“Lighten up, Mr. Riordan. Can’t you at least humor a dying girl?”
“Okay, fine. Just to be clear, I’m not a child molester and I’m not a pervert. I exercised some bad judgment with a girl who was sixteen.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hell, sixteen-year-olds are legal in Alaska. You should have just done it up here.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But isn’t Alaska the place you go
“For some, I suppose. I was born here.”
“Fair enough. What about your parents? Were they running from something?”
“Probably,” she said. “I never met my dad, but I don’t imagine he was particularly law-abiding. He dragged my mom up here and then split about a month after I was born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I got over it a long time ago. At this point, I’m a little more worried about dying.”
“You don’t seem that worried.”
“Now that we’re sitting still, it’s sinking in. It was better when we were hauling carcasses all over the island.”
“Maybe you won’t die. I can’t be the only one who’s immune.”
“Maybe,” she said. “You got any more beer?”
He sprang up and went to the kitchen. The dogs followed him. When he returned with two beers, they lay back down on the floor.
“So what is it about young girls, Mr. Riordan?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“It was just one time with one girl,” he said.
“Okay, but is that the only time you ever thought about it?”
“No.”
“So what is it? You got a problem with girls your own age?”
“No, it’s not like that. I’ve dated plenty of women my own age. I don’t think it’s really got anything to do with how old they are. I just seem to have a hard time controlling myself around beautiful women. And some of them just happen to be a little young, that’s all.”
“You having a hard time controlling yourself around me?” she asked with a grin.
“No.”
“So am I ugly then?”
“No, not at all. I was just—”
“I’m just playing with you,” Schuler said, laughing. “It helps me keep my mind off the situation.”
Culann turned and faced her. Schuler was squat and muscular with thick hips; she had a cop’s body. But there was beauty in her wide brown eyes and mischievous smile.
He realized that he may never again get a chance to be with a woman again, and found himself excited by Schuler’s strong femininity. He leaned in to kiss her.
She cuffed him hard across the jaw.
“I think you got the wrong idea, Mr. Riordan.”
“Sorry, I just figured that you might want some companionship, under the circumstances.”
“That’s a very generous offer, but doing it with a sex offender in a dead man’s shack with three smelly hound-dogs staring at me is not exactly every girl’s fantasy.”
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I suppose I should be flattered. How about another beer?”
Culann fetched another couple of beers, and again the dogs followed him. Then the dogs outside began a calamitous barking. Schuler peeked out the windowsill.
“It’s Williams,” she said. “Put these back on.”
She tossed the handcuffs to Culann, who dropped them. He bent down and latched the cuffs on his left wrist. He pressed his right wrist into the other end, which clicked into place just as the door swung open. Williams stood in the doorway, dead drunk, with a nearly-empty Jim Beam bottle in his left hand and his gun in his right.
“Let’s go, Mr. Riordan,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”
4
Culann marched down Pyrite’s only road with Williams’ gun pressed against his spine. Schuler followed behind, pleading for Williams to put the gun away. The dogs cheerfully cantered along beside as if they were all heading to the park instead of an execution.
Williams led them to the police boat, already laden with corpses. He shoved Culann towards it and motioned for him to climb aboard. Culann took a long step from the dock onto the boat and then stumbled forward onto McGillicuddy.
“If this is where we’re putting the dead bodies,” Williams said, “this is where you’re going.”
“Knock it off,” Schuler said. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking,” he replied. “If we die tonight, then this sicko gets off scot free. I can’t let that happen.”
“If we die tonight, then it doesn’t matter what happens to him.”
“Of course it matters. There is good and evil in this world. Our job is to protect the good and punish the evil. He must be punished.”
“Not like this,” Schuler said.
Culann kept his mouth shut, afraid that anything he’d say might antagonize Williams beyond the point of no return. He was going to have to let Schuler plead his case for him and hope that she knew her partner well enough to talk him out of this.
“This is the only way,” Williams said.
“Be reasonable,” Schuler said. “He’s charged with statutory rape of a sixteen-year-old. You don’t get the death penalty for that. He’s going to be stuck on this island by himself. That’s like a prison sentence. He will be punished.”
“Bullshit. Rapists don’t just get a prison sentence. You know what a prison sentence would be like for this pervert.”
“That may be true, but we don’t even know if he’s guilty. All we know is some prosecutor in Illinois thinks he did something wrong. There hasn’t been a trial. He’s entitled to a trial.”
“Fine by me,” Williams said. “We’ll have one right now.”
He stepped forward and aimed the gun at Culann’s head.
“Did you do what they said you did?” he asked.
“Please, put the gun down,” Schuler said.
“I asked you a question,” he shouted to Culann.
“This isn’t right,” Schuler said. “Stop it.”
“You have three seconds to answer the question. Did you fuck an underage girl?”
Culann thought carefully about how to answer. He considered lying, although he doubted it would save his life. He figured that since he was probably dead either way, he might as well keep his self-respect. He was far from an admirable man, but he had a certain sense of honor, honor that he’d come to Alaska to try to win back. He didn’t want to go to his grave groveling for his life.
“Yes,” Culann said.
The sound of a gunshot boomed across the island and bounced off the waves of the sea. Culann clenched all of the muscles in his body in the hopes that this would somehow cause the bullet to miss him. He went numb, dropping to his knees atop two corpses. Then he exhaled and searched for the bullet hole.
It took him a while to find it. He felt his head, patted down his chest, and ran his hands over his arms and legs. Finally, he looked up and saw Williams crumpled onto the pier with a bloodstain spreading across his chest.
