The department received a tactical taser from the Alaska State Troopers. Everyone received training and certification. Meghan allowed her senior officer to carry the nonlethal weapon. Her lieutenant was less likely to use it on either of her other officers. Her sergeant spent most of his time training the rookie. Meghan feared part of that training might have to do with repeated taser attacks. That’s why she allowed Lester Graves to carry the taser and not any of the others. It also curbed Meghan from temptation using the taser on the mayor or someone less deserving as a form of the argument ends.
But there was a passive-aggressive nature to their view of the position. On the one hand, they knew her diligent work was indelible. However, she received veiled reprimands every meeting, and some committee members never spoke directly to her, only sat silent and judgmental.
Meghan had to account for labor hours and additional expenses that happened in the line of duty. Things like charter flights to other cities or fuel expenses, Duane saw as unnecessary expenditures. When Meghan flew to Nome while investigating the missing and presumed drowning of a Nome businessman, Duane felt she’d overstepped her budget restraints. Meghan had to argue that pursuing a missing person’s case wasn’t cheap. And in the end, she found the man wasn’t drowned or missing. He’d lost his life to a homicidal hairdresser.
Meghan knew Duane had a sour spot because she chose to give away an expensive pleasure cruiser, the Seagrass, because he thought the city had the first option to it. While friends and family lamented the loss of a business owner, Duane lamented the missed opportunity on a boat salvaged from Kinguyakkii Bay.
During the meeting, while the rest of the council members were content with her decision that the Kinguyakkii Police Department had no salvage claim to the boat, Duane balked at the idea. Stewart Tomlinson, owner of Scarlet Refuge Boat Marina and Repair in Nome, Alaska, and late owner of the Seagrass, found justice, and his boat went to the first person who found it after the man’s death. That was part of maritime rights. It didn’t stop Duane from grumbling about it.
“Excuse me,” the young lady said.
Meghan looked up from the case files. The young lady across the aisle wasn’t familiar. She had wavy brown hair with matching eyes. She sat beside a girl around the same age and appearance. Both wore impenetrable layers, even on the flight. Meghan found the cabin temperature comfortable; many Native Alaskans liked the additional layers and never complained about the heat.
“Aren’t you the Sheriff in Kinguyakkii?” she asked.
Inwardly, Meghan sighed. The endless comparison between a police chief and sheriff was too exhausting to explain again. Instead, she nodded.
The women balanced between late teen and early twenties. The girl who questioned Meghan sat one seat back on the opposite side of the aisle, which meant Meghan had to turn entirely to her right to face them. Her friend had a round face, glasses, and looked up from the computer tablet in her hands.
“See,” the first girl said. “I told you that was her.”
Celebrity sighting came with the job. It wasn’t something Meghan cultivated; it just happened. It wasn’t flattering, and it wasn’t something she advertised because, unlike a sheriff, the police chief wasn’t an elected position, she didn’t need votes or campaign contributions.
“You know, you really screwed up finding a good hairdresser.” The girl gave her a challenging look.
If her celebrity status counted for something, it was a constant reminder that people appreciated her job when catching a murderer didn’t disrupt their personal lives.
Meghan thought of several unflattering and negative responses. Instead, she went back to her files on the tray table. Most of the women in Kinguyakkii saw Meghan as an enemy because she did her job and arrested a killer with a cosmetic license. Now, local women who wanted hairstyling had to fly to Anchorage or brave the part-time hairdresser in Kinguyakkii who practiced on living candidates instead of graduating beauty school.
The plane rattled. It shook Meghan out of her stewing about other people’s priorities when it came to right and wrong. She held her breath and the tray table. She glanced at the couple directly across the aisle from her, who appeared indifferent to the turbulence. The girls behind them, who targeted Meghan, giggled at her fear of flying.
How could Meghan explain that flying wasn’t the issue? It had to do with wings falling off the plane or nose-diving into the black tundra a few miles below.
“Don’t mind them,” Meghan’s seatmate said. He had the window seat and was in his mid-fifties, as far as Meghan guessed. “They don’t appreciate how difficult your job must be,” he added. His soft voice carried as far as her ears but not over the drone of the engines.
“Thank you,” Meghan said.
She felt a little flush with anger from the misguided comments. Ungrateful people got under her skin. While a handsome stranger sharing the immediate seat to her left embarrassed Meghan
