Northern Lights

crystal suncatcher hanging from a chain in front of the window.
    He'd found it both practical and female.
    They'd made no plans for later. She shook off the notion of plans, and he thought that was just as well. He needed some time to think. About what direction they were or might be taking.
    His scorecard with women was pitifully low. Maybe he had a chance to change that with her. Or maybe it was just the moment, an interim sort of thing. There was a lot waking up inside him after a long, dark sleep. How did he know what was real? Or if it was real, if he could keep it that way.
    If he wanted to.
    Better, for now, to drink his coffee, eat his breakfast and build a plastic castle with a kid who was just happy to have the company.
    "It should have a bridge," Jesse said. "The up-and-down bridge."
    "Drawbridge?" Nate pulled his attention back. "We might be able to work that. We could get some fishing wire."
    The boy looked up at him and beamed. "Okay!"
    "Here you go, chief."
    He caught Rose's wince when she set his plate down. "Okay?"
    "Back's a little stiff. Had the same thing with this one." She ruffled her son's hair.
    "Maybe you ought to see the doctor."
    "I've got a checkup today. Jesse, you let Chief Burke eat his breakfast while it's hot."
    "We need fishing wire for the bridge."
    She left her hand on his head another moment. "We'll get you some."
    She looked over as Skinny Jim stumbled in the door. "Jim?"
    "Chief. Chief. You gotta come. Come quick. At the paper. It's Max. Oh, my God."
    "What happened?" But he held up a hand even as he said it. He could see from the ghost white pallor of Jim's face, the wide, glazed eyes that it was bad. And beside him the little boy was watching with his rosebud mouth opened in a stunned O. "Wait."
    He got up fast, grabbed his coat. "Outside." And he gripped the man's trembling arm, pulling him out the door. "What is it?"
    "He's dead. Sweet Jesus God. Max is dead, shot dead. Half his head—half his head's gone."
    Nate yanked Jim up when the man's legs buckled. "Max Hawbaker? You found him?"
    "Yes. No. I mean, yes, it's Max. Carrie. Carrie found him. We heard her screaming. She went inside, and The Professor and I were standing there talking for a minute, and she started screaming like somebody was killing her. We ran in, and . . . and . . ."
    Nate continued to drag him down the street. "You touch anything?"
    "What? I don't think. No. The Professor said to go get you, to go to The Lodge and get you. That's what I did." He was swallowing fast and often. "Think I'm going to be sick."
    "No, you're not. You're going to go to the station house, get Otto. You're going to tell him what you just told me and that I need a camera, some evidence bags, some plastic gloves, the crime scene tape. Just tell him I need crime scene equipment. Can you remember that?"
    "I—yeah. I'll do it. I'll do it right now."
    "Then stay there. You stay at the station until I come to talk to you. Don't talk to anybody else. Go."
    Nate angled toward the paper and quickened his pace. His brain had gone on auto, and preserving the scene was key. Right now, as far as he knew, there were two civilians in there, which meant it was already compromised.
    He yanked open the door, and saw John kneeling on the floor in front of a sobbing Carrie. John was still wearing his outdoor gear, minus his gloves, and was pressing a glass of water to Carrie's lips. He looked up at Nate, and a shadow of relief moved across his shocked face.
    "Thank God. Max. Back there."
    "Stay here. Keep her here."
    He started toward the back office. He could smell it. You could always smell it. No, he corrected, not true. There would be no smell of death in the ice cave where Galloway waited. Nature would have covered it.
    But he could smell Max Hawbaker's death even before he saw it. As he could smell, beneath it, the fried eggs and bacon from the two sandwiches on the floor just over the threshold.
    His gaze scanned the room from the doorway, the placement of the body, the gun, the nature of the wound. It said suicide. But he knew the first murmur from a crime scene was often a lie.
    He moved in, keeping to the edges of the room, noting the pattern of the blood spatter on the chair, the computer screen, the keyboard. And the pool of it from the head wound that had soaked the desk and dripped onto the floor before death had turned off the pump.
    Powder burns, he noted. The barrel of the .22 had probably been directly against the temple. No exit