"Sure," Johnny said, and got up from where he had been studying Alaska history at the dining room table. As he passed Jim in the doorway, he touched his arm and said in a low voice, "She's mad about something, Jim."
Jim looked at Kate. "As it happens, so am I."
Johnny stared at him in consternation and gathering indignation. "Oh, good," he said. "At least it'll be a fair fight." He grabbed his parka and the door closed behind him.
Jim looked to Mutt for succor. Mutt, a reliable barometer when it came to Kate and a loyal friend even in the face of Mutt's undeniable lust for Jim, was parked in front of the fireplace, nose under her tail. She hadn't even looked up at his entrance. It was not the kind of treatment he was accustomed to, and even more than Johnny's warning, it put him on full alert. A proponent of the best defense is a good offense, he divested himself of parka, boots, and especially his sidearm and said without preamble, "What's wrong?"
At least he could rely on her not to respond with a falsely bright, "Nothing!" but he wasn't expecting what did come out.
"Do you have something going on with Talia Macleod?"
It caught him so flat-footed that his response was a brilliantly articulate, "Huh?"
"I've been up and down the river and in and out of Niniltna the past two days, and everywhere I go I'm told about the Father of the Park's new target."
"Wait a minute-"
"You've been seen everywhere together, it seems." She gave the potatoes a savage mash, her already tight shoulder muscles bunching with the effort. "In Niniltna at the Riverside Cafe. At the Roadhouse. In Cordova at the Club Bar. At Bobby's. You've been seen everywhere together, getting on like a house on fire, and the general consensus seems to be that I'm out and she's in. Fine by me, you do what you want, but I'd appreciate knowing if that's the case."
She pushed the pot of potatoes to the back of the stove and started turning the strips of liver. Each move she made was accomplished with a delicate precision, centering the pot and the frying pan on the stove's burners, piercing each slice of liver precisely at a spot on one end that would counterbalance the weight so it wouldn't slide off the tine of the fork, setting it back into the pan at the correct distance so no slice would adhere to the slice next to it. Each strip was a perfect brown, no charring allowed, and the potatoes looked like a pot full of cumulus clouds, fluffy and creamy and mouthwateringly appealing. A dish full of browned onions sat next to it.
He said the first thing that came into his head. "Why the cache for the peas and onions? Why not the freezer?"
She paused, one strip of meat in the air, and gave him a look that would have turned a lesser man to stone. "Why spend the money on diesel to run the generator to run the freezer when winter will do the job just fine?"
"Makes sense," he said. He took in the rest of the kitchen. There were two loaves of white bread cooling on a rack, a loaf of date nut bread cooling in the pan, and coffee cake cooling in a cake tin. "You've been busy."
"It's cold, I'm hungry, answer the question."
"You're jealous," he said.
Such a wave of fury rolled over the counter in his direction that he almost instinctively ducked out of the way of the frying pan that-oil, liver, and all-he was certain would be coming in his direction next.
She struggled for control and won. He breathed easier. "I told You once," she said, her voice very tight, "I don't stand in line. You want to sleep with Talia Macleod, go sleep with Talia Macleod. Just don't come back here after you have."
She banged open a cupboard and slung a plate in the oven to warm with such vigor he was surprised it didn't shatter.
"I'm not sleeping with her," Jim said, and as the words came out of his mouth wondered at them. Had he ever had this particular conversation with a woman before?
"Uh-huh," she said.
He realized she was hurt, and knew a momentary flash of guilt, which corresponded almost exactly to a simultaneous lick of resentment. Since when did he feel guilty over how he treated women?
Since never. His women were supposed to know the score, they were carefully selected and the relationship structured on a rational basis where everyone had a good time and nobody got hurt when it was over. "I've never lied to you, Kate," he said, the words coming out maybe a little hotter and harder than he'd meant them to. "If it comes to that, I've never lied to any woman I've ever known. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't automatically assume I was lying to you now."
She paused, a strip of liver dangled momentarily over the frying pan, and then set it carefully flour-side down in the sizzling oil. "All right," she said. "That's fair. I apologize." She set the fork to one side and looked him straight in the eye for the first time since he'd come into the room. "The day you were seen with her in the Club Bar? You didn't come home that night." At his expression, she heaved an impatient sigh. "I'm a trained investigator, Jim, not to mention which people tell me stuff." She added bleakly, "I don't know why, but they always do. Sometimes I think I should have been a priest, because I have to be the depository of more secrets than any other Park rat walking around on two legs."
She paused, but he could tell she wasn't done, so he waited.
"I hate this," she said with a heartfelt intensity. She picked the fork up again, evidently this time for the sole purpose of slamming it down.
"What?" he said.
"This!" she said, waving a hand that indicated the space between the two of them. "I hate it that I care this much! That I care for you more than either of us is comfortable with!" She glared at him. "If I could snap my fingers or wiggle my nose or click my heels three times together and make it all go away, I would!" She put a lid on the frying pan, removed it, and slammed it back on again.
"I'm not loving it a whole lot, either," he said, stung, and his voice rising with it. "You think this is easy for me? I've never had a relationship last this long. Hell, I've never had whatever the hell that word means before! But you're in my life, Kate, whether I like it or not, and there doesn't seem to be a whole hell of a lot I can do about it!"
"Well, I'm sorry it's such a trial to you!"
"I didn't say that!" He registered that he was almost shouting with a faint astonishment that failed to moderate his tone. "I'm okay with it! But I'll tell you something I'm not okay with!"
"What?"
He took a deep breath, mastering his anger with an effort, the anger and the effort both still a surprise. "I am not okay with you keeping evidence quiet that pertains to an ongoing investigation."
It was her turn to say, "Huh?"
He gave it to her bluntly, without trying to soften the words. Maybe he even meant to hurt her this time, and maybe that was because he was furious and frightened that he felt guilty and maybe even a little hurt himself that she had so immediately decided that the rumors were true, and he wanted to share the pain. "I've got Howie Katelnikof sitting in a cell at the post."
"You arrested Howie?"
"Not yet, although I've got a pretty good case for him hunting caribou out of season, in amounts that I can prove are commercial. No, Howie appears to think he needs protection from whoever it is who's trying to kill him."
She stared at him for a moment. "So, who does he think is trying to kill him?" And, Katelike, returning like a little homing pigeon to the original item under discussion, "And what does that have to do with me withholding evidence in an ongoing investigation? What investigation?"
"Louis Deem's murder."
She flushed and hung her head, looking undeniably guilty. "Oh," she said weakly.
Ruthlessly he pressed his advantage. "Howie says the four aunties hired the job done, Kate."