Fire And Ice

The door closed silently behind her on its hydraulic hinge.

Liam stood there, impotent with rage. It boiled over. "Goddammit!" 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 piss 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 God 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 passed this skill on to Liam as soon as the boy was tall enough to stand over the ironing board. Je

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 goddamn Europeans are doing to each other. We've already saved their asses 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 sonsabitches 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. "Damn, 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 pass-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 pronto."

"Pat," is it?" Bill said, and Liam tried not to look self-conscious. "Yeah, I figured," she said with satisfaction. "Well, what the hell. 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 pass-through. "Laura Nanalook'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 breasts 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 bastard," 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."