"You like it?"

He mopped up the last of the syrup with the last piece of French toast and pointed it at her. "I'll tell you, Kate," he said, "I f.u.c.king love it. I've never seen a place with more opportunities to make a buck. Like I'm headed out on a snow machine trip today, up and down the river with my boss going to the villages to talk to the people about the mine, and I get overtime for that. Man." He laughed. "I like it all right. I got a warm place to sleep, plenty to eat, and"-he winked at her-"I'm making new friends every day. A man can get ahead here. Yeah," he said, regarding his forkful of food with a satisfaction that verged on complacency, "I f.u.c.king love it here. I'm going to stay forever."

Or at least long enough to make enough money so he could spend the rest of his life deep-sea fishing in Manzanillo, Kate thought. "You're what we call a boomer," she said.

He looked quizzical. "Baby boomer, you mean?"

"No. Just a boomer. Somebody who comes to Alaska to make good, and who does very well."

His smile hardened momentarily, only to return at double wattage. "Nothing wrong with a man making a good living."

"Nothing at all," she said cordially.

She agreed with him too easily and he didn't trust her response, which proved he wasn't entirely stupid. Still, he was incapable of stopping his eyes from drifting down over her. They lingered on her chest for a moment, and then jerked back up, to the thin, white scar that bisected her throat. He looked at her face, and back at the scar. He opened his mouth to say something else when Auntie Vi slammed in the kitchen door. She saw Kate and stopped in her tracks. "Katya."

"Auntie." Kate rose. "Something we need to talk about, Auntie. Auntie Vi snorted. "You talk. I work." She filled the thermos she carried full of hot coffee.

"Great breakfast, Vi," Gallagher said heartily. "I don't know when I've eaten a better one."

Auntie Vi looked at him and snorted again. "You pay for what you get here." She slammed out again. Kate didn't move fast enough and almost got her nose caught in the door. She heard Gallagher chuckle behind her.

Kate found Auntie Vi mending gear in the net loft, a room over her garage that was insulated and Sheetrocked but unpainted. Heat came from a small Toyo stove, and the radio was on and currently tuned in to Park Air. Bobby's voice was trans.m.u.ted by digital wizardry from its usual sonic boom to a more intimate and somehow s.e.xier rumble, a velvet rasp of sound that made you listen whether you wanted to or not. NPR had missed out when they hadn't recruited Bobby Clark to replace Bob Edwards on Morning Edition. on Morning Edition. Of course, Bobby could be just a trifle more incendiary than Bob. "Okay, all you tree-hugging, bunny-loving, granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing Naderites, this one's for you," he said, "the only song worth a greenie s.h.i.t," followed by the seductive opening licks of Three Dog Night's "Out in the Country." Bobby, Kate thought, was the living embodiment of Emerson's dictum that a foolish consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds. Of course, Bobby could be just a trifle more incendiary than Bob. "Okay, all you tree-hugging, bunny-loving, granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing Naderites, this one's for you," he said, "the only song worth a greenie s.h.i.t," followed by the seductive opening licks of Three Dog Night's "Out in the Country." Bobby, Kate thought, was the living embodiment of Emerson's dictum that a foolish consistency was the hobgoblin of little minds.

Drift nets were heaped in orderly piles all over the floor, the one currently undergoing repair draped over a couple of sawhorses. Auntie Vi sat on a straight-backed wooden chair, head bent over hands wielding a hand-carved bone needle with unerring dexterity, translucent green monofilament almost magically a.s.sembling itself into a curtain of mesh whose individual cells were the exact size to snare a red salmon right behind the gills. "I'm busy," she said without looking up. "What you want?"

Okay, no point in not being equally blunt. "Howie Katelnikof told Jim Chopin that you and the other aunties hired someone to kill Louis Deem."

Auntie Vi didn't answer. The silence stretched out. Kate looked hard at the top of Auntie Vi's unresponsive head. "Auntie, did you hear me?"

"Nothing wrong with my ears."

Kate began to feel a slow burn. "Anything you'd like to say about it?" Mutt, standing next to her, moved a pace forward, putting a firm shoulder in between the two women.

"What to say?"

"Oh, I don't know," Kate said. "How about, Howie's full of s.h.i.t? How about, Howie's trying to buy his way out of getting caught with a commercial load of caribou taken out of season? How about, Howie's a little weasel who'd sell out his own mother to stay out of jail? I'm wide open for suggestions here."

"Howie got no mother."

Kate looked at Auntie Vi's bent head with a dawning horror. "Jesus Christ, Auntie. Is it true?"

"Howie say who we suppose to hired?"

There was a short, charged silence. "No," Kate said. "Not yet."

Auntie Vi finished mending one hole and put down the needle to shake the cramp out of her fingers. "Tell something to me, Katya." She looked up for the first time, and Kate almost fell back a step from the anger she saw there.

"What you do, Katya? Tell me what you do. Louis Deem monster. Monster," she said again, with emphasis, making it clear. "Liar. Thief. Murderer. Murder three wives. Three. Jessie. Ruthie. Mary. All dead, by his hand. Everybody know this, Katya. And n.o.body do nothing."

"Not nothing, Auntie," Kate said. "Not nothing. He was brought to trial twice."

Auntie Vi dismissed this with a contemptuous wave of her hand.

Her b.u.t.ton black eyes burned and her face was flushed. "What that matter? They let him go. You always let him go, Katya." She looked straight at Kate. "You always let him go." "Auntie, I-"

"Then he hurt those two girls. Those two babies. That one she comes to me crying her eyes out. She beg me for help. What do we do, Katya? You tell me. What do we do?"

Kate tried to say something and failed.

"What you do, Katya?" Auntie Vi said, and the resentment in her voice was as unmistakable as it was flaying. "What do you do?"

She took up the needle again and reached for the next hole in the gear.

Kate stood there, shocked, speechless.

"Working here," Auntie Vi said. "You bother me. Go."

Kate went.

Outside, she was just in time to see Gallagher and Macleod loading up their snow machines.

Macleod looked up and gave her a warm smile. "Kate," she said.

Kate made a heroic effort and managed a civil reply. "I hear you're making a trip downriver."

Macleod nodded. "Down first, one day in each village, back and overnight here, and then up to Ahtna, same."

"Spreading the gospel according to Global Harvest Resources Inc.," Kate said.

Macleod shrugged, unfazed by Kate's less than enthusiastic tone. "I told Global Harvest that if they wanted a successful operation they'd better get to know the neighbors."

"The 'Burbs know you're coming?"

"Oh yeah," Macleod said. "We've got town meetings set up everywhere we're stopping, and someplace warm to lay our heads every night. People have been pretty welcoming."

"So far," Kate said.

"So far," Macleod said agreeably.

Kate nodded at the rifle in the scabbard on Macleod's snow machine. "Keep that handy. There have been a couple of attacks on the river lately."

"Yeah, Jim told me."

In spite of herself Kate stiffened. "Did he."

"Yeah, I checked in with him before coming down here to pick up d.i.c.k. He wasn't happy when I told him what we were up to. He told me about the attacks and to be careful." Her ravishing smile flashed out again. "Good guy, Jim. For a trooper. Not to mention hot as a pistol."

d.i.c.k Gallagher's head whipped around at that, and his expression wasn't pretty, but Macleod didn't see. She pressed the starter and the engine roared into life. "See you, Kate!"

Kate stepped back as Macleod accelerated down the road, followed, at first tentatively and then with more a.s.surance, by Gallagher.

Kate watched them until they were out of sight. "Yeah," she said, her lips tight. "See you."

EIGHTEEN.

You knew," she said to Jim. "You knew and you didn't tell me."

"You knew I was Bernie's alibi," he said. "I sure as h.e.l.l didn't know Bernie'd dragged the aunties into it," she said hotly. "Neither did I."

She glared at him.

He leaned forward and stared back, his chin out. "Neither did I, Kate," he said again, slowly and with great deliberation, "and I'd appreciate it if you'd take my word for that, too."

A sudden rush of color scorched her face. She tried to ignore it. "Have you asked Howie who this alleged a.s.sa.s.sin was?"

"Have you asked the aunties who they hired?"

They glared some more.

"Howie's just down the hall," Jim said. "Shall we?" "Let's," Kate said.

Oh man," Howie said when he saw Kate. "Come on, Jim, buddy, there's no need for this." He scrambled up on his bunk, pressing himself into a corner. "Don't you come near me, Kate," he said, his voice rising. "Don't you do it."

Jim opened the door to the cell and Kate sauntered in like a small but very deadly tiger, and, very much like a big cat, curled up at the end of Howie's bed. She crossed one leg over the other and linked her hands on her knee. She looked as if she felt quite at home, with no plans to leave anytime soon. She even smiled at him.

He might have whimpered. His eyes looked wild and he was definitely sweating. He gave Jim a pleading look. "Jim, come on, man."

Jim leaned against the door and crossed his arms. "You're not under arrest, Howie. You can walk out of here any time you want. You want?"

Howie licked his lips.

Howie Katelnikof was a guy who never looked as tall as he was. He had a hard time standing up straight and an even harder one looking anyone straight in the eye. No matter how often he showered his hair was always greasy, and no matter how often he changed his clothes they always smelled of sweat, cigarette smoke, and beer. He might have been a good-looking guy, he possessed the requisites, height and weight proportional, thick hair, regular features, but his character had forced his eyes a little too close together, had pushed his chin just a fraction too far back. His character oozed out of his pores and stained him for what he was, a wannabe crook who'd watched Oceans Eleven Oceans Eleven so many times he thought he was George Clooney when, as Bobby said, "Who he really is is Steve Buscemi in so many times he thought he was George Clooney when, as Bobby said, "Who he really is is Steve Buscemi in Fargo." Fargo."

"Let's talk, Howie," Kate said.

"I doanwanna," Howie said.

"Relax, Howie," Kate said, and reached over to pat his knee. He cringed. "I don't want to talk about the time you took a shot at me and my kid and d.a.m.n near killed my dog. I'm not ready for that conversation yet. Someday. I promise you." She patted his knee again. "But not today."

A bead of sweat drooped from his nose. He kept his face turned away. He might have been trembling. He looked like he felt the jaws of the snake closing around him after he'd been dropped into the gla.s.s cage.

Still in that light, good-humored, terrifying voice, Kate said, "What's this Jim tells me about the aunties hiring somebody to kill Louis?"

"I didn't do it," Howie said.

"What didn't you do?" Kate said. "'Cause, forgive me, Howie, but the list is getting kind of long. You didn't shoot at my truck? You didn't kill Mac Devlin? You didn't hire out to the aunties to kill your best bud Louis Deem?"

"I didn't kill Louis!" He came out of the corner, realized how close that put him to Kate, and shrank back in again. "I didn't do it," he said.

"But you're saying somebody did."

He nodded sullenly.

"So the aunties hired somebody to kill Louis Deem that wasn't you."

He nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again.

"Then how do you know about it? Excuse me, but it doesn't sound like the kind of thing they're going to drop casually into the conversation, Howie. Especially into a conversation with you."

"How come you're always so mean?" It was almost a wail.

"Because you don't deserve anything better, you little weasel," Kate said.

Jim cleared his throat. She turned to look at him. He shook his head. She almost flipped him off, but he was right. In this instance, insulting Howie probably wasn't the method of interrogation most productive of results.

"Howie," she said, turning back to him, "come on. You know you're gonna tell me, one way or another. Either in here, where you've got Jim and the Fifth Amendment on your side." She smiled again, and again he cowered from it. "Or out there somewhere, with just you, and me, and none of those messy Miranda warnings to confuse either one of us."

She waited. Jim waited. Howie sniveled. It was disgusting. Kate clicked her tongue impatiently and got up to grab Howie a bunch of toilet paper. She shoved it into his hands. "Here. Blow your nose."

He did, smearing snot on his cheeks.

"Jesus Christ, Howie," Kate said, disgusted, "can't you even blow your own nose right? Come on. What did you mean when you said that the aunties hired someone to kill Louis Deem?"

He looked at the crumpled ball of tissue. "I dint do it. I dint kill Louis."