Northern Lights

he have?"
    "A beautiful woman. A quick-witted child. An ease of manner and lack of ambition that allowed him to do as he pleased most of the time."
    Coveting another man's woman was often a motive for murder between friends. "Was Charlene involved with anyone else?"
    "I don't think so."
    "Was he?"
    "He may have enjoyed another woman from time to time when he was away from home, as some men will. If he enjoyed one in town, he didn't tell me of it."
    "He wouldn't have had to tell you," Nate responded. "You'd have known."
    "Yes."
    "And so would others. A place like this may have secrets, but that's not the kind that stays buried for long." He considered another moment. "Drugs?"
    "He grew a little marijuana. He didn't deal."
    Nate lifted his eyebrows. "Just grass?" When Jacob hesitated, Nate leaned back. "Nobody's going to bust him for it now."
    "Primarily grass, but he wasn't likely to turn down anything that came to hand."
    "Did he have a dealer? In Anchorage, say?"
    "I don't think so. He rarely had the money to spend on that sort of indulgence. Charlene held the purse, and she held it tight. He liked to climb and to fish and to hike. He liked to fly but had no interest in learning to pilot. He'd work when he needed money. He disliked restrictions, laws, rules. Many do who come here. He wouldn't have understood you."
    The important thing, as Nate saw it, was for him to understand Patrick Galloway.
    He asked more questions, then filed away the notes he'd made after Jacob left.
    Then it was time to deal with the more mundane matter of a couple of adolescent shoplifters.
    With that, a pair of missing skis and a fender bender, he stayed busy until the end of shift.
    He was taking the evening off, leaving Otto and Pete on call. Unless there was a mass murder, he was off the clock until morning.
    He'd given Meg her few days. He hoped she was ready for him.
    It was his own fault, he decided, that he'd gone back to The Lodge to pick up a change of clothes—in case he stayed out at Meg's.
    Charlene caught him while he was still in his room.
    "I need to talk to you." She scooted around him at the door and walked over to sit on the bed. She wore all black—a snug sweater and snugger pants and those skinny heels she liked to teeter around in.
    "Sure. Why don't we go down and have some coffee?"
    "This is private. Would you close the door?"
    "Okay." But he stood by it, just in case.
    "I need you to do something. I need you to go to Anchorage and tell those people they have to release Pat's body to me."
    "Charlene, they haven't recovered the body yet."
    "I know that. Haven't I been on the phone with those bureaucrats and insensitive bastards every day? They're just leaving him up there."
    When her eyes filled, Nate's stomach sank.
    "Charlene." He looked around, a little desperately for some tissue, a towel, an old T-shirt, and ended up going into the bath. He came out with a roll of toilet paper and pushed it into her hand. "Getting people up there, and making the recovery, is a complicated business."
    He didn't want to add that a few days, one way or the other, wasn't going to make a damn bit of difference. "There've been storms up there and high winds. But I talked with Sergeant Coben myself today. If it's clear, they hope to send a team up in the morning."
    "They said I'm not next-of-kin, because we weren't legally married." She yanked off several sheets of tissue, buried her face in the wad.
    "Oh." He puffed out his cheeks, blew out a breath. "Meg—"
    "She's not legitimate." Voice cracking, Charlene waved the soggy wad. "Why should they give him to her? They'll send him back to his parents, back east. And that's not fair! That's not r ight! He left them, didn't he? He didn't leave me. Not on purpose. But they hate me, and they'll never let me have him."
    He'd seen people squabble over the dead before, and it was never pretty. "Have you talked to them?"
    "No, I haven't talked to them," she snapped, and her eyes dried up cold. "They don't even acknowledge me. Oh, they've talked to Meg a few times, and they gave her some money when she turned twenty-one. Little enough when they've got piles of it. They didn't bother with Pat when he was alive, but you can bet your ass they'll want him now that he's dead. I want him back. I want him back."
    "Okay, why don't we take this one step at a time." He saw no choice, so he sat down beside her, draped an arm over her shoulder so she could cry on his. "I'll keep in touch with Coben. I'm