by Nora Roberts
“Sure. What am I, a weenie?” She rolled over on him, and since she was naked, his mind wandered away from the conversation before he dragged it back again.
“I wore four for a few weeks, but it started to be too much trouble, so I ditched the extras. And they closed up.” She reached over to turn on the light, then angled her head. “See?”
“You could’ve told me that before I looked at earlobes all over town and made notes on who had piercings.”
She rubbed his earlobe. “You might look cute with one.”
“No.”
“I could do it for you.”
“Absolutely no. Not in the ear or anywhere else.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Yeah, that’s me. I’ve got to rethink this now, since my short list is no longer viable.”
She rose up to straddle him, to take him in. “Think later.”
HE DROPPED INTO THE LODGE and spotted Hopp and Ed having a meeting over buffalo salad. He stopped at their booth. “Can I interrupt a minute?”
“Sure, slide in.” Hopp made room for him. “We’re going over what you’d call fiduciary matters. Gives me a headache and perks Ed here right up. We’re trying to figure out how to stretch the budget to building a library. Section off part of the proposed post office for it, at least for now. What do you think?”
“Sounds like a nice idea to me.”
“We’re agreed on that.” Ed dabbed at his lip with a napkin. “But we need a little more elastic in the budget to make the stretch.” He winked at Hopp. “I know that’s not what you want to hear.”
“We get people involved, get donations for materials, for labor. We get books donated or go begging for them. People pull together if you get them excited about a project.”
“You can count me in,” Nate told them. “If and when. Meanwhile, I got a fiduciary type of question myself. I was going to drop by to see you, Ed. Bank question, goes back a few years, so it may tax your memory.”
No hole in his ear, Nate thought as Ed nodded.
“When it comes to banking, my memory’s long. Hit me.”
“It deals with Galloway.”
“Pat?” He lowered his voice, glancing around the restaurant. “Maybe we shouldn’t discuss this here. Charlene.”
“It won’t take long. I’ve got a source saying Galloway got himself a good pile of cash playing poker when he was in Anchorage.”
“Pat loved to play poker,” Hopp commented.
“That he did. I played with him more than once. Small stakes, though,” Ed added. “I can’t imagine him winning much.”
“Source says otherwise. So I was wondering, did he send any money back, into his account here in town, before he went on that climb?”
“Not that I recall. Not even a paycheck. We were a smaller operation in those days, as I told you before.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “Though by the time Pat left, we’d built an actual vault and had two part-time tellers. Still I was involved in nearly every transaction.”
Rubbing his chin, he sat back. “Pat didn’t bother with the finances. He wasn’t one to come into the bank to deposit, or withdraw for that matter.”
“How about when he left town for work? Did he usually send money back?”
“Now, he did, sometimes. I do remember Charlene coming down once, even twice, every week—more than two months—checking to see if he had anything direct deposited after he left that time. If there was any big money, which I tend to doubt, he might’ve banked it there, or just as likely stuffed it in a shoe box.”
“I’ll go with Ed on the second,” Hopp said. “Pat never did think twice about money.”
“People who come from it usually don’t.” Ed gave a shrug. “Then there’s us,” he said with a wink at Hopp, “who have to do some finagling if we want to have a town library.”
“I’ll let you get back to that.” Nate scooted out. “Thanks for the time.”
“He ought to spend his time on town business.” Ed shook his head as he lifted his coffee.
“I guess he figures this is.”
“We need May Day, Hopp, if we’re going to get that library.”
“Agreed. So far he’s keeping it low-key. He’s just going to have to see it through until he’s satisfied it was Max who killed Pat. Tenacious Ignatious,” she said. “That’s how I’m thinking of him these days. Boy just won’t let go. It’s a good quality to have in your chief of police.”
JACOB HAD BEEN RIGHT: Some people wouldn’t talk to cops. Even with Jacob there, Nate hadn’t been able to squeeze any more juice out of the trip he took to Anchorage.
Not that it was a wasted trip.
He hadn’t gone to see Coben. He should have, he admitted as Jacob skimmed over the lake. He should have taken the earring in, but he hadn’t.
He wanted a little more time there. A little more time to pull it together.
He let his shoulders relax when the plane was on the water. “Thanks for going with me. You want me to secure the plane? You coming in?”
“You know how?”
“It’s a boat with wings at this point. I know how to secure a boat to dock.”
Jacob nodded toward Meg, who walked down to meet them. “You have other business.”
“Yeah, I do. See you later then.”
He stepped out onto the flotation, praying he didn’t lose his balance and mortify himself by pitching into the lake. But he stepped safely on one end of the dock just as Meg stepped on the other.
“Where’s he going?” she called out, when Jacob glided away.
“Said there was other business.” He reached for her hand. “You’re back early.”
“No, you’re back late. It’s nearly eight.”
He looked up at the sky, still bright as noon. “I’m not used to it yet. Woman, where’s my supper?”
“Ha ha ha. You can throw a couple of moose burgers on the grill.”
“Moose burgers, a personal favorite.”
“You get anything more in Anchorage?”
“No, at least not investigationally. And how was your day?”
“Actually, I was in Anchorage briefly myself. And since I was there, I happened to wander into this shop where they happened to have wedding dresses.”
“Really?”
“Stop grinning. I’m still firm on not wanting a big, fancy deal. Just a wild party right here at the house. But I decided I do want a kick-ass dress. One that’ll make your eyes pop out.”
“Did you find it?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” She stepped up on the porch ahead of him, then gave him a smacking kiss. “I like my moose burger well-done and the bun lightly toasted.”
“Check. But before we dine, I did a little marriage shopping today myself.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah.” He pulled the ring box out of his pocket. “Guess what this is.”
“Mine. Gimme.”
He flipped the top open and had the pleasure of seeing her eyes pop when she saw the full-cut solitaire flanked by sparkling channel cuts on a platinum band.
“Holy shit!” She grabbed it out of the box, held it aloft and jumped off the porch. She danced around the yard, crowing out sounds he took as approval.
“Does that mean you like it?”
“Sparkly!” She spun laughing circles all the way back to him. “This, Chief Burke, is a ring. How much did it set you back?”
“Jesus, Meg.”
She kept laughing, like a loon. “I know, tacky. And I don’t really want to know. It’s a killer, Nate, an absolute killer. It’s stupid and extravagant, so it’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
She held it out, then dropped it into his open palm. “Okay, put it on me, and hurry up.”
“Excuse me, but can we have a little dignity for this part?”
“I think we’ve already crossed the point of no return on that.” She wiggled her fingers. “Come on. Give it up.”
“Good thing I didn’t wrack my
brain trying to come up with something poetic to say when I did this.” He slipped it on her finger where it sparkled insanely. “Be careful you don’t put your eye out with that thing.”
“When do I go splat?”
“Sorry?”
“I just keep falling more and more in love with you. When do I finally hit bottom and go splat?” She framed his face in the way that always made his heart roll over in his chest. “I don’t know if I’m perfect for you, Nate, but you sure as hell are for me.”
He took the hand that wore the ring and kissed it. “If and when we splat, we’ll do it together. Let’s go make moose burgers.”
THIRTY
“WHAT ARE THESE?”
Meg looked at the ring of keys in Nate’s hand, deliberately furrowed her brow. “Those would be keys.”
“Why do you need so many keys?”
“Because there are so many locks? Is this a quiz?”
He jingled them in his palm while she continued to give him a sunny, innocent smile. “Meg, you don’t even lock your doors half the time. What are all these keys about?”
“Well . . . There are times a person needs to get into a place, and hey, that place is locked. Then she would need a key.”
“And this place that, hey, is locked, wouldn’t be the property of that person. Would that be correct?”
“Technically. But no man is an island, and it takes a village, and so on. We’re all one in the Zen universe.”
“So these would be Zen keys?”
“Exactly. Give them back.”
“I don’t think so.” He closed his fist around them. “You see, even in the Zen universe I’d hate to arrest my wife for unlawful entry.”
“I’m not your wife yet, buddy. Did you have a search warrant for those?”
“They were in plain sight. No warrant necessary.”
“Gestapo.”
“Delinquent.” He cupped her chin in his free hand and kissed her. Opening the rear hatch of his four-wheel, he called the dogs. “Come on, boys. Let’s go for a ride.”
She refused to leave the dogs alone at the house now. They went with her, to Jacob’s, or on a day when jobs made that inconvenient, to the run at The Lodge.
He gave the still-healing Bull a little help on the jump.
“Fly safe,” he said to Meg.
“Yeah, yeah.”
With her hands jammed in her pockets, she headed down to the plane, then turned and walked backward. “I can get more keys, you know. I have my ways.”
“You sure do,” Nate murmured.
He waited, as was his habit, for her to take off. He liked to watch her glide from water to air and to stand while the stillness erupted with her engines. While he did, he let himself think of nothing but her, of them, of the life they were building.
She was already working in what he’d discovered—after the snow had melted—was a pair of flower beds flanking her porch. She talked of columbine and trollius and of the wolf urine she sprinkled around to protect them from moose.
Her delphiniums, she promised, would reach near ten feet in the long days of summer.
Imagine that, he thought. Imagine Meg Galloway, bush pilot, bear killer, illegal-entry addict, tending a garden. She claimed her dahlias were as big as hubcaps.
He wanted to see them. Wanted to sit on the porch with her on some endless summer night with the sun ruling the sky and her flowers spread out in front of the house.
Simple, he thought. Their life could be made up of thousands of simple moments. And still never be ordinary.
Her plane rose up, and up, a little red bird in a vast, blue sky. And he smiled, felt the quick lift in his heart when she dipped her wings, right then left, in salute.
When there was stillness again, he climbed in the car with the dogs. And thought of other things.
Maybe it was foolish to pin so much on an earring, a small piece of silver, and an unsubstantiated claim that Galloway had possessed an undisclosed amount of cash.
But he’d seen that earring before, and he’d remember. Sooner or later, he’d remember. And money was no stranger to murder.
He let it sift through his head as he drove into town. Galloway had possessed ready cash and a beautiful woman. Tried-and-true motives for murder. And in a place like this, women were rare commodities.
The parade committee had already started hanging the bunting for May Day. It wasn’t the red, white and blue usual for small-town parades. Why would it be usual in Lunacy? Instead banners and bunting were a rainbow of blues, yellows, greens.
He saw an eagle perched on a swag of it, as if granting his approval.
Along the main street, people were sprucing up their homes and businesses for spring. Pots and hanging baskets of pansies and curly kale—both of which he’d learned didn’t mind a chill—were already set out. Porches and shutters sported fresh coats of paint. Motorcycles and scooters replaced snowmobiles.
Kids started to ride bikes to school, and he saw more Doc Martens and Timberlands than bunny boots.
And still the mountains that ringed the shimmers of spring, that rose into a sky that held the light for fourteen hours a day, clung relentlessly to winter.
Nate parked, led the dogs to the run. They gave him pitiful looks, their tails sinking between their legs as they trudged inside.
“I know, I know, it sucks.” He crouched, sticking his fingers through the chain link so they could be licked. “Let me catch the bad guy, then your mom won’t worry so much, and you can stay home and play.”
They whined when he walked away and gave him a bellyful of guilt.
He went in through the lobby and tracked down Charlene in her office.
“I hired three college students for the summer.” She gave her computer a pat. “I’m going to need them with the bookings we’ve got.”
“That’s good.”
“Local guides always take on a few, too. The place’ll be hopping with pretty college boys by June.” There was a glitter in her eyes as she said it, but to Nate, it looked more like defiance than anticipation.
“That’ll keep us all busy. Charlene . . .” He closed the door. “I’m going to ask you something, and you’re not going to like it.”
“Since when has that stopped you?”
No way to be delicate, he decided. “Who’s the first person you slept with after Galloway left?”
“I don’t kiss and tell, Nate. If you’d ever taken me up on it, you’d know that.”
“This isn’t gossip, Charlene, and it isn’t a game. Does it matter to you who killed Pat Galloway?”
“Of course, it does. Do you know how hard it is to plan his funeral, knowing he’s still in some morgue and not knowing exactly when I can bring him home? I ask Bing every other day when he thinks the ground’ll be soft enough to dig. To dig my Pat’s grave.”
She snatched two tissues out of the box on her desk, sniffled into them.
“When my mother buried my father,” Nate said, “she walked around the house like a ghost for a month. Longer, I guess. She did everything she had to do—like you are, but you couldn’t reach her. You couldn’t touch her. She went away somewhere. I was never able to reach her again.”
Charlene blinked at tears, lowered the tissues. “That’s so sad.”
“You haven’t done that. You haven’t let it make a ghost out of you. Now I’m asking you to help me. Who moved on you, Charlene?”
“Who didn’t? I was young and fine to look at. You should’ve seen me back then.”
Something stirred, he reached out to grab the tail of it, when she exploded.
“And I was alone! I didn’t know he was dead. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been so quick to . . . I was hurt and I was mad, and when the men came swarming around, why shouldn’t I have taken my pick? Taken lots of picks?”
“There’s no blame here.”
“I slept with John first.” Her shoulder jerked, and she tossed the tissue into her pink wastebasket. “I knew he had a crush on me, a
nd he was so sweet about it. Attentive,” she said, wistfully now. “So I went to him. But not only him. I filled up on it. I broke hearts and I broke up marriages. And I didn’t care.”
She steadied herself and, for once, looked quiet, almost thoughtful. “Nobody killed Pat because of me. Or if they did, they wasted their time. Because I never cared about any of them. I never gave them anything I didn’t take back. He isn’t dead because of me. If he is, I swear, I don’t think I can live with it.”
“He’s not dead because of you.” He walked around her, behind her, and laid his hands on her shoulders to rub gently. “He’s not.”
She lifted a hand, closed it over his. “I kept waiting for him to come back. For him to see I wasn’t pining for him—and want me again. I swear to God, Nate, I think I waited for that until you and Meg went up there. Until you found him, I was waiting for him.”
“He would’ve come back.” He tightened his grip when she shook her head. “You get to know the victim when you do what I do. You get inside them and understand them better, a lot of the time better than people who knew them living. He’d have come back.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she said after a moment. “Especially somebody who’s not trying to get in my pants.”
He gave her shoulders a pat, then took the earring out of his pocket. “Do you recognize this?”
“Hmm.” She sniffled again, flicked her finger over her lashes to dry them. “It’s sort of pretty, but I don’t know, male. Not my kind of thing. I like splashier.”
“Could it have been Pat’s?”
“Pat’s? No, he didn’t have anything like that. No crosses. He didn’t go for religious symbols.”
“Have you ever seen it before?”
“I don’t think so. Wouldn’t remember if I had, I guess. It’s not much of a thing.”
HE DECIDED TO START showing it around, get reactions. Since Bing was having breakfast in The Lodge, Nate walked by his table, let the earring dangle from his fingers. “Lose this?”
Bing barely gave it a glance before staring back into Nate’s eyes. “Last time I told you I lost something, I got nothing but grief.”
“I like to get things back to their rightful owner.”