Alexei’s eyes widened. “Yes.”
“He was ten years old?”
Alexei felt for Kimberley’s hand, his eyes never leaving Liam’s face. “Yes.”
“I’ve read the file and the article in the local newspaper, but could you run that day down for me, please?”
Alexei swallowed. “He and Erik were across the Bay with both our parents on a shopping trip. They told the boys they could take the skiff for a run, and they ended up on Sand Beach. Erik was attacked and left unconscious, and Josh disappeared.” He swallowed. “He was never found.”
Liam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The skeleton of a ten-year-old boy has been found near where Erik Berglund’s body was found.” Kimberley made a sound and Alexei pulled her in tight.
Liam pulled a small, heavyweight manila envelope from his pocket. He unwound the string that secured the flap and produced a glass tube with a swab inside. “You are, I believe, his nearest living relative?”
“Yes,” Alexei said, staring at the tube. “Both our parents are dead.”
There had already been one unwelcome surprise revealed to this family from DNA this year, and Liam was sorry to have to foist a second on them, but it was the only way. He held up the tube. “If we could have a sample of your DNA, the medical examiner could test it against that of the skeleton’s. Then we would know.”
Alexei appeared hypnotized by the sight of the tube. “How long will it take?”
“One to three days, depending on how backed up things are at the lab.”
“And then we’ll know.”
Liam nodded. “Yes.”
Alexei looked from the tube to Liam. “How did he die?”
Liam could feel himself stiffening, and made an effort to relax. “I’m sorry to say he did not die of natural causes.”
“He was murdered.”
It wasn’t a question, but Liam answered it anyway. “Yes.”
“How?”
Liam could have made the standard answer, that the case was under investigation and the details were confidential until that investigation was concluded, but he could not bring himself to do so to this man who had lost his only brother thirty years before. “Blunt force trauma. A blow to the head.”
“It would have been quick, then.”
Liam sure as hell hoped so. “I believe so.”
“Who kills a kid?” Alexei said, his face contorting. “Who the hell kills a ten-year-old kid out beachcombing on a sunny summer day? And leaves another one for dead?” He bent his head for a moment, blinking. Kimberley put her arm around his shoulders and tucked her head beneath his chin.
When he looked up again he was dry-eyed and determined. He jerked his chin at the tube. “What do I do?”
Now, on Monday morning, Liam looked down at the square, dissatisfied all over again. The square thing always worked. He willed it to do so again.
Alexei and Kimberley Petroff were cleared, as Sergei Pete had confirmed.
Domenica Garland’s Zoom meeting had checked out, too. It was the first time Liam had direct-dialed Europe. Her boss had sounded as if he were in the next room.
Gabe McGuire had Len Needham for an alibi, although that was dicey since Len was also a close relative. But McGuire had zero motive. Liam had contacted the relevant authority at the borough and Gabe’s petition to vacate the right of way was on track to being approved and had been before Erik Berglund was murdered.
Hilary Houten might have had motive but he came and left with Blue Jay Jefferson and let’s face it, the guy was in his eighties and he couldn’t get around without a honking big cane to hold him up. He wasn’t going to pick a physical fight with anyone.
Same went for Blue Jay.
Liam sat back and tossed down the pencil. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and swiveled to look out the window behind his desk. The view was somewhat obscured by the inevitable alders and ragged black spruce but there was enough room that he could see a slice of the Bay and the mountains beyond.
He wondered if he’d made a mistake in accepting the Blewestown post. In Newenham he would have been out on a call already and catching up on three more from the day before. Of course he had been for a long time almost the only law enforcement officer within three hundred or more miles, so there was that. And he had been getting tired of the sameness of the job, the constant domestic violence calls, the drunk and disorderlies, the reported break-ins by tweakers looking for anything to sell so they could buy their next fix. Everybody remembered the murders because murder was high profile, the stuff of crime fiction and Hollywood blockbusters, but it was the daily grind of seeing his fellow citizens at their worst that wore him down. That wore them all down.
One of the first things Wy had asked him when they met—it was one of the first things everyone asked—was why he had become a trooper. “For the uniform,” he had said, which was what he always said. It was flippant and flirty and non-responsive. It was also in some small part true. He’d grown up idolizing the Alaska State Troopers because they just looked so damn cool in their Smokey hats. He looked at his button-down flannel and jeans. His first official day on the job in Blewestown and he wasn’t wearing one. There were three clean, pressed, perfectly tailored uniforms hanging in the closet at home. What did that say?
He wondered just how quick Barton was imagining he could slide Liam into a job at HQ in Anchorage. Back in the day it had been the height of Liam’s ambition to ascend the ladder to Barton’s job, boss of the whole damn shooting match. There had been a time when
