Northern Lights

room in that hip-rolling gait before he let out a hoarse whistle of breath.
     
     
    HE DIDN'T SLEEP WELL. The mother-daughter tag team kept him churned up and edgy. And the dark was endless and complete. A primitive dark that urged a man to burrow in a warm cave—with a warm woman.
    He kept a light burning late—read through town ordinances by it, brooded by it, and ultimately slept by it until the alarm shrilled.
    He started off the day as he had the one before, breakfasting with little Jesse.
    It was routine he wanted. More than routine, he craved a rut where he wouldn't have to think, one that got deeper and deeper so he didn't have to see what was beyond it. He could go through the motions here, handling minor disputes, easing through the day with the same faces, the same voices, the same tasks repeating like a loop.
    He could be the mouse on the wheel. And maybe the ridiculous cold would keep him from decomposing. That way no one would know he was already dead.
    He liked sitting in his office, hours on end, juggling among Otto, Peter and himself the scatter of calls that came in. When he went out on one, he took one of the deputies with him to let him fill in background and set the rhythm.
    He was getting a handle on his staff, in any case. Peter was twentythree, had lived in the area all of his life, and appeared to know everyone. He also appeared to be liked by everyone who knew him.
    Otto—staff sergeant, USMC, retired—had come to Alaska for the hunting and fishing. Eighteen years before, after his first divorce, he'd decided to make it his permanent home. He had three grown children in the Lower 48, and four grandchildren.
    He'd married again—some blonde with a bustline bigger than her IQ , according to Peach—and had divorced again in under two years.
    Both he and Bing had considered themselves qualified for the position Nate now held. But while Bing had gotten pissy about the town council's decision to bring in an Outsider, Otto—perhaps more accustomed to taking orders—had accepted the job as deputy.
    As for Peach herself, the source of most of his information, she'd lived more than thirty years in Alaska, ever since she'd eloped with a boy from Macon and hightailed it with him to Sitka. He'd died on her, poor lamb, lost at sea on a fishing trawler less than six months after the elopement.
    She'd married again and had lived with husband number two—a strapping, handsome grizzly bear of a man who'd taken her into the bush where they'd lived off the land, with occasional forays into the fledgling town of Lunacy.
    When he'd died on her, too—went through the overflow on the lake and froze to death before he could get back to their cabin—she'd packed up and moved to Lunacy.
    She'd married again, but that was a mistake, and she kicked his drunk, cheating ass all the way back to North Dakota, where he'd come from.
    She'd consider husband number four, should the right candidate come along.
    Peach gave him tidbits on others. Ed Woolcott would've liked the job of mayor, but he'd have to cool his heels until Hopp decided she'd had enough. His wife, Arlene, was snooty, but then she came from money, so it wasn't surprising.
    Like Peter, Bing had lived here all of his life, the son of a Russian father and a Norwegian mother. His mother had run off with a piano player in '74, when Bing had been about thirteen. His father—and that man could down a pint of vodka at one sitting—had gone back to Russia about twelve years later and taken Bing's younger sister, Nadia, with him.
    Rumor was she was pregnant, and there'd been whispers the father had been married.
    Rose's husband, David, worked as a guide, a damn good one, and did odd jobs when he had time on his hands.
    Harry and Deb had two kids—the boy was giving them some trouble—and Deb ruled the roost.
    There was more. Peach always had more. Nate figured in a week, maybe two, he'd know whatever he needed to know about Lunacy and its population. Then the work would be another routine digging itself into a comfortable rut.
    But whenever he stood at his window, watched the sun rise over the mountains, sheening it with gold, he felt that spark simmer inside him. The little flare of heat that told him there was still life in him.
    Afraid it would spread, he'd turn away to face the blank wall.
    On his third day, Nate dealt with a vehicular accident involving a pickup, an SUV and a moose. The moose got the best of the bargain and stood about fifty yards