EIGHT

The phone was ringing as he walked into the office. "About goddamn time," a voice barked at him.

Liam sat down. "Hello, John."

"Where the hell have you been? I've been calling all day. Don't you have someone to answer the friggin' phone down there?"

"Not in the office," Liam said. "I guess the dispatcher takes all the calls."

"Goddammit," Barton said, "how the hell am I supposed to practice goddamn law and order if I can't even talk to my goddamn officers?"

It was a rhetorical question, and Liam didn't bother trying to answer.

Barton went on. Barton always went on. "What's this I hear about you stepping off the plane into the middle of a murder?"

Liam sighed, leaned back to prop his feet on the desk, and rubbed his eyes. "Don't tell me, let me guess. Corcoran."

"Hell yes, Corcoran," Barton said, adding with awful sarcasm, "and a good thing, too, since my own officer on the scene can't be bothered to phone in a report."

"Lay off, John," Liam said. "I haven't been here two days, I got no handover from Corcoran, I don't know the territory or the locals, and already I've responded to two shootings and a possible murder. Not to mention which I don't have a place to sleep and I can't find anyone to press my uniform."

Barton was outraged. "You're out of uniform?"

Liam had to laugh, but under his breath and out of John Barton's hearing.

Lieutenant John Dillinger Barton was a twenty-five-year veteran of the Alaska State Troopers. An air force brat like Liam, his family had moved all over the world during his childhood, ending eventually at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage in 1957, when his father, under pressure from his mother, retired to sell and service Xerox copy machines. He attended Seattle University with the goal of joining the Jesuit brotherhood, elected a philosophy class in which a Washington state trooper came to lecture on the ethics of criminal justice, and on that day gave up the priesthood forever. Upon graduation he returned home to be promptly accepted into that year's trooper academy class. They'd done away with the height requirement by then, which was a good thing since he topped out at five feet four. Barton was gorillian of build, all of it muscle, and Churchillian of jaw, all of it stubborn, but for all that amazingly good at not trampling over the authority of village elders. He rose high and fast in the department.

He was now the outpost supervisor for Section E, which included Liam's previous post of Glenallen as well as his new one, Newenham. He was Liam's boss, and had been for seven years. He had spotted Liam's potential early on, had mentored his swift rise through the ranks, and had marked Liam as someone who would always make him look good. It was tacitly understood by both men that this would always be in a subordinate capacity, and if Liam had his own ideas about that he was smart enough to keep them to himself.

Barton had also orchestrated Liam's recent and rapid fall from grace, and his transfer to Newenham.

"So what have you been doing?" Barton said, voice rich with sarcasm.

Liam thought. "Well," he said, "I had my first tai chi lesson." He had to hold the phone away from his ear when Barton, predictably, erupted again. Liam waited patiently, smiling to himself. When he thought about it later, he was amazed that he still remembered how.

When he got a chance, he told Barton of the scene he had stepped into at the airport.

At the end of it Barton grunted. "Ninety people milling around and nobody sees a thing. Bullshit. What about the pilot?"

"Out getting lunch."

"Check the alibi?"

"Yes."

"Well, shit." Barton always preferred the easy answers, and on every case but this one so did Liam. "Who didn't like him?"

"No one, apparently, but then no one seemed to know him all that well. No wants or warrants, no record of him having been tanked for anything so much as a parking ticket. Good reputation with the local magistrate."

John interrupted him. "That Bill Billington?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason." But Barton chuckled, a full, rich, knowledgeable sound.

Uh-huh, Liam thought, and said, "I called the bank, he had two thousand and change in a checking account, no big withdrawals recently. No mortgage on his house; I guess he paid cash. He owned a pickup and a Super Cub, both free and clear, too."

"I'll run a check on him from here, see if we come up with anything."

"Thanks."

Barton cleared his throat, and when he spoke again his voice was gruffer. "Thought you'd like to know. The wife and I visited with Jenny this weekend. Her folks were there, and they said to say hi when I talked to you."

"Tell them I'll call when I get a phone, and I'll be up when I can," Liam said, and couldn't stop himself from adding, "Any change?"

"No, Liam," Barton said steadily. "She's just sleeping, like she always does. Curled up on her side like a baby in a crib." Liam heard the creak of a chair shifting. "How are you and Wy getting along?"

Liam took the phone away from his ear again, this time to stare at it incredulously. It refused to yield up any secrets on its own, and he put it back to his ear cautiously. "What did you say?"

Barton was impatient. "I said, Campbell, how are things between you and the girlfriend?"

Liam said slowly, "You knew about Wy and me?"

"Jesus Christ, Liam, this is the goddamn Alaskan Bush. Everybody knew about it."

"You son of a bitch," Liam said, perhaps not the most felicitous manner in which to address one's boss. "You knew she was here?"

"Yes, I did, you bullheaded bastard," Barton bellowed, "and, yes, I posted you to Newenham because of it!"

Liam was speechless.

Barton waited for a moment before continuing in a calmer voice. "Face it, Liam. You were one big, walking, talking open wound. Goddammit, we could practically track you by the fresh blood you left behind. Somebody had to do something."

"You could have told me" was all Liam could find to say. "You could have let me decide for myself what I wanted."

"Yeah, we could have," Barton said evenly, "if we wanted to wait another five years for you to make up your friggin' mind. I wasn't in the mood." Barton sighed. "Look, friend. You're in about the worst possible place there is for a man to be. You lost your son. I don't want to even think about what that could do to someone. You got a wife in a coma, with no hope of recovery." Barton was good with blunt. "It might take her years, but she's dying. You know it, I know it, her parents know it. We all know it. You looked like crawling in next to her and going with. I wasn't going to let that happen if I could help it. So I put you in the only place I could think of where there was someone who might do you some good."

"Did you think the demotion was going to help, too?"

"Aw shit," Barton said. "Answer me this, Liam. When you fuck up, who do you think gets it up the ass?"

"I didn't fuck up," Liam said distinctly.

"No, you didn't, but the people who worked for you did, and you weren't watching them."

Liam said nothing, and John Dillinger Barton got uncharacteristically defensive. "Don't talk to me about personal problems. You got them up the wazoo, agreed, in spades. But a cop can't turn his job on and off like a switch. You knew that coming in. We all know it coming in." The chair creaked again. Barton was a fidgeter, constantly in motion-shifting in his chair, shuffling the papers on his desk, doodling with his pencil, waxing Machiavellian with his brain. "You done your box thing yet on this DeCreft murder?"

"I don't know that it is murder."

"You said the wire was cut."

"It was."

"Think that happened accidentally?"

"Maybe. Maybe somebody was reaching under there trying to cut something else."