“Why is that?”

“It was pretty obvious that he would have been unemployable by anyone else other than a family member,” Ballard replied with heavy irony. “If you get my drift. Whatever trouble he could get into, Jonathan got into. It was like he was keeping score or something.”

“Misdemeanor or felony trouble?”

Ballard hesitated. “I don't know that anything ever actually came to trial,” he said cautiously. “There were rumors, nothing specific.”

He let his eyes wander off, and Liam knew he was lying. Could be Ballard was keeping quiet out of respect for Jonathan's brother. Could be he was close to someone else involved in Jonathan's shenanigans. It was a small town.

Ballard said, “David Malone did come in once and tell us never to let Jonathan pick up any checks David had requested on his account.” He paused. “You see that a lot, you know? Good brother, bad brother. It's almost a cliché. I'd liked to have met their father.”

“Why?”

“Because it's all about fathers, isn't it?” Ballard said, sounding surprised that he had to explain it. “A man is what his father makes him.” As an afterthought, he added, “And his mother, of course.”

Liam thought of his mother and managed not to wince. “I like to think a man is what he makes himself.”

Ballard's smile was kind. “You're young. You'll learn better.”

No more than the next man did Liam enjoy being patronized, however kindly meant. Hand on the doorknob, he said, “Oh, one more thing. Have you ever heard of a deckhand named Max Bayless?”

Ballard's smile vanished and he looked wary. “Yes.”

Liam waited, and when Ballard didn't volunteer anything, said, “Well? What have you heard?”

“Just that he's for hire,” Ballard said.

He was lying again. “Do you know who he's working for this summer?”

Ballard shook his head, tight-lipped.

Liam could have pushed it, but as with the elders in Kulukak, he believed in letting witnesses stew a little, so long as they weren't a flight risk. “If you do hear who he's working for, would you let me know?”

“Certainly.” Ballard came around his desk and held out his hand, bringing the interview to a close. “If I hear anything at all, I'll certainly pass it on.”

In the outer office, Liam paused beside Tanya's desk, watching the blur of her fingers as they tapped information into the keyboard and letters and numbers appeared on the screen in front of her. “May I speak with you, Tanya?”

“Of course,” she said, her fingers not missing a shift key. “Let me finish this entry and save my work and I'll be right with you.”

Liam found a chair and placed it next to her desk. He pulled out the tender summary and unfolded it. He was aware that although he had closed the door to Ballard's office behind him, it was now open a few inches.

The computer hummed and Tanya inserted a floppy into a slot. Something clicked and she replaced the first disk with a second. “I back everything up twice,” she said with a bright smile.

“Very wise,” Liam said.

“Are the troopers computerized yet?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “It's very useful, being connected to other law enforcement agencies around the state, even around the nation.”

“You can run but you can't hide?” she said, her archness a bit forced.

He smiled. “Nope. We always get our man.”

“Isn't that what they used to say about the Mounties?”

Liam thought of Frank Petla and smiled to himself. “I think they still do.”

“There,” she said, replacing the disks in a box and putting the box in a drawer of her desk. She folded her hands on her blotter and looked him straight in the eye. “How may I help you-is it Trooper? Officer Campbell?” She smiled again. “Or just plain sir?”

“Officer is fine,” Liam said. “Sir makes me feel like my grandfather.”

Her smile warmed a trifle, but she was still on edge. He said, holding out the tender summary, “It would be very useful if you could tell me which of these fishermen live on board their boats, and which don't.”

She took the summary and began marking names with check-marks from a red pen. It took about thirty seconds, and when she was done she'd marked all but eight names and provided phone numbers for many of them.

He blinked.

“Hold on,” she said, “and I'll get you the contact numbers I have for the rest of them.” Her hands stilled when she saw his surprise. She smiled at him, queening it a little in her superior knowledge. “We're in the business of buying fish. Fishermen sell us their fish. If they don't know when the periods are, they won't be fishing, and they won't be selling us fish. When the Fish and Game announce a fishing period in a particular district-say the Kulukak-we have a list of all the fishermen who deliver to us and who have permits to fish that district. We make sure they are aware of the opener, and the only way we can do that is to keep track of their whereabouts.”

She paused, very cool, very smooth, from the sweep of her short, fine brown hair to her big brown eyes. Liam felt like someone should applaud.

“Usually we don't have to bother,” she added. “The fishermen want to catch fish as much as we want to buy them, and they are standing by their marine radios, waiting to hear. But sometimes, one or two of them have been out for a night on the town and haven't heard. So I call them all, or I send Benny down to their boat. They know to check in with me now.”

Liam just bet they did. “Tell me, Tanya, how long have you been doing this job?”

“Three years. I'll only have one more summer here, though. I'm putting myself through the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and I'm in my senior year.”

It might have been Liam's imagination, but it seemed as if she raised her voice, not to any blatant pitch but just a little, just enough to be heard in her boss's office. “I see,” he said. “What's your major?”

“Business administration.”

Liam couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face. “A natural choice.”

“I thought so,” she said, and referred back to the summary. “All the checkmarked names live on their boats. However, some of the guys on the crews have girlfriends in town, so they won't be every night on their boats.”

“Mr. Ballard mentioned that.”

“I've put the phone numbers of the skippers who maintain apartments in town next to their names. I don't often have to call them, because there is usually always at least one deckhand on board overnight. You know. Standing watch.”

“I understand,” Liam said gravely, and refolded the summary and pocketed it. “Have you met a deckhand called Max Bayless?”

“I have.”

“Do you know which boat he's on this summer?”

She thought. “Not on one of ours, not so far as I know. I think I heard he was working for someone out of Togiak.”

Liam looked at the map on the wall in back of her. “That's on the coast southwest of Kulukak, right?”

She rose to her feet in a smooth, economical movement and pointed first at Newenham, then Kulukak, then Togiak, tracing the coast between them with one slender forefinger, calling off the names one at a time.

Great. Yet another plane trip in his future. For some odd reason, the prospect did not terrify him as much as it once would have. Maybe bailing out in midair had burned out his nerve endings. “You sound like you know pretty much everything there is to know about the fishing fleet, Tanya.”

Her steady gaze met his, with the merest lift of an eyebrow to indicate acknowledgment. Not susceptible to flattery, Ms. Tanya Bernard. Liam plowed on. “Do you think you could find out which boat Max Bayless is on this summer, and where that boat is at the moment?”

“I think so.” She paused. “I could put it out on the schedule in the morning, if you like.”

“The schedule?”

“We keep a radio schedule with our tenders every morning at ten.”