Tag: fire and ice

Family politics, Newenham style.

    “Why are you telling me all this, Ms. Choknok?  I had heard–“  He hesitated. She stood up and brushed off the seat of her pants.  “You had heard that Kelly McCormick was my blue ticket out of Newenham.” “Well, yes.” She offered him a chilly smile.  “He was.  My parents are so scared…

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Justice in Newenham.

“Where was the trial?” Her smile was approving.  “Right here in Newenham.” “Acquittal,” he said. “You got it.  Just like last six cases where anyone could be bothered to bring charges.  Probably one out of every two jurors from a panel generated from this judicial district is thinking to himself, There but for the grace…

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It’s complicated.

“They busted me down to trooper,” he said.  “Just before they transferred me here.” She said slowly, “That’s what you meant yesterday, when Corcoran called you sergeant, and you said no, just trooper.” “Yes.” “What happened, Liam?” He shook his head.  “Doesn’t matter.  Buck stopped on my desk.  Barton was right to do it.”  He…

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Introducing the crime.

  Liam rifled through the various statements he’d taken at the airport the day before.  Nobody saw nobody doing nothing, he reflected sadly.  At a conservative estimate, culled from Gruber’s statement, at the time of Bill DeCreft’s death there had been at least ten small planes in the act of landing or taking off, one…

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Introducing Moses.

The Old Fart was a foot shorter than the trooper, which he rectified by hoisting himself up on a stool. He turned to Liam and stuck out a hand. “Moses Alakuyak, shaman.” His beer and Liam’s single malt arrived. Moses held out his bottle of beer and Liam clinked his glass against it. “To women,”…

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Introducing Bill.

It hadn’t taken them long, once they got him inside; the man who had been separated from the rifle was seated in a chair and immobilized with enough bright yellow polypropylene line to restrain King Kong. He was maybe thirty years old, five-eight, thickset, with matted brown hair and terrified brown eyes that stared at…

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A stranger comes to town.

…he went in the door of the bar, from which he promptly came staggering out backward, falling down the stairs and and landing with a thump on the pavement, fanny-first. “What the hell?” He looked up just in time to see a tangle of bodies roll down the steps and right over the top of…

Read more A stranger comes to town.