Fire And Ice

"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 shit 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 Nanalook'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, goddammit!"

"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 di

"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 hell 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 Je

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."