"All right," she flared, "so I looked for the check before I screamed. So what? What's it matter anyway-I didn't kill him!"

"I never said you did," he yelled, "but you're not making it any easier for me to find out who did by screwing with the crime scene! How the hell am I supposed to find who did do it if you're in here stumbling around destroying evidence!"

They glared at each other.

From the passageway behind Wy there was an apologetic clearing of throat. "I'm sorry," Jimmy Barnes said, head down in a conscious effort not to meet anyone's eyes and thereby precipitate an inclusion into the ongoing debate. "Here's the tape and your briefcase, Liam. The ambulance is on its way."

Liam pulled himself together. "Thanks, Jimmy."

"Think nothing of it."

"Mind if I ask you for another favor?"

The harbormaster looked wary. "What?"

"I imagine there are a few people standing around on the slip outside."

"A few," Jimmy agreed cautiously.

"Could you kind of stand guard, keep them off the boat, while I gather evidence?"

Jimmy looked relieved. "Sure. I can do that."

"Thanks. And flag down the ambulance driver when he gets here."

"Sure."

Liam ordered-there was no other word-he ordered Wy to wait for him on deck. When she had gone, he found the crumpled envelope with her name on it in the wastebasket next to the desk, and smoothed it flat. Before returning the check to the envelope, he paused to read it. It had been drawn on Wolfe's business account, imprinted with the business name, Sea Wolfe Enterprises, Inc., with an address in Seattle. Today's date, "Pay to the order of Wyanet Chouinard, twenty thousand dollars," and then the big black scrawl of a signature that took up most of the bottom right of the check.

His heart jarred with a thickening thud, and he read the check again.

He stood in the middle of Wolfe's stateroom for a long moment, thinking hard. In the end, he heard the sound of wheels on wood and read it rightly as an approaching gurney.

With a decisive movement that was nevertheless a little furtive, he stuffed the check back inside the envelope and the envelope inside his shirt and went out to meet Joe Gould, who surveyed the carnage with the same detached expression Liam had noticed at the airport on Friday, his Lucifer-before-the-fall face tonight looking more sinned against than sinning. He squatted beside the body. "Stabbed, huh?"

"What was your first clue?" Liam said.

"No need to be sarcastic, trooper," Joe said tranquilly, "just a passing comment. Help me with the bag?"

Liam helped unroll the body bag and slide Wolfe into it. The blood had dried enough to be sticky, and for the first time since landing in Newenham Liam was glad he wasn't wearing his uniform.

They carried the body out through the crowd clustered on the slip next to the boat, causing a ripple of shocked comment, as well as a few smothered mutters of satisfaction-Cecil Wolfe had not been running a popularity contest from the bridge of the Sea Wolfe-and set it on the stretcher. Together, they rolled the stretcher to the ramp and up into the ambulance.

Joe Gould closed the doors and said, "We've only got so much room down at the morgue, trooper."

"Thanks for the information," Liam said. "I wouldn't want to cause overcrowding. Next time I stumble over a body I'll just toss it in the Nushagak."

"Works for me," Joe Gould said without expression, and climbed into the cab and drove away with the remains of a man no one was going to mourn for very long, if at all.

Liam's headache was back. Standard operating procedure in any murder investigation where the murderer is not obvious is to inquire as to the existence of any enemies of the deceased. Given Cecil Wolfe's personality and professional conduct, Liam figured he could put all of Newenham and most of Bristol Bay at the head of the line.

But none of them came before Wyanet Chouinard.

Liam pulled up at the post and, escorting Wy, was just going in the door when Bill Billington pulled into the parking lot in a bright '57 Chevy convertible. Liam felt like knuckling his eyes, but it was a bona fide '57 Chevy all right, painted a bright shiny yellow and complete with fins.

"Hey, Liam," she called, getting out of the car.

"Bill," he said, still staring.

She gave the fender a fond pat. "Nice, isn't she? I bought her new. Only reason I bought a house, so I could park her in the garage over the winter. First time I've had her out this spring."

"Right." Newenham wasn't the Twilight Zone after all. It wasn't even a three-ring circus. It was a doorway into the Fourth Dimension. Where was Mr. Myxlpltz? He said, trying to be civil, "I'm kind of busy, Bill, I-"

"I know you're busy," she interrupted him, "but this won't wait."

"What won't wait?"

She waved a thick manila envelope at him. "Th."

He took it, noticing it had been opened and closed again by tucking the flap inside. "What is it?"

"It's the last will and testament of Bob DeCreft," she said.

"How did you come by it?"

"I'm the magistrate, and the district judge only comes around once every three, four months," she said. "Most people file their wills with me. Hell, I help most people write 'em. I hadn't had a chance to read Bob's until this evening."

"What's so interesting about this particular will?"

"Read it and see." She folded her arms and waited.

Liam mumbled something ungracious beneath his breath.

"Just read it," Bill ordered in her most magisterial voice. "Or I'll hold you in contempt of court."

"We aren't in court, Bill."

"Court is wherever I say it is, buddy. Read the goddamn will."

Liam opened the envelope and pulled out the document. It was short and simple. He read it through twice, to make sure it said what he thought it said the first time.

He let his hand fall, and raised his head to stare at Bill. "What the hell?"

"Yeah," Bill said smugly. "That's what I thought."

"Did you know?"

Bill shook her head. "Didn't have a clue. Neither did anyone else."

A slight smile creased Liam's face. "Even Moses?"

Bill waved a hand as if to say Moses knew everything and so didn't count. She had a point. "Does it help?"

"I don't know," Liam said curtly, the thoughts in his head writhing around like a nest of snakes. No sooner did he have hold of the tail end of one than another raised its head and hissed at him. "Maybe."

Wy was unable to contain herself any longer and demanded, "What's going on?"

Bill looked at her and said, "Bob left everything he owned to Laura Nanalook."

Wy, puzzled, said, "So? She was his roomie."

"She was more than his roomie," Bill said, obviously relishing the prospective effect her news was about to impart. "She was his daughter."

"What?"

Bill pointed at the will. "That's what he calls her in his will: his "natural daughter." Oh yeah, and this was in with the will."

Liam fairly snatched it out of her hand.

It was a copy of a birth certificate, issued twenty years before on September 23 at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, for a girl child, six pounds, eight ounces. The mother was listed as being one Elizabeth Rebecca Ilutsik, unmarried, of the village of Ik'ikika. The father was listed as unknown. The girl child's name was listed as Laura Elizabeth Ilutsik.

Liam sat down on the top step and stared at the birth certificate. Bill folded her arms and leaned against the railing, watching him. Wy, who had been existing in momentary expectation of being arrested for murder, was simply glad to have the attention shifted away from her.

Liam looked at Bill. "Did you show this to Laura?"

Bill shook her head. "Haven't talked to her at all."

"Good. Don't."

"Why, what are you going to do?"