“Why did you become a trooper, sir?” Prince said, who seemed to have taken on the duty of hostess.
“Too muchHawaii Five-O,”his father said.
“I like order,” Liam said firmly, if a bit pompously. “I like rules. We're a pretty unruly race, when you think about it. The law, imperfect as it is, is the only thing that keeps us a step ahead of the apes.”
Prince looked at him, waiting.
“Oh all right,” Liam said. “And I like the action. I get a charge out of bringing down the bad guys.” He looked at her. “You're going to be a good trooper.”
She grinned and dimples flashed. “I already am.”
“Hold that thought.”
“So why? Really. Why?”
It wasn't something he talked about, so it was hard to put it into words. “The first case I rolled on after my probationary period was a guy beating up on his wife.”
“Ugh.” Prince shuddered. “Domestic disputes. Hate 'em.”
“Don't we all. This was a bad one: her eyes were swollen shut, her right arm was broken in two places, he'd strangled her so she couldn't talk.”
“Repeat?”
“My trainer said it was the sixth time in two months he'd had a call to their house.”
She looked sympathetic, or as sympathetic as someone can look with a mouthful of T-bone steak.
“Yeah,” Liam said, “I know. This time, he went away, seven years and change. I saw her two years later, and I didn't recognize her. She was healthy, and happy, she had a job, she was the manager of the produce section of the local Eagle store. She recognized me immediately, and came right up to thank me. I knew somebody at a shelter, and had given her the number that night. It changed her life, she said. I'd changed her life. I tried to tell her that all I'd done was give her a number, she was the one who had made the call. No, she said, it was me. I'd rescued her, and I'd have to live with it.” Liam grinned. “And then she tried to give me five pounds of nectarines.”
“Which you of course refused.”
“Hell, yes, there must have been fifty people in the store. Didn't want anybody to see me taking a bribe.” He ate a bite of steak, and added, “I told her to put 'em in the car.”
Charles laughed. After a moment, Prince did, too, although Liam could see she was trying to decide if Liam was joking or not about the nectarines. “How about you?” he asked her.
She shrugged and grinned at Charles. “I always wanted my own uniform, and the Girl Scouts don't issue guns with theirs.”
Maria bustled by, her size two jeans all but slipping off her behind, and inquired as to their needs. She brought back another glass of wine for Prince and another beer for Charles.
“How is the case coming?” Wy said to Liam, under cover of Charles's voice.
“Which one?”
She shrugged. “Either. Both.”
Liam cut a piece of steak. It was perfect, the best cut of meat this side of the Club Paris in Anchorage, the perfect ratio of exterior char to bloody interior. “Well, I've got one confession.”
“Which?”
“TheMarybethia.”
“Who?”
“Walter Larsgaard. Do you know him?”
She frowned. “Isn't he the mayor of Kulukak?”
“Tribal chief.”
“Same difference.” Her brow creased. “He killed them? All of them?”
“So he says.”
She put down her knife and fork. “Seven people? Did he say why?”
“He was sleeping with Molly Malone. She wanted to break off the relationship. So he killed her.”
“Why did he kill the rest of them?”
“Her husband, because her husband had her and Larsgaard didn't. The rest of them, mainly because they were there.”
Wy thought about this. “You should pardon the expression, it sounds a little like overkill.”
“It doesn't sound like it, it was,” Liam said.
She shifted and her foot bumped his again. She didn't move it away this time. Their eyes met, and she smiled. Bewildered at this sea change-maybe he wouldn't be sleeping alone tonight after all, he couldn't help thinking-he smiled back.
“I was talking to Tim today,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Me, too.”
“Yeah. He told me.” She toyed with one of the crisp, golden fries, what Bill deemed appropriate for a steak side. “He said he knew Mike Malone.”
“He told me that, too. Played guard opposite him, he said.”
“Did he tell you that Mike Malone got benched for one game for fighting with some boy who called his mother a whore?”
“No. Did Tim know who it was? Who Molly was sleeping with?”
“No.”
“Walter Larsgaard says it was him. Alta Peterson down at the hotel says Molly used to stay there once a month, and that she didn't sleep alone, but that Alta never saw who it was.” He stared down at his plate. “I'm thinking it's an awful long boat ride from Kulukak to Newenham. Even if it's only once a month.”
Wy shrugged. “I didn't fly him in, but then I'm not the only air taxi around. Unless… does Walter Larsgaard fly?”
“I don't know.” He turned to Prince, who was giggling like a fifteen-year-old-or so it seemed to Liam-at some joke Charles was telling. “Did you run Larsgaard through the system?”
In midgiggle she shifted from lovestruck girl to officer of the law. “Yes, sir.”
“Does Larsgaard have a pilot's license?”
“No, sir.”
Liam turned back to Wy, and raised his shoulders.
Maria came to clear away their plates and tempt them with dessert, Alaska Silk Pie, one of which Bill air-expressed in from Anchorage on Alaska Airlines every day she was open. She charged about a third of what the entire pie cost per slice, so it was worth it, and there was never anything left when the bar closed at night.
Liam was full of steak and Glenmorangie and the hopeful promise of Wy's foot pressed warmly to his when he became aware of Prince speaking. “You should have seen him. Dropping his coffee mug, stumbling into things, banging his head against the overhead, all the time hopping around on one leg trying to get into his pants. He acted like he thought he was about to be raped.”
Charles laughed, and Prince was encouraged to elaborate. “It was everything I could do not to start unbuttoning my uniform shirt. I think he might have gone right over the side.” She put her cup down and smiled at the man across the table, unaware that the man next to her was stiffening in outrage, not to mention fear. “In the end, I decided against it. He is the senior officer on the post, after all. It might have made working together in the future, well, difficult.”
Charles laughed out loud, looking at Liam to share the joke. Prince looked, too, and for the first time became aware that she might have overstepped the bounds of propriety. She flushed and frowned down at her wine glass as if it were all its fault.
Wy, watching him, saw the irritation and the fear. Both delighted her. She knew they shouldn't have, she knew only a lesser person than she was practicing to be would rejoice in the discomfort of someone else, but there it was. She put down her coffee mug and said, “Well, I'd better be going.”
“Me, too,” Liam said instantly, rising to his feet. “I-ah, I need to get back to the post.”
Scared sober, Prince started to get up, too. Liam waved her back with a frigid, “As you were. I'll see you in the morning. We'll start putting the case paperwork together then.”
“Sir-”
“Goodnight, Dad,” Liam said, directing a nod in his father's direction. Charles's gaze was full of knowing mockery. Liam directed his eyes to somewhere over his father's left shoulder. “Will I be seeing you again before you leave?”
“Certainly,” Charles said jovially, and smiled at Prince. “I'll be here awhile yet. No, it's on me,” he said when Liam and Wy reached for their wallets. “My pleasure.”
He watched them walk to the door, a careful foot of distance between them. “They got something going?”
Prince was watching them, too. “It looks like it.”