Judge DeWinter was in her fifties, five-five, untidy blonde hair going to gray, brown eyes, and a chin like Ben Affleck before the beard. She produced a bottle of Glenlivet and motioned for him to bring two paper cups from the coffee setup on the credenza across the room. “Sit,” she said, pouring.

He and Judge DeWinter were going to get along just fine. He traded her coffee for his Scotch. The smell of eighteen-year-old single malt hit his nostrils and he froze in place with the cup just inches from his lips. But not for long. “Thank you, Your Honor,” he said with feeling.

“Long day?”

“Just getting used to the territory. And the help. Takes some concentration.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “And you’re in mufti.”

“What does that even mean, Judge?”

“Means you’re not in uniform, and so might not be experiencing that deference your office might otherwise expect.”

“I’ve had some issues with my uniforms in the past.” He looked down at his Pendleton shirt and jeans, worn at elbows and knees but otherwise clean and neat. “And I’m not officially on duty until next Monday.” She snorted. “Ah,” he said. “You know Colonel Barton then.”

“We’ve met.”

“In court?”

She toasted him and sipped. “Indeed.”

A battle of the Titans, he thought. Or maybe just the immovable object meeting the irresistible force. Would have been nice to have had a front row seat to that. So long as he wasn’t testifying.

“You were the trooper who found the wreck of the World War II plane.”

“Not personally, no, but I investigated the cases that were associated with it.”

“I’m an Alaska history buff,” she said. “Bunch of planes lost in Alaska during that war.”

“May be the first murder solved by global warming,” he said. “If the weather hadn’t warmed up to the point that that glacier melted to where the plane crashed into it, people would still be looking.” He sipped again and let the Scotch sit for a moment on his tongue. “Are you aware of why I’m here?”

“I helped Barton build the files he gave you.”

He sipped, waiting.

“I get tired of seeing the same faces up before me year after year.” She drained her cup, refilled it, and held up the bottle. He shook his head and she recorked it and made it disappear. He mourned a little but then he had Glenmorangie at home. “And a lot of those people are becoming nuisances to their neighbors. I don’t know what it is about meth cookers and junkyards, but as soon as one shows up the other follows.”

She spoke with a certain bitterness and he hazarded a guess. “One of your own neighbors, perhaps?”

Her smile was as frosty as her name. “Perhaps.”

“You live outside the city limits?”

Her expression didn’t change but there was some feeling there he couldn’t quite detect. “You’ve met Chief Armstrong then.”

“We had lunch.”

She evidently had no intention of bringing him into the loop at this early stage of their relationship. “In fact I do live outside the city limits.”