“Sergeant Liam Campbell, Alaska State Troopers. I met Mrs. Karlsen on the road and offered her a ride.”

Sybilla fluttered her eyelashes and deepened her dimples. “Indeed, young man, you can give me a ride anytime.”

The attendant and Liam grinned at each other over her head, and Liam drove back down to the post. Ms. Petroff was at her station, because of course she was. “Good morning, Ms. Petroff.”

“You gave me to understand that you wouldn’t be into the office again until Monday, sir.”

It felt like a reprimand. Manfully, Liam shrugged it off. “What do you know of Erik Berglund, Ms. Petroff?”

There was an almost infinitesimal pause. “The archeologist, sir?”

He had the baseless feeling that she was buying time. He couldn’t imagine why and dismissed the suspicion. “Yes.”

She folded her hands on the desk, and then refolded them. “He was born in Kapilat. He lost both his parents when their crabber went down in the Bering. I believe he was eighteen at the time. He went Outside to school, after which he worked overseas for UNESCO at various archeological sites. This year he left UNESCO and returned home to the Bay, where he works at an archeological site he discovered.”

“You can make a living at that?”

“It is my understanding that archeologists and their projects subsist mainly on grants. It is why most of them have day jobs as teachers.”

“Did Berglund?”

She shook her head. “Not here in Blewestown, although there was talk that he had been offered a position on the Chungasqak Bay Campus.”

Liam rifled through the mental card index labeled “Blewestown” and came up empty. “Which is…”

“The local affiliate of the University of Alaska. About five hundred students, including distance students from across the Bay.”

He spared yet another moment to marvel at the comprehensiveness of Ms. Petroff’s knowledge of her community. Well, theirs, now. “Was Berglund married?”

A shadow passed so fleetingly across her face that he could not identify the emotion behind it. “Not to my knowledge.”

“A steady girlfriend?”

A ghost of a smile. “If the rumors are true, he did not lack for female companionship.”

“Terrific,” Liam said beneath his breath. He foresaw a lot of interviews with ex-girlfriends and those never went well and were almost invariably unproductive.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Ms. Petroff?”

“You are referring to Mr. Berglund in the past tense.”

He looked up to find her watching him, her face blank of any expression, even curiosity. “Do you know where he lived, Ms. Petroff?”

Another almost imperceptible pause. “I believe he rented a dry cabin somewhere out East Bay Road.”

“No address?”

She shook her head. “Dry cabins seldom have their own street addresses. People out that way throw up a lot of cabins for short-term rental purposes. They would rather not attract the attention of the borough tax assessor.”

“What is a dry cabin, exactly?”

“No water. He had to haul it in.”

“Ugh.”

“It’s not uncommon in Blewestown, sir, given the lack of housing. Many rental property owners rent out by way of Airbnb during the summer. Short-term vacation rentals are much more remunerative—” he could only admire how she didn’t stumble over the word “—than long-term rentals.”