Northern Lights

Burke."
    Something in the hesitant smile rang a bell. "Deputy, are you and Rose related?"
    "Yes, sir. She's my sister."
    "And last but not least, your dispatcher, secretary and bearer of cinnamon buns, Marietta Peach."
    "Happy you're here, Chief Burke." Her voice was as southern as a mint julep sipped on a veranda. "Hope you're feeling better."
    "Fine. Thank you, Ms. Peach."
    "I'm going to show the chief the rest of the station, then I'll leave you all to get acquainted. Ignatious, why don't we take a look at your . . . guest quarters."
    She led the way through the door on the right. There were two cells, both with bunk-style cots. The walls looked freshly painted, the floor recently scrubbed. He smelled Lysol.
    There were no tenants.
    "These get much use?" Nate asked her.
    "Drunks and disorderlies, primarily. You have to be pretty drunk and disorderly to warrant a night in jail in Lunacy. You're going to see some assaults, occasional vandalism, but that one's mostly from bored kids. I'll let your staff give you the lowdown on crime in Lunacy. We don't have a lawyer, so if somebody wants one bad enough, they have to call down to Anchorage or over to Fairbanks, unless they know one somewhere else. We do have a retired judge, but he's more likely to be off ice fishing than answering legal questions."
    "Okay."
    "Boy, you going to keep talking my ear off ?"
    "I never could learn to keep my mouth shut."
    With a half-chuckle, she shook her head. "Let's take a look at your office."
    They cut back through the main area where everyone was pretending to work. On the other side of Ms. Peach's counter, just through the doorway, stood the weapons cabinet. He counted six shotguns, five rifles, eight handguns and four wicked-looking knives.
    He tucked his hands in his pockets, pursed his lips. "What? No broadsword?"
    "Pays to be prepared."
    "Yeah. For the coming invasion."
    She only smiled and walked through the door next to the cabinet. "Here's your office."
    It was about ten feet square with a window behind a gray metal desk. The desk held a computer, a phone and a black gooseneck lamp. Two file cabinets were shoved against the side wall with a short counter running beside them. It held a coffeemaker—already full—and two brown stoneware mugs, a basket with packaged creamer and sugar. There was a corkboard—empty—two folding chairs for visitors and pegs for hanging coats.
    The lights mirroring against the black window glass made it seem all the more impersonal and foreign.
    "Peach loaded up your desk, but if you need anything else, supply cabinet's down the hall. John's across from it."
    "Okay."
    "Got any questions?"
    "I've got a lot of questions."
    "Why don't you ask them?"
    "All right. I'll ask this one, since the rest fall down from it anyway. Why'd you hire me?"
    "Fair enough. Mind?" she said as she gestured to the coffeepot.
    "Help yourself."
    She poured mugs for both of them, handed him one, then sat in one of the folding chairs. "We needed a chief of police."
    "Maybe."
    "We're small, we're remote and we pretty much handle our own, but that doesn't mean we don't need structure, Ignatious. That we don't need a line between the right and the wrong and somebody to stand on that line. My man worked for that a lot of years before he sank his last puck."
    "And now you do."
    "That's right. Now I do. Added to that, having our own police force here means we keep on handling our own. Keep the Feds and the State out of it. Town like this can get ignored because of what it is and where it is. But we got a police force here now, a fire department. We've got a good school, good lodge, a weekly newspaper, a radio station. Weather comes in and cuts us off, we know how to be self-sufficient. But we need order, and this building and the people in it are symbols of that order."
    "You hired a symbol."
    "On one hand, that's just what I did." Her nut-brown eyes held his. "People feel more secure with symbols. On the other, I expect you to do your job, and a big part of the job, besides keeping order, is community relations—which is why I took the time to show you some of the town's businesses, give you names of who runs what. There's more. Bing's got a garage, fix any engine you bring in, and he runs heavy equipment. Snowplow, backhoe. Lunatic Air runs cargo and people, and brings supplies into town, takes them into the bush."
    "Lunatic Air."
    "That's Meg for you," Hopp said with a half-smile. "We're on the edge of the Interior here, and