Nothing Gold Can Stay

Her father looked at her mother and said, “So. It’s the hat,” referring to the round-crowned, flat-brimmed hat that made all state troopers look like Dudley Do-Right.

Well, maybe it was, again only partly, but it was mostly because Diana had a strong sense of right and wrong, an even stronger sense of duty, and a liking for authority. She stumbled her way to an explanation of these feelings which omitted her main reason, which was that she had no wish to stand in her parents’ shadows, cast long in the Anchorage P.D., and which must have satisfied her parents because her father then pointed out all the disadvantages that came with the job-the horrible hours, the daily stress of dealing with the lowest level of the gene pool, the alienation from the general population, the ever-present risk of injury, even death-and he had asked, no, he had demanded that she think it over before she made her final decision. This included, he decreed, four years at college, for which he and her mother would pay so long as she pulled down grades of B or better and elected a discipline that would be useful for promotion. “It’s better to be boss,” he said. “A degree will get you there.”

She came home from the University of Washington with a B.A. in criminal justice, and filled out her application for the trooper academy the next day.

The academy was notoriously picky in its selection of recruits, thanks to the state’s munificent endowment of troopers’ salaries, but they took one look at Diana’s sex, citizenship and degree and snapped her up. She graduated at the top of her class, and at the graduation ceremony recited the short, simple oath of the Alaska State Troopers with the absolute conviction that she was going to be the best trooper who ever was, with the highest conviction rate and the lowest percentage of citizen complaints in the history of the service. She would serve, she would protect, and before long, she knew in her secret heart, she would be ru

Her first assignment after her probationary period had been Newenham, where she’d arrived a little over two months before. Newenham, in spite of it being a seven-step pay increase because of its Bush location, was not first pick on anyone’s list. The sergeant in charge before Corporal Campbell had been that unusual individual, a careless trooper: careless of the law, careless of the safety and security of his community and, most unforgivably, careless of the reputation of the service. He had been loathed from Togiak to Igiugik, he had been despised by fellow and superior officers alike, and if he hadn’t been a former governor’s brother-in-law, he would never have lasted as long as he did. As it was, he’d only been transferred, taking his problems with him to Eagle River, where at least he would be answerable to an on-the-scene authority other than himself, and where everyone prayed he wouldn’t screw up for the next year, after which he became eligible for retirement.

Into this mess stepped Liam Campbell, recently broken in rank and transferred in disgrace because of an error in judgment that had left five people dead in Denali Park. The way Prince heard it, it hadn’t been Campbell’s fault, but he’d been the sergeant in charge of the post and the buck stopped on his desk. Up to then, his record had been exemplary. He’d been John Dillinger Barton’s golden boy, and the smart money had him moving up the chain of command high and fast.

Instead, he got Newenham, a fishing community of two thousand at the end of an hour’s ride by 737, on the edge of Bristol Bay, which had once seen the largest runs of salmon in the world, where fortunes had been made in the set of one net. Now, the salmon were returning in ever-dwindling numbers, incomes were falling, and alcohol consumption was on the rise. There were foreign vessels docking now and then for supplies, there was tension between the white and Native communities, there was tension between all Alaskans and the state and federal governments. It was a community ripe with possibilities. Diana had taken a long, hard look at Liam’s record, made a few discreet inquiries and had liked what she had learned. She sensed an opportunity to pile up numbers in the “Cases Closed” column and expressed a preference for a duty assignment in Newenham, knowing full well she would get it by default.

When she and Liam were done with it, Newenham would be first on everybody’s list.

All of which explained why she was on the phone to the Crime Lab in Anchorage that day three times before noon. Tired of talking to her, the receptionist finally gave her the direct line to the ballistics lab. An anonymous tech was brusque and uncommunicative. She called again in an hour and he hung up on her.

She called the medical examiner, one Dr. Hans Brilleaux, known less than affectionately to the law enforcement community as Brillo, for his Brillo-pad hair, a black, wiry nest that looked like it could provide houseroom for a flock of swallows. It smelled like it, too.

Brillo was less than enthusiastic. “I’ve got four stiffs ahead of yours,” he said in answer to her query, and then he hung up on her, which seemed to be the day’s universal response.

She drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk. Until the autopsy came in, she would have nothing comparing the pattern of buckshot to the patterns Teddy and John’s shotguns had presumably produced for the Crime Lab, so she went down to Bill’s for a fat pill. Dottie and Paul Takak were dispensing comfort in the form of bacon cheeseburgers and fountain Cokes. Dottie, a Yupik elder and a pillar of the local Native community, sat in back of the bar, arms folded, and refused to serve any Yupik customers alcohol. In the kitchen, Paul put ketchup on every burger, whether you wanted it or not. Sighing inwardly, Diana opened up her burger to scrape the layer of red sauce away. Life in Newenham went to hell with Bill and Moses both gone.

This thought had the effect of drawing her up short. She was thinking about Newenham as if it were home, instead of a stepping stone. This would never do.

She wiped her mouth and turned to survey the bar in search of miscreants. Evan Gray, one of three local drug dealers, held court in a back booth. He saw her looking at him and sent her an impudent grin. He was a tall, good-looking devil, and he knew it.

Two months before Diana had sat in that same booth with Colonel Charles Bradley Campbell of the United States Air Force, and, coincidentally, Corporal Liam Campbell’s father. The two men didn’t get along. She smiled to herself. It wasn’t that Charles was incapable of getting along with anyone, as she had extensive personal knowledge that he could.

Across the room, Evan Gray mistook the smile and excused himself to the plump little brunette sitting within the curve of his arm. She pouted as he sauntered to the bar and ordered another round for his booth. He smiled at Diana. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey, handsome,” she replied.

Gratified, he said, “Join us for a drink when you get off duty?”

She smiled at him. “Not in this lifetime, Evan.”

He laughed. “Haven’t you heard? Marijuana is legal in the state again.”

“Haven’t you heard?” she countered. “Only for medicinal purposes.”

He shook his head, smile in place. “There’s a lot of sick people out there,” he said sadly. “Somebody’s got to help them.”

“Yeah, Evan, you’re a real humanitarian.”

Her tone stung, just a little, and his eyes dropped to her mouth. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Three to five, with time off for good behavior?” she suggested.

It surprised a laugh out of him.

Dottie slapped his drinks down on the bar. “Eighteen-fifty.”

He tossed her a twenty. She glared, but she kept the tip.

“See you around, officer,” he said as he left.

“Yes, you will,” Diana said.

Dottie was glaring at her now. Diana toasted her with the last of her Coke. “Keep your friends close, Dottie, and your enemies closer.”