Liam looked further for the source of quiet. It wasn't hard to find. It hadn't taken them long, once they got him inside; the man who had been separated from the rifle was seated in a chair and immobilized with enough bright yellow polypropylene line to restrain King Kong. He was maybe thirty years old, five-eight, thickset, with matted brown hair and terrified brown eyes that stared at Liam over the bar rag that had been used to gag him.

Teddy Engebretsen might be drunk, but he wasn't so drunk he didn't know his life was in grave danger.

Standing opposite him was a woman, a woman who towered over Teddy in presence if not in height. The same woman who had rolled over the top of Liam outside, she was about five feet two inches tall and plump as a pigeon, her body a cascading series of rich curves; cheek, chin, breast, belly, hip, thigh, calf, a model for Rubens clad in clean, faded jeans and a gray T-shirt cinched in with a wide leather belt. Zaftig, they called it, Liam remembered from somewhere, as in making a man's palms itch.

All attention in the room was focused on these two. No one seemed to be moving; no one, with the exception of the Alaskan Old Fart, seemed to be breathing. Liam, mindful of his training, gave his gun belt an authoritative hitch and said in his calmest, deepest voice, "What seems to be the trouble here?"

The woman turned to look at him, and Liam registered three things immediately. Her eyes were the blue of glacier ice and thickly lashed, her well-filled T-shirt had a picture of a beribboned mask with the words "New Orleans Jazz Fest" written beneath it, and she had one of the firmest jaws he'd ever seen. She spoke, moved, and acted with a vigor that belied the lines on her face and the color of her hair, a thick silver swath combed straight back from her face that fell to a neatly trimmed line just above her shoulders.

"Who in the hell are you?" she demanded. "Give me that."

She made as if to snatch the rifle from him. He moved it away and she said irritably, "Oh, don't bother, you damn fool, I'm the magistrate for this district."

He looked at her for a long moment, and then sought out Jim Earl's face in the crowd. Jim Earl gave a confirming nod.

"Uh-huh," Liam said, but he kept hold of the rifle. "State Trooper Liam Campbell, ma'am."

"And don't call me ma'am," she snapped. "Makes me feel like I'm a hundred years old."

"Close enough!" the man at the jukebox said without turning around.

"Oh shut up, you old fart," the woman said. Again she reached for the rifle, and this time Liam let her take it. "The name's Billington, Linda Billington. You can call me Bill; everybody does." She shifted the rifle to extend a hand. Her grip was dry and firm--one pump, up and down, and withdrawn. She looked him over critically. "Liam Campbell, is it? We heard you were coming. They get that mess cleaned up at Denali?"