A Grave Denied

Or that’s what she told herself.

It had been a long time since she’d been the target of this much unrelenting male attention, and Jim hadn’t had enough to drink to affect his moves. Her eyes went a little out of focus and then closed altogether.

No. There was nothing in the least reverential about Jim Chopin’s kiss.

Her conscience was guilty at withholding information relevant to the case they were working together, that was what it was. So she’d let him grope her a little, kiss her a little, touch her a-oh my. The man certainly knew where all the parts were, and needed no instruction in how to get them ru

“Excuse me,” a very dry voice said.

Jim, wallowing in the middle of what was the very first wholehearted, unconditional response he’d ever had from Kate Shugak, even if he had taken her by surprise, swore ripely and said “What!” in a tone of voice that had all by itself disarmed more than one frisky perp in its day.

Dinah, surveying them with a bleak eye, said, “Bobby’s hungry. We were thinking of riding on into town and grabbing a bite at the cafe.”

“Sounds good,” Kate said brightly, and peeled out of Jim’s arms to hotfoot it around the corner and up the stairs into the bar.

Jim moved to follow her and was halted in his tracks by one upraised hand.

“What?” he said, exasperated, frustrated, horny, edgy, and embarrassed.

“What do you want with her?” Dinah said in a quiet voice.

Like it wasn’t obvious. He tried to adjust the bulge behind his fly without her noticing. “What are you talking about?”

“With Kate,” Dinah said, and this time her tone got through to him. “What do you want with her, Jim?”

“What?” he said again, this time bewildered.

“You want to lay her?”

This was so unlike Dinah’s usual mostly ladylike self that he simply gaped at her.

She regarded him with palpable scorn. “Yeah, well, take a number. Here’s the thing.” She stepped forward and actually grabbed herself a handful of his shirtfront and pulled him down to an elevation where she could get in his face. “Kate’s been a big girl for a long time now, and I don’t expect she’d take kindly to my meddling in her business. But I’m her friend, and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“Hurt?” Jim said. “Who’s talking about hurting her?”

“You’ll hurt her, given half the chance,” Dinah said. “Kate’s not one of your good-time girls, Jim. When there’s someone in her life, it’s serious, and it’s monogamous. If you’re not serious, stay the hell away from her.”

He was angry now. He removed her hand. “You’re right,” he said, “it’s none of your business.”

He stalked around the corner.

Dinah stood where she was, staring after him. A smile that was one part mean spread slowly across her face.

If she was not mistaken, Jim Chopin, Alaska state trooper and sworn ladies’ man, had just got his feelings hurt.

The four of them wound up at the Riverside Cafe, wolfing down sourdough pancakes and link sausage and eggs fried too hard. Laurel Meganack was there, cooking and serving and flirting with everyone in sight, particularly Jim Chopin, who in Dinah’s opinion did not appear to be encouraging her, and who in Kate’s opinion did not appear to be beating her off with a stick, either. All of this remained unspoken, of course, but the subtext lay heavily over the table.

They sat around drinking coffee after, Laurel making sure to keep Jim’s cup in particular full to the brim. Before Laurel plopped herself down in his lap, Kate cornered her in the kitchen.

“Hey, Kate,” Laurel said with a su

“Got a minute?” Kate said.

Laurel flipped the burgers in three swift movements. “Now I do,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s up?”

It was late and Kate had neither the time nor the inclination for diplomacy. “Rumor has it you had a thing with Bernie Koslowski last year.”

Laurel’s smile vanished. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Kate agreed, “except that some other stuff might have come out of it.”

“Like what?”

“Like some stuff concerning Bernie’s wife, Enid.”

“She never knew.”

“Yeah,” Kate said, “she did. And she slept with Len Dreyer to get even.”

Laurel didn’t change expression. She was a striking young woman, maybe five feet ten with thick reddish brown hair clipped back from her face, large brown eyes, and dark arched brows. She had a high-bridged nose, handed down along with her height from the Yankee whaler rumored to have been her grandfather, and a small rosebud of a mouth. Her T-shirt was cropped and her jeans low-rider, both playing hide-and-seek with the gold ring piercing her navel. Kate winced away from the sight. “That,” Laurel said, “would come under the heading of none of my business.”

“Yeah,” Kate said, “it is, because Len Dreyer’s dead.”

“I heard. You don’t think-”

“I don’t think anything, yet,” Kate said, “I’m just gathering information. Which I have more of, by the way. I’ve heard that you had something going on with Len Dreyer, as well.”

“What of it?”

Laurel was getting a little defensive, Kate was glad to see. Defensive people usually had to justify their actions, which meant they talked more. “Like I said, I’m just looking for information. I’m not accusing you of anything except sleeping with two different guys at the same time, which we could all plead guilty to at some point, right?”

“Or more,” Laurel said, and then looked as if she wished she hadn’t.

“I’m only interested in these two. How did things end with Bernie?”

Laurel shrugged. “Well, I think. It only lasted a couple of months. The wife and kids, his own business, not to mention the coaching job, they kind of cramp his style.”

Kate took a guess. “He wasn’t unhappy you called it off?”

“Well.” Laurel thought it over. “He wasn’t happy, exactly. Things were pretty good there for a while.”

“So he was unhappy.”

“No.”

“Which is it?”

“We agreed together we should call it off,” Laurel said, exasperated. “I wanted more than he could give, and no way was he leaving his family for me. He understood.”

“You wanted marriage?”

“Good god, no!” Laurel said, and surprisingly, laughed. “I just wanted him around more, is all.” She winked. “He’s got some nice moves. Know what I mean?”

Bernie was a friend and this was not a visual Kate wanted. “What about Dreyer?”

Laurel noticed her arms folded tightly across her chest, and gave Kate a wry smile, inviting her to recognize the body language. The burgers were done and she flipped them to the buns, arranged lettuce, tomato, onions, and pickle on the plates, at which time the deep fryer alarm went off and she went for the basket of fries. “Len was a mistake,” she said, shaking the basket.

“How so?”

“And my mistake, too,” Laurel said, letting the fries drain. She looked up at Kate. “I thought he was interested.” She shrugged and gave a self-deprecating smile. “Seemed like pretty much of a given. Let’s face it, the ratio of men to women in the Park is pretty much in our favor.”

That was one way of putting it, Kate thought, looking involuntarily through the pass-through at Jim, thick hair rumpled, laughing at something Bobby had said. He looked up suddenly and caught her staring at him.