"What time?"

"I don't know."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I don't know," Anne Flanagan repeated, and smiled at Old Sam. "We don't have a clock. The sun was down by the time he left, had been down for a while, so it was late."

"Past midnight? One o'clock?"

"I'd guess the girls came in about midnight. Maybe a little before, maybe a little after, I don't know. They're such night owls, the two of them. And then the game, which took a while. Monopoly always takes a while."

"But you don't know how long a while?"

"No. Like I said, no clocks. And then we had another cup of coffee, and then he went home." Anne Flanagan paused, turning her mug between her hands. "That's the rule, no watches, no clocks. No sundials, no hourglasses, no ship's bells, no poles in the sand, no chronometers of any kind."

One corner of Old Sam's mouth curled up and, encouraged, Anne Flanagan added, "This beach has always seemed to me like a place out of time. Our nearest neighbors are at anchor or four miles down. There are no roads, and while what with fish spotting and stream surveys and sport fishermen you can't get away from the planes, the only time one lands on our section is to bring us here or take us home. Time " She shrugged. "It doesn't exist. It does exist, I know that, but"

"Here you wag it, instead of it wagging you," Old Sam suggested.

An answering smile spread across Anne Flanagan's face. "Yes. This time of year it's easy. The sun doesn't go down, it just goes around."

At this latitude that was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Kate was skeptical. "How do you know when you can put your net in the water?"

The smile faded. "We wait until everyone else has theirs in the water. Sometimes Lamar Rousch goes by in his boat and says it's time."

Kate barely repressed a snort. "You can miss a lot of fish that way."

"It's not about making money for us, Ms. Shugak," Anne Flanagan said levelly.

"No?"

"No. It's about getting away from town, and all the noisy that comes with it. It's about getting the kids away from the nuts that Anchorage Job Service unloads on Cordova canneries every summer. It's about me taking a break, from my job, from my church and from my parishioners." She shrugged, and drank coffee. "Truth to tell, half of them are gone fishing themselves, so it's not like I'm abandoning my congregation. And it's good to get out here and away from the telephone and the television."

"Back to nature?" Kate suggested, something not quite a sneer on her face.

Anne Flanagan's voice remained level. "If you like."

"The better to commune with God, I suppose."

A muscle twitched in Anne Flanagan's cheek. "If you like," she repeated.