Northern Lights

answer some questions."
    "I don't know why you have to be mean to me. If you treated Carrie like this, no wonder she's saying terrible things about you. I wish you'd never come to Lunacy."
    "You won't be the only one to wish it, once I find the man who killed Patrick Galloway."
    She lifted her swimming eyes at that. "You're not even in charge."
    "I'm in charge of this office. I'm in charge of this town." The anger
    that was stirring inside him felt good; it felt just. Cop juice, he realized. He'd missed it.
    "And right now, I'm in charge of you. Did Pat Galloway leave town alone?"
    "You're nothing but a bully. You're—"
    "Answer the damn question."
    "Yes! He packed a bag, tossed it in the truck and left. And I never, ever saw him again. I raised our child alone, and she's never once been grateful for—"
    "Did he have plans to meet up with anyone?"
    "I don't know. He didn't say. He was supposed to get some work. We were about tapped. I was tired of living hand to mouth. His family had money, but he wouldn't even consider—"
    "Charlene. How long did he plan to be gone?"
    She sighed, began to shred the damp tissue. Winding down, Nate thought.
    "Couple of weeks, maybe a month."
    "He never called, never got in touch."
    "No, and I was mad about that, too. He should've called after a week or two, to let me know what was going on."
    "You try to get in touch with him?"
    "How?" she demanded, but the tears were dried up now. "I badgered Jacob. Pat always talked to him more than me, but he said he didn't know where he was. He could've been covering for him for all I know."
    "Jacob was still flying regularly then?"
    "So?"
    "Making regular runs, the way Meg does now." Her answer was a shrug, so Nate kept probing. "Was he, or anyone else you can think of, out of town for, let's say, a week or ten days during February of that year?"
    "How the hell am I supposed to know that? I don't keep tabs on people, and it was sixteen years ago. This month," she added, and he could see that the fact it was a kind of anniversary had just occurred to her.
    "Sixteen years ago Pat Galloway disappeared. I bet if you put your mind to it, you could remember a lot of details about those weeks."
    "I was scrambling to pay the rent, just like I was more than half the time. I had to ask Karl for more hours work at The Lodge. I was a hell of a lot more worried about myself than what other people were up to."
    But she leaned back, closed her eyes. "I don't know. Jacob left about the same time. I remember because he came by to see Pat, the day Pat left, and said he'd have flown him into Anchorage if he'd known he was going. He was flying Max down, and a couple others, I think. Harry. Harry was hitching a ride to Anchorage to look into a new supplier or something. Or maybe that was the year after, or before. I don't know for sure, but I think it was then."
    "Good." He made notes on his yellow legal pad. "Anyone else?"
    "It was a slow winter. Hard and slow. That's why I wanted Pat to find some work. Town was dead; we couldn't get the tourists in. The Lodge was damn near empty, and Karl gave me busy work just to tide me over, help me out. He was a sweet man; he looked out for me. Some people went hunting, some holed up and waited for spring. Max was trying to get the paper off the ground and was hunting up advertisers, pestering people for stories. Nobody took him seriously back then."
    "Was he in town the whole month?"
    "I don't know. Ask Carrie. She was chasing him like a hound chases a rabbit, back then. Why do you care?"
    "Because I'm in charge of this office, of this town, of you."
    "You didn't even know Pat. Maybe it's like some people are saying. You just want to make a big stir, get some press before you go back where you came from."
    "I'm from here now."
     
     
    HE ANSWERED A COUPLE OF CALLS, including another residential chimney fire and a complaint about the Mackie brothers blocking the road with an overturned Jeep Cherokee.
    "It wasn't like we did it on purpose." Jim Mackie stood in the thickly falling snow, scratching his chin and scowling at the Jeep that lay on its side like a tired old man taking a nap. "We got it cheap, and we were hauling it home. Gonna rebuild the engine, paint her up and sell her again."
    "'Less we decided to keep her," his brother put in, "hook a plow up to her and give Bing some competition."
    Nate stood in the snow, in the miserable cold, and studied the mess. "You don't have a trailer hitch, a tow bar or any of the