The smile faded. "My parents wanted me off their hands and out of their house, and they figured I was already tainted anyway. He was a missionary who needed a link to the community he was trying to convert. They arranged it between them. I didn't much care one way or another, so I went along with it. I thought I could have more children, that that would help. But I didn't."

"I'm sorry," Liam said inadequately.

"Thank you," she said softly. "I am too."

Liam, who had lost his own child, cleared his throat and said, "Why didn't you try to call Bob? When you found out you were pregnant?"

"My parents wouldn't allow it." She added in a lower voice, "And when I was back in the village, I was ashamed."

The words were so simple, and encompassed so much. "When did Bob get in touch with you again? When he moved here in 1992? You went up the river with him, didn't you?"

Enough of the minister's helpmate remained that she looked alarmed. "How did you know that?"

"You were seen. Don't worry, they didn't recognize you, they only recognized him."

"Oh. Good. I guess." The alarmed expression faded, as if it had only been habit in the first place. "It doesn't matter now. We got away by ourselves, and we talked and talked and talked, and he told me that he figured I was never coming back, so he didn't bother leaving a trail for me to follow. I thought he'd moved on to another woman, but he hadn't." Pride showed through again. "He wanted me to leave Richard and move in with him, and have Laura move in with us."

"Why didn't you?"

She paused, thinking it over. "I don't know," she said finally, a puzzled crease appearing between her brows. "I should have. I suppose I was-afraid."

"Afraid of what? Your husband?"

She shook her head. "No. No one who truly knows Richard is afraid of him. No, I suppose I was afraid of what God would think of me if I did." She saw Liam's expression and smiled again, this time without humor. "Yes, I know what you're thinking. Nowadays people sling His name around like they're on a firstname basis with Him. It's true that my parents arranged my marriage to Richard-even if he was a gussuk, they figured that at least he was a holy one-but I said the words. For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, so long as you both shall live. Those are truly terrible words, Mr. Campbell, if you think about them. Very few people do. But I did, and when I said them I meant them."

Liam had meant them himself, once upon a time. The difference was that Becky Gilbert had kept her vows.

"And," Becky Gilbert added, confirming Liam's previous thoughts, "at that time there was still enough of the preacher's wife in me to shudder at the thought of all the talk."

"You were afraid," he said, repeating her words.

"Yes." She said it without shame.

So was I, he thought. Afraid to leave, afraid to love, afraid to rock the boat.

"So I stayed with Richard."

And I with Jenny and Charlie. "And asked Bob and Laura not to give away your secret."

"Yes. She despises me for it," she added, sighing. "But Richard ordered me to keep it a secret. He said a pastor has to set an example, that we couldn't be seen to be condoning children born out of wedlock, it would send all the wrong messages to the young people in the church."

She folded her hands in her lap. "So I agreed to keep it a secret. She moved in with Bob, and everyone thought they were lovers. Bob wasn't interested in anyone but me"-again that flash of pride-"and Laura… well, I don't know if Laura is ever going to have a normal relationship with a man. She has been hurt so much. So that's the way we left it."

"Which was where things were when Bob died."

She nodded.

"Why did you kill Cecil Wolfe, Becky?"

She looked surprised. "Why, I've just told you. Laura Nanalook is my child. She is the child of my body, and of my heart. She is my only child. Mothers are supposed to look out for their children, protect them, keep them safe."

"You killed Cecil Wolfe to protect your daughter?"

"Yes. He raped her. He came into her home on the day her father died and he held her down on her own couch in her own living room and he raped her, he raped my baby girl." Her breast was heaving, her voice was rising, her hands had clenched into fists. "He hurt her, and he had hurt her before and he would have hurt her again. That's what he was. A hurter. A taker. A-a spoiler."

She closed her eyes and took one long, deep breath. "So I waited, and I watched. I've been following him off and on for the last two days. He was so big and so strong, and I-" An eloquent sweep of one hand indicated her small form. "I knew I had to be careful, that if I had any chance to do it successfully I had to take him by surprise, I had to catch him off guard." Her chin came up again. "I was real good at skinning when I was a kid, Mr. Campbell. I could strip a caribou of its hide faster than any other girl in the village, and faster than most of the boys. My father was real proud of me. He took me hunting a couple of times, even when the other elders said it wasn't right for girls to hunt. He even gave me my own knife."

"This knife?" Liam said, pointing at the bone-handled skinning knife, properly bagged in plastic by now.

She nodded. "Yes. That is the same knife. It's a good one; it holds an edge for a long time. My father gave it to me because I was so good at skinning."

"I don't doubt it, Becky," Liam said. "Tell me how you killed Cecil Wolfe."

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry; I know you need all this for my statement, don't you? And it is awfully late. What is it, one o'clock? My goodness, it's almost two o'clock in the morning-the sun will be coming up any minute." She smiled, and he couldn't help smiling back. "All right," she said briskly, "let's finish this story. Then you can put me in my cell and we can both get some sleep."

"Thank you," he said meekly.

"You're welcome," she said, waving a dismissing hand. "Like I said, ever since I learned what he did to my daughter, I've been watching Wolfe. I kept my knife with me all the time, and I was just waiting for the right opportunity." She spread her hands. "I was looking for him tonight, to see if he was back from herring fishing."

"Yeah," Liam said. "I didn't put it together at first, but I saw your station wagon parked in the lot when I came out of Bill's."

She nodded. "Yes, I was there. I went around the back and went into the kitchen. Bill's cook is a cousin of mine."

"I wondered where you were."

"When Wolfe left with that pilot-I can never remember her name; it sounds like it should have a question mark after it-I followed them down to the boat harbor. When I saw she didn't go down to his boat with him, I parked and went down the west gangway so she wouldn't see me."

Liam remembered getting lost on the way back from the Mary J. Two different entrances that doubled as two different exits. It was so easy when you knew your way around.

Becky ended her story with devastating simplicity. "And then I killed him." She pursed her lips a little. "I was horribly angry, and at the same time so completely without fear. His back was to me, and I slipped the knife in up under his ribs, straight for his heart. I must have missed it, though-humans and caribou are built different, I guess-because he turned around as he fell and saw me, and when I saw his face I just had to stab him again. And again. I just had to." She paused. "His blood was everywhere. All over the knife, all over me, all over the galley. I didn't care. It was what I had wanted-his blood on my hands. It was what I had come for."

Liam waited.

She looked up. "I bet I sound like a raving lunatic, don't I?" She smiled a little, an expression made up half of humor, half of resignation, containing neither regret nor bitterness. "Oh well. I don't imagine sanity matters much where I'm going."