Dana Stabenow - Fire And Ice

"What?"

"I suppose you don't know who killed Bob?"

Her face creased with remembered sadness. "No. No, I don't. I wish I did." She looked up at Liam. "He came here for me and Laura, and he stayed for Laura. It was all for Laura."

All for Laura, Liam thought as he helped Becky into the Blazer. So many Newenham lives had been bound up in Laura's, one way or another. Bob DeCreft had wanted to provide for her, Becky Gilbert had wanted to protect her, Cecil Wolfe had wanted to lay her. Richard Gilbert had wanted to ignore her. Bill Billington wanted to give her a hand up out of her adopted gutter.

Liam Campbell, now, what did he want for Laura?

He just wanted to find her father's murderer.

Early the next morning, a Monday, the phone rang. Liam sat up from his sleeping bag nest on the post floor and groped for the receiver. "Hello? I mean, Alaska State Troopers, Newenham post, Trooper Campbell speaking."

A vaguely familiar voice, raspy and irascible, said, "You got a pencil I got those buyers for you."

Liam blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"This Campbell or what?"

"This is Campbell, who's this?"

"Sparky, and I've got those buyers for you." The voice began reciting names, spelling out the last names as if it didn't trust Liam to get them right.

"Whoa, hold it, slow down, let me find a paper and pencil."

"Hurry it up, I haven't got all day."

Liam got to his knees and scrabbled around his desktop, shivering in the early morning chill. "Okay, go."

Again, the voice read out the names. "That's Wolfe with an e on the end of it."

"Got it." Two six-hundred-dollar Icom handheld radios had been purchased by Cecil Wolfe, along with four Kings, in February of this year. "Because we only had two Icoms in stock," Sparky growled in answer to Liam's question. "Wolfe didn't care about the brand, he just wanted 'em tuned to the same frequency, so that's how I sent 'em to him. I got the notes on the order form right here."

Six handhelds all together. That fit: one each for two planes and three boats, plus a spare for the plane. If a radio on one of the boats went out, they could signal to each other from deck to deck. Hell, Liam thought, as close as they were traveling the day before, they could shout from deck to deck.

But the spotter was on his, or her, own. Hence the set bolted to the dash, plus the handheld backup, plus the backup for the backup. Wolfe wasn't a guy willing to miss out on an opener due to problems with electronics. And a man who paid a million bucks for a boat wasn't going to boggle at an extra six hundred for another radio. "What about the two Sonys?"

"The cheapies? Got them, too, but it was three of them. They were one order, sold over the phone to a Larry Jacobson, that's Just-a-can-"

"Jacobson; I've got it," Liam said. Three radios: one for the Mary J., one for the Yukon Jack, one for Wy and Bob.

"His address is-"

"I've got that, too."

"Want his phone number or you got that, too?"

"No, I've got that, too. Uh, sir, what is your name?"

"Sparky-why do you think we call it Sparky's Pilot Shop?"

"Okay, Sparky, thanks a-"

Click.

"-lot," Liam said to the dead line. "You've been a big help. I really appreciate it." He put the receiver down and stared at the opposite wall with a meditative expression. Outwardly calm, he was experiencing a slow, steady interior burn. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he had already memorized. "Hi, it's Liam. Can you come down to the post? Yes, right now. No, it can't wait; find someone else to take them to Manokotak."

Fifteen minutes later she walked in the door, apprehension combined with belligerence in her eyes.

Liam was dressed by then, and sitting at his desk with the contents of the inventory of her Cub spread out neatly in front of him. "Hello, Wy. Have a seat."

She perched on the edge of a chair. "I haven't got much time, Liam, I-"

"You'll make time for this."

Her eyes widened a little as she took in his expression, one she had not seen on his face before today. His gaze was hard, his mouth held in a stern line, and suddenly she saw what had frightened many a perpetrator into surrender and a blurted confession over the years. "What?"

He waved his hand at the inventory before him. "Recognize this stuff? I took it out of your plane the last day you flew it. The day Bob DeCreft died."

She nodded, wary now. "So?"

"So, does anything seem to be missing?"

A slight flush rose into her cheeks. "Not that I can see."

He beckoned her forward. "Take a closer look; be sure." His eyes met hers. "Be very sure."

Slowly, she rose to her feet and stretched out a hand to pick through the items.

The wrappings from the Pop-Tart, the Snickers bar, the MandMore's, the Bazooka bubble gum, the Reese's peanut butter cup. "Regular junk food junkies," she said, trying to smile. He didn't smile back, and her eyes dropped to the desk.

"The new map's mine, the old map was Bob's. You know where and how we got the floats. Same with the walrus tusk. Not a very good one-it's broken off near the root-but it's ivory, so… Okay, my survival kit: two firestarter logs, Bob's parka, my parka, my Sorels, Bob's Sorels." She pointed at the plastic Pepsi bottle. "Bob's pee. Ick, I can't believe you've still got that. That's my clam gun and bucket; I always carry them with me when I know I'm making a beach landing. You never know when you'll hit the tide just right." She picked up the gloves one at a time. One was a cotton painter's glove, the second a woman's Isotoner, and the third a man's worn leather work glove. None of them fit Wy's hand. "I don't know where these came from. Probably passengers dropped them." She paused. "And those are the two radios."

"The radios you used for backup in case the big radio you have bolted to the dash fails." She nodded. "What about the third handheld?"

She went very still. "What third handheld?"

He shot to his feet so abruptly that his chair shot backward and crashed into the wall. She flinched. "The third handheld I found shoved beneath the backseat. The Sony. The cheapie, as Sparky of Sparky's Pilot Shop refers so affectionately to it. The cheapie Sony bought by Larry Jacobson in March of last year, along with another one exactly like it that I saw sitting on the control panel of the Mary J.! The handheld I found tucked away in your bedroom dresser night before last! Wrapped in a blue silk scarf that I vividly remember being used for something other than concealing material evidence in a murder investigation, by the way!"

He was shouting by the time he finished. He paused, glaring at her. She stared back at him, stricken.

"You were spotting for the Jacobsons and McCormick on the side, weren't you? I've been up there with you, Wy, I know what it's like now. Bob sat in the backseat and talked to Larry, you sat in the front and talked to Wolfe. Didn't you? Didn't you!"

She was white-faced and trembling, and mute.

"Jacobson bought the radios before last year's herring season, and you said Bob DeCreft observed for you last year, too, so I figure you tried it out last year and worked all the bugs out of it and tried it on again this year. Wolfe figured it out, didn't he? And he didn't waste time getting mad-he got even. First he had your Cub trashed, then he sank the Jacobsons' boat, beating up Kelly McCormick in the process, who I figured caught Wolfe's man in the act and got the shit kicked out of him for it, and then-" Liam reached in the drawer and slammed the envelope containing her check down on the desk. "And then Wolfe stiffed you for over half of what he owed you. Right?"

"He was dead when I got down to the boat," she said steadily.

"And aren't you lucky he was!"

"What?"

"Jesus, Wy, you're a walking, talking motive for murder! You contracted to Wolfe to spot herring for him and his boats, and only for him and his boats, and then your very first year on the job you double-cross him with one of his rivals. He finds out about it and wrecks your plane and takes half this year's paycheck in retaliation. Nice of him not to take it all, but then he probably wanted to keep you on the leash for next year, and what better way to do that than to keep you just broke enough to stay in business but to still need his to get by?"