Dana Stabenow - So Sure Of Death

“Maybe her husband joined her.”

“Then how come I never saw him? She was always alone, coming and going.”

“How often did she stay here?”

“She came into town on shopping trips on average about once a month.”

“For how long?”

“One or two nights, usually. Oh, you mean how long had she been making these trips into town.” Alta thought. “I guess about a year. Since before last fishing season, anyway. Last April, maybe, around tax time?” She shrugged. “I can't say for sure.”

Liam gave Alta his most winning smile. “Could I see the register?”

She barked a laugh. “We don't have a register.” She nodded at the office in back of the counter.

He followed her through the door, and beheld the latest in Dell computers, hooked up to a scanner, a printer, a copy machine and a fax. “Great,” he said. “How far back do your records go?”

“Since we bought the place,” she said complacently, and sat down. “What do you want?”

“Can you print out a list of all the dates Molly Malone stayed here?”

“Certainly,” Alta said with a trace of scorn, and did so forthwith. Liam scanned the piece of paper. “Thanks, Alta, I owe you one.”

“I had one of the Malone deckhands in here, too,” she said. “Beginning of last season, all pissed off because David Malone had fired him. What the hell was his name…”

“Max Bayless?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why, I believe that was it. Scrawny little guy, nose off a fairy tale witch, big brown eyes like a cow's, mouth that wouldn't stop.”

Alta Peterson had a gift for characterization; a vivid picture of Max Bayless materialized before Liam's very eyes. He produced his notebook. “What did he say about the Malones?”

“Said David Malone booted him off theMarybethiafor no good reason, right in the middle of the season.”

“He get paid?”

She nodded. “Oh yes. I made him sign his crew share check over to me before I'd let him register. You can't trust a fisher at settlement. They're liable to drink every dime of their checks the first day they step off the boat, either celebrating a great season or drowning a bad one. I never had that problem with Peri, bless his heart. Anything else you wanted?”

He indicated the computer. “Can you look up the exact date Bayless was here?”

“I don't have to.” She smiled, revealing a set of large, yellowing teeth. “He was in on July fourth, out again on the fifth.”

“Easy dates to remember. Did he get another job?”

“I'd say about an hour after he flew in,” she said, nodding. “I was surprised, since it wasn't that good a year, and it didn't sound to me like he was that good a deckhand. David Malone has-had a good reputation on the Bay. He wouldn't fire someone in the middle of the fishing season for no good reason. It would leave him short-handed, and it would take too much time to find someone to replace him.”

“Maybe his kids were coming along,” Liam suggested.

“Maybe.” Alta didn't sound convinced. “My kids couldn't wait to set foot on dry land, themselves.” Humor gleamed in the blue eyes. “There's not a one of them majoring in fisheries management, either.”

“What are they majoring in?”

The gleam of humor increased to deepen the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. “Pre-Columbian art, high-altitude botany, and Eastern religions. Respectively.”

Jesus, Liam almost said, but recollected himself in time to snatch the word back. “Well, thank you for all your help, Alta.” He pocketed his notebook and turned to leave.

She waited until he was halfway out the door before she said, “You want a list of the dates David Malone stayed here?”

He halted in his tracks. “What?”

Her smile was wicked. “He didn't sleep alone, either.”

He stopped at NC for coffee and a roll, and headed to the post. Charlene Taylor was waiting for him. She didn't look happy.

Fifty years old, give or take a few, she had a round face topped by a fringe of flyaway brown bangs. Her ample waist was firmly restrained by a thick leather belt, and her epaulets and shoulder pads made her look twice as wide as the Sherman tank she already was. Her eyelashes, long, thick and curling, were disarmingly coquettish until you got past them to the unavoidable brown gaze they screened, a stare that weighed, measured, classified and stamped in one thorough glance. It reminded him a little of Alta's. It reminded him a lot of Bill's.

Liam, a man who had always loved women, was a bit afraid of all three of them. He wondered suddenly what Wy would be like at fifty, and gave an involuntary grin at the thought of what it might be like to live with her then. He'd have to check with Charlene's husband, the D.A. for this district, and see what he said.

“There's nothing funny about it,” Charlene said severely, rebuking his grin.

“Nothing funny about what?” Liam said, leading the way into his office.

Charlene planted herself squarely in front of his desk and folded her arms across an impressive chest. “I understand you have Frank Petla under arrest for murder.”

Liam, still in the act of pulling off his cap, looked surprised. “He hasn't been charged yet, but, yes, he's in custody.”

“He didn't do it.”

Liam took his cap the rest of the way off and took a minute hanging it just so from the hat rack on the wall. He went behind his desk, sat down, and took the lid off the coffee. “You want half?” he said, holding out the enormous cinnamon roll.

“He didn't do it, Liam.”

“Fine,” he said. “More for me.” He took a gigantic bite and washed it down with a swallow of satisfyingly strong coffee. “You sound very sure.”

“I know him. He's a drunk, but he's not a killer.”

“We're all potential killers, given the right circumstances, and you know it, Charlene.” He took another bite.

“You weren't,” she said pointedly, and he flushed a dark red.

“No, I wasn't.” The memory of the man who had killed his wife and child, kneeling in front of him in the rain, on a lonely road fifty miles from anywhere and anyone to see, flashed through his mind. He banished it, the way he always did. His appetite gone, he set the roll down.

“Aw hell,” she said, disgusted. “I'm sorry, Liam.” She removed her own cap and sat down heavily. “Low blow, totally unwarranted, completely out of line.”

“You aren't the first person to have made that observation.” A lot of people thought Rick Dyson should have been shot while resisting arrest, many of them within Liam's own command. Liam had felt the weight of their silent contempt every time he walked into headquarters.

Contempt was not manifest in Charlene's glare. “I said I was sorry.”

He held up one hand, palm out. “All right. Apology accepted. What makes you so sure Petla didn't do it?”

“Tell me what happened,” she said instead.

He told her. She followed the story intently. “How did you catch him when he took off on the four-wheeler? There's no place to land and intercept him around there.”

“I brought him back to the dig,” Liam said, avoiding a direct answer. “Charlene, he assaulted a trooper.”

She looked startled. “You?”

“No, we got ourselves a new trooper, fresh out of the academy, Diana Prince.”

“I didn't know that.”

“She came in yesterday. Green as she is, I have to say it helped having her here, what with the press of business and all.” It was a weak attempt at a joke and didn't earn him a smile. “You hear about theMarybethia?” She nodded. “We flew out to Kulukak yesterday morning when the news came in, I sent her back with the bodies. McLynn-you know McLynn?”