Kate started talking when they turned from the airport parking lot onto Highway 10. It was thirteen miles from Mud-hole Smith International Airport to town, and Eyak Lake had iust appeared on their right as she came to that morning's discovery of the body.

"Where is the body?" Jim said.

"Wrapped in a tarp in Knight Island Packers' cooler."

He slanted a grin her way. "Meany deliver to Knight Island?"

Kate nodded. "When the price was right."

"Professional courtesy," he suggested.

She didn't smile.

He was sitting erect in the passenger seat, the round crown of his hat just brushing the ceiling of the truck's cab. His long legs were cramped because Kate had the bench drawn up far enough for her feet to reach the pedals, but he was the only person Kate had ever seen who could look dignified with his knees up around his ears, so it didn't matter. They came to the end of Eyak Lake and Le Fevre's street sign flashed by on the right. "Well, Kate," he said, ruminatively, "you going to tell me how he died?"

She took a deep breath, held it and released it slowly. "This one you should see for yourself, Jim, without any preconceptions."

"But it was murder? You're sure about that?"

She laughed, a short, sharp, unamused bark.

"Urn." The sound was noncommittal. "What's your best guess?"

She snorted, slowing as they passed Eyak Packing Company and putting the blinker on to turn left on Railroad. "Motive we got, suspects we got more. He beat up on his son, who's big enough to have taken him out, by surprise anyway. He was screwing at least one wife, as personally witnessed by me, and Gull is only too happy to assure me that there were just dozens more, so there's all their husbands, plus Meany's own wife."

"She in town?"

"No, she's working the setnet site."

His eyes narrowed. First motive, and then opportunity, how nice. In law enforcement it was axiomatic that in murder cases the spouse was always the number one suspect, since ninety percent of the time the spouse did the killing. "You talk to her yet?"

She shook her head. "Waiting on you. Meany's setnet site and his drifter were the only nets in the water yesterday, when all the other fishermen were protesting the price drop, and I am here to tell you, the fleet don't like it when that happens." With which masterly understatement she braked to turn left on Nicholoff, passed Baja Tacos, the AC Value Center and Save-U-Lots stores and the harbormaster's office, to pull up in front of a rambling building with different levels of flat, corrugated-tin roofs, some one-story, some three-story, all walled with gray plastic siding. The parking lot was nearly empty, and Kate stopped in front of a door marked "Office" in big black letters, put the truck into second and turned off the ignition. She sat for a moment, staring straight ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel, as if making up her mind. He waited.