by Nora Roberts
Grateful for the distraction, he pressed his intercom button when it buzzed. “Yes, Peach.”
“A couple of kids pitching ice balls at the school windows. Broke one before they ran off.”
“We got ID?”
“Yes indeed. All three of them.”
He considered a moment, worked down the order of things. “See if Otto can take it.”
He looked back at Pete. “Question?”
“No. No, sir.” Then he grinned. “Just nice to be doing, that’s all.”
“Yeah. Doing’s good.”
He kept himself busy doing until it was time to leave for the meeting. They were primarily housekeeping and organizational chores, but it helped Nate feel as if he was making his place.
For however long the place was his.
He’d signed on for a year, but both he and the town council had a sixty-day grace period when either side could opt out.
It steadied him to know he could leave tomorrow if he chose. Or next week. If he was here at the end of two months, he should know if he’d stick for the term of contract.
He opted to walk to Town Hall. It seemed wimpy somehow to drive so short a distance.
The sky was a clear, hard blue that had the white mass of mountains standing against it as if etched with a thin, sharp knife. The temperatures hovered at inhuman, but he saw a couple of kids burst out of The Corner Store with candy bars in their fists just as kids everywhere burst out of doors with candy. Full of greed and anticipation.
The minute they raced down the sidewalk, hands appeared at the door to turn the Open sign around to Closed.
More cars and trucks were parked on the street now, and others easing along the snow-packed road.
It looked like they’d have a full house at the town meeting.
He felt a quick twist in his gut, one he recognized from his public speaking course in college. A hideous mistake as an elective. Live and learn.
He enjoyed a reasonable amount of conversation. Give him a suspect to interrogate, a witness to interview, no problem—or it hadn’t been once upon a time. But ask him to stand up in front of an audience of some sort and speak in coherent sentences? Flop sweat was already snaking a line down his back.
Just get through it, he ordered himself. Get through the next hour, and you’ll never have to do this again. Probably.
He stepped inside, into heat and a hubbub of voices. A number of people stood around a lobby area dominated by the biggest fish Nate had ever seen. He was baffled enough to focus on it, wonder if it was, perhaps, some sort of small, mutant whale—and how in God’s name someone had caught it much less managed to mount it to the wall.
The distraction saved him from worrying overmuch about the number of people looking in his direction, and the number already inside the meeting area, sitting on folding chairs and facing a stage and lectern.
“King salmon,” Hopp said from behind him.
He kept staring at the enormous silver fish that showed its black gums in a kind of sneer. “That’s a salmon? I’ve eaten salmon. I’ve had salmon in restaurants. They’re like this big.” He held out his hands to measure.
“You haven’t eaten Alaskan king salmon, then. But truth to tell, this one’s a big son of a bitch. My husband caught it. Came in at ninety-two pounds, two ounces. Short of the state record, but a hell of a prize.”
“What did he use? A forklift?”
She let out her foghorn laugh, slapped him merrily on the shoulder. “You fish?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“Got nothing against it, just never have.” He turned then, and his brows shot up. She’d decked herself out in a sharp-looking business suit with tiny black and white checks. There were pearls at her ears, and a slick coat of red lipstick on her mouth.
“You look . . . impressive, mayor.”
“A two-hundred-year-old redwood looks impressive.”
“Well, I was going to say you look hot, but I thought it would be inappropriate.”
She smiled broadly. “You’re a clever boy, Ignatious.”
“Not really. Not so much.”
“If I can look hot, you can be clever. It’s all presentation. Now why don’t we get this show on the road by me introducing you to the town council members. Then we’ll do our little speeches.” She took his arm the way a woman might as she led a man through a cocktail party crowd. “Heard you dealt with the Mackie brothers already.”
“Just a little disagreement over Westerns.”
“I like those Clint Eastwood movies, myself. The early ones. Ed Woolcott, come over here and meet our new chief of police.”
He met Woolcott, a tough-looking man in his fifties who gave Nate’s hand a politician’s shake. His hair was gray and full, brushed back from a craggy face. A tiny, white scar cut through his left eyebrow.
“I run the bank,” he told Nate—which explained the navy blue suit and pinstriped tie. “I expect you’ll be opening an account with us shortly.”
“I’ll have to take care of that.”
“We’re not here to drum up business, Ed. Let me finish showing Ignatious off.”
He met Deb and Harry Miner, who ran The Corner Store, Alan B. Royce, the retired judge, Walter Notti, Peter’s father, musher and sled-dog breeder—all of whom were on the town council.
“Ken Darby, our doctor, will be along when he can.”
“That’s okay. It’s going to take a while to keep this all straight anyway.”
Then there was Bess Mackie—a beanpole with a shock of henna-colored hair who planted herself in front of him, crossed her arms over her thin chest and sniffed.
“You roust my boys today?”
“Yes, ma’am, you could say that.”
She drew another sharp breath through her thin nostrils, nodded twice. “Good. Next time, you knock their heads together, save me the trouble.”
It was, Nate decided as she strode off to find a seat, a warm enough welcome, considering.
Hopp worked him toward the stage where chairs were set up for her and Nate, and for Woolcott who served as deputy mayor.
“Deb’s going to start things off with some town business, announcements and such,” Hopp explained. “Then Ed’ll have his say, introduce me. I’ll have mine, introduce you. After you say your piece, we’ll close it down. Might be some questions here and there.”
Nate felt his stomach sink. “Okay.”
She motioned him to a chair, took her own, then nodded at Deb Miner.
Deb, a stocky woman with a pretty face framed by wispy blond hair, stepped onto the stage, took her place behind the lectern.
The mike buzzed and squeaked while she adjusted it, and her throat clearing could be heard echoing through the hall. “Afternoon, everybody. Before we get to our main business, I have some announcements. The New Year’s Eve celebration at The Lodge is going to get rolling about nine o’clock. Live music’s provided by The Caribous. We’ll be passing the hat for the entertainment, so don’t be stingy. The school’s holding a spaghetti supper a week from Friday, proceeds going to the uniform fund for the hockey team. We got a good chance at making regional champs, so let’s put the team in uniforms we can be proud of. They start serving at five. Dinner includes the entree, a salad, a roll and a soft drink. Adults six dollars, children six to twelve, four dollars. Under six eat free.”
She went from there to details about an upcoming movie night being held at Town Hall. Nate listened with half an ear, tried not to obsess about his turn at the mike.
Then he saw her walk in.
The red parka, and something about the way she moved told him he was looking at the same woman he’d seen out his window the night before. Her hood was back, and she wore a black watch cap over her hair.
A lot of black, straight hair.
Her face seemed very pale against the two strong colors, her cheekbones very high in that black frame. Even across the hall he could see her eyes were blue. A bright, glacial blue.
She carried a canvas satchel over her shoulder and wore baggy, mannish trousers with scarred black boots.
Those icy blue eyes zeroed straight to his, held as she strode down the center aisle formed by the folding chairs, then scooted into one beside a whippily built man who looked to be Native.
They didn’t speak, but something told Nate they were—not intimate, not physically—but in tune. She shrugged out of the parka while Deb moved from movie night to announcements about the upcoming hockey game.
Under the parka was an olive green sweater. Under the sweater, if Nate was any judge, was a tough, athletic little body.
He was trying to decide if she was pretty. She shouldn’t have been—her eyebrows were too straight, her nose a little crooked, her mouth was top-heavy.
But even as he mentally listed the flaws, something stirred in his belly. Interesting, was all he could think. He’d stayed away from women the last several months, which, given his state of mind, hadn’t been a real hardship. But this chilly-looking woman had his juices flowing again.
She opened the knapsack, took out a brown bag. And to Nate’s baffled amusement dipped a hand in and came out with a fistful of popcorn. She munched away, offering some to her seat companion while Deb finished up the announcements.
While Ed took the lectern, made his comments about the town council and the progress they’d made, the newcomer pulled a silver thermos out of her sack, and poured what looked to be black coffee into its cup.
Who the hell was she? The daughter of the Native guy? The ages were about right, but there was no family resemblance he could see.
She didn’t flush or flutter when he stared at her, but nibbled her snack, sipped her coffee and stared right back.
There was applause as Hopp was introduced. With an effort, Nate forced himself to put his head back in the game.
“I’m not going to waste time politicking up here. We decided to incorporate our town because we want to take care of our own in the tradition of our great state. We voted to build the police station, to form a police department. Now we went through a lot of debating, a lot of hot words on all sides and a lot of good, hard sense, too, on all sides. The upshot was, we voted to bring in a man from Outside, a man with experience and no connection to Lunacy. So he’d be fair, so he’d be smart, so he’d enforce the law without prejudice and with equality. Proved that much today when he slapped cuffs on Jim Mackie for wrestling around with his brother at The Lodge.”
There were some chuckles over that, and the Mackie brothers, faces battered, grinned from their chairs.
“Fined us, too,” Jim called out.
“And that’s two hundred in the town coffers. Way you two carry on, you’ll pay for the new fire truck we’re wanting by yourselves. Ignatious Burke comes to us from Baltimore, Maryland, where he served on the Baltimore Police Department for eleven years, eight of those years as detective. We’re lucky to have somebody with Chief Burke’s qualifications looking after us Lunatics. So put your hands together and welcome our new chief of police.”
As they did, Nate thought: Oh, shit, and pushed himself to his feet. He stepped toward the lectern, his mind as blank as a fresh blackboard. And from the crowd, someone called out, “Cheechako.”
There were murmurs, mutters and a rise of voices poised on argument. The irritation that spiked through him carved away the nerves.
“That’s right, I am. Cheechako. An Outsider. Fresh from the Lower 48.”
The murmurs quieted as he scanned the crowd.
“Most of what I know about Alaska I got out of a guidebook or off the Internet or from movies. I don’t know much more about this town except it’s damn cold, the Mackie brothers like to pound each other and you’ve got a view that’ll stop a man’s heart in his chest. But I know how to be a cop, and that’s why I’m here.”
Used to know, he thought. Used to know how. And his palms went damp.
He was going to fumble—he could feel it—then his gaze met those glacier blue eyes of the woman in red. Her lips curved, just a little, and her eyes stayed on his as she lifted the silver cup to sip.
He heard himself speak. Maybe it was just to her. “It’s my job to protect and serve this town, and that’s what I’ll do. Maybe you’ll resent me, coming from Outside and telling you what you can’t do, but we’ll all have to get used to it. I’ll do my best. You’re the ones who’ll decide if that’s good enough. That’s it.”
There was a sprinkling of applause, then it grew. Nate found his gaze locked with the blue-eyed woman’s again. His stomach knotted, unknotted, knotted up again as that top-heavy mouth tipped up at one corner in an odd little smile.
He heard Hopp adjourn the meeting. Several people surged forward to speak to him, and he lost the woman in the crowd. When he caught sight of her again, it was to see the red parka heading out the back doors.
“Who was that?” He eased back until he could touch Hopp’s arm. “The woman who came in late—red parka, black hair, blue eyes.”
“That would be Meg. Meg Galloway. Charlene’s girl.”
SHE’D WANTED A GOOD LOOK at him, a better look than the one she’d caught the day before when he’d stood in the window looking like the brooding and bitter hero of some gothic novel.
He was good-looking enough for the part, she decided, but up close he seemed more sad than bitter.
Too bad really. Bitter was more her style.
He’d handled himself, she’d give him that. Rolled with the insult—that asshole Bing—said his piece and after a little hitch, moved on.
She supposed if they had to have a police force poking around Lunacy, they could’ve done worse. Didn’t matter to her, as long as he didn’t stick his nose in her business.
Since she was in town, she decided to run a few errands, load up on supplies.
She saw the Closed sign on The Corner Store, sighed heavily. Then fished her ring of keys out of her bag. She found the one marked CS, then let herself in.
Grabbing a couple of boxes, she began to work her way through the aisle. Dry cereal, pasta, eggs, canned goods, toilet paper, flour, sugar. She dumped one box on the counter, filled the second.
She was hauling over a fifty-pound bag of Dog Chow when the door opened, and Nate walked in.
“They’re closed,” Meg huffed out as she set the bag on the floor by the counter.
“So I see.”
“If you see they’re closed, what’re you doing in here?”
“Funny. That was my question.”
“Need stuff.” She walked behind the counter, picked out a couple of boxes of ammo to add to her box.
“Figured that, but generally when people who need stuff take it from a closed store it’s called stealing.”
“I’ve heard that.” From under the counter she took a large record book, flipped through. “I bet they arrest people for that down the Lower 48.”
“They do. Regularly.”
“You intend to implement that policy here in Lunacy?”
“I do. Regularly.”
She gave a quick laugh—the fog to Hopp’s foghorn—found a pen and began writing in the book. “Well, just let me finish up here, then you can take me in. That’ll be three arrests for you today. Gotta be a record.”
He leaned on the counter, noted that she was neatly listing all the items in her two boxes. “Be wasting my time.”
“Yeah, but we got plenty of that around here. Damn, forgot the Murphy’s. You mind? Murphy’s Oil Soap, right over there.”
“Sure.” He walked over, scanned the contents on the shelves and picked up a bottle. “I saw you last night, out my window.”
She wrote down the Murphy’s. “I saw you back.”
“You’re a bush pilot.”
“I’m a lot of things.” Her gaze lifted to his. “That’s one of them.”
“What else are you?”
“Big city cop like you should be able to find that out quick enough.”
“Got some of it. You cook. Got
a dog. Probably a couple good-sized dogs. You like your own space. You’re honest, at least when it suits you. You like your coffee black and plenty of butter on your popcorn.”
“Not much of a scratch on the surface.” She tapped the pen against the book. “You looking to scratch some more, Chief Burke?”
Direct, he thought. He’d left out direct. So he’d be direct back. “Thinking about it.”
She smiled the way she had in the hall, with the right corner of her mouth lifting before the left. “Charlene jumped you yet?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m wondering if you got Charlene’s special welcome to Lunacy last night.”
He wasn’t sure which irritated him more, the question or the cool way she watched him as she asked. “No.”
“Not your type?”
“Not so much, no. And I’m not real comfortable discussing your mother this way.”
“Got sensitivity, do you? Don’t worry about it. Everybody knows Charlene likes to rattle the headboard with every good-looking man comes through here. Thing is, I tend to steer clear of her leftovers. But seeing the way it is, for now, maybe I’ll give you a chance to scratch.”
She closed the book, replaced it. “Want to give me a hand loading this stuff into the truck?”
“Sure. But I thought you flew in.”
“Did. A friend and I switched modes of transportation.”
“Okay.” He hauled the dog food bag over his shoulder.
She had a brawny red pickup outside, with a tarp, camping gear, snowshoes and a couple of cans of gas already in the bed. There was a gun rack in the cab, loaded with a shotgun and a rifle.
“You hunt?” he asked her.
“Depends on the game.” She slapped the gate of the truck bed into place, then just grinned at him. “What the hell are you doing here, Chief Burke?”
“Nate. And I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
“Fair enough. Maybe I’ll see you New Year’s Eve. We’ll see how we socialize.”
She climbed into the truck, turned the key. Aerosmith blasted out about the same old song and dance, and she pulled into the street. She headed west, where the sun was already sliding behind the peaks, turning them flaming gold while the light went soft with twilight.