“Liam?” He looked up and saw Wy yawning in the doorway. “I must have dozed off,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, hell, Wy, I’m sorry,” he said, shoving the grid to one side and standing up. “I started doodling and I lost track of time.”

“It’s okay.” She slid into his lap and tucked her head beneath his chin. Her firm, soft weight felt very sweet. She looked down at the grid. “Oh, you’re doing that square thing you do.” She pulled it toward her. “Lydia was born in 1926? God. I wonder what the world was like then. About all I know is they couldn’t use boats with engines to fish for salmon on Bristol Bay. Plus we were a territory, not a state.”

He stared down at the grid, something tickling at the back of his brain, something he ought to be seeing.

Wy stirred. “She was born in Newenham, right?”

“Yeah. It’s on her birth certificate.”

“She has a birth certificate?”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“A lot of people her age who were born in the Bush don’t have birth certificates. No hospitals and damn few doctors back then. It’s hard for Native elders to get social security sometimes because they can’t prove they were born in the U.S.” Her finger traced the line to the box where he had written Lydia’s milestone dates. “Sixteen in 1941. Wasn’t that the year that C-47 augered into Carryall Mountain?”

He stared at the top of her head.

“I was wondering if you could have seen the crash from town,” she said. “It isn’t that far away, and if it was a clear night…”

“I need to get a new job,” he said.

“What?” She blinked up at him, soft-eyed and sleepy.

“Filing at City Hall ought to be just about my speed.”

“Liam-”

“I love you,” he said, and kissed her hard.

She blinked. “Okay.”

“No, I mean it, I love you, but it’s just that right now I love you because you have the one working brain between us.” All thoughts of sleep vanished and he dumped her unceremoniously off his lap and pulled a fresh sheet of paper to him. “Look.” He drew a grid this time, and put a list of dates down one side. “Lydia was sixteen in 1941. On the night of December twentieth, 1941, a C-47 crashes into Carryall Mountain. Suppose it was clear enough between here and there to see the crash? What would you do if you saw something like that?”

She leaned against the desk, crossing her arms and hugging them to her. “I’d go look.”

“You bet your ass you would. Maybe you went looking to aid survivors, maybe you went just to see what you could see, but you would go look, and so would anyone else who saw it happen.”

“I’m sorry, what does this have to do with Lydia?”

“Wy. The wreck is found one day, and the next day Lydia is murdered in her own kitchen, with no signs of forcible entry, which means she most probably knew her attacker. And in Newenham, that could be someone she has known a long time. I was just talking to Clarence down to the bar and he has some very fond memories of Lydia in high school. So did Moses. I wonder who else did?”

“I am really, really tired,” Wy said. “You’re going to have to explain better than that.”

“Okay, try this on for size. It’s December twentieth, 1941. Nineteen forty-one, hell, I didn’t even think of that! Pearl Harbor was attacked ten days before. We were at war, and Alaska was way too close to Japan. They practically started building the Alaska Highway the next day.”

“I still-”

“Think a minute!” He actually gave her a little shake. “The attack had been ten days before, and it was so kick-ass that the military from Nome to San Diego was expecting an invasion at practically any moment. They would have alerted every American coastal community on the Pacific Ocean to be on the watch.”

“So, if somebody saw the C-47 go into the mountain, they might have thought it was the beginning of an invasion?”

“Why not? The blood wasn’t dry from Pearl. Midway hadn’t happened yet, and Japan looked invincible. So say a guy was out with a girl-Clarence told me the big deal was to get hold of a truck and drive your girl and your friends and their girls to Icky and have an all-day party on the beach at One Lake. That’s forty miles closer to Carryall Mountain and Bear Glacier.”

“An all-day party on the beach at One Lake,” she said, considering. “I hate to rain all over your parade, Liam, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“It was December.”

“Oh. Oh. Well, hell. Okay, maybe not. Damn it.” He couldn’t stand it; he had to pace. He rose to his feet and began to quarter the office. “Okay, then they saw it from Newenham.”

“Liam, I’m willing to stipulate that they saw the plane go in. They weren’t that long out of Nome and they were probably pretty heavy with fuel, so it probably went off with one hell of a bang. I just don’t know,” she said pointedly, “what all this has to do with Lydia.”

“If I’m right, it has everything to do with Lydia. Listen, Wy.” He sat down again and pulled a third sheet of paper toward him. “Here is Lydia, sweet sixteen, out on a date with one of her many swains.” He drew two boxes, one Lydia, one swain. “It’s evening-what did they say; they think the plane went in around midnight. Maybe they’re parking and making out.”

“Did they make out in 1941?”

“Thenboom! and fire on the mountain. They’re curious, so they go take a look. The plane is a total loss, but something has been thrown clear.”

“What?”

He looked at her. “Gold.”

She snapped her fingers. “The coin!”

“What if there were more of them?” He drew another square and put all Lydia’s kids inside it. “One thing that’s been bothering me, all the Tompkinses have enough money not to work. I know the bay used to be a bonanza for salmon fishermen, but I don’t see anyone else in Newenham with a lifestyle like theirs. Most of the old-timers, their houses are paid off and some of them their boats, but they’re still out there hustling for anything with fins that swims into range. Lydia, yes, I could understand her being provided for, but the kids, too, and so well? Well, what if the money came from Lydia, not Stan Sr.? What if it came from what she and her date found at the crash site?”

“She could have gone up there alone.”

“Then she’d still be alive.” He sat back. “And then, sixty years later, the wreck resurfaces. I bring the arm to Bill’s and everybody sees the coin.”

Wy was still puzzled. “I still don’t understand. Why was Lydia killed?”

He was sitting in Lydia’s chair, and he thought of her again as he had seen her the evening he met her, feisty, strong, independent, with a bawdy eye and a fearless spirit. “Maybe she wanted to tell the truth, that they’d stolen the gold from the crash site. Maybe he didn’t want her to.”

“Who, Liam? Do you know who?”

He looked down at the sheet of paper, and traced over the outline of the box markedswain.

“Yes,” he said.