Northern Lights

ask him to?" She heard the bitchiness in her voice and swore. "Damn it, damn it, Jacob, I'm not going to feel crappy for living my life the way I've always lived it."
    "Did I ask you to?" He smiled a little, and the pat of his hand on her arm nearly broke the wall she'd built viciously against tears.
    "They put him on a television screen. I couldn't even look at him, not really."
    She walked to the curb when Nate pulled up in a Chevy Blazer. And climbing in, squared her shoulders. "What do I need to know?"
    He told her of Max in the detached, straightforward style he would have used to inform any civilian with a need to know in regards to a case. He continued to speak, continued to drive with his eyes on the road, even when she turned her head to stare at him.
    "Max is dead? Max killed my father?"
    "Max is dead. That's a fact. The medical examiner ruled it suicide. The note left on his computer claimed responsibility for the murder of Patrick Galloway."
    "I don't believe it." There was too much churning inside her, too much beating against that defensive wall. "You're saying Max Hawbaker went homicidal all of a damn sudden, stuck an ice ax in my father's chest, then climbed down the mountain and strolled back into Lunacy? That's just bullshit. That's stupid cop tie-it-up-and-forget-it bullshit."
    "I'm saying that Max Hawbaker is dead, that the ME ruled it a suicide, determining same from physical evidence, and that there was a note written on the computer—which was decorated with some of Max's blood and brains—that claimed responsibility. If you'd bothered to contact anyone over the last few days, you would have been apprised and updated."
    His voice was flat, and so, she noted, were his eyes. Nothing there, nothing that showed. She wasn't the only one with walls. "You're being awfully careful not to express your opinion, Chief Burke."
    "It's Coben's case."
    He left it at that and pulled into a visitor's slot at the parking lot of the State Police.
     
     
    "HAWBAKER'S DEATH has been ruled a suicide," Coben stated. They gathered in a small conference room. Coben had his hands folded on a file on the table. "The weapon was his, and his prints—only his prints— were found on it. Gunpowder residue was found on his right hand. There was no sign of break-in or struggle. A whiskey bottle and a mug thereof were on his desk. Autopsy results prove he'd consumed just over five ounces of whiskey prior to his death. His prints—and only his— were on the keyboard of the computer. The wound, the position of the body, the position of the weapon, all indicate self-infliction."
    Coben paused. "Hawbaker was acquainted with your father, Ms. Galloway?"
    "Yes."
    "And you're aware he had occasion to climb with your father from time to time?"
    "Yes."
    "Were you aware of any friction between them?"
    "No."
    "You may also be unaware that Hawbaker was fired from the paper in Anchorage for drug use. My investigation indicates that Patrick Galloway was known to use recreational drugs. As yet, I've found no evidence that your father sought or had gainful employment in Anchorage, or elsewhere, after he left Lunacy, purportedly to seek same."
    She spared him a glance. "Not everyone works on the books."
    "True. It would appear that Hawbaker, whose whereabouts during the first and second week of February of that year cannot as yet be determined, met Patrick Galloway and together they sought to climb the south face of No Name. Supposition would be that during that climb, perhaps influenced by drugs and physical distress, Hawbaker murdered his companion and left the body in the ice cave."
    "It could be supposed that pink pigs fly," Meg returned. "My father could have snapped Max in two without breaking a sweat."
    "Physical superiority wouldn't hold up against an ax, particularly in a surprise attack. There was nothing in the cave that indicated a fight. We will, of course, continue to study and evaluate all evidence, but sometimes, Ms. Galloway, the obvious is the obvious because it's truth."
    "And sometimes crap floats." She got to her feet. "People always say suicide's a coward's way. Maybe that's valid. But it seems to me it takes a certain amount of guts and determination to put the barrel of a gun to your head and pull the trigger. Either way, Max doesn't fit the bill for me. Because either way is extreme, and he just wasn't. What he was, Sergeant Coben, was ordinary."
    "Ordinary people do the unspeakable every single day. I'm sorry