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Alaskan women had to be the most stubborn people alive, if you asked Bear.

Paulina refused to leave her house for more treatment. He got no support from Lila in his mission to convince her, since Lila insisted that she trusted Ani’s judgment.

Ani couldn’t find anything wrong with Paulina other than slight dehydration and a bruise on her hip. Barring x-rays, which would require a trip to Blackbear, there was no way to confirm she hadn’t broken anything. But she showed no signs of tenderness or pain, so Ani gave her a tentative clean bill of health.

“I’m coming out to check on you every day,” Bear warned her. “No complaints.”

“Will you bring me a glass of sherry when you come? I don’t think I’ll be up for a trip to town this week.”

Great, now he was a door-to-door alcohol delivery guy. Didn’t cities have that sort of thing? Whatever. He was too worried about her to do anything but agree.

For the next few days, he made the half-hour drive to make sure Paulina was okay. He tried to pry out of her the names of any family or relatives he should contact in case she needed more help. But she flatly refused.

“This is where I die,” she told him one day. “Right here, however it happens. I’m too young to think about that yet, but I’ve always known I wouldn’t ever leave here. I made a promise.”

“What promise? To who?”

“To myself.” She lifted her chin as she swept her floor. She’d even refused to let him give her a hand with that.

“But if you can’t take care of yourself…Paulina, please. If we hadn’t come out here, you might still be lying on the floor. If it was winter already, you could have frozen to death.”

She flinched, but shook her head. “They say it’s not a terrible way to go. Like drifting off into a dream. Have you read that Alaska classic, Two Old Women ? It’s based on a legend about how in times of famine, sometimes the Native Alaskans would leave behind the old people who couldn’t keep up. It was a mercy. That will be me.”

“You’re just one old woman,” he said dryly.

“Yes, well, once upon a time that wasn’t true.”

Lila had told him about the names on the glasses. How sad that two of those women had died within days of each other.

Before he left, he chopped close to a half cord of firewood for her, including some kindling, and left a nice stack piled near her hearth. He also made a big pot of hearty soup with plenty of root vegetables and greens. It would be enough to last her at least a week.

As he was leaving, he told her, “You know, I did read that book. The band regrets leaving them behind and comes back for them. I’ll tell you one thing right now. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“You’re a good man, Bear,” she murmured. She was already seated at her easel and dabbing oil paint onto a palette. “That Lila’s a lucky girl.”

“No, we’re not?—”

She waved him off. “Don’t waste my time. But you watch out for her. She’s much more than what she seems.”

He knew that much already.

Molly and Sam had finally come back with information about the so-called Snow River Murders. Lila kindly waited until he was free so they could go over it together. He invited her to the upper floor of The Fang, which had formerly been a meeting room, before Newt had converted it into an apartment. This was the first time Lila had been upstairs, and he felt wildly self-conscious about his bachelor pad ways. He liked to stack his dirty dishes and wash them all at once after a few days had passed. And he’d never warmed to the concept of laundry hampers.

None of that seemed to bother her. She sat at his kitchen table, one knee drawn up, her chin propped on it, as she spread the file out.

It wasn’t much.

“They said most of the file was lost in a fire in nineteen ninety-two, before they digitized everything,” Lila told him. “Here’s the signed confession. ‘I shot three people, Allison Casey, Brake Hannigan, and Artie Long at the airstrip in Fangtooth Gulch. Then I knifed another man when he spotted me. That’s Joe Baker. Signed, Paul Anthony Bowman.”

“Short and to the point. Is that all he said?”

“He did add one more note. ‘P.S. It’s not complicated. I wanted to shoot them so I did.’”

“I wonder why he added that?”

“Maybe that was his motive? That he wanted to do it, so he did?” Lila moved that document aside and revealed another one. “This is the initial crime scene report. It’s from five days after the shooting. I guess there was a blizzard and no one could get in until then.”

That didn’t surprise Bear. December was prime time for blizzards around here. Sometimes they came even earlier. He’d noticed that the yellowjackets had built their nests high this winter, a sign that they could see lots of snow piling up. An old-timer had taught him that, and he’d never known it to fail.

Lila read aloud.

“Given the passage of time and the heavy snow, the crime scene was not intact. The victims had been removed to a nearby shelter that served as a temporary morgue. A total of thirteen bullets were retrieved, but there are likely more that haven’t been located. They were held for analysis. Five witnesses were interviewed. They all repeated a similar story. As the plane taxied onto the runway, shots were fired from the southeast woods. The first victim, Allison Casey, was hit immediately by three bullets in the back. The other two were fired upon as they tried to escape. Once the gunfire stopped, a friend of Victim 1, Gwen Dubrov, tried to render aid, but the victim was already deceased. Two bystanders attempted to chase down the gunman, but he evaded capture. By the time we arrived, the suspect had been taken into citizen’s arrest and his weapon confiscated. Paul Anthony Bowman confessed to the shootings. He is described as reclusive and largely unknown to the community. The three victims are identified as Allison Casey, a 45-year old caucasian female, Brake Hannigan, a sixty-year old Native Alaskan male, and Artie Long, a thirty-year old caucasian male. No connection between any of these victims and the suspect has been identified. His motive is still unknown.”

Lila shoved aside that page and sighed in frustration. “That is not at all helpful. Is it normal for a confessed killer to give no reason for what he did?”

“There’s always some motivation, even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else. Sometimes it’s just blind rage, anger at the world, the need to make a mark, lash out at perceived injustice.” In his work as a cop, he’d never had to deal with a case like this, but he’d read up on them. Alaska had one of the highest proportions of gun deaths per population of any state in the nation, with the leading cause being suicide.

“It’s interesting that Gwen Dubrov is mentioned as Allison’s friend, but the report doesn’t say anything about her being found dead too,” he mused.

“The pilot, Buster Conner, said that Bowman didn’t say anything about Gwen, and that her body was found after he confessed. Maybe the FBI didn’t consider it to be part of the same case.”

“So it was just a coincidence that she turned up dead too? Didn’t Buster say he might have been staying at her yurt?”

“Yes, that’s what he said.” Lila shrugged. “He also said they might have been lovers.”

“But I thought he was supposedly a bitter divorced man angry at the world.” It wasn’t adding up. He scowled at the inadequate, skimpy police report.

“They did a psychological analysis on him.” Lila waved another typed report in the air. “Ready for this?”

He nodded.

“I’ll summarize. No overt signs of any psychological disorder. How is that possible? He killed four people! There must have been something wrong with him.”

Bear agreed that it seemed strange. He took his turn surveying the paperwork. Back in those days, the police weren’t quite as familiar with the psychological aspects of things, and it showed in the reports. The writeup on Bowman include the fact that he had served in the Navy, had a good service record, and no criminal record whatsoever. He was squeaky clean—except for the very glaring exception of having murdered several people.

What most stood out to Bear was the shoddy police work. The Fangtooth Gulch residents had been the ones to chase down Bowman. Without them, he most likely would have gone free, escaped over the border to Canada, perhaps. The police had shown up five days later, done a cursory inspection of the scene, only interviewed direct witnesses, written it off as a random outburst of rage and closed the case after Bowman confessed.

Where were the interviews of people close to the victims? Maybe there was a connection between the killer and the victims that hadn’t been discovered during the three hours the police spent in town.

Where was the in-depth exploration of Bowman’s background? All of that was forestalled when the man confessed, which happened immediately after the townspeople showed up with him in tow.

Glaring omissions, in Bear’s view.

Maybe it was the fault of that fire. Maybe they’d done the police work, but the records were gone.

“What are you thinking?” Lila asked. He realized he’d been staring at the papers on his kitchen table for a while. It felt…good to be reading police reports again; it was a language he spoke well.

“Trying to fill in the holes. There’s some big ones here.”

“Right? I thought so too. I almost wondered…”

He looked at her sharply. “What?”

“Well, I don’t want to make unjustified accusations, but do you think something’s being covered up?”

Corruption? In Alaskan law enforcement? His entire body stiffened. From personal experience, he knew it was very possible. But he was the last person who’d be able to speak up about it. Everyone would think he had an axe to grind.

“Of course it’s possible.”

“And then he had a heart attack while they were still processing his case. Doesn’t that seem weird?”

“Maybe. But it’s more likely that no one put that much effort into investigating the case. It was winter in the mountains. It’s hard to get out here, hard to move around. Hard to locate evidence. Once Bowman confessed, I’m sure everyone was happy to move on.”

“But maybe someone wasn’t,” she said softly.

“And they’re back here, forty years later, making trouble? Killing a young woman? Spilling syrup? What makes you think there’s any connection?”

“I just…I think there is. I had a dream. More than one. Allison was in them. Allison Casey,” she prompted, as he stared at her.

“Allison Casey, the murder victim and?—”

“And former resident of the hardware store. Yes. I know how it sounds. But I think she’s telling me whatever is happening now is connected to what happened back then.”

He let out a soft groan. “We can’t exactly take that theory to the police.”

“I don’t want to take it to the police.” Her gaze clung to his, so trusting that it hurt his heart. “You’re the only one I trust with it.”

But she shouldn’t trust him. He couldn’t let her. Once she found out more about what had happened in Bethel, she’d be so disappointed.

He cleared his throat. “How about I keep ahold of all this and do a more in-depth read. I like to be thorough. I’ll tell you if I find anything helpful.”

She immediately got to her feet, as if he’d dropped a hint that she should go. He didn’t want her to go. He wanted her to stay longer, come closer, kiss him the way she had before. “Lila?—”

“I should go.”

But she didn’t. She stood hesitating before him, as if balanced on the edge of a wish, or a warning.

The moment ended and she padded toward the door in her stocking feet to put on her boots. After she’d gone, disappearing with a light wave and a flash of purple leggings, he stared at the papers on his table with eyes that saw nothing.

Some obstacle—maybe more than one—stood between them. Was it her or him, or both?

Was it his past? He could simply tell her about Bethel. Why was he so sure she’d judge him for it? Knowing Lila, she’d be entirely sympathetic. Maybe he should try trusting her . But it wasn’t his habit. Keeping things to himself, that was his comfort zone. The silent watchful giant, that was him. Once you started shaking things up, anything could happen. He couldn’t risk that.