His smile faded. Still, she had been getting a little pissy lately. Thinking, he dated it back to the Louis Deem murder the year before. Amazing first, that he'd noticed. Amazing second, that he wanted to know why.
The fisherman let him off in front of the Cordova cop shop, and he went in to meet and greet and compare notes on several of the Park's most stupid, most drunk, most likely to, and most wanted. Afterward he walked down to the Club Bar for a burger and a Coke.
The first person he saw when he walked in was the ubiquitous Talia Macleod, holding forth to a table of Cordovan movers and shakers, all with drinks at their elbows for which Jim was willing to bet large Macleod had paid. They were all sprouting GHRI ball caps, too, the ones with the golden sunburst peeping over a line of mountains, recognizable as the Quilaks if you looked close.
She saw him at once and raised a hand in greeting without missing a word of what she was saying. He sat at the bar and ordered, and as he was finishing his meal her meeting broke up and she joined him there. "Cheese it, the fuzz," she said.
He grinned. "How you doing?"
She grimaced. "Sometimes I feel like I've taken a vow. And that I get paid by the convert." She looked over her shoulder and waved someone over.
Jim looked and saw a burly man of medium height, late thirties, dark hair and wary eyes. He patted the air and shook his head, nodding at the group he was talking to. She insisted, and he trailed over, obviously reluctant and equally obviously trying not to show it.
"Jim Chopin, meet Dick Gallagher," she said.
"How do," Jim said.
"Hey," Gallagher said. His handshake was brief and a little clammy. "So," he said, his eyes taking in the blue and gold, "you a cop?"
"Trooper," Jim said. He'd been one too long not to recognize the reluctance, and ran a quick interior scan of the most recent wants and warrants. None of them sported Gallagher's name or his description, and few people liked cops anyway, so mentally he stood down, for now.
"You need me for anything else?" Gallagher said to Macleod. He half turned from Jim as he spoke, focusing his attention on Macleod. Crowded in close, too, and touched her knee.
"No, I think our work here is done," Macleod said, composed. "For today, anyway. You can head for the barn if you want."
Jim watched the tension in Gallagher's jawline increase. "A couple of the gentlemen want to shoot some pool down to the Cordova House. Figured I'd tag along."
"You lose your own money, not Global Harvest's," Macleod said, unperturbed.
Gallagher laughed, but it rang false. "What time do we leave tomorrow?"
"Ten A.M., George picks us up at the airport."
"See you then," he said. He gave Jim a distant nod without meeting his eyes and left with the other men.
"I've been duly warned off," Jim said lightly.
"No need to be," she said, as lightly, and smiled at him.
Jim felt an unwilling sympathy for Gallagher, so easily discarded, and Macleod must have somehow intuited it because she added, "He's like every other boomer who ever came into the state, his hand out for any and everything he can get before he hauls ass south."
The bartender came over and she ordered a glass of chardonnay.
"Women always order chardonnay," Jim said.
She made play with her eyelashes over the rim of her glass. "Sometimes we order pinot grigio." She sipped. "But most of the time they don't have it. Besides, men always wear blue."
He looked down at himself. It was true. "In my own defense, it is the color of my uniform."
"What are you doing in town?" she said.
"Prisoner escort, and I had to reach out to the local cops on a few things. Routine. I don't have to ask you what you've been doing. How long have you been here?"
"Two days. Got a suite at the Reluctant, or what passes for a suite, which is two rooms with a connecting door. I have had breakfast with the Chamber of Commerce, lunch with the school board, attended a meeting of the library advisory board, played pinochle at the Elks Club and Bingo with the retired folks at Sunset Arms."
Jim smiled. "Whatever they're paying you, it isn't worth it."
"I don't know." She shrugged. "I had a lesson in beading from a nice lady, name of Pat, retired from the school administration. Or I did until her granddaughter Annie showed up. She told me to go find my own beading teacher."
"Gotta watch out for them granddaughters," Jim said. "Where do you go next?"
She brightened perceptibly. "I'm spreading the word to the villages on the river, by snow machine."
"No kidding," he said, impressed. "You're heading out to the 'Burbs, are you?"
"Yeah, I've been waiting until the river froze up enough for traffic."
"You want to be careful when you get close to the mouth. It starts to get a little slushy."
She laughed. "I'm told that it's fish camps the last twenty-five miles before the Sound, summers only, so I should be all right. I'm going to take my skis, see if I can get in some snow time while I'm out there."
"Your rifle, too?"
She looked mock shocked. "Of course."
Her enthusiasm was contagious, and he warmed to her. "Should be a great trip, so long as the weather holds."
She shrugged. "I've been snowed in in Bush Alaska before. I'll bring a deck of cards."
He ate another french fry. "I have to say that snow machining down the Kanuyaq sounds like a lot more fun than eating bacon and eggs with the Cordova Chamber of Commerce."
"Tell me about it." She hesitated. "Actually. Tell me about something else."
"What?"
"You know Howie Katelnikof?"
"Everybody knows Howie," he said casually, suddenly on the alert.
"What do you know about him?"
He shook salt onto his plate and started mopping it up one fry at a time. "A lot more than I can prove."
"Shit," she said. It was a long, drawn-out expression of annoyance and frustration, and it was heartfelt.
"What'd he do?"
"I think he's been stealing stuff from the trailer out on the leases."
"You think?"
"I know stuff is gone, a computer monitor, a telephone, some other office supplies. I don't know that Howie took them, but he was the guy out there when they went missing. It was his shift."
"His shift?"
"Yeah, I hired Dick Gallagher to work a week on, a week off with Howie."
"Guy just here."
"That's him."
"You don't think Gallagher is responsible?"
"Wrong weeks."
Jim thought of the wariness in Dick Gallagher's eyes. He and Howie could be ripping off the place together. "Those snow machines don't work only on the river."
"You got something against Dick?"
"Just met the guy. Don't like to jump to assumptions, is all." He ate another french fry. Salty goodness. "Howie never was the brightest dog on the gangline. Come to think of it, that was probably an insult to any dog on a gangline. Actually, maybe anything on four feet."
"I guess I should have talked to somebody before I hired him," she said moodily.
"That would have been good," he said.
She smacked him halfheartedly on his arm. "What's more, he's decided he's in love with me."
"Only a matter of time," Jim said. "Why, thank you, Sergeant Chopin."
"Howie falls in love pretty easily," Jim said. "A working pulse is pretty much all it takes for him."
She smacked him again, less halfheartedly this time, and they both laughed. "Well, I'm not all that hard to please, but I'm a lot harder to please than that," she said. "How mad at me are the Park rats going to be if I fire him?"
"Not very. You might even get some more converts on the strength of it."
"Oh, well, then I'll fire him the next time I see him."
"Where is he?"
She made a face. "Out at the lease site. It's his week on."
The bartender came with the check. "Anything else?"
"I'll get that," Macleod said.
Jim managed to snag it a second before she did. "I'm here on business. I'll expense it."
The bartender stood there, waiting. "I'll have another glass," Talia said. "Jim? Want a beer?"