Deadly Detail Read Free Page A

floated on its springs when I topped the final hill, no shock absorbers, of course. I stood on the brake and threw gravel to make the turn through the woods into their driveway. It was getting dark, but Angie hadn’t yet started the generator to turn on lights. She was framed in the big picture window wearing jeans and plaid shirt, and she was radiating anxiety.
    I slid to a stop ten feet from their steps. She had the door open before I got to the porch, but was staring at me in shock. “Alex?” It was a question. It hadn’t occurred to me how bad I must look. My face had that tight painful feeling like the second day in the Miami sun, and I realized the strange stench I’d been ignoring was burned hair.
    “Where is Stan?” She was trying to see past me, like maybe he was in the pickup. She already knew the answer, but was obviously clinging to hope.
    “Angie, I’m so terribly sorry.” My expression must have said it all.
    She screamed and crumpled. I caught her and guided her onto the couch. She sat forward, elbows on knees, hands covering her face, and rocked like an autistic child. It might have been easier if she’d been sobbing, but her shock was too deep for that. I put a hand on her shoulder. “Angie….”
    “What happened, Alex?”
    “It was a bomb in his truck. It was instant, he never felt a thing.” That was the only comfort I could offer.
    “But, why, why, why?”
    “Angie, I don’t know, but I promise you this. I’ll find out, and whoever did it will wish they were already in hell.”
    She slammed her fist down on her knee. “Damn, men are so stupid . He picked me up from work looking like he was seeing ghosts, and he kept telling me that nothing was wrong. He didn’t want to worry me, right? Damn him, that worried me ten times more, and now he’s…gone?” She jumped up and ran for their bedroom.
    I just stood there. Sobbing from the bedroom was the sound of abject grief, but she obviously wanted to be alone. The realities were finally sinking in for me, too, and I didn’t need an audience to watch me rub my eyes. The stone fireplace on the left had a birch fire already laid, waiting for a match to turn it into the centerpiece of a cozy evening. I kept glancing at the door, still expecting Stan to come bursting in, light the fire, and bellow for Angie to come give him a kiss. Sudden death, often violent, is very much a part of life in the Arctic, but is normally due to accidents. My mind was refusing to accept what I’d seen.
    Stan and Angie had built the double-studded, double-insulated house with its ten-inch-thick walls to last a hundred years. The three doors on the right were the spare bedroom, the bath, and the master bedroom at the back, next to the kitchen and dining table. The front bedroom had always struck me as a nursery for future use, but now….
    Gravel crunched when a car stopped out on the road, and that was strange. I stepped to the big double-paned window. Twilight was deepening, but slowly. Sun above the overcast would be scooting sideways along the horizon, so there was just enough light to show the figures striding down the lane.
    They were two uniformed city cops, but why had they parked out of sight? Then I noticed that one was carrying a rifle. What the devil? Cops should come to break the news to Angie, but they couldn’t have been that fast. Maybe they followed me. Maybe it’s a crime to leave a scene like that, but they hadn’t been in my mirrors.
    They paused forty feet from my pickup. The tall one gestured, the one with the rifle turned between the trees to circle the house. The tall one drew his automatic but held it out of sight, almost behind him, and strode toward the door. Did they think I was armed and dangerous? I opened the door, hands up, palms out.
    “Hi, officer, I’m not armed. What’s the problem?”
    He was obviously surprised to see me. He stopped dead and stared. They must have come for Angie, but with weapons drawn and circling the