Northern Lights

them away for months and months at a time, and everything was normal. But as soon as he'd pull one out and start, he'd close in. I was happier when he'd forget the books."
    "Anyone ever make a move on you after you were married?"
    "No. I recall Bing telling me, right in front of Max, that I was selling myself short or cheap or something like that."
    "And?"
    "Nothing. Max made a joke out of it, bought Bing a drink. He wasn't one for confrontations, Nate. Went miles out of the way to avoid one, which is one of the reasons, I guess, he didn't make it on a big-city paper. You saw what he did when you brushed him off after you first got here. He went to Hopp. That was his way. He wouldn't have come in here for a showdown with you on his own because he just didn't have the tools for any sort of battle. He never did."
    "Was Max a movie fan?"
    "Just about everyone in Lunacy is. One dependable form of community entertainment. He really loved doing reviews on what we had coming up. Speaking of movie night, I really do want a statement about what happened last night."
    "Peach can give you the report for the log."
    "I'll see her about that, but I think, something like this, we'll want to run more than an item. Otto found him," she began as she started to dig out a notebook.
    "Yes. Give us a couple days on this, Carrie. By then I should have something more cohesive to give you."
    "Do you mean you expect to make an arrest shortly?"
    Nate smiled. "You've got your reporter hat right back on. What I mean is I'll have my notes, statements, the incident report coordinated."
    She rose. "I'm glad my kids weren't there last night. I almost insisted they go, just so they'd get out and do something normal. But they had a couple of friends over for pizza instead. I'll check back with you tomorrow."
    "I was just wondering," he said as he walked her to the door, "was Max a fan of Star Wars ?"
    She stared at him. "Where did that come from?"
    "Just a dot I'm trying to connect."
    "He wasn't. Not just that he wasn't a particular fan, which was baffling to me because he loved that sort of thing. Big epic stories with lots of special effects. But he wouldn't watch those. We had a Star Wars marathon on movie night about six, seven years ago. Well, whenever the twentieth anniversary of the original was. He wouldn't go, and the kids were mad to go. I had to take them myself. And write the reviews for the paper, now that I think about it. When the new ones came out, I ended up taking the kids all the way to Anchorage to see them for the first run. He stayed home.
    "What hat did you pull that one out of ?"
    "Cop hat." He gave her a little nudge to urge her out. "It's not important. You see Peach about the log item."
     
     
    NATE TIMED IT so that he walked over to The Lodge when Bing and his crew broke for lunch. He stepped inside as Rose served Bing a beer. His eyes met Bing's over it. He strolled over, nodded casually to the two men on the opposite side of the booth.
    "You boys mind finding another table so Bing and I can have a private conversation?"
    They didn't like it, but they picked up their coffee mugs and moved to the next empty booth.
    "I got lunch coming," Bing began. "And I got a right to eat it without you sitting here spoiling my appetite."
    "See you got that pothole filled in. Thanks, Rose," he said when she brought him his usual coffee.
    "You ready for lunch, chief ?"
    "No. Nothing right now. River's holding," he continued to Bing. "Maybe we won't need those sandbags."
    "Maybe we do, maybe we don't."
    "February 1988. Where were you?"
    "How the living fuck do I know?"
    "In 1988, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the Series, the Redskins took the Super Bowl. Cher won an Oscar."
    "Lower 48 crap."
    "And in February, Susan Butcher won her third Iditarod. Hell of a feat for a girl from Boston. Finished in eleven days and just under twelve hours. Maybe that refreshes your memory."
    "It refreshes that I lost two hundred bucks on that race. Damn woman."
    "So, what were you doing a few weeks before you lost the two bills?"
    "A man remembers losing two hundred because of a woman. He don't necessarily remember every time he scratches his ass or takes a piss."
    "You take any trips?"
    "I was coming and going as I damn well pleased then, same as now."
    "Maybe you went down to Anchorage, saw Galloway there."
    "I've been down to Anchorage more times than you can spit. Couple hundred miles doesn't mean anything up here. I might've seen him there a time or two.