He leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands over his face and linked them behind his head, looking at her with that impartial cop stare that could do a whole character dissection without ever touching a scalpel. Failing that, you want there to have been a murder. You want me to haul Truax and Haynes in here and charge them with everything from murder to polluting your personal environment. Kate‘s mouth opened and closed a couple of times. That‘s just not true, she said. Was it? She rallied. I liked that girl. I spent more time with her than you did, and I don‘t believe she would have killed herself.

You‘re still not even comfortable with your new house, Kate. Face it. There isn‘t a nickel‘s worth of difference between your attitude to the mine and Gaea‘s. You‘re wrong, she said.

Why is Howie Katelnikof still walking around on two good legs?

What? Kate was really confused now.

He shot at your truck. He put you and Johnny in the ditch and Mutt in the clinic. We both know it. Hell, every Park rat with an IQ over two digits knows it. We‘ve all been holding our breaths for the last year, year and a half, to see what you‘re going to do about it. I myself have lived in daily expectation of scraping his remains up off some back road with a shovel, and I say a nightly prayer that you won‘t leave any evidence behind I‘ll have to act on.

What the hell‘s this got to do with the mine and how I feel about it? Howie‘s a Park rat, one of your own whether you like it or not, so he can take a shot at you and get away with it. A Suulutaq miner, that‘s a different story. You‘ll move mountains for a perp walk featuring one of them.

The silence this time was a little more fraught. Kate tried to think of something to say that wouldn‘t leave her wide open to more incoming. Too much of his ammunition was already finding its target. Has her mother stopped calling? He nodded. Yeah.

Who gets Allen‘s money?

There‘s a sister. She said he was a better brother to her dead than he ever was alive.

Ouch.

Yeah. Not what I‘d choose for my epitaph. But then I suppose the dumb bastard thought he‘d never need one. He was going to live forever under a palm tree somewhere. He made some additional notes to the Allen file, saved it, copied it, and closed it. So. You hanging around town until it‘s time to go to Old Sam‘s? God no, Kate said, relieved that they seemed to be well and truly off the topic of her relationship to the Suulutaq Mine. Fucking mine was taking over every conversation she was in lately. I‘m heading back home. That is, if you‘re done psychoanalyzing me, doctor. She realized too late that there was maybe a little too much edge on the remark and rushed to fill the awkward silence following it. I have to go back anyway, I‘m supposed to make rhubarb sorbet for the barbecue. That proved a useful distraction. Got enough rhubarb left in the freezer? he said, looking anxious. I‘m sure you could pick up extra from Annie or Auntie Vi if you need it. Or Dinah.