Dana Stabenow - So Sure Of Death

One dark eyebrow went up, but all his father said was, “I was sorry I couldn't make it back in time for the funeral.”

“Either of them,” Liam heard himself say.

The eyebrow came down. “I called you.”

“Yes.” Both times.

“I was on duty when Charlie was buried, Liam,” Charles said in a level voice. “In the Gulf.”

Translation: I was under arms, serving my country in the front lines. Personal considerations must be sacrificed when the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. “I know,” Liam said.

“And as for Jenny, it happened so fast. I couldn't have made it back in time.”

You fly jets at twice the speed of sound, Liam thought. You couldn't have signed one out for a cross-country check ride, two days there and back again? “I know,” he said again. “I'm sorry.”

His apology was less than sincere and they both knew it, but it gave them room to move on. “What happened to you?” Charles said, indicating Liam's uniform.

“I fell into a lake.”

Charles sat down and waved a hand. Liam brushed at the seat of his pants and sat down opposite him. “How did you do that?”

“I was in pursuit of a suspect.”

Charles smiled. “Did you catch him?” Liam nodded. “Good. That's all that matters, then.”

Not quite all, Liam thought. “What are you doing in Newenham?”

Charles shrugged and sat back. “The 611th Engineer Squadron is doing a risk assessment study of Chinook Air Force Base, prior to an evaluation as to its continued viability.”

Liam fast-forwarded the words through a mental decoder, militaryese to English. “They thinking of closing the base?”

“It's a possibility.”

Chinook Air Force Base funneled a lot of cash into the Newenham economy. Combined with the last disastrous fishing season and the one currently in the making, the closing of Chinook might provide the third strike, you're out. It would severely impact Liam's job as well; an economic downturn invariably coincided with an upturn in alcoholic intake, and alcohol already fueled eighty percent of the offenses on his arrest reports. Child abuse, spousal abuse, assault, rape, murder-he could look for increases across the board. “Sometimes I think the fall of the Berlin Wall wasn't entirely a good thing.”

“It's not a done deal,” Charles said, “or even a sure thing. But with long-range jets and midair refuelings, we can police the North Pacific very efficiently from fewer and more centrally located bases.” He shrugged again. “And, as you say, the fall of the Wall hasn't provided an incentive for Congress to continue to pour funds into national defense. The Cold War is over, we won, and it's time to stand down.” A lift of his lip told Liam what Charles thought of Congress's take on the situation.

“What will happen to the base?”

“That's what we're working on now. The Air Force is committed to a safe community reuse of its former facilities.” Charles sounded as if he were reading from a press release. “The base has a lot of potential. We're reaching out to the local Native association. The state Department of Transportation is interested. It could even be turned into an extension of the University of Alaska, bunkhouses for dormitories, plenty of classroom space in the admin buildings. You could put an aviation school here; you've got runways and hangars and fairly consistent weather. Maybe set up an AirSea Rescue training facility. Or perhaps a fish-processing operation. But like I said, it's not a done deal. I'm here to talk to the base commander and his staff, and to evaluate their operation, see how necessary it is to the Alaska Defense Command.”

“They pick you because of your time at Elmendorf?”

“My familiarity with the Alaskan Air Command didn't hurt.”

“How long will you be here?”

“I don't know. A week, ten days, maybe.” Charles changed the subject. “I met a friend of yours this morning.”

In spite of everything he did to prevent it, Liam's shoulders tensed, and Charles's twenty-twenty pilot's vision spotted it right off. “Who was that?” Liam said.

“A local pilot, name of Schwenard.”

“Chouinard,” Liam said automatically, and cursed himself. Hell. Might as well go the whole route. “Wy Chouinard.”

“Ah. What kind of name is Wy?”

“Lakota Sioux. Short for Wyanet. Means beautiful.”

“Um.” Charles was good at those noncommittal noises that said nothing and meant everything. It was part of Liam's patrimony, and a useful adjunct to his interrogation technique, but he wasn't in the mood to be grateful today. “She mistook me for you at first.”

Liam refused to be drawn. “Well, you know how men in uniform all look alike.”

Charles laughed, a sound of genuine amusement. “I don't think that was it.” He raised his brows, a clear invitation for Liam to confide in him.

Liam thought about what his father would say if he knew that Liam and Wy had had an affair before Jenny's death, and decided to keep his own counsel, although exactly why was beyond him. Why should it matter what Charles thought of him? It wasn't like the older man was around all that much, it wasn't like they had anything in common to begin with, it wasn't as if anything in Liam's life was predicated on the fact of their kinship.

And it wasn't like Liam knew exactly what his relationship with Wy was at present, anyway. He remained silent.

Charles's expectant smile faded, and he said in a flat voice, “I also met the other trooper for the area. An Officer Prince?”

Liam relaxed, just a little. “Yes. She's new. Just arrived today, in fact.”

“She's also a pilot, she tells me.”

Liam nodded. “The troopers are looking for pilots nowadays.”

Yet another conversational pit yawned in front of them. Charles Campbell had done his best to cure Liam, stuffing his ten-year-old son into the cockpit of a Piper Tri-Pacer and talking him through endless takeoffs and landings, but Liam's fear was real, visceral and debilitating to the point of making him physically ill. Charles had persisted with recreational flying trips to Talkeetna and Seldovia and Iliamna, up until Liam was sixteen and reached his full height, six feet three inches, and could look Charles straight in the eye and say, “No.”

Liam supposed he should be thankful for Charles's attempts, as they had taught him just how tightly he could hold his sphincter muscles, a habit which proved invaluable when he became a trooper and flying into remote communities became part of the job.

But he wasn't.

Unwisely, Charles said, “Ever thought of trying to learn again yourself?”

“No.”

Subject closed. “She's a looker,” Charles said. “Your new trooper,” he added when he saw Liam's moment of confusion.

With an effort, Liam recalled Prince to mind. “I guess so,” he said.

“You guess so?” Charles chuckled. “I know so.”

Liam's gaze sharpened. “You're here for a week, ten days tops. Don't.”

If anything Charles's smile widened. “She's a grown woman.”

What could Liam say? It was true. He got to his feet. “I'd better head back into town.”

“What's the rush?” Charles said, rising in turn. “I thought you caught the guy.”

“I caught one. I'm working two cases at the moment.”

“What's the other?”

“A mass murder in Kulukak.”

“A mass murder? How many?”

“Seven.”

Charles grimaced. “Ouch. Sounds like a battlefield.”

Liam shrugged, the movement an unconsciously perfect copy of his father's, a smooth integration of muscle and bone that made both men look like big, lazy tigers just before they attacked. “Dead is dead,” he said, not quite lying and not quite telling the truth, either. “Can I hitch a ride into town?”