Northern Lights

play the rebel so he pissed most of that away. A man would have to get fairly close in to dig an ax into another man's chest that way, wouldn't he?"
    "Seems to me."
    "Pat wasn't much of a scrapper. Peace, love, and rock and roll. You're too young to know the era, but Pat was the sort who embraced all that crap. Make love, not war, flowers in your hair and a roach clip in your pocket." The judge sniffed. "Still, I can't see him standing there quoting Dylan or whatever when somebody came at him with an ice ax."
    "If he knew who it was, trusted him, didn't take it seriously. There are a lot of possibilities."
    "Max being one of them." The judge shook his head as he shifted his attention to the photographs of Max Hawbaker. "I wouldn't have thought so. Get to be my age, nothing much surprises you, but I wouldn't have thought it of Max. Physically, Pat could have swatted him down like a fly. Which you've thought of," the judge said after a moment.
    "Harder to swat flies armed with deadly weapons."
    "Point. Max was a decent enough climber, but I wonder if he was good enough to get down that mountain, in February, without the help of someone with Pat's skill. I wonder how he managed that and how he lived with settling down here, marrying Carrie, raising his kids, knowing Pat was up there—that he was responsible for killing him."
    "The argument's going to be he couldn't live with it."
    "Sure is handy, isn't it? Pat's body's found through more luck than sense, and a few days later, Max confesses and kills himself. Doesn't explain, doesn't spell it all out. Just I did it, I'm sorry. Bang."
    "Handy," Nate agreed.
    "But you're not buying it."
    "I'll be saving my money for the time being."
    • • •
     
     
    WHEN THE JUDGE LEFT, Nate made additional notes. He'd need to talk to several more people now, including the mayor, the deputy mayor and some of the town's most prominent citizens.
    He wrote PILOT on his pad. Circled it.
    Galloway had gone, reportedly, to Anchorage to pick up some winter work. Had he found any?
    If Galloway had been playing it straight with Charlene, had fully intended to come back after a few weeks, that would narrow the time of the murder to February.
    A big if, but working with that theory, it would be possible—with time and legwork, to verify that Max had been out of Lunacy during that time frame.
    If so, for what purpose?
    If so, had he gone alone? How long had he been gone? Had he come back alone, or with a companion?
    He was going to have to pick his way through Carrie's memories for the answers. She wasn't going to be amenable just now. Maybe she'd talk to Coben, but if the ME ruled suicide, would Coben bother to follow up?
    There was a knock, and even as Nate rose to cover the board again, Peter stepped in. "You wanted to see me?"
    "Yeah. Close the door. Question."
    "Yes, sir, chief."
    "You know any reason somebody would be out snowshoeing in the woods by Meg's place, in the dark?"
    "Sorry?"
    "I'm just guessing here, but I don't think most people would go out shoeing around in the woods, in the dark, for sport."
    "Well, I guess you could, if you were going to visit someone or something, or couldn't sleep. I don't get it."
    He gestured to the board. "I found those tracks last night, when I was out practicing, giving the dogs a last run. I followed them from the road, about fifty yards up from Meg's place, and to the edge of the woods by the back of her house."
    "Sure they weren't yours?"
    "I'm sure."
    "How do you know they were made at night? Somebody, most anybody, might have taken a hike there any time. Wanted to do some hunting or take a walk across from the lake."
    Good points, Nate conceded. "Meg and I were out there the night Max died. Took a dip in her hot tub."
    Peter looked politely at the wall, cleared his throat. "Well."
    "While we were out there, the dogs got antsy. Took off into the woods. They were barking like they'd scented something, carried on long enough that Meg was on the point of calling them back, but they settled down. Now before you point out they could have treed a squirrel or chased down a moose, I found a spot where it looked like they'd rolled around in the snow, and the tracks, the snowshoe tracks, indicated somebody stopped and stood there. I'm not Daniel frigging Boone, Peter, but I can follow the dots."
    He tapped a finger on the photographs. "Somebody entered the woods, far enough from Meg's as not to be seen. Then walked in a reasonably direct line—as someone