Liam waited until they were on Traversie again before he spoke. “Kimberley say anything to you?”

“No, but she was trying very hard not to cry.”

“I wish I’d been able to talk to her alone.”

She looked at him. “You can make that happen.”

“I know I can. And I may have to. I don’t think Len Needham was lying when he said he saw them in conversation at the party. Or that they were arguing.”

“Alexei didn’t seem too pleased.”

“No.”

They walked in silence for a few moments. “You say everyone is telling you that Erik was quite the player. You think him and Kimberley—?”

“It would give Alexei quite the motive, wouldn’t it?”

They walked down Traversie to where it intersected with Castner and kept going down Kiska toward the airport. They passed several more street signs, Buck, Kerdook, Pletnikoff. “Oh,” Wy said. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

She was smiling. “I told you about Kapilat, right? It got wiped out by the tidal wave in the ’64 quake and the high tides after the land dropped?”

“Yes?”

“They bulldozed what was left and rebuilt the town the way we see it here today. That’s why the houses look so new. The Petroffs’ house is probably the oldest one in town because it was so high up it didn’t get hit.”

“Okay?”

“The two main streets are named Attu and Kiska.” She pointed at the nearest sign. “And the cross streets are named from the roster of the Alaska Scouts. One of them must have lived here, or, I don’t know, been a child of.”

“Oh. Oh yeah. Okay, all right, pretty cool spotting there, Ms. Chouinard.”

“Pretty cool doing,” she said. “I like this town.”

When they walked past the cell tower sitting off Kerdook he called Sergei Pete, who was pleased to pick up on the first ring and confirm Alexei and Kimberley Petroff’s alibi in every detail. “So much for that possibility,” Liam said. “Motive, maybe, but no opportunity.”

“The good news is your list is shrinking.”

“It wasn’t that big to begin with.” And he had to get back on the plane.

Wy’s phone rang as they arrived at the airstrip, Prince all over it with “Sexy MF.” Wy looked up to see Liam smirking at her. She rolled her eyes and showed him the screen. It was Tim. “Hey,” she said. “How’s my guy?”

“Is that Liam I hear laughing?” Tim said.

His voice sounded deeper and more confident than the last time she’d spoken to him, although that might be her imagination. The boy hiding from his birth mother under the porch of their shack in Ualik was a distant memory. Or so she hoped. “Ignore him. How are you?”

“Are you in Blewestown yet?”

“Got here Monday. Gorgeous weather, I could have been here in time for lunch, but I took the scenic route.”

“The new house okay?”

“Yeah. Unbelievably it’s as nice as advertised, and we’ve already had our first house guest.”