Liam took a smooth step forward, inserting himself between the two of them, and smiled down at her. "Excuse me, ma'am, we haven't been introduced. I'm Liam Campbell, the new state trooper assigned to Newenham."
"Trooper?" Her head whipped up and a panicky look came into her eyes. "Why are you here? What do you want? I didn't call you."
"Well," Liam said, and shuffled his feet, giving her his best aw-shucks, apologetic look. "I'm investigating the death of Bob DeCreft."
The panicked look faded, and her shoulders slumped infinitesimally. "Oh."
"You're Laura Nanalook, is that right?"
"Yes."
She volunteered nothing further. This was worse than pulling teeth. Liam produced what had never failed him before, his trusty pad and pencil. "And you lived here with Bob DeCreft."
She eyed notebook and pencil without interest. "Yes."
"Just what is the problem here, officer?" Wolfe said. Liam looked around and found himself nose to nose with the other man. "Little Laura here and I are friends. I'd hate to think you thought she was in any way responsible for the awful accident which befell poor old Bob."
Wolfe was crowding him, physically and verbally. Liam regarded him thoughtfully without moving, and without answering. Wolfe was unaccustomed to this kind of response, and his look intensified into a glare.
With superb indifference, Liam turned back to Laura. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Nanalook, and I'm very sorry to have to bother you at a time like this, but in cases of this kind, I'm afraid there are questions that must be asked."
"Cases of what kind?" Wolfe said.
Liam, careful to keep his voice as neutral as was humanly possible, said, "Mr. Wolfe, just what is your interest here?"
He regretted the words as soon as they were out. Wolfe looked at the blonde, and smiled, slowly, a predatory smile full of anticipation and arrogant assurance. She didn't flinch away from that look, but Liam did. He said, "I understand Mr. DeCreft was spotting herring for you, Mr. Wolfe."
Wolfe's smile faded. "What of it?"
"Had he worked for you before?"
Wolfe's eyes narrowed. "This was the second year. Him and that flying dyke of his. And he wasn't working for me, he was working for her."
It didn't take an Alaska state trooper with ten years of investigatory experience behind him or a prior relationship with Wy to deduce that Wolfe had come on to Wy and been summarily dismissed. In spite of the situation Liam had to bite back a smug smile. Ah, testosterone, he thought, and this time the inner smile was directed more toward himself. He said, "I was given to understand that he had worked for you before."
Wolfe was surprised. "And how would you know that?"
Liam shrugged, and waited.
"Yeah, he worked for me, spotted for me, one season about six years ago. So what?"
The woman moved away, navigating a large, careful circle around both men, and subsided into a straight-backed chair pushed against one wall. She folded her arms, hugging herself, knees pressed tightly together.
Liam turned to find Wolfe looking at him with a speculative gleam in his eye. "When was the last time you spoke to Mr. DeCreft?" Liam said.
Wolfe gave a careless shrug that was a little too studied for Liam's taste. "I don't know, probably the last time they were in the air for me."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"I don't really know," Wolfe said, still careless. He was watching Liam from beneath lowered brows, an intent, speculative gaze. "Might have been last year when I settled up with the two of them." He added condescendingly, "You see, officer, in herring fishing you don't ever have to see your spotters. They're up in the air, telling you where the fish are. You're on the water, going after the fish where they tell you."
"How do you settle up?" Liam was curious to know how Wy had been earning her living.
"What with the quotas nowadays, the seasons never last long. Chouinard usually met me at the dock. I'd show her the fish tickets"-some hidden joke amused Wolfe for a moment-"we'd add up the tonnage, multiply it by the going rate, figure her percentage, and then I'd write her a check."
"And she'd settle with Mr. DeCreft."
"That's how it works." Wolfe looked around and found his jacket, a leather bomber jacket with a fleece-lined collar that had never seen the inside of a Flying Fortress. "I'm off. Laura? Thanks for the-visit. I'll catch you later."
He emphasized the last words. Her head snapped up and he grinned at her. Her face went white.
With difficulty Liam remembered his sworn oath, and managed to refrain from taking out that grin, and the man along with it.
The door slammed shut behind Wolfe, leaving the little cabin vibrating in his wake.
Liam crossed the floor to kneel in front of Laura Nanalook. "Ms. Nanalook. Ms. Nanalook, are you all right?"
She raised her head again and smeared away a tear with the back of one hand. "Yes, of course. I'm fine." He regarded her steadily, and she added, "I'm just upset about Bob, is all."
"Uh-huh," Liam said, and waited. When she offered nothing further, he said, "What was your relationship to Bob DeCreft?"
Pausing in the act of pushing back her hair, she gave him a look that puzzled him with its sudden suspicion. "We lived here together."
"Uh-huh," Liam said, remembering the dead man's age. He wondered what attraction an older man might have had for such a young and beautiful woman. The cabin didn't show signs of affluence, and with her extraordinary looks Laura Nanalook could have sold herself to a much higher bidder.
Cecil Wolfe, for example.
"When was the last time you saw Mr. DeCreft, Ms. Nanalook?"
"Yesterday morning," she said steadily.
"About what time?"
"Late morning, around ten or so, I guess. He was headed out to the airport. Fish and Game said there might be an opener yesterday afternoon, and he and Wy were going up to do some scouting."
"Uh-huh," Liam said, making a note of the time. "Ms. Nanalook, I'm afraid there are some questions about Mr. DeCreft's death."
"What questions? He walked into a prop," she said. Her full, beautiful mouth tightened. "He walked into a goddamn prop, the stupid bastard." Tears formed in her eyes, and the anger was gone and as quickly replaced with grief. A mercurial temperament, difficult to live with. Or at least difficult for Liam to live with.
He refrained from telling her about the p-lead. A little pompously he said, "Alaska state law requires a thorough investigation of any accidental death." He folded up his notebook and stowed it. "So Mr. Wolfe just stopped by to offer his condolences?" He ended the sentence on a faintly interrogatory note.
She stared at him, brown eyes overflowing with tears. "Yeah," she said, "that's it. He wanted to comfort me in my loss." She started to laugh then, and it was an ugly sound, high-pitched, hysterical, uncontrolled. She must have heard how it sounded to Liam, and fought a visible battle it was painful to watch to bring herself back under control. She did it, a piece at a time. She might be volatile, but she was strong.
"I'll get you some water," Liam said, and rose to his feet before she could protest.
He went into the kitchen, a small room with an oil stove, a table with four matched chairs, and cupboards all showing signs of being lovingly crafted by hand, and ran a glass of water. There was a box of Kleenex on the counter, and he snagged a handful of them, too.
On his way back into the living room he took the opportunity to peek into the other rooms. Two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Both bedrooms sported twin beds, one each, both neatly made up. The closet in one room was lined with Blazo boxes stacked on their sides and filled with jeans, shirts, shoes, shorts, T-shirts, and socks, everything neatly folded. The closet in the second room was a riot of color and fabric and there was nothing neat about it. This room had a dresser, too, plus a mirror festooned with necklaces and a large stand hung with dozens of pairs of earrings. The dresser looked handmade, and matched the headboard of the bed and the small nightstand next to it, all three smooth as silk and gleaming with polish.