“What’s he like?”
“Six-two, blond, blue, fortyish. The dig’s a tiny little thing, more of a cave, and he hasn’t found much. He’s got a theory about a traditional trail that sounds pretty interesting, though.”
“Fanatic?”
Liam reflected. “I don’t think so. Just a true believer. I liked him. You don’t find that many people that excited about their work.” He looked at Jo. “So he’s against the drilling?”
She nodded. “RPetCo has their own pet archeologist, a guy who’s been pretty much a paid shill for resource extraction companies in Alaska for decades. No resource extraction company wants to be hindered by a lot of unnecessary restrictions that will only delay production.”
“What would the shareholders say,” Wy said.
“May you live in interesting times,” Liam said.
“Yes, and now here comes Alaska state trooper Sergeant Liam Campbell into the mix. Why are you here, Liam?”
Liam exchanged a fleeting look with Wy and said, “Barton wanted me here to give the new post a push.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I told you, Jo,” Wy said sternly. “It was time to leave Newenham.”
It didn’t satisfy the Torquemada wannabe but it did shut her up, and Liam tried not to look too grateful.
They finished dinner and Liam cleaned up and started the dishwasher. It ran at a low murmur. So far everything in this house was as advertised, and Liam decided it was high time he developed a palate for beer. For the moment he poured himself a finger of Glenmorangie and joined the women in the living room, where Wy had a fire going in the wood stove.
The glass was an inch away from his lips when his phone sang out with the first bars of “Need You Tonight.” He gave Wy a look. “Seriously, Wy? A boy band?”
He kept the grin off his face until he was out on the deck, facing away from the two women in the living room giggling like teenagers. “Liam Campbell.”
“Hey, Liam, it’s Gabe McGuire.” There was a sigh. “I know it’s late and I apologize, but I think I’d be in trouble if I waited until morning to call this in.”
“Did you try the local cops?” That might have come out a little more crankily than he’d meant it to.
“I’m outside the city limits. They won’t respond if I’m not paying property taxes in Blewestown.”
A twittering sound filled the air and he looked up to see a flock of cedar waxwings swirl past. There were several mountain ash in the yard and they assembled into a fluttering, quarreling mess to fight over the berries.
“Liam?”
Liam’s turn to sigh. “Tell me what’s up and I’ll decide if I want to wait until morning.”
Ten
Tuesday, September 3
GABE MCGUIRE DIDN’T LOOK ANY HAPPIER to be answering his door than Liam was to be knocking on it. The same could not be said of the two ten-year-olds in the living room. They sported one parent each, a mom and a pop. The kids looked wide awake and wired for sound. Their ’rents each held a phone like they had their attorneys on speed dial.
The house looked less massive from the inside than the roof had indicated from the road. The main feature was floor-to-ceiling windows that went from wall to wall, cathedral ceilings over a hardwood floor, and a lot of mix and match furniture that had only the maximum amount of stuffing in common, including the dining table, if wood could be stuffed. There wasn’t a screen in sight except for the phones everyone was holding, which Liam found mildly surprising. “Explain to me, please, preferably in words of one syllable, why I am here,” he said.
McGuire looked over his shoulder. “Who’s that?”
“This is Jo Dunaway, with the Anchorage News. She’s a friend of the family.” It had been impossible to keep her out of the pickup, and Wy had been no help.
“A cop and a reporter,” McGuire said. “If this isn’t just the cherry on my day. Could you wait right here while I leg it out the back door?”
“You called me,” Liam said. “I can go home any time.”
McGuire’s shoulders raised on a sigh. “Ms. Dunaway.”
“Mr. McGuire.”
“This isn’t a story.”
Jo gave him her best T-rex impersonation. “I’m just here with friends.”
When she moved McGuire saw Wy and brightened. “Ah, you brought the hot pilot, too. You’re forgiven. Good to see you again, Ms. Chouinard.” He smiled at Wy and Wy smiled right back.
McGuire was trying to be polite and Liam wasn’t so far gone he didn’t recognize it but he still bristled. Nobody flirted with Wy but him. He didn’t need Jo Dunaway grinning like the Cheshire Cat all over her face, either.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
Liam tried not to glare. “You gave me to understand that this wasn’t a social call.”
“It isn’t.”
“So? I’m here because…?”
“Well, you, specifically, are here because the Blewestown PD say they won’t respond to anything outside of the city limits. They say that’s for the troopers to handle. A direct quote from whoever answered the phone and took down my name and in particular my address.”
Liam thought of Chief Armstrong’s polite but obdurate attitude over lunch earlier that day. “Okay. Fine. What requires any law enforcement presence outside the city limits at ten at night?”
McGuire looked across the room. “All yours, Kyle.”
Upon closer inspection, Kyle, the skinny kid with the bright gray eyes and dark hair, looked a little the worse for wear. His hair stuck up in sweaty wads and the sides of his face were scratched and oddly shiny. His left ear might be a little lopsided, too, and the collar of his T-shirt was irregularly stained a dark brown, as if he’d been bleeding on it and the blood had dried there. He looked around at his audience, clearly enjoying the attention, and puffed out his insubstantial chest. “I found a body!”
Into the resulting dead silence that followed, during which Liam felt rather than saw Jo Dunaway go on red alert, the second kid, slightly less skinny but considerably wider of eye and with
