“About every third car I’ve seen on the road here is a Subaru,” he said. “Usually a Forester.”
“It is the state car.”
“True.”
They did form together on the deck, Liam watching her for cues because she’d been at it a lot longer than he had. They went through the thirty-two movements three times and as they straightened into Conclusion a bird called from the stretch of yard in front of them. Liam lost concentration and with it his balance. He put out a quick foot before he fell on his face and looked toward the call. Two sandhill cranes were stalking around like they owned the place. With their long legs and necks they looked like ungainly relics of the Jurassic Age. Which they were, as were all birds. But they weren’t ravens, so there was that.
They admired their new view over a second cup of coffee. The house was one story, a rectangle thirty feet wide by fifty feet long. The long side stood twenty feet back from the edge of the tall bluff that overlooked all of Blewestown, the Bay, the glaciers, and the Kenai Mountains. On a clear day if they looked right they could probably see Kodiak.
Inside the house was an open floor plan, a large central room including kitchen, dining and living room. The master suite was on the left and two more bedrooms with a bathroom between were on the right. An arctic entryway faced the driveway with a guest bath just inside the door. A wooden deck ran the length of the house on the bluff side. The floors were wood laminate over radiant heat and the ceilings were vaulted. Wy got out her phone and pulled up the calculator app. “This house is almost exactly four times as big as my house in Newenham.”
“It is a little palatial,” Liam said, thinking about all the places he’d lived in Newenham. He’d slept in his office for way too long, moved from there to a boat in the small boat harbor that was literally sinking out from under him, and from there to a Jayco pop-up camper in Wy’s driveway. Wy finally showed mercy and let him move in, and while her bed was only full size she was in it so no complaints. Here the bed was a California king, and also had Wy in it. He hoped he wasn’t looking too smug. He was certainly feeling it.
“Not palatial. Just roomier. But homey. I like the living room furniture. Squashy.” She kissed him. “It’s not often that the reality is better than the pictures on Zillow.”
“True.” He savored the kiss. “You know, there’s no real reason for us to leave the house at all today—”
His phone went off. The ringtone was Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Everything He Needs.” He looked up to see Wy making a kissy face at him. She must have changed it when he was in the shower.
He looked down at the screen and sighed. And of course it was Barton. Not a day went by that wasn’t made better by a phone call from his boss.
Wy saw the name on Liam’s phone and prudently moved herself out of the blast zone.
“Hello, John,” he said, holding the phone at arm’s length.
“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, CAMPBELL!”
Even at arm’s length Colonel John Dillinger Barton’s bellow did tend to fill up a room. Liam worked his jaw back and forth to loosen up his eardrums. “I’m right here in Blewestown where you sent me, John.”
“ABOUT FUCKING TIME!”
“Really didn’t have to be here until next week,” Liam said, with no hope of being heard.
There was no hope of a soft answer turning away wrath, either, as the director of the Alaska State Troopers carried on at full volume. “WE’VE GOT DEATHS BY METH INCREASING BY A THIRD EVERY FUCKING YEAR AND MOST OF THE HOMEGROWN IS COMING OUT OF THAT CESSPOOL THEY CALL THE LOWER KP! THE GOVERNOR IS ALL UP IN MY GRILL TELLING ME THE TROOPERS ARE FALLING DOWN ON THE GODDAMN JOB! GET WITH THE FUCKING PROGRAM, CAMPBELL! I WANT TO SEE NUMBERS CRASHING THE WAY THEY DID WHEN YOU AND CHOPIN WERE IN THE VALLEY!”
“Certainly, sir,” he said.
Click. At least Barton wasn’t slamming his cell phones down on his desk anymore. Probably because the department’s bean counters got tired of paying for new ones.
Liam looked up to see Wy watching him with sympathy. “Yeah,” he said. “Evidently I’m supposed to fix the meth problem in the entire state of Alaska all by myself.”
“Well,” she said, and grinned. “If anyone can do it…”
He flipped her off and she tossed her hair and gave him a smoldering look from beneath her eyelashes. “Anytime, anywhere, Campbell.”
The local post was next to the local cop shop. He approved, as his post in Newenham had been isolated on a side road with nothing else around. Better for law enforcement to be smack in the middle of things. You had to be a neighbor before you could be a good neighbor. The Blewestown cop shop had brick walls and narrow windows and, unexpectedly, a colorful mural of sea otters frolicking in kelp on one side. His research had told him that it housed eight field officers, two administrative staff, and a chief with a no-bullshit reputation. Liam was looking forward to meeting him.
The trooper post was brand new and looked it, built on a template the Department of Public Safety had repeated all over the state. A square building sided with T-111 and roofed with asphalt shingles, it had a porch that faced the Bay, which surely the state had not paid for, as Alaska State Troopers were not encouraged to sit around outside admiring their own views. He was interested to see that there were solar panels on the roof, as well as on the roof of the cop shop. Jeff’s comment about woke communities notwithstanding, if Blewestown was woke enough to support alternative energy he was
