She shook her head. "Don't know them. I ran them off."

"Get tags?"

She shook her head again. "I don't think they'll be back. And I'll get Bernie to spread the word that I'm looking after the place."

Which all by itself would be enough to keep the cabin and the surrounding property sacrosanct, Jim thought. At least for a while, at least until they knew if Ruthe would live.

"I hear you got the guy," she said.

"Yeah. Knife in hand. Blood wasn't even dry on it. Tests already confirmed Ruthe's and Dina's blood on it."

"That was quick."

"The governor himself called the crime lab. Love them or hate them, Ruthe and Dina helped make a lot of the history of this state. He ordered the flags to fly at half-staff today."

In spite of herself, Kate was impressed. "A nice gesture."

"Yeah, ought to pick him up a few more votes in the next election." Gal's head poked up over the back of the chair, and Jim said, "Hey, Gal, you came back! Good girl. Thank god. I couldn't find her after she took off."

He told Kate what had happened, and she laughed, surprising both of them. He picked up Gal and sat down with her in his lap, where she immediately curled up, purring and kneading. Mutt padded over and rested her chin on the arm of the chair, and Jim freed a hand to scratch her ears.

Kate sat down and started going through the paperwork again. When next she looked up, Jim had his head against the back of the chair and his eyes closed. Gal was curled into a soft black ball on his lap and Mutt was stretched out on the floor with her head on one of his feet.

It was quite a domestic scene. Kate went back to the paperwork, but her mind was more on the man across from her.

They called him "Chopper Jim" because of his preferred method of transportation, a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, although he flew fixed-wing, too, and was reliable and skilled on both craft.

They also called him "the Father of the Park," for his equally reliable and skilled seduction of pretty much every available female inside Park boundaries. Although now that Kate thought of it, she couldn't remember any children whose mothers claimed he had fathered them. A courtesy title, perhaps, and Kate was a little startled when the thought made her smile.

He was originally from California, which figured. He had the same coloring as Ethan, only darker, and he was tall, also like Ethan, but he was much broader in the beam. He looked like a buff Beach Boy, and she'd bet he had spent his entire childhood in the water with a surfboard. What was he doing in Alaska, three thousand miles and one time zone away, with no sand, no surf, and no beach bunnies? It was a question she'd never asked him.