Northern Lights

friend reared back in shock, gulped for air. And he pulled the trigger.
    The explosion was huge in the small room and sent his hand to shaking. But he made sure to press Max's limp finger to the trigger. Fingerprints, he thought, his mind bell-clear even as he shuddered. Gun powder residue. He released his hold so Max's head fell to the desk and the gun clattered to the floor beside the chair.
    Carefully, with his gloved hand, he turned on the computer, and brought up the document he'd written while waiting for his friend to meet him.
    I can't live with it any longer. His ghost has come back to haunt me. I'm sorry for what I did, for everyone I hurt.
    Forgive me.
    I killed Patrick Galloway. And now I'll join him in Hell.
    Maxwell Hawbaker
     
    Simple, clear-cut. He approved it and left the computer on. The light from the screen and the flare from the desk lamp shone on blood and gray matter.
    He stuffed the soiled glove in a plastic bag, pushed that into the pocket of his coat before putting it on. He donned fresh gloves, his hat, scarf, then picked up the coffee mug—the only thing in the room he'd touched without gloves.
    Walking into the bathroom, he poured the whiskey down the sink, rinsed the sink with water. He wiped the mug clean, then carried it back to the office and set it down again.
    Max's eyes stared at him, and something about it forced bile up into his throat. But he swallowed it down, forced himself to stand and study the details. Satisfied he'd overlooked nothing, he left the way he'd come in.
    He took the side streets, making sure his scarf was over his face, his hat low on his head in case some insomniac looked out a window.
    Above him, the sky streamed with the northern lights.
    He'd done what he'd had to do, he told himself. Now it was over.
    When he got home, washed away the scent of cordite and blood that clung to him, he had a single short whiskey as he watched the old glove burn up in the fire.
    There was nothing left now, so he put it all cleanly out of his mind.
    And slept the sleep of the innocent.

 
     
     
    THIRTEEN
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CARRIE STOPPED BY The Lodge on the way to the paper to pick up a couple of bacon-and-egg sandwiches. She'd been surprised, then a little annoyed to find Max gone when she'd wakened. Not that it was the first time he'd gone back to the paper at night, and ended up sleeping there. Or left early in the morning before either she or the kids were awake.
    But he always left her some sweet or silly note on his pillow when he did.
    There'd been no note that morning, and no answer when she'd called the paper.
    It wasn't like him. But then, he hadn't been himself for the last several days. That was starting to annoy her, too.
    There was a huge story brewing, what with Patrick Galloway's body being discovered. Allegedly Pat Galloway's body, she reminded herself. They needed to decide how to handle the story, how much space they'd want to devote to it—and if they should get their butts down to Anchorage when the body was finally brought down.
    She'd already dug through her old snapshots and had culled several of Pat. They'd want to run his picture along with the story.
    And pictures of the three boys who'd found him. She wanted to inter view them, certainly Steven Wise, who was a hometown boy. Rather she wanted Max to do so, as he was better at interviewing than she was.
    Max wouldn't talk about it. Why, he'd even snapped at her once when she'd brought it up.
    Time for him to go in to the clinic and get himself a physical. He tended to get a delicate stomach when he wasn't eating or sleeping right. Which he hadn't been, come to think of it, since news came down about the Galloway business.
    Maybe it was because they were of an age, she mused as she pulled up at the curb in front of The Lunatic. And that he'd known the man a little. They'd struck up a friendship in the few months Max had been in Lunacy before Pat . . . left. Best to leave it at left until they had all the facts.
    But she didn't see why Max should take out his middle-aged blues or whatever on her.
    She'd actually known Pat longer than Max had, and she wasn't going into a funk. She was sorry, of course, for Charlene and Meg—they'd have to be interviewed, too—and she intended to give them both her condolences in person as soon as she could.
    But it was news. The sort she and Max should be investigating and writing about for the paper. For God's sake, they had the hometown advantage here.