He turned to survey the yard. Newenham must be the banana belt of Alaska. There was no snow or ice left, and the sun glittered off the river and through the bare limbs of the trees like a benediction. It was most definitely spring.
He climbed the front steps and knocked on the door.
At first there was no answer. He looked around at the two cars parked next to his. One was a rusted-out mint green Ford pickup, an '81 Super Cab F250 short bed with four-wheel drive. It looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet more than once, or in other words in about as good a shape as any primary vehicle was in the Alaska Bush. The second car was a study in contrasts, a bright red Chevy S10 long bed with an extended cab, also with four-wheel drive, that was so new Liam was surprised to see it had tags.
Somebody had to be home. He turned to knock again.
He sensed rather than heard the movement from behind the door, and cocked his head. There was a sound like a muffled cry, filled with pain. He raised a fist and hit the door three times. "Alaska state troopers, open up! Now!"
There was an exclamation, male this time, a curse perhaps, and then a scraping sound, as if someone had bumped into a piece of furniture and shoved it a couple of inches across the floor. Liam was in the act of raising his fist again when the door opened.
A man stood in the center of the living room, hands on his hips, surveying Liam with irritation. "Well?" he said. His voice was hard-edged and impatient, the set of his chin arrogant and too self-assured. He looked like a man accustomed to giving orders.
Liam had never been a man who liked taking them. "I'm looking for Laura Nanalook."
"And you are?"
"State Trooper Liam Campbell, Mr.-"
"Cecil Wolfe," the man said without hesitation. He didn't hold out his hand, making it manifestly obvious he felt it unnecessary to curry favor with the police by displaying even the rudiments of good manners.
Well, well, Liam thought. The prick himself.
Wolfe surveyed him. "You don't look much like a trooper. Where's your uniform?" He grinned, a wolfish grin, hard and hungry. "Your Smokey the Bear hat?"
Liam produced his shield. He offered no explanation for his lack of uniform.
Cecil examined the shield carefully, and handed it back with a grunt that was an offense in itself. He waited, arms folded.
Liam, like all good police officers, knew the value of an expectant silence, and did not rush to fill it, instead looking over the cabin.
The logs had been Sheetrocked inside, and taped, mudded, and painted a soft eggshell white by an expert hand. The floor was linoleum, a close match in color for the walls, and probably more practical for a Bush lifestyle of skinning out game and tanning hides than a carpet. There was a brown overstuffed couch and matching love seat and a cheap oak veneer coffee table. An entertainment center featuring a twenty-five-inch television and a library of videotapes dominated one wall. A gun rack with one rifle and one shotgun on it hung from a second, and several painfully amateurish gold pan oil paintings of caches and cabins in the snow beneath the Northern Lights were mounted on a third. One door led into a kitchen, another down a hallway.
A toilet flushed and water began to run into a sink, which explained where Laura Nanalook was. It might have been his imagination, but he thought Wolfe started a little at the sound. He covered it up by saying in a too hearty tone, "Women. Always primping."
Since Liam had scored a tactical victory by not speaking first, he could now ask pleasantly, "What are you doing here, Mr. Wolfe?"
Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "Bob DeCreft was one of my spotters. I came out to offer my condolences to his next of kin." He grinned his wolfish grin again. "Such as she is."
He was daring Liam to comment. Liam said, "And how has the herring season been for you this year, Mr. Wolfe?"
"When the fish hawks let me put my nets in the water, high boat," Wolfe said, adding, inevitably, "as usual."
"Of course," Liam said agreeably. "I hear tell that is often the case for you."
"You've heard of me then," Wolfe said.
"Of course," Liam repeated, still agreeably.
Wolfe preened. He was tall and well proportioned, but his neck was too thick for his collar, his arms too long for his sleeves. His features were strong and should have been pleasing to the eye, but a too heavy brow and an even heavier jaw threw them out of proportion, leaving the viewer with the impression of raw, crude, almost bestial strength, an impression strengthened by the wolfish grin. In repose the grin relaxed into a small, pink rosebud of a mouth startlingly at odds with the rest of his face. He wore buttonfront Levi's, almost new but washed enough times to fit snugly to his crotch. His blue shirt perfectly matched the blue of his eyes, and his fair, straight hair was fashionably cut in a style designed to downplay the thinning on top. He was cleanly shaven, his socks and Reeboks dazzlingly white. The package was well wrapped, but the wrapping wasn't bright or shiny enough to hide what was inside.
A brute, Liam decided. Crafty rather than smart, fearless, and as devious as the day was long. Everything about Wolfe was a little too well controlled, giving the impression that there was a great deal there to be controlled, as if it might go out of control without a strong enough hand on the reins.
Liam, falling back into his habit of assessing everyone by what crime they would be most likely to commit, decided that anyone who took that grin at its face value did so at his own peril. Wolfe was a predator out only for himself, who would flatten anyone in his way and wouldn't care who he hurt or what laws he violated in the process. He would have strong appetites, for money, for power, for toys.
The water stopped running in the bathroom, and the door opened. Both men looked around.
And for sex, Liam thought. Definitely a strong appetite for sex. Especially when faced with this kind of hors d'oeuvre.
She looked vaguely familiar to him, and then he had it. It was the impatient blonde in the bar from the day before. Her impact was much stronger and more visceral at closer quarters. She had hair like spun gold and skin like a velvet rose with just a hint of the dew on it. Her eyes were a dark velvety brown and widely set on killer cheekbones, her mouth red and full-lipped, her neck a long and graceful stem that flowed into graceful shoulders. Today she wore a white T-shirt whose soft knit fabric lovingly cupped the large, round breasts beneath, and did nothing to hinder the jutting nipples that crowned them, either. The T-shirt was tucked into a pair of chinos cinched in at the impossibly small waist with a woven leather belt. The long, lithe pair of legs that were made to lock around a man's waist and stay there for the rest of his natural life was just a bonus.
Liam made a heroic effort and managed to get his tongue back into his mouth. She didn't do anything to help, standing hipshot, chin down, one thumb hooked into her belt, staring at Liam with an up-from-under look designed to smelt steel. When the steam dissipated a little, his professional instincts kicked in, and something in him went on alert.
Laura Nanalook was trembling. It was a fine, almost imperceptible shaking that he wouldn't have noticed, and didn't at first, until she had cause to lean slightly against the arm of the couch to steady her knees. He looked back at her face with a cop's eye. Her lower lip was slightly swollen beneath its coat of red paint. Her wrists had the beginnings of bruises around them.
He turned to look at Cecil Wolfe and caught the man in the act of giving her a warning stare, filled with menacing promise. Liam noticed something else that he hadn't noticed before, too: Wolfe's shirt had been a little too hastily tucked into his jeans-one corner of the hem was caught between a button and a hole of his fly.
He looked at the room again. The cushions on the couch had been pushed to the floor, and the slipcover of the couch wedged deeply down into one crack, as if the couch had seen some recent rough and hasty use.