Northern Lights

a woman. Then we both agreed we wanted both.
    He's still jittery; I can see it. But hell, the mountain does that to you. We need to get back to Han, get moving down. Get back to Lunacy.
    Weather's clearing, but there's a feeling in the air. Something's coming down. It's time to get the hell off the mountain.
    • • •
     
     
    IN HIS OFFICE, with the door shut, Nate read the last entry in Patrick Galloway's climbing journal.
    Took you another sixteen years to get off the mountain, Pat, he thought. Because something sure as hell came down.
    Three went up, he thought, and two came down. And two kept silent for sixteen years.
    But there were only two in that cave, Galloway and his killer. Nate was more certain than ever that the killer hadn't been Max.
    Why had the killer let Max live for so long?
    If Han equaled Max, Max had been injured, not seriously, but enough to make the descent difficult. He'd been the least experienced and hardy of the three if he was reading correctly between the lines of Galloway's journal.
    But the killer had brought him down, let him live another sixteen years.
    And Max had kept the secret.
    Why?
    Ambition, blackmail, loyalty? Fear?
    The pilot, Nate decided. Find the pilot and the story he had to tell.
    He locked the copy of the journal in a desk drawer along with his murder book, pocketed the keys.
    When he went out, he found Otto just coming in from patrol. "Ed Woolcott said somebody broke the lock on his ice-fishing shack and took off with two of his rods, his power auger, a bottle of single-malt scotch, and defaced the shack with paint."
    His face pink from the cold, Otto headed straight to the coffeepot. "Kids most likely. I told him he's the only one around here who locks his shack, and that just makes kids want to break in."
    "How much is it worth. Altogether?"
    " He says about eight hundred. StrikeMaster power auger runs about four hundred." Both disgust and derision covered his face. "That's Ed for you. You can pick up a good hand auger for maybe forty, but he's gotta fly first class."
    "We have a description of the property?"
    "Yeah, yeah. Any kid stupid enough to show off a rod that has Ed's name brass-plated on it deserves to get busted. Scotch? They likely drank themselves sick on it. Probably just drilled a hole through the ice somewhere with the auger, did a little fishing and drinking. I expect they'll ditch the gear somewhere or try to sneak it back to the shack."
    "It's still breaking and entering and theft, so let's follow it through."
    "You can bet they're insured, and for more than he paid for them. You know he talked to a lawyer about suing Hawley for running him off the road back around the first of the year? A lawyer. Jesus H. Christ."
    "I'll talk to him."
    "Good luck." Otto sat at his desk with his coffee and scowled at his computer screen. "Gotta write this up."
    "I'm heading out, doing a follow-up on something." He paused. "You do much climbing these days?"
    "What do I want to go up a damn mountain for? I can see them fine from here."
    "But you used to."
    "Used to tango with loose women, too."
    "Yeah?" Amused, Nate sat on the corner of Otto's desk. "You're a deep pool, Otto. These women wear tight dresses and skinny high heels?"
    Humor battled grouchiness. "They did."
    "With those sexy slits in the skirt, on the side so their legs slid out like a slice of heaven when they moved?"
    Otto's glower lost its war with a smile. "Those were the days."
    "Bet they were. I never learned to tango, or climb. Maybe I should."
    "Stick with the tango, chief. Surer to live through that."
    "The way some people talk about climbing, it's like a religion. Why'd you give it up?"
    "Got tired of flirting with frostbite and broken bones." His eyes darkened as he looked down into his coffee. "Last time I went up was on a rescue. Party of six, avalanche took them. We found two. The bodies. You've never seen a man taken out by an avalanche."
    "No, I haven't."
    "Count your blessings. That was nine years back next month. I never went up again. Never will."
    "You ever climb with Galloway?"
    "Couple times. He was a good climber. Damn good for an asshole."
    "You didn't like him?"
    Otto began to play hunt-and-peck with the keyboard. "If I disliked every asshole I met, there wouldn't be many left. Guy got himself stuck in the sixties. Peace, love, drugs. Easy way out, you ask me."
    In the sixties, Nate thought, Otto had been sweating in a jungle in Nam. That sort of friction—soldier and