“What do you mean, you work here?” Wy knew a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Where's Liam?”
Up with the eyebrow again, as if to say, Liam, is it? “Trooper Campbell is away on a case. How can I help you?”
The sick feeling eased. “He still works here, then?”
“Last time I looked.”
“He's still assigned to Newenham?”
“He is still assigned to Newenham,” the trooper affirmed gravely. “Now, how may I help you, Ms. Chouinard?”
“Call me Wy,” Wy said automatically.
Mercifully, Trooper Prince did not as automatically respond with Why not? Instead, she said, for the third time, “How may I help you?”
Her manner was so indulgent that Wy bristled. “I found a body.” She was pleased when the trooper sat up straight in Liam's chair.
“You found a body?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“On an archaeological dig about fifty miles south of here. Ten miles more or less west of Chinook Air Force Base.”
The trooper stood up and went to the map of Bristol Bay tacked to the wall. “Show me.” Wy showed her. “There's a strip there?”
“Not a strip, exactly. More like a flat piece of ground just long enough for a Super Cub to roll out before it falls into the river. I own and operate the-”
“Nushagak Air Taxi Service,” Prince said.
Wy turned from the map. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Trooper Campbell may have mentioned it.”
“Oh. I see. Of course. Ah.” What had she been saying? “Right. I'm on a three-month contract to the state to fly the people working on the dig in and out.”
“And this morning?”
“And this morning I was flying the archaeologist-”
“One moment, please.” The trooper produced a notebook and a pencil. “Go ahead.”
“His name is McLynn, Desmond X. McLynn, and I was flying him to work this morning. We landed and found the body of his gofer, Don Nelson.” Wy hesitated. “Uh, it didn't-it wasn't-I don't think-oh hell.” She expelled an impatient breath. “He didn't just die,” she said bluntly. “He was killed.”
As if a switch had been thrown, the indulgent air vanished and the trooper went on alert. Wy could almost hear the howl of the bloodhounds. She'd seen the same expression on Liam's face too many times to mistake it now.
Prince said, “What makes you say that?”
Wy remembered Nelson's body and repressed a roll of nausea. “Well, the handle of the knife sticking out of his mouth was my first clue.”
“I see.” The trooper seemed to sniff the air. “Where is Professor McLynn now?”
“At Bill's. He wouldn't stay at the site, so I dropped him off on the way into town from the airport.”
“Bill's?”
“Bill's Bar and Grill,” Wy elaborated.
“This McLynn a drinker?”
“He is today,” Wy said, her mouth a grim line. “I would be, too, if I didn't have to fly.”
The trooper reached for her cap. “I'll follow you there.”
Bill's Bar and Grill was a squat, square building with a shallowpeaked roof of corrugated metal and green vinyl siding. Windows basked in the neon light of a dozen beer signs, and worn wooden stairs led up to double doors.
Inside, the building was divided, the bar in front and the kitchen in back. They were separated by a wall with a passthrough window through which wafted the tantalizing smell of beef burned to the proper degree of char and the occasional bellow, “Order up!” A bar with a black Naugahyde elbow pad ran the length of the front room on the left, booths and a jukebox were on the right, a small stage and an even smaller dance floor in the back. A hardy indoor-outdoor carpet of indeterminate color suffered beer spills and cigarette ashes with equal indifference, and the walls were arrayed in dark wood paneling and still more neon beer signs. The rafters were exposed, sort of, because every available inch had been stapled with business cards, men's shorts and women's bras, Japanese glass fishing floats, a moose rack that looked wide enough to challenge the current record holder inBoone & Crockett,a length of baleen, the cork line off a drift net and the inevitable and innumerable square foil packets of Trojans.
It was also, on this early afternoon in late July, almost empty, but for a woman standing behind the bar polishing a glass, a man seated opposite her and another man standing next to him. The standing man was tall, dark and in uniform.
“Liam!” Wy said involuntarily, and started forward.
“Sir?” Trooper Prince said. “How did you get here?”
The man turned his head toward them, bringing it full into the light from one of the windows. Wy halted. So did Prince.
He was tall, broad-shouldered and long-legged, with thick dark hair going a distinguished gray at the temples and blue eyes deepset in a brown face. His nose was high-bridged and arrogant, his mouth ready for an easy, sexy grin and his jaw square and obstinate, but despite these uncanny similarities he was not Liam Campbell. On closer inspection Wy realized that his uniform was not the blue of the Alaska State Troopers, either, it was the blue of the United States Air Force.
“I'm sorry,” he said with crisp courtesy, “I'm afraid you've mistaken me for my son.” He smiled, first at Wy, then over her shoulder at Trooper Prince, and in a heartbeat Wy understood where Liam got all his charm. “I'm Charles Campbell.” He smiled again. “I don't seem to be able to find my son, in fact.”
“He's out of town, Colonel,” Wy said. He gave her a sharp look, wanting to know how a civilian, and a female civilian at that, knew his rank. “I… know your son,” she said lamely. There was a comprehensive snort from the man seated at the bar. Campbell glanced down at him, and Moses Alakuyak's bright brown eyes met his with distinct challenge.
Wy shot the shaman a fierce look, and the woman behind the bar put her hand over his, in restraint or encouragement, Wy couldn't tell which, but then Bill was like that. “Liam speaks of you often,” she told Campbell. That was a lie, but it was the best she could come up with on the spot. Another snort from Moses told her what he thought of that.
“I flew Trooper Campbell out to Kulukak this morning, sir,” Prince said, stepping into the breach. “It is a coastal village about fifty miles southwest of here. He is working on an investigation.”
Campbell looked interested. “You're a pilot.”
“Yes, sir.”
He smiled again. “As am I. We have something in common, then.”
Prince eyed the eagles on his collar and the wings on his breast and said in a voice gone very dry, “So we do. Excuse me, sir, I'm here to talk to someone.” She looked around.
Wy pointed at a booth, where McLynn sat with a glass clutched in one hand, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Prince walked to the booth. “Mr. McLynn?”
“It's Professor McLynn, or Doctor, if you prefer,” he said without looking up.
“I'm Diana Prince with the Alaska State Troopers,” she said. “I'm flying out to your dig immediately. I'd like you to accompany me.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. “Is that really necessary?”
“It would be very helpful,” she said mildly.
He opened his eyes and tossed off the last of his drink. “Fine. Whatever. Let's get it over with.”
He snapped his notebook closed and rose to his feet, to level an admonitory finger at Prince. “I don't want anything there disturbed, do you understand? I've been working that dig for nearly twenty years. It is an archaeological site containing one-of-a-kind artifacts chronicling the existence of a small band of people that, when presented in its proper context, will rewrite the prehistory of this area.” He glared up at the trooper. “My research must not be interfered with.”
Trooper Prince didn't raise her voice. “I quite understand, sir, but the area is, unfortunately, also the scene of a crime. Our investigation will intrude as little as possible into your workspace, but it must begin immediately.”