Northern Lights

changed and evolved, and even a suit wouldn't be smirked at for sporting an earring these days.
    But sixteen years ago? Not as mainstream, not as common for a man. More a hippy sort of thing or a musician, an artist, a biker, a rebel. And this wasn't a discreet little stud or a tiny sporty hoop, not with that cross dangling.
    It made more of a statement.
    It wasn't Galloway's. He'd checked the photographs, and Galloway had died with a hoop in his ear. Best he could tell, using a magnifying glass, Galloway's other ear had been unpierced.
    He'd check with the ME to be sure.
    But he knew what he was looking at belonged to the murderer.
    The little back piece—what the hell did they call that—was missing. He could see, in his mind's eye, that faceless figure, rearing back with the ax, and the little earring falling off, unnoticed. Bringing the ax down, bringing it home.
    Had he stood there, watching Galloway's shocked face as his friend had slid bonelessly down that icy wall? Had he stood there, staring, studying? Shocked himself or pleased? Thrilled or appalled? Hardly mattered, Nate thought. The job was done.
    Take the pack, check it? No point in leaving supplies or the money, if the money was in there. Have to be practical. Have to survive.
    How long before he'd noticed the loss of the earring? Too late to go back and check, too insignificant a detail to worry about.
    But it was always the details that built the case—and the cage.
    "Nate?"
    Still holding the earring, he reached for his intercom. "Yeah?"
    "Jacob's here to see you," Peach told him.
    "Send him back."
    He didn't get up but instead leaned back in his chair as Jacob came in and closed the door behind him. "Expected you to come by this morning."
    "There are things I want to say I didn't want to say last night in front of Meg."
    Jacob wore a buckskin shirt over faded jeans, and the thin string of beads around his neck held a polished, brown stone. His silvered hair was drawn back in a long tail. His exposed lobes sported no jewelry.
    "Have a seat," Nate invited, "and say them."
    "I'll stand and say them. You'll use me to finish this, or I'll do what I have to do on my own. But this will end." He stepped forward, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Nate saw undisguised rage on Jacob's face.
    "She is my child. She's been mine more years than she was Pat's. This is my daughter. Whatever you think about me, whatever you wonder, you will know that. I'll be a part of finding who put her in danger last night, one way or the other."
    Nate rocked forward in his chair, rocked back again. "You want a badge?"
    He saw Jacob's hands ball into fists, then open again, slowly, just as slowly as the rage went under some enigmatic mask. "No. I don't think I'd like a badge. Too heavy for me."
    "Okay, we'll keep my . . . use of you unofficial. That suit you better?"
    "It does."
    "These people you were asking questions of, ones who told you about the money? Is it possible wind of that blew back here to Lunacy?"
    "More than possible. People talk, especially white people."
    "And if that wind blew, it wouldn't be a stretch to conclude, due to your connection to Galloway and to Meg, that you'd pass the information to me."
    Jacob shrugged.
    "Why not just shut you down before you got it to me?"
    And now Jacob smiled. "I've lived a very long time and am very hard to kill. You haven't and aren't. This business last night was sloppy and stupid. Why not just shoot you in the head when you're alone by the lake? Weigh you down with stones and sink you. I would."
    "I appreciate that. He doesn't use the direct approach. No, not even with Galloway," Nate said as Jacob looked at the board. "That was a moment of madness, of greed, of opportunity. Maybe all three. It wasn't planned."
    "No." Considering now, Jacob nodded. "There are easier ways to kill a man than climbing a mountain."
    "One stroke of the ax," Nate continued. "One. Afterward, he's too . . . delicate to yank it out again, to dispose of the body. That would be too direct, too involved. Same with Max. Stage a suicide. Max was responsible as he is—he can look at it that way. The dog? Just a dog, a cover, a distraction—and an indirect slap at Steven Wise. He won't come at me face-to-face."
    He pushed the earring across the desk. "Recognize that?"
    Jacob frowned over it. "A bauble, a symbol. Not a Native one. We have our own."
    "I think the killer lost it sixteen years ago. Long forgotten. But he'll remember it if he