Northern Lights

of them. He knew his killer well enough to indulge in, I guess we'd call it role-playing while they were up there, enduring harsh conditions."
    "I don't understand what you mean."
    "He had a journal. It was on him—and left on him. Coben gave me a copy."
    "But if he had a journal, then—"
    "He never used the names of his companions. They were on some sort of lark. The kind that tells me if he hadn't been killed up there then, he'd have died on some other climb unless he'd straightened up. They were smoking grass, popping speed. Playing Star Wars. Galloway as Luke, Max as Han Solo, and ironically enough Galloway's killer in the Darth Vader role. The mountain became that ice world they were on."
    "Hoth. I like the movies," Peter added with a little hunch to his shoulders. "I collected the action figures and stuff when I was a kid."
    "Me, too. But these weren't kids. They were grown men, and some
    where along the line, the game got out of hand. Galloway wrote how Han—I believe that was Max—injured his ankle. They left him behind in a tent with some provisions and kept going."
    "That proves Max didn't kill him."
    "Depends on how you angle it. You could speculate that Max decided to follow, caught up with them in the ice cave and went crazy. You could further speculate that Max held the Vader role and killed both his playmates. Those aren't my personal theories, but they're theories. And the State accepts the second one."
    "That Mr. Hawbaker killed both guys? Then got himself down alone? I can't see it."
    "Why?"
    "Well, I know I was just a little kid when all this happened, but Mr. Hawbaker never had a rep for being, you know, bold and, um, selfsufficient. You'd have to be both to handle that descent."
    "I agree. Later in the journal, Galloway wrote that the Darth character was showing signs of—let's call it lunacy—anger, risk taking, accusations. A lot of drugs involved in this and, from what I've read, a by-product of the strain, altitude sickness, the high some climbers get from being up there."
    Nate watched Deb come out of The Corner Store to take Cecil for a walk. The dog was wearing a bright green sweater.
    "Galloway was worried, worried about this guy's state of mind," he continued as he casually exchanged waves with Deb. "About getting them all down safe. His last journal entry was written in the ice cave. He never got out of it, so he was right to be worried. But he still wasn't worried enough to take definite steps to protect himself. There were no defensive wounds on the body. His own ice ax was still in his belt. He knew his killer, just like Max knew his. Just like Yukon knew the man who slit his throat.
    "We know him, too, Peter." He sent another wave to Judge Royce, who strode toward KLUN with a cigar clamped between his teeth. "We just haven't recognized him yet."
    "What do we do?"
    "We keep going through what we know. We keep working with the layers until we know more. I'm not telling Otto about the journal. Not yet."
    "God."
    "This is tougher on you. These are people you've known all your life, or a good part of it."
    He nodded down the street where Harry stood on the sidewalk outside The Corner Store catching a smoke and talking to Jim Mackie. Across from them Ed walked briskly in the direction of the bank but stopped to exchange a word with the post mistress who was out sweeping her stoop.
    Big Mike came out of The Lodge and jogged, undoubtedly heading for The Italian Place and his daily bout of shoptalk with Johnny Trivani. His little girl let out belly laughs as she rode his shoulders.
    "Just people. But one of them, out here on the street, inside one of these buildings or houses, in a cabin outside of town, is a killer. If he has to, he'll kill again."
     
     
    HE WENT TO MEG'S every evening. She wasn't always there. Jobs were picking up as the weather warmed. But they had an unspoken agreement that he would come and stay. He'd tend the dogs, see to some of the chores.
    He was leaving his things there, such as they were, little by little. Another unspoken agreement. He kept his room at The Lodge, but it was more a storage area for his heavy winter gear at this point.
    He could've moved that to Meg's, too. But that would've been the line. The official we're-living-together line.
    He saw the smoke from her chimney before he made the turn, and his mood cranked up another notch. But there was no plane on the lake, and it was Jacob's truck in her drive.
    The dogs bolted out of the woods to