Northern Lights

Rather than just drawing a diagram, she was busily sketching buildings, adding trees. There was even the silhouette of the mountains in the background.
    "Nate?" Otto shifted in his seat. "Not criticizing or anything, but this seems like a lot of official fuss for a suicide, especially since the State's got the body and will be in charge of closing it up."
    "Maybe." He opened a file. "What's said in this room stays in this room, until I tell you otherwise. Understood? This was written on Max's computer." He read the note, was met with shocked silence. "Comments?"
    "That doesn't seem right." Peach spoke softly, the chalk still in her hand. "I know I'm just a glorified secretary around here, but that doesn't seem right."
    "Why?"
    "I can't see Max hurting anybody, not in my wildest dreams. And, as I recall, he admired Pat, sort of had a little hero-worship going there."
    "Is that so? People I've talked to are saying they barely knew each other."
    "That's true enough, and I'm not saying they were the best of friends, but Pat had a way about him. He was good-looking, and charming when he wanted to be, which was most of the time. He played the guitar and drove a motorcycle, he climbed mountains and went off into the bush for days at a time if the mood struck him. He had the sexiest woman in town warming his bed. Had that pretty little daughter who adored him."
    She set the chalk aside, brushed the dust from it off her hands. "And he didn't give a damn about much of anything. Plus he could write. I know Max wanted to get him to write for the paper—adventure stuff. I know because Carrie told me about it. She and Max were just getting serious about each other, and she was a little worried because Pat was wild."
    When Nate gestured for her to keep going, she walked over, poured herself some coffee. "I was going through the last spin of that bad cycle with my third husband. So with me she had a sympathetic ear and gave me one back. We talked a lot in those days. She was worried Pat might talk Max into going off to do something crazy. According to her, Max said Pat was what Alaska was all about. Living large, living your own way, bucking whatever system tried to stop you."
    "Sometimes admiration becomes envy. Sometimes envy kills."
    "Maybe it does." Absently, Peach picked up a cookie, nibbled. "But it's hard for me to see it. I know you said this stays here, but Carrie's going to need friends now. I want to go see her."
    "That's fine, but you keep what we discuss here out of it." He rose, walked to the board.
    She'd drawn in the road running behind the paper, had even put in the street sign and labeled it Moose Lane. The Letreck house was mostly garage, he remembered it now. Pierre ran a small appliance-repair business out of it, and his living quarters were an afterthought attached to his workshop. It sat across from the back of the paper and two lots to the east.
    The Welch house, a bungalow style, stood directly across from the rear door of the paper. Hans Finkle's second-story apartment was above Letreck's garage.
    She'd sketched in other houses, other businesses, and written the appropriate names across the buildings in her careful script.
    "Good work, Peach. What we're going to do now is set up a case board." He picked up his file and walked to the freestanding corkboard he'd borrowed from Town Hall. "Anything we get that applies to Galloway or Hawbaker gets copied. A copy gets pinned up to this board. The State's already gone through the paper, but, Otto, you and I are going over there and go through everything again, in case they missed something. Peach, I'm going to want to get inside the Hawbakers', go through Max's things there. Carrie's not going to be receptive to that, not for a while. Maybe you can try to smooth that way for me."
    "All right. It's sounding like you don't believe what it said in that note. And if you don't believe that—"
    "Best not to believe anything until you have all the details lined up," he interrupted. "Peter, I want you to contact the paper in Anchorage where Max worked. I want you to find out what he did there, who he did it for and with, and why he left. Then you type it all up in a report. Two copies. I want one on my desk before you leave today."
    "Yes, sir."
    "And all three of you have homework. You were here when Pat Galloway disappeared; I wasn't. So you're going to spend some time thinking back to the weeks before and after that event. Write down everything you remember, no matter