Northern Lights

into it. "I can't understand you."
    "I can't give you all the details, but I need your cooperation . . . I need your help," he amended, "to prove what I believe.There was a third man, Carrie. Who was it?"
    "I don't know. God, I don't know. I—I told you someone killed Max. I told you he didn't kill himself. I told Sergeant Coben. I keep telling him."
    "I know. I believe you."
    "You believe me." Tears gushed out of her eyes, rained down her cheeks. "You believe me."
    "I do. But the fact is the ME's ruled it suicide. Coben may have his doubts, and he may have his instincts, even a certain amount of circumstantial evidence, but he doesn't have the investment we do. He doesn't have the room or the time to push on this the way I do. We're going to need to go back, a long time. You're going to need to try to remember details, feelings, conversations. It's not easy. And you're going to need to keep this to yourself. I'm asking you to take a risk."
    She brushed at tears. "I don't understand."
    "If we're right, and someone killed Max because of what happened on that mountain, that someone may be watching you. He may wonder what you know, what you remember, what Max might have told you."
    "You think I could be in danger?"
    "I think I want you to be very careful. I don't want you discussing this with anyone, not even your kids. Not your best friend, not your priest. No one. I want you to let me go through Max's things, his personal papers. Everything—here and at the paper. And I don't want anyone to know about it. I want you to go back and think about that February. What you did, what Max did, who he spent time with, how he behaved. Write it down."
    She stared at him with something that looked like hope fighting through the grief. "You're going to find out who did this to him? To us?"
    "I'm going to do everything I can."
    She mopped at her cheeks. "I said terrible things about you to— to anyone who'd listen."
    "Some of them were probably true."
    "No, they weren't." She pressed her fingers to her eyes now. "I'm so confused. I'm sick, sick in my heart, in my head. I made myself hire Meg to take me, to bring us back, because I needed to prove I didn't believe . . . that I wasn't ashamed. But part of me was." She dropped her hands, and her eyes were shattered. "If he was up there, he must have known . . ."
    "We're going to work all that out. Some of the answers may be hard, Carrie, but it's better than just having questions."
    "I hope you're right." She got to her feet. "I need to fix myself up a little." She started out, then stopped and turned around. "That business with the moose, out at the school? Max would've loved that. He would have loved writing that up. 'Troublemaking Moose Expelled from Lunacy High,' or something like that. That sort of story just tickled him. A man like that, a man who could find such pleasure in something so foolish, he couldn't have done what was done to Pat Galloway."
     
     
    "I WANTED TO MARRY HIM almost as soon as I met him. I liked the way he'd talk and talk about starting up a town paper, how it was important to record the little things, just as much as the big ones."
    Carrie looked out the window in her seat beside Meg, and Nate could see her gaze was on the mountains. "I came here to teach, and I stayed because it got inside me. I wasn't a very good teacher, really, but I wanted to stay. And I liked the odds—a lot more men than women. I was looking for a man." She slid a sideways glance at Meg.
    "Who isn't?"
    Carrie laughed a little, but the sound was hoarse."I wanted to get mar
    ried and have kids. One look at Max and I decided he'd fit the bill. He was smart, but not too smart, cute, but not so handsome I'd worry other women would be after him. A little wild—more that he wanted to be wild—but the sort you knew you could fix up with some time and effort."
    She broke off, and her hitching breaths were an obvious fight against tears.
    "Do women make checklists of stuff like that? You know, like you do on a house you're thinking of buying. Fixer-upper. Solid foundation but needs new trim. That kind of thing?" Nate asked.
    Carrie let out a watery giggle, pressed her hand to her lips.
    "We do. Or I sure did the closer I got to thirty. I didn't love him right off, I mean not like some huge, hot burst. But I got him into bed, and that part was good. Another check in the plus column."
    There was another beat of silence, then Nate cleared his throat. "Ah, are those particular checks