There was a step and she turned to see Liam in the doorway, red-faced, sweating, and breathing hard. “They do not pay me enough to ever again walk up that hill.”
“Did you manage to hide the Penis Extender?”
He nodded. “Backstay does go farther west, but you can’t see it because the trees have almost overgrown it. I backed in. You can’t even see it’s there.” He looked down, saw the flat of bottled water, and grabbed one. Twisting off the cap he tilted his head back and flatfooted it. Still breathing hard he put the cap back on and looked around for the garbage. It was in a small pail with a tight lid.
“You liked this guy,” she said.
He considered while he got his breathing under control. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did. He was a good guy, smart, funny, interesting, really into his job. He had that ability to reduce words of six syllables into words of two syllables so that non-experts could understand what the hell he was saying. I don’t know if he’d found what he said he had but he was excited about it and was sure he could prove it. I’ve always like people with a cause.” He looked around the cabin. “Did you find anything?”
“He was a reader. And he wasn’t a slob, in spite of living rough. I’ve seen a lot worse.”
He went to the table and looked through the scant stack of paper there. “He only had one Visa card in his wallet, along with his driver’s license and an ATM card.” He let the paperwork fall with a sigh. “Ads. He must have picked them up at the store. Did you see a checkbook?”
She shook her head. “He could have paid for everything through his bank online and elected not to receive paper statements. There are probably computers and Wi-Fi at the library.”
“What’s this?” He pulled something from the back of one of the chairs.
“What’s what?” She came to stand next to him.
It was a bright scarf made of lightweight cotton, at one end a vivid pink which by the other end had graduated to a pale peach. “Pretty,” he said. “And for sure it didn’t belong to Erik.”
They both heard it at the same time. “What does Ms. Petroff drive?”
“An old Ford Jeep.” He listened. “Sounds like it’s in pretty good shape. Turn down the lamp.” He replaced the scarf on the back of the chair. She hung the lamp back up on the hook. “Let’s wait around the back of the cabin.”
They did so, listening to the engine of the car grind ever closer, until it topped the rise and the driver killed the engine, which rattled and popped and shook and dieseled for a good minute afterward. Wy, pressed against Liam, heard his heart beating in one ear and the sound of a car door opening and closing in the other. Light footsteps, then the creaking of the cabin door as it opened. Liam pulled away from her and went around the cabin on soundless feet. Wy followed as quietly as she could.
He went in the cabin first and surprised Ms. Petroff in the act of lighting the gas lantern. “Oh!” she said, and knocked the lantern off the table. Liam caught it before it hit the floor. Ms. Petroff made an abortive attempt to reach the door, and only subsided when she saw Wy standing there.
“Sit down, Ms. Petroff,” Liam said, taking her firmly by one arm and guiding her to a chair at the table. Wy came in and closed the door behind her, and Liam finished lighting the lamp. He turned it up all the way, filling the little room with a warm radiance. He hung it from the hook and they both turned to look at the girl.
She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. The scarf was looped around her neck. “You lied to me, Ms. Petroff,” Liam said, his voice implacable. “I asked you where Erik Berglund’s cabin was and you said you didn’t know.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, and dropped her hands, revealing a tear-stained face. She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, sir, I did.”
“Why?”
She swallowed. “I didn’t want you to know I knew.”
“Because I’d have questions you don’t want to answer.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“Did you have a relationship with Erik Berglund, Ms. Petroff?”
She bit her lip and another tear slid down her cheek. “Yes.”
“Where were you between Monday night at ten and two a.m. Tuesday morning?”
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
“Where were you between—”
“Stop!” she shouted. It was the first loss of self-possession Liam had observed in her. “Just stop. I didn’t kill Erik. I was nowhere near his dig that night or even that day. My aunt and uncle had a family picnic on the beach and we were out there until after sunset.” She let out a long, shuddering sigh. “Yes, I had a relationship with Erik, but it’s not what you think.”
“What was it, then?”
“He—” She twisted her hands together. “He was my father.”
They stared at her, speechless.
She’d taken an online genealogy course because she’d thought it would be fun if she constructed a family tree for her parents’ anniversary. When the instructor suggested all the students take a DNA test from 23andMe, she didn’t hesitate. When the results came back, she didn’t believe them, and submitted a second sample, which came back the same.
Alexei Petroff wasn’t her father.
What felt even weirder was that she was half white. She had been raised as a full-blooded Sugpiaq. It was how she was down in the tribal register.
She had confronted her
