Vern, looking shaken, nodded. There are master keys for all the doors back in the office.

All right, let‘s go there. Mutt. She pointed. Guard.

Mutt sat in front of Lyda‘s door, lips drawn back in a snarl at the smell of death.

In his office Vern sorted through keys on a ring, detached one, and handed it over. Was the door locked when you got to the room? Kate said to Haynes. The geologist looked as if she were going to faint. Kate pushed her into a chair and shoved her head between her knees, remembering with a pang having to do the same thing for Lyda the day before. Was the door locked when you got to the room? she said again.

Haynes shook her head. Open.

Kate looked at Vern. May I use your sat phone?

She had to ask him how to use it. Maggie came on. Maggie, it‘s Kate. Is Jim there? No, he took off somewhere with Old Sam Dementieff, I don‘t—

I‘m out at Suulutaq. Tell Jim I said he needs to get here as soon as he can. Why, what‘s going on?

There‘s been a death. Tell him I said right away, and to bring his crime scene kit. From the corner of her eye she saw Haynes sit up and look at Truax. What— Maggie bit back whatever she‘d been about to say. Can‘t talk? Don‘t want to.

Gotcha. Jim, head for Suulutaq ASAP, bring murder bag.

Thanks, Maggie. She handed the phone to Truax.

Crime scene kit? Haynes said. But—

But what? Kate said.

It‘s not a crime, is it? Haynes looked from Kate to Vern. You saw the note, right? Note? Vern said. What note? He had seen the body of his executive assistant and nothing more.

Kate said, Yes, I saw the note.

Well, then—

State law requires the investigation of all unexplained deaths, Kate said. While we‘re waiting for Sergeant Chopin, I‘d like to talk to some of the employees, the ones who knew her well, and especially the people who lived on either side of her and across the hall from her.

We‘ll have to pull some of them off work, Truax said, protesting.

Then you‘ll pull some off work, Kate said.

Maybe we‘ll just wait to see what the trooper says.

Kate‘s expression lightened briefly. Yeah. You should definitely do that. They had to go to Lyda‘s desk. Vern turned on her computer to click through her files. I‘ll have to print out the resident list for that trailer. He clicked and the printer hummed into action. Holly? Round these guys up and send them over to the mess hall, okay?

Haynes, still visibly shaken, stepped forward to take the piece of paper, and departed without a word.

Haynes assembled twenty-three people in the mess hall, and Kate spoke to them one at a time at a table in the corner, she hoped out of earshot of the rest. They‘d all seen Lyda at dinner the night before. She had seemed to be her usual calm self. She wasn‘t normally a jokey kind of person to begin with, one of them said, but she seemed fine to me.