Fire And Ice Part 27

He beckoned her forward. "Take a closer look; be sure." His eyes met hers. "Be very sure."

Slowly, she rose to her feet and stretched out a hand to pick through the items.

The wrappings from the Pop-Tart, the Snickers bar, the MandMore's, the Bazooka bubble gum, the Reese's peanut b.u.t.ter cup. "Regular junk food junkies," she said, trying to smile. He didn't smile back, and her eyes dropped to the desk.

"The new map's mine, the old map was Bob's. You know where and how we got the floats. Same with the walrus tusk. Not a very good one-it's broken off near the root--but it's ivory, so ... Okay, my survival kit: two firestarter logs, Bob's parka, my parka, my Sorels, Bob's Sorels." She pointed at the plastic Pepsi bottle. "Bob's pee. Ick, I can't believe you've still got that. That's my clam gun and bucket; I always carry them with me when I know I'm making a beach landing. You never know when you'll hit the tide just right." She picked up the gloves one at a time. One was a cotton painter's glove, the second a woman's Isotoner, and the third a man's worn leather work glove. None of them fit Wy's hand. "I don't know where these came from. Probably pa.s.sengers dropped them." She paused. "And those are the two radios."

"The radios you used for backup in case the big radio you have bolted to the dash fails." She nodded. "What about the third handheld?"

She went very still. "What third handheld?"

He shot to his feet so abruptly that his chair shot backward and crashed into the wall. She flinched. "The third handheld I found shoved beneath the backseat. The Sony. The cheapie, as Sparky of Sparky's Pilot Shop refers so affectionately to it. The cheapie Sony bought by Larry Jacobson in March of last year, along with another one exactly like it that I saw sitting on the control panel of the Mary J.! The handheld I found tucked away in your bedroom dresser night before last! Wrapped in a blue silk scarf that I vividly remember being used for something other than concealing material evidence in a murder investigation, by the way!"

He was shouting by the time he finished. He paused, glaring at her. She stared back at him, stricken.

"You were spotting for the Jacobsons and McCormick on the side, weren't you? I've been up there with you, Wy, I know what it's like now. Bob sat in the backseat and talked to Larry, you sat in the front and talked to Wolfe. Didn't you? Didn't you!"

She was white-faced and trembling, and mute.

"Jacobson bought the radios before last year's herring season, and you said Bob DeCreft observed for you last year, too, so I figure you tried it out last year and worked all the bugs out of it and tried it on again this year. Wolfe figured it out, didn't he? And he didn't waste time getting mad--he got even. First he had your Cub trashed, then he sank the Jacobsons' boat, beating up Kelly McCormick in the process, who I figured caught Wolfe's man in the act and got the s.h.i.t kicked out of him for it, and then--" Liam reached in the drawer and slammed the envelope containing her check down on the desk. "And then Wolfe stiffed you for over half of what he owed you. Right?"

"He was dead when I got down to the boat," she said steadily.

"And aren't you lucky he was!"

"What?"

"Jesus, Wy, you're a walking, talking motive for murder! You contracted to Wolfe to spot herring for him and his boats, and only for him and his boats, and then your very first year on the job you double-cross him with one of his rivals. He finds out about it and wrecks your plane and takes half this year's paycheck in retaliation. Nice of him not to take it all, but then he probably wanted to keep you on the leash for next year, and what better way to do that than to keep you just broke enough to stay in business but to still need his to get by?"

She said nothing. "And," he said, his voice rising again, "and he hits on you. You had three good reasons to kill the guy, Wy, and those are only three that I know of. How many more are there?"

She still had no answer for him. He could feel his temper bite into him, and battled it back. "Also lucky for you, at two a.m. this morning Becky Gilbert confessed to the murder of Cecil Wolfe."

She looked up then, shocked. "What?"

"Becky Gilbert killed Cecil Wolfe," he repeated.

She was having difficulty taking it in. "Becky Gilbert? The minister's wife? You've got to be kidding!"

"She's Laura Na.n.a.look's mother," Liam said curtly. "Wolfe raped Laura the day her father died. He'd done it before. He would have done it again. Becky found out, and killed him. Tell me why you did it, Wy." Their eyes met. "Tell me why, G.o.ddammit!"

"I needed the money," she said simply.

He watched her with angry eyes, arms folded, waiting.

She sighed. Her eyes closed and her head fell back. "The business took every dime I had. You know, I told you back then that I wanted to run my own air taxi someday." She opened her eyes and looked at him.

He gave a curt nod.

She sighed again. "This was it. I knew it as soon as I met Jeff Webster and he showed me around, as soon as I saw the office and the hangar and the house, and the planes. And met the people. And got to know the place." She paused. "And I had to have something. I had to be busy. I had to not think of you."

"Save that," he said shortly.

"All right," she said, submissive. "But it's true." She blinked back what might have been a tear. He'd seen Wy cry only twice, that last day in Anchorage and yesterday when she heard how much she was going to make on her herring check, but the hard knot of anger burning in his gut wouldn't let him acknowledge the emotion he thought he saw now. "And then there was Tim. I found him, I--I guess you could say I rescued him." She tried to smile. "You know that old saying, about how if you save someone's life, you're responsible for it forever after? It's true." She added urgently, "It is true, Liam. Tim is mine now, and I would do anything, I will do anything to keep him safe."

The same way Bob DeCreft would have done anything to provide for Laura. He said, "Anything, including double-crossing your employer."

"Yes," she said simply.

"Anything, including lying to me."

"Liam--"

"You should have trusted me," he said implacably. "After all we had together, you should have trusted me."

She lost her own temper then, shoving her chair back in turn. She leaned forward, hands flat on his desk. "After all we had together? You smug, selfish, self-righteous jerk! I'll tell you what we had together, Liam! We had a thousand dollars in phone bills, most of which I paid because I had to call you so it wouldn't show up on your phone bill, and a four-night stand in Anchorage! That's all we had together!"

He was struck to the heart, and stung into retaliation. "So what are you doing hanging around me now? You figure having a state trooper on a string is going to make you look better to the judge when it comes time for the adoption to go to court? Just a little something to make up for nearly being charged with murder?"

"And afterward you didn't call, you didn't try to come after me, nothing, it was like I didn't exist!"

"I was honoring your decision! You said it was over!"

"And you searched my house! I invite you in for dinner and you search my house! Where the h.e.l.l do you get off turning a social invitation into an opportunity to invade my privacy!"

"Gee, forgive me for doing what I'm required to do when I'm trying to find a murderer!"

She wasn't listening. "You know what I hate? Not the lies, and the deception, and the sneaking around, although all that was bad enough. What I really hate is that I fell for a coward."

He was outraged. "What!"

"I fell for a coward," she said, as implacable as he'd been. "You came after me like a freight train, there was no stopping you--and if there is any truth in you at all, you'll admit that I tried to, more than once." Her furious brown eyes bored into his blue ones. "You roared into my life and flattened everything in it and roared out again. You're just pure h.e.l.l at roaring through, Campbell."

"What was I supposed to do, I--"

"You were supposed to leave me alone in the first place!" she shouted. "And if you were too weak to do that much, then the instant you realized what was happening between us you should have marched right home to Jenny and said, I'm sorry, I've met someone else, I want a divorce!"

Liam opened his mouth, and closed it again.

"Instead, you arranged that little getaway in Anchorage. "To see if it's real," you said." She curled her lip. "Like we needed proof. You were just hedging your bets. Admit it, you wanted me, but you were afraid of what would happen if you asked for a divorce, afraid of what your friends would say, of what your boss would say." She paused, readying herself for the cruelest cut of all. "You were afraid of what your father would say. You were afraid he would say that you were just like your mother."

He was so angry that he feared he would hit her. "Get out," he said in a rusty voice.

"Don't worry, I'm gone," she said. "You stick with what's safe, Liam. That's what you're good at."

The door closed silently behind her on its hydraulic hinge.

Liam stood there, impotent with rage. It boiled over. "G.o.ddammit!" he bellowed, and swept everything from the top of his desk to the floor.

The cap on the Pepsi bottle came loose and Bob DeCreft's p.i.s.s spilled all over Wy's sleeping bag.

It turned out that Bill Billington had an industrial-sized washing machine and dryer in the back of her bar. She was pleased to offer Liam their use. When he saw the ironing board and the iron, he went back to the post and fetched his uniform. It took two refills for the iron to generate enough steam to smooth the wrinkles from the dark blue slacks and the blue jacket.

The shirt was easier. When he finished, he held it up, admiring it. After Liam's mother had left, his father, the complete air force officer to whom an unpressed uniform was an act of sacrilege against G.o.d and country, had taught himself how to iron a uniform shirt so that the creases down the arms were sharp enough to draw blood. He had pa.s.sed this skill on to Liam as soon as the boy was tall enough to stand over the ironing board. Jenny, a child of wealth and privilege, hadn't known an ironing board from a lawn mower, and the knowledge had come in handy before and after his marriage.

The washing machine cycle ended and he loaded the sleeping bag into the dryer.

And then he put on his uniform--light blue shirt, dark blue slacks with a gold stripe down the outside of each leg, dark blue tie-adjusting badge and nameplate, buckling on his belt and holster, shrugging into the shiny dark blue jacket, getting the round crown of the flat-brimmed hat just so.

For the first time since landing in Newenham, he felt dressed.

When he stepped out of the back room into the bar, Bill was arguing politics with a patron. "I don't care what those G.o.dd.a.m.n Europeans are doing to each other. We've already saved their a.s.ses twice--three times if you count the Marshall Plan. Enough! As far as I'm concerned the only thing worth going to war over in recent memory was Jamaica shooting down Jimmy Buffett's plane. We should have invaded the sonsab.i.t.c.hes over that."

She gave the bar a swipe with the bar rag for emphasis and caught sight of Liam in all his glory. She paused, subjected him to a comprehensive study from head to toe and back again, and pursed her lips in a long, low whistle that managed to be admiring and salacious at the same time. "d.a.m.n, Liam. I don't know whether to salute or just genuflect and get it over with."

"I'm starving, how about making me a burger and fries instead?"

"Anything for Alaska's finest," she said, and bustled into the kitchen. "Is it true what I hear: Becky Gilbert's hired Patrick Fox to defend her?"

"Is that what you hear?"

Her head popped into the pa.s.s-through, and bright blue eyes regarded him shrewdly. "That's what she's done. Where'd she get his name, I wonder."

"Beats me," Liam said unhelpfully.

"Uh-huh," she said. "She sure had plenty to say for herself when I arraigned her."

"That's okay, Pat'll put the lid on her p.r.o.nto."

""Pat," is it?" Bill said, and Liam tried not to look self-conscious. "Yeah, I figured," she said with satisfaction. "Well, what the h.e.l.l. Wolfe's no loss; it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Not going to hurt my feelings if all Becky Gilbert gets is a slap on the wrist."

Her head vanished again. Soon thereafter followed the tantalizing sizzle of deep fat frying and the arousing aroma of charred beef.

He was going to get tired of burgers and fries if he didn't start cooking his own meals soon, but it hadn't happened yet. He sniffed the air with gusto, and the smell went partway toward easing the ache around his heart that'd been there since Wy had left his office that morning.

"Did you hear?" Bill yelled into the pa.s.s-through. "Laura Na.n.a.look's moving to Anchorage."

"Oh yeah?" Reluctantly, Liam removed his hat, smoothing the nap of the crown with an affectionate hand. He set it on the stool next to him. "Her father leave her enough so she could go to school?"

"She tells me that with what she can get for the house and the plane and what she has saved up, she can afford a little condo in Anchorage. She just wants gone. Can't say I blame her. When I get to New Orleans, I might never return."

She bustled back into the bar, plate in hand, and set it in front of Liam. He looked at the juicy fatburger and attendant fries spilling over the side of the plate and said, "Bill, I want you. Marry me now."

She laughed and tossed her long gray mane over her shoulders. Then she said, eyes twinkling, "You could have me today, trooper, so long as you stay in that uniform."

"I thought the whole idea was to get me out of it," he retorted.

She laughed again, a full-throated joyous sound, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shaking beneath her denim blue shirt. The woman was a walking, talking incitement to riot. He remembered the various and sundry ways Moses Alakuyak could hurt him, and reached for his burger.

Serious now, she said, "I don't suppose you're any closer to learning how Bob DeCreft died. Laura's not interested now, but she might be someday. And I'd like to know myself."

He chewed and swallowed. "I'm starting to think it was Cecil Wolfe."

She stared. "What? How do you figure?"

He took another bite, organizing his thoughts. "Sub rosa, Bill, okay? I can't prove hardly any of this, mostly because none of the people involved will ever testify to any of the facts."

She nodded, curious. "Okay. I can keep a secret."

"Here it is, then. Bob and Wy were spotting herring for the Jacobsons and Kelly McCormick at the same time they were spotting for Wolfe. This year for sure, maybe last year, too."

She looked at him in disbelief. "They were double-crossing Cecil Wolfe? Please tell me you're joking."

"I wish. The way I figure it is, Wolfe caught on early this season, right after the first opener." Liam used the same words he had with Wy. "He skipped getting mad and went straight to getting even. He got his crew to trash Wy's Cub and to sink Kelly McCormick's boat in the harbor. I think Kelly caught him at it, and that's why he's lying up at the hospital with about eleven broken bones. And he stiffed Wy on half her herring settlement, probably what he figured was adequate recompense for how much she'd helped cheat him out of."

She listened, a rapt expression on her face. "So you think Wolfe sabotaged Wy's plane, too? Was he trying to kill her?" She added dryly, "That'd be getting even, all right."

"Maybe he wasn't trying to kill anyone, maybe he was just sending a message. Maybe he figured all that would happen was that someone would lose a finger."

"Still," Bill said. "Seems a bit excessive, even for Cecil Wolfe."

"Well, then, you tell me, Bill. What else is there? Who else is there? Look at the pattern. Wolfe left big tracks. He wanted Wy and Bob and Larry and Darrell and Mac to know that he knew they were double-crossing him, and that he was after them. Kelly knew who beat him up, all right--they didn't even try to hide themselves, and you bet he knew why. Poor little b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Liam added. "You should see him up there in that hospital bed, sweating with fear." That was another score to settle with Kirk Mulder, when the time came.

Bill was still dissatisfied. "It's just so, I don't know. So neat," she said.

"Nothing wrong with neat," Liam said, and rubbed a french fry into the salt on the bottom of the plate. "Neat's what wins in court."

"Yes, but in this case there is no one left alive to try."

"Save the taxpayers some money," Liam agreed.

"Well," Bill said. "At least Laura doesn't have to worry about Cecil Wolfe coming around anymore. Which reminds me--poor little Gary Gruber, he was in here when Laura told me she was leaving, I thought he was going to grab for one of my steak knives and hurt himself."

Liam paused, french fry in hand. "What?"

"Gary Gruber--you know, the young fella who manages the airport. Don't tell me you haven't noticed. He's been in love with Laura Na.n.a.look from the first time he walked into my bar and saw her waiting tables." She reflected. "Of course, you could say that about most of the men who walk into this place."

Liam sat very still.

Gary Gruber had been the second person he had seen at the airport. First Wy, standing over Bob DeCreft's body, and then Gary Gruber, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Chewing that fat pink wad of gum like a cow whose cud was on her third stomach.

And then nearly every time he came into the bar, there was Gary Gruber, perched on a stool and watching Laura Na.n.a.look.

But Laura was Bob's lover.

But Laura was really Bob's daughter.

But no one except Bob and Laura and Richard and Becky Gilbert knew that.