Maybe it was that she’d never had a vacation before. Her adoptive parents had been very strict about earning one’s way in life and she’d been brought up to work. In college she’d always had full time jobs between semesters, and after she’d started Nushugak Air she was determined never to turn down a job. Summers were naturally her busiest season, what with flying fishermen and processor workers back and forth, the occasional flightseeing charter, and that one year she herring spotted for that asshole Cecil Wolfe. But fall kept her hopping, too, hauling hunters into and out of their camps and lodges. Winter, although the dark reduced flying hours, still saw an increase in local travel, school trips, shopping trips, basketball games, any distraction to hold off cabin fever. It was great for business, especially since in her Cub she could get into and out of the most rudimentary strips. It made hers the go-to flight service for a lot of folks between Newenham and Togiak, which was what she’d been aiming for, and helped her pay off both aircraft in record time, another goal. Wy hated owing money.
And regular customers could be very unforgiving. If you missed a pickup or a drop-off, it didn’t matter if you had a perfectly valid excuse, like a hundred year storm blowing in off the Bering, or someone else pranging their plane at the Newenham airport and halting all air traffic for hours. If someone in Port of Call missed their Alaska Airlines flight in Newenham because you didn’t pick them up on time, you could kiss that customer and all their future revenue goodbye.
Put it all together and owning and operating an air taxi made the prospect of time off a joke. This was a new experience for her and she didn’t know quite what to do with herself.
Fortuitously, at just that moment the phone rang. It was Liz at Sunset Heights. “Sybilla wanted me to call to make sure you were coming to lunch today. Noon.”
“I thought that was tea on Sunday.” Wy could almost hear Liz shrug. “Tell her I’ll be there.”
It was an hour until noon and she decided to drive down to the airport and check on her aircraft. Both were snug at their tie-downs, and she took the time to give them a critical once-over. After the trip from Newenham the Cub was coming up on its annual inspection. The Cessna had another six months to go. It was time to replace the headsets and both could use new paint.
She saw someone working on the engine of a red and silver Beaver in front of a large empty hangar and walked over to introduce herself. She’d had her fill of shoveling snow off two sets of wings, and if she could find someone to paint her planes she’d need a place out of the weather for the paint to cure.
The mechanic, skinny, white, in his thirties, wearing Carhartt bibs he might have inherited from his grandfather, gave her the hangar owner’s contact info. She tapped it into her phone.
Watching her, he said, “Would you like to meet me for a beer sometime?”
She flashed her wedding ring. “Married.” She smiled at him to make sure that he understood the implied “if only” in her refusal. “Sorry.”
His grin was gap-toothed and charming. “Worth a try.”
She laughed and went back to her Forester with maybe just a little swash to her buckle and drove to Sunset Heights. Sybilla was already seated at a table in a small cafeteria that smelled strongly of Clorox and overcooked pasta. No cloth napkins here, but they did have table service in the form of a smiling teenager dressed in a blue and white striped apron. “Fried salmon steaks and a tossed salad today, Mrs. Karlsen.” She smiled at Wy. “Can I get you ladies something to drink?”
“Water is fine for me,” Wy said.
“Vodka martini, three olives,” Sybilla said.
“Coming right up, Mrs. Karlsen.” She reappeared in a moment with tall glasses of ice water and a small pitcher for refills.
“So nice that you could join me for lunch today, dear,” Sybilla said.
“If you hadn’t called I’d be eating a PBJ standing over the sink.”
Sybilla chuckled. “My good deed for the day.”
The salmon when it came was not overcooked, an almost impossible feat in an institutional setting. Wy was impressed, and laid in with a will.
“How is your young man settling in?” Sybilla said.
“He’s at work on a case.”
Again she saw that kind of click at the back of Sybilla’s eyes, where in an instant she seemed to be tracking everything said to her. “He has a case?”
“He does.” Wy hesitated.
Sybilla sniffed. “Afraid to upset the old lady, Wy? Is it Erik?”
Wy paused with her fork halfway to her mouth.
This time Sybilla snorted. “I thought you said you came from a small town.” She sighed. “I warned him.”
It took a moment for her words to register. “I beg your pardon? You warned Liam?”
Sybilla huffed an impatient sigh. “Not Liam. I warned Erik, when he came here to ask if he could rent my cabin.”
“Erik? Erik Berglund?”
Sybilla looked annoyed. “Of course, Erik Berglund. Unless someone else has been murdered this week I don’t know about. In which case your young man would certainly have been posted to the right place.”
Wy put down her folk and said brightly, “Sybilla, why don’t I call Liam and see if he can join us for dessert?”
Dessert was ice cream sundaes. Liam’s melted in front of him as he asked questions and Sybilla answered them between bites.
Liam was, to put it mildly, chagrined. He’d asked everyone he had met in
