy, brown hair were rolling around on the floor, trying to land short-arm punches on each other. The only weapon he saw was a broken
pool cue.

  “Mackie brothers,” Peter told him.

  “Brothers?”

  “Yeah. Twins. They’ve been beating the hell out of each other since they were in the womb. Hardly ever take a swing at anyone else.”

  “Okay.”

  Nate nudged his way through the press of bodies. The sight of him had the shouts toning down to murmurs as he waded in and hauled the top Mackie off the bottom Mackie.

  “All right, break it up. Stay down,” he ordered, but Mackie number two was already springing up, rearing back. He landed a solid roundhouse to his brother’s jaw.

  “Red River, numbnuts!” He shouted, then did a victory dance, fists lifted high, as his brother slumped in Nate’s arms.

  “Peter, for Christ’s sake,” Nate said as his deputy remained immobile.

  “Oh, sorry, chief. Jim, settle down.”

  Instead, Jim Mackie continued to bounce in his Wolverines to the cheers of the crowd.

  Nate saw money being exchanged, but decided to ignore it.

  “Take this one.” Nate shoved the unconscious man into Peter, then stepped up to the self-proclaimed champ. “The deputy gave you an order.”

  “Yeah?” He grinned, showing blood on his teeth and an unholy gleam in a pair of brown eyes. “So what? I don’t have to take orders from that shithead.”

  “Yeah, you do. I’ll show you why.” Nate spun the man around, shoved him against the wall, had his hands behind his back and cuffed in under ten seconds.

  “Hey!” was the best the reigning champ could manage.

  “Give me grief, and you’ll sit in a cell for resisting arrest, among other things. Peter, bring that one over to the station when he wakes up.”

  With no apparent loyalty, the crowd shifted its support to Nate with catcalls and whistles as he muscled Jim Mackie toward the door.

  Nate paused when he saw Charlene ease out of the kitchen. “You looking to press charges?” he asked her.

  She stared, finally blinked. “I . . . well, hell, I don’t know. Nobody’s ever asked me that before. What kind of charges?”

  “They broke some stuff back there.”

  “Oh. Well, they always pay for it after. But they did run off a couple of tourists who were going to order lunch.”

  “Bill started it.”

  “Oh now, Jim, you both start it. Every time. I’ve told you I don’t want you coming in here fighting and causing a ruckus that runs people off. I don’t want to press charges exactly. I just want this nonsense to stop. And payment for damages.”

  “Got it. Let’s go sort this out, Jim.”

  “I don’t see why I have to—”

  Nate solved the matter by pushing him out into the cold.

  “Hey, Christ’s sake, I need my gear.”

  “Deputy Notti will bring it. Get in the car, or stand here and get frostbite. Up to you.” He yanked the door open, gave Jim a heave inside.

  Once Nate was behind the wheel, Jim had recovered some dignity, despite the bleeding mouth and puffy eye. “I don’t think this is the way to treat people. It ain’t right.”

  “I don’t think it’s right to coldcock your brother when somebody’s holding his arms.”

  Jim had the grace to look chagrined, and dipped his chin onto his chest. “I was caught up. Heat of the moment. And the son of a bitch pissed me off. You’re that Outsider’s come to be chief of police, aren’t you?”

  “You’re a quick study, Jim.”

  Jim sulked during the short drive to the station house. Then he trudged along as Nate took him inside.

  “Lower 48 here,” he said the minute he spotted Otto and Peach, “he doesn’t understand how things are done in Lunacy.”

  “Why don’t you explain it all to him?” There was a light in Otto’s eyes. It might’ve been glee.

  “Need the first-aid kit. Step into my office, Jim.”

  Nate led him in, pushed him into a chair, then, after unhooking one of the cuffs, snapped it onto the arm of the chair.

  “Aw, come on. If I was going anywhere, I could just take this little dink of a chair with me.”

  “Sure you could. Then I’d add stealing police property to the mix.”

  Jim sulked some more. He was a bony man of about thirty, with a shaggy mop of brown hair, a narrow face sunken at the cheeks. His eyes were brown, with the left puffing up nicely from one of those short-armed punches. His lip was split and continued to dribble blood.

  “I don’t like you,” he decided.

  “That’s not against the law. Disturbing the peace, destroying property, assault. Those are.”

  “ ’Round here, a man wants to pound on his fool of a brother, it’s his business.”

  “Not anymore. ’Round here, these days, a man’s going to show respect for private property, and public property. He’s going to show respect for duly designated officers of the law.”

  “Peter? That little shithead.”

  “That’s Deputy Shithead now.”

  Jim blew a sighing breath that had blood spitting out along with the air. “Christ’s sake, I’ve known him since before he was born.”

  “When he’s wearing a badge, and he tells you to settle down, you settle, whether or not you’ve known him in vitro.”

  Jim managed to look both interested and baffled. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I get that.” He glanced over as Peach came in.

  “Got the first-aid kit and an ice pack.” She flipped the ice pack to Jim, set the kit on the desk in front of Nate. Then she fisted her hands on her hips. “Jim Mackie, you just don’t grow any smarter, do you?”

  “It was Bill started it.” Flushing, he pressed the ice pack to his bleeding lip.

  “So you say. Where is Bill?”

  “Peter’s bringing him along,” Nate said. “When he wakes up.”

  Peach sniffed. “Your mother’s likely to blacken your other eye when she has to bail you out.” With that prediction, she walked out, snapped the door closed.

  “Jeez! You’re not going to put me in jail for punching my own brother.”

  “I could. Maybe I’ll cut you some slack, seeing as this is my first day on the job.” Nate leaned back. “What were you fighting about?”

  “Okay, listen to this.” Gearing up for his own defense, Jim slapped his hands on his knees. “That brainless jackass said how Stagecoach was the best Western ever made when everybody knows it’s Red River.”

  Nate said nothing for a long moment. “That’s it?”

  “Well, Christ’s sake!”

  “Just want to be clear. You and your brother whaled on each other because you disagreed about the relative merits of Stagecoach versus Red River in the John Wayne oeuvre.”

  “In his what?”

  “You were fighting over John Wayne movies.”

  Jim shifted on his seat. “Guess. We’ll settle up with Charlene. Can I go now?”

  “You’ll settle up with Charlene, and you’ll pay a fine of a hundred dollars each for creating a public nuisance.”

  “Oh hell now. You can’t—”

  “I can.” Nate leaned forward, and Jim got a good look at cool, quiet gray eyes that made him want to squirm in his seat. “Jim, listen to what I’m saying to you. I don’t want you or Bill fighting in The Lodge. Anywhere else for that matter, but for just this minute, we’ll pinpoint The Lodge. There’s a young boy who spends most of his day there.”

  “Well, hell, Rose always takes Jesse back in the kitchen if there’s a ruckus. Me and Bill, we wouldn’t do nothing to hurt that kid. We’re just, you know, high-spirited.”

  “You’ll have to lower those spirits when you’re in town.”

  “A hundred dollars?”

  “You can pay Peach, within the next twenty-four hours. You don’t, I’m going to double the fine for every day you’re late meeting the terms. If you don’t want to pay the fine, you can spend the next three days in our fine accommodations here.”

  “We’ll pay
it.” He muttered, shifted, sighed. “But Christ’s sake. Stagecoach.”

  “Personally, I like Rio Bravo.”

  Jim opened his mouth, shut it again. Obviously he took a moment to consider the consequences. “It’s a damn good movie,” he said after a moment, “but it ain’t no Red River.”

  IF NUISANCE CALLS were to be the norm, Nate considered he might have made the right decision in coming to Lunacy. Sibling brawls were probably his top speed these days.

  He wasn’t looking for challenges.

  The Mackie brothers hadn’t posed one. His round with Bill had gone along the same lines as his round with Jim, though Bill had argued passionately, and with considerable articulation, regarding Stagecoach. He hadn’t seemed nearly as upset at being punched in the face as he was about having his favorite movie dissed.

  Peter stuck his head in the door. “Chief? Charlene says you should come over and have lunch on the house.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’ve got to get ready for this meeting.” And he hadn’t missed the gleam in Charlene’s eyes when he’d hauled off Jim Mackie. “I’d like you to follow this one through, Peter. Go on over there, get a list of damages and replacement costs from Charlene. See that the Mackie boys get it, and pay the freight within forty-eight hours.”

  “Sure thing. You handled that real slick, chief.”

  “Wasn’t much to handle. I’m going to write the report. I’m going to want you to look it over, add anything you feel necessary.”

  He looked around when he heard a window-rattling roar. “Earthquake? Volcano? Nuclear war?”

  “Beaver,” Peter told him.

  “I don’t care if it is Alaska, you don’t have beavers big enough to sound like that.”

  With an appreciative laugh, Peter gestured to the window. “Meg Galloway’s plane. It’s a Beaver. She’s bringing in supplies.”

  Swiveling around, Nate caught sight of the red plane, one that looked the size of a toy to him. Recalling he’d actually flown on one of about the same size, he felt the little pitch in the belly and turned away again.