Liam thought "mess" was an inadequate way of referring to the screwup that had cost five lives and his job. "Yes," he said briefly.

Bright eyes examined him shrewdly. "Buck stopped on your desk, I hear."

"Yes. Look, what--"

"Didn't help they were a family of Natives, and you and the other two troopers involved were as white as you can get without bleach."

"No." He could feel the eyes of many trained upon him. This was even worse than he had expected. "What seems to--"

"You'll have a lot to prove here, Liam," she said. "But it's a good town. Pretty fairminded bunch of people. They'll judge you, all right, but they'll judge you on what you do here, not what you did before you came here."

"Yes, ma'am," Liam said woodenly.

"Bill, dammit. I don't want to be called ma'am until I'm at least a hundred."

"Won't be long now!" the Old Fart bellowed.

"Oh shut up," Bill said without heat. "In the meantime, Liam, this here is Teddy Engebretsen, who's got nothing better to do on a fine spring day such as this than to come in and shoot up my bar with my own rifle." She glared at the miscreant, who whimpered behind his bar rag gag. "And then when we think he's all calmed down, he has the gall to go for it a second time!" Teddy whimpered again. "I'm just figuring on what to do with him."

"Uh-huh," Liam said, because for the life of him he couldn't think what else to say. He shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. He was, after all, the first officer on the scene. It was up to him to establish his sense of authority. He buried his resentment at the woman's blabbering of his private affairs--as private as they get when they've been on the front page of the Anchorage Daily News for a week straight--to most of the population of Newenham. "Well, Ms. Billington--"

"Who's that?" she demanded. "I told you to call me Bill. That's my name. Liam," she added pointedly.

So much for establishing his sense of authority. "Okay, Bill," he said, trying an ingratiating smile. She didn't visibly soften, but then the smile hadn't been all that sincere, and he persevered, ever mindful of the clock ticking in the background on the crime scene--if it was one--at the airport, and even more conscious of the burning if irrational need to get back to Wy before she vanished on him again. "What exactly happened here?"

"Teddy shot up the place," she replied promptly. "He come in here all liquored up, then got more so--my fault for not cutting him off sooner. He takes exception to what's on the jukebox, which isn't any of his goddamn business and he can go down to the Seaside and listen to punk rock music and like it from now on." She glared again at the miscreant, who seemed to shrink inside his clothes.

"And?" Liam prompted.