“Offhand, I'd say the arsonist induced combustion with an inflammatory substance. That is indicated by the high degree of carbonization-”
“English,” Liam said.
“Oh.” Mark gave a nervous smile. “Somebody poured gas all over the place and lit a match. They started in the galley. That's why the big charred patch in the middle of the floor.”
They had to have been dead by then, or at least unconscious. There had been no sign of restraints, and nobody sits still while someone pours gas all over them. “From the fuel tank?”
“TheMarybethia's a diesel.”
“Oh. Did you find a gas can?”
“No.” Mark blinked. “Could have tossed it overboard.”
Most likely, Liam thought. There was a hell of a lot of water for it to get lost in. “And then they opened the sea cocks.”
“Somebody did,” Mark said cautiously. “No way to know if the same person started the fire as pulled the plugs. The fire was started first, though,” he added. “You can see where the water level climbed to extinguish the flames.”
“You find any bullets?”
Mark stared. “How did you know?” He produced a slug in a Ziploc bag.
Liam took it. It was too flattened for casual identification, but if he had to guess it had come from a rifle, a.30-06, maybe. Easy enough to recognize, since just about everyone in the Bush owned one. More difficult to find out which rifle had fired it.
Mark took the bag back and pocketed it. “I'll turn it over to ballistics when I get back to town. And I'll know more about the fire once I get back to my own lab.”
“Okay.” Liam started the engine. “There's an Alaska Airlines flight out of here at about two o'clock.”
“Drop us both at the post, sir,” Prince said. “I'll drive him to the airport in the truck.”
His shirt and jacket clung clammily to his skin. “Thanks.”
Dry clothes felt good, even though he had to settle for civvies, in the form of a blue plaid shirt and jeans. He had a spare ball cap, though, with the trooper badge on the front, so he felt like he could legitimately strap his backup piece on. His ninemillimeter automatic, which had gone into Kulukak Bay with him, was disassembled and put in an oil bath in a saucepan before he headed out in search of food, by way of the post office. The same clerk was on duty. He eyed Liam's packaged uniform, addressed to the same Anchorage dry cleaner's. Liam held a hand up, palm out. “Don't ask.”
“Hey, I just work here. Overnight? Same as this morning?”
Liam sighed and got out his wallet. “Yes.” Maybe he should cave and get his uniforms made in some permanent press material, some fabric extruded from the molecule of a petroleum product.
It was one o'clock by the time he got to Bill's, and his stomach was trying to crawl up his throat. Bill took one look at him and yelled, “Cheeseburger and fries, rare!” and went to pour him a Coke.
“Diet,” he said. “With lemon.”
“Well, lah-di-dah,” Bill said testily, dumping out what she'd already poured. “When did you get so refined in your tastes?”
“Regular's too sweet.”
“That's generally why people like it,” Bill said, setting a napkin on the bar and the glass on the napkin.
Liam squeezed the wedge of lemon into the liquid. “It's why I don't. Even the diet stuff is too sweet. That's why the lemon.” He took a swallow, a long one, that resulted in a refill and another wedge of lemon. “Everything's too sweet anymore: pop, Jell-O, canned frosting, sukiyaki, even wine. It's the Pepsi-ization of America. You used to be able to get a decent dry white wine, fullbodied, buttery, you took a swallow, it bit back, you know? Then they sweetened everything up, made it taste like Kool-Aid. That's when I switched to red wine.” He drank again. It didn't taste like much, but it was better than Kulukak harbor, which had had the faintest hint of diesel spill for an aftertaste. “Probably only a matter of time before they ruin that, too.”
“I thought you only drank Glenmorangie.”
“One does not drink Glenmorangie, one worships at its feet.”
“My mistake.”
Liam's burger and fries arrived and he was not heard from again, or at least not for the next ten minutes. Bill pulled a stool opposite his and sat down with a glass of mineral water and a twist of lime. She had a map of New Orleans spread out on the bar, and was tracing the trolley route to the Garden District. “I've seen pictures of the fence around Anne Rice's house,” she said. “Wrought-iron roses. I plan to see that up close and personal when I go. And I hear tell that Jefferson Davis died just down the street, and that there's a memorial. I'd like to see that, too, if only just to spit on it. That old boy did not get half the kicking around he deserved.” She turned the map over to look at the advertisements. “The Jazz Festival, when is that, May, June? Jimmy Buffett plays at the festival sometimes. I wonder how hot it is in New Orleans in June.”
She wasn't expecting any answers, which was a good thing because Liam's mouth was full. The bar wasn't, maybe a dozen customers all told. One couple was dancing unsteadily cheek to cheek to the strains of “Son of a Son of a Sailor.” Four men in a booth loitered over the remains of their beer, paperwork exchanging hands and paragraphs disputed in muted voices. One of them was Jim Earl, Newenham's mayor. The other three were members of the town council. Two booths over four women slapped cards down in a game of Snerts. One man sat at a table, moodily nursing a beer, thinking unpleasant thoughts, if his expression was anything to go by. A table away another man was asleep, head on the tabletop between outstretched arms.
Liam surfaced eventually, his stomach straining pleasantly at his belt. “It occurs to me that I've been eating your cheeseburgers twice a day for three months.”
Bill raised her head and gave him a considering stare. “I fail to see the problem here, Liam.”
“Come to think of it, so do I,” he said, pushing his plate away and finishing his Coke. “I need a couple of arrest warrants, Bill.”
She put down the street map she'd been looking at and got up to refill his glass. “I heard,” she said, climbing back up on her stool. “You've been busy.”
His smile was smug. “Yup.”
The door opened behind him and momentarily flooded the dim room with light. A raven cawed raucously, the sound cut off abruptly when the door shut again. “Noisy bastard,” Moses muttered, and climbed up to sit beside Liam.
Bill smiled at him, the tender smile she reserved only for him. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself. Gimme a beer.”
The smile didn't waver. She got him a beer, a squat brown bottle full, and poured it in his lap.
“Hey!” Moses leapt to his feet. “Goddamn it, woman, what the hell are you doing? Jesus!”
“Teaching you some manners,” she replied sweetly. She climbed back up on her stool and said to Liam, “Warrants for whom?”
Liam, struggling to repress a grin and not succeeding very well, said, “One for Frank Petla. I need that one right away, his twenty-four hours are about up.”
“What for?”
Moses, still cursing, climbed off his stool and headed for the john.
“Two counts of felony assault, for starters.”
She raised a brow. “Not murder?”
“No.” The face of Charlene Taylor flashed before his eyes. “Not yet,” he said. Not until he'd dotted that lastiand crossed that lastt.
Bill grunted. “There's time, I guess. Long as we keep him locked up. Who's the second one for?”
“Walter Larsgaard.”
“Old or Young?”
“Young.”
“The tribal chief?”
“Yeah.”
She winced. “Ouch. That's going to come back and bite us in the ass.”
“I know.”
Moses emerged from the bathroom, his lap drier than it had been. A cell phone wentbrriiiinnnngsomewhere in the bar and his head came up like he was on point. He zeroed in on Jim Earl. Jim Earl saw him coming and tried to get the phone folded up and back in his pocket in time but it was too late; Moses snatched it from his hand. The antenna was still out and it waggled an inch in front of Jim Earl's nose as Moses gave forth.