There were two strange men in the house, men she'd never seen before. They swung around, startled, when the door opened. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?" she said.

They were both in their early twenties, hairy and with the aroma of an unwashed winter about them. They hadn't bothered to doff their Carhartt jackets, bib overalls or their knit caps, only their identical pairs of black leather gloves. "Just poking around," one of them said. "Seeing if there's something we can use."

Both of them were looking at Mutt, who was standing at Kate's side and looking both of them over with a long, considering stare. Mutt was half wolf, and when she wanted to, she let it show. Sensing Kate's rising anger, she bared a little fang.

The man who had spoken visibly paled. "Look, we're not doing anything wrong. The two old ladies are dead, they don't have any relatives, and—"

"Wrong," Kate said flatly. "I'm their relative. Get out."

He tried to bluster. "Who the hell are you anyway? You'll just take all the good stuff if—"

"Russ," the other man said.

"Well, hell, Gabe, we got here first. We're not going to turn around and—"

"That's Kate Shugak."

"What?"

The other man nodded at Kate. "That's Kate Shugak."

"Oh." Russ gulped. "And that must be—"

"Mutt."

Mutt had perfected the art of the unblinking stare. It could be unnerving.

"Oh." Russ gulped again. "Actually, we were just leavin g."

"That we were," the second man said, and beat him out the door.

Mutt looked up at Kate and raised an eyebrow. Kate shook her head. "Not worth it." Mutt gave an almost-perceptible shrug. "Find Gal," Kate said. Mutt looked disgusted and stalked out, disapproval evident in the slightly backward set of her ears.

The room looked as if it had been hit by a chinook, one of the spring storms that roared up out of the Gulf like a lion and proceeded to blow everything in front of it out of the way. There wasn't really any good place to start. Kate shed parka, bib, and boots and rolled up her sleeves. Finding that someone had banked the embers in the woodstove, she loaded it with wood, and waded in.