“Can he,” Liam said thoughtfully, and in an excess of diplomacy decided not to mention the mediocre burgers and even more lukewarm reception he’d received at lunch.
She tossed her empty cup in the trash can, where it banked off the rim and fell neatly inside. “You find a place to live yet?”
“My wife and I bought a house up on the bluff. Used to belong to Jeff Ninkasi.”
She nodded. “Good people, Jeff, and he brews good beer. Nice house, too.” She sat back. “Well, thanks for coming in, Sergeant, I appreciate the courtesy.”
“Ms. Petroff informed me that I probably didn’t want to meet you for the first time in court.”
“Sally Petroff? She’s working for you?”
“Colonel Barton hired her and had her in place before I got here.”
“She good people, too, and she’s local, which should help.”
“What I thought.” He stood up, holding his trooper ball cap by the bill. “I asked her if either of her parents had been in the military.”
The judge laughed.
Liam pulled into the driveway of the house on the edge of the Blewestown bluff already with a sense of homecoming. And then he walked in the front door and saw Jo. “Oh,” he said.
“How was your day, dear?” she said, so sweetly that one could barely feel the acid drip-drip-dropping onto the skin. “Have a good time driving around in that penis extender of yours?”
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the Jeep Cherokee Chief looming over the driveway. “You should talk.”
Wy’s laugh was husky and delicious as always, and for just a moment he was content just to look at her, smiling up at him from the couch, her bronze mane coming loose from its thick braid to form little curls around her face, her brown eyes warm and inviting, her cheeks a little flushed from the half-empty glass of red wine in her hand. If every day of his life ended with him walking in the door and seeing her like this he would die a happy man.
Jo looked from one to the other and rolled her eyes. “Young love. Gag me.”
“We eating in or out tonight?” Liam said.
Wy finished off her glass and stood up. “In. I got a take-out lasagna and Jo tossed a salad.”
Did you check it for wolfsbane? Liam wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Look!” Jo said, pointing.
A moose cow and calf had wandered into the yard, stripping fireweed stalks of their flowers. They moseyed around the perimeter of the yard and vanished into the trees.
“It always amazes me how they disappear like that,” Jo said.
“I know, right? They’re so big.”
Wy handed Liam a big wooden bowl full of green. “Table’s set and the lasagna is ready to come out of the oven.”
“Great, I’m starved. I had the world’s most uninspired burger for lunch.”
They sat down at the dining room table and dished out. “What brings you to Blewestown, Jo?” Liam said.
“I’m on vacation,” Jo said blandly, and in spite of himself Liam laughed out loud.
Jo, amazingly, laughed, too. “Yeah, all right. I assume you saw the big rig parked up the Bay when you came into town.”
“It was hard to miss,” Liam said dryly.
“On lease to RPetCo. They want to do some exploratory drilling.”
“In the actual Bay?”
She nodded. “There’s oil and gas being produced in commercial quantities up and down the Inlet. Chungasqak Bay is the next geographical step, and it’s a hell of a lot more accessible than, say, the Kamishak. Easier to supply, too, with Blewestown right here and on the road. They’ve got a deepwater dock, too.”
“All the mod cons.” The lasagna wasn’t bad. He dished up a second slice. “I’d have to guess there are one or two people unhappy at the prospect.”
Jo snorted. “Good guess. Most of the tourism businesses in town and all the fishermen, just for starters. The Chamber of Commerce, run by a guy named Donohoe, is giddy at the prospect of overseeing the next Prudhoe Bay, but he has to keep it on the down low as half of the chamber members are fishermen and they all talk like they’re watching Deepwater Horizon on repeat. About a dozen small cruise ships a year dock here and their industry rep doesn’t sound thrilled, either, but is otherwise making no move.”
“Where is the local Native association on the issue?”
“There are a bunch of them, about one per community. One, the Kapilat Native Association, invested in bandwidth back in the day so they’ve got a lot of money and therefore the loudest voice. Generally speaking the others follow their lead. They haven’t stated their position on oil exploration and development on the Bay, but I’m trying to get an interview with their chief, Alexei Petroff. So far I’ve only talked with him on the phone. He sounds pretty savvy but he doesn’t want to go on the record unless it’s face to face.”
Wise man, Liam thought. Petroff would get the biggest bang for his association’s buck by announcing their stand in the state’s paper of record. He wondered if Petroff was any relation to She Who Must Be Obeyed in his front office.
“Lately, an archeologist has been making a fuss about the oil companies putting the human history of the Bay at risk.”
Liam perked up. “That be Erik Berglund?”
“You’ve met him?”
Liam nodded. “Yesterday, at the brewpub. He invited me up to take a look at his dig
