ACTIVE TUCKED THE card into his shirt pocket. “But what the hell was it about?”
“You heard what I heard. She wants you to guard her body.”
“Because one of your Troopers looked at her butt? Seriously, her butt?”
“She thinks every man looks at her butt,” Carnaby said. “Which most of them do, probably. Also, don’t forget, she told that TV reporter she doesn’t like people judging her by her chest size. So, don’t get in front of her or behind her, and you’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“And I definitely wouldn’t use that word around her.”
“Jesus,” Active said. “She’s even crazier than people say.”
Carnaby’s eyes twinkled. “I hear she can see the White House from her house. You’d think we would have learned our lesson from the last woman governor we elected. But, no, we had to do it again.”
“I mean, I heard the Juneau guys talk about her when I worked for you, but—”
“That’s our governor,” Carnaby said. “A woman of iron whim. Not for nothing is she known as Helen Wheels even to this day.”
“I’m doomed. I ride around for two days with her in Cowboy’s Cessna, she’s gonna think I’m looking at her butt or her boo—er, ah, chest, for sure.”
“Actually,” Carnaby said, “you want my theory? It may not be the butt-checking at all. Maybe what it is, she does get any news coverage while she’s out here in the Bush, she wants to make sure there’s a Native face in the picture, so as to broaden her appeal in this multicultural society of ours. Mad she may be, but there’s usually some method in it.”
“Her husband’s half Inupiaq,” Active said. “Why does she need me?”
“The lady demographic maybe? You do wear a uniform and a Glock, and I don’t have to tell you what that does to some women.” Carnaby grinned. “But seriously. I didn’t know this guy she just fired very well, but I’m told he was in all fairness somewhat lacking in emotional intelligence—an area where you excel, I might point out.”
Active studied the trooper captain in the spring sun flooding through the third-floor windows. The Super Trooper, as he had been known when Active was at the public safety academy in Sitka, was six-two, square-jawed, and still looked fit at age sixty or so. But there was a hint of jowl under the jaw these days, a little gravel in the voice, a little more salt than pepper in the hair and mustache. The bifocals that had appeared a year earlier were pushed up on his forehead.
When Carnaby had first arrived in Chukchi, as Active understood it, he had a family in Anchorage and plans to return to it in a couple of years. But here he still was, with a live-in girlfriend, a boat, and a plane, and no word lately of the Anchorage family. And now he was retiring, what with the Chukchi Borough taking on the police powers once wielded by the Troopers. So far, he showed every sign of staying on in Chukchi. Maybe he had missed too many planes, as the saying went, to go home again.
Carnaby cocked an ear. “We got company?”
There was a rustle outside, then a tap.
Active grimaced. “Come in, Lucy.”
The door swung open to admit Lucy Brophy, onetime dispatcher and office manager for the Chukchi police department, now office manager for the new borough public safety department. A blue folder rested on her prominent belly. “I wasn’t listening when the governor was here,” she said.
“Of course not,” Active said. “The thought never crossed our minds.”
“Not for one moment,” Carnaby said.
“Arii, I wasn’t. She’s sure pretty, ah?” Lucy said it with what struck Active as studied casualness. He didn’t respond. “I read she’s a size six. I wish I was a size six.” She laid the folder on Active’s blotter. “Maybe I’ll go on Amazon and order some Naughty Monkeys, too. You have to sign the paychecks.”
“I do?”
“Sure, it comes with your new job. Finance sent them over.” She snuffled a little as she said it, and felt around in the pockets of her sweater.
“You got a cold?” Active said
“No, it’s just my allergies.”
He handed her his handkerchief. She looked at it, then at him.
“Don’t worry, it’s clean.”
“Arii, I know.” She took it and dabbed her eyes, then blew her nose.
Active opened the folder and looked at the top of the stack. “I sign my own paycheck? Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?”
“Not if it’s under fifteen thousand. Then the mayor has to sign it.”
Active signed checks. Lucy looked at Carnaby. “Is Nathan going to Anchorage?”
“I thought you weren’t listening,” Carnaby said.
“I heard on accident,” Lucy said.
“He’s not going anywhere any time soon,” Carnaby said. “You heard wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “I have really sharp ears.”
Active handed her the folder. She offered him the handkerchief, which he declined.
She left and closed the door behind her. Carnaby looked at Active, then at the door, and raised his eyebrows.
“Thank you, Lucy,” Active said in his command voice. “That’ll be all.”
They heard a bustle outside, then footsteps receded down the hall.
Carnaby chuckled. “Interesting life you lead, Chief Active. Your ex-girlfriend is your office manager?”
“She came with the package,” Active said. “It’s fine. She’s a blissfully happy married woman now.”
“And pregnant again,” Carnaby said. “How far along? And how many is this?”
Active scratched his temple. “Six or seven months, and number two.”
“And suffering from allergies, it seems. But in April? With everything still frozen solid? When did that start?”
“How would I know?”
“Maybe it started right outside the door when she heard you might go to Anchorage to run the Troopers.”
“And maybe it’s none of your business. Like I said, married, blissfully happy, number two on the way.”
“And what are these Naughty Monkeys she wants?”
“That’s it!” Active snapped his fingers. “The boots the governor was wearing.”
“Mm-hmm. Well, you and Lucy have fun with your shiny new cop shop. Where were we, now? Oh, yes, your flight-seeing expedition with the governor.”
“Oh, God.”
“Assuming you can resist the temptation to induct her into the Mile-High Club in the back of Cowboy’s Cessna, there may be a way out of this.”
“What way?”
“If history is any guide, a few days in your company will be enough for our governor to get quite enough of you. She’ll move on to something else. Or someone.”
“How is it a way out if she ends up hating me? The state money for my department could go up in a puff of smoke. Like that bodyguard.”
Carnaby tented his fingers and beamed over them at Active, who groaned. “It’s all a matter of calibration, Nathan. Turn that emotional intelligence of yours up to ‘stun’ and make sure you’re just cooperative enough while you’re with her, but not more so. Gracious but reserved, if you will.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’ll figure it out.” Carnaby leaned forward, grinned, and touched his forearm just like the governor had done. “If not, you do have her cell number.”
Active slapped away Carnaby’s hand. “Maybe I could be sick tomorrow and send Alan Long.”
Carnaby’s eyebrows shot up. “That nitwit? After what she said about him?”
“He’s not a nitwit,” Active said. “You just—”
“You just have to watch him,” Carnaby said. “I know. We’ve all had guys like that. In fact, I once supervised a young trooper who jumped out of Cowboy Decker’s Super Cub in mid-air. Without a parachute.”
“It was not mid-air and I did not jump,” Active said. “Cowboy was hovering in a high wind and I stepped out onto a snow bank.”
“And dislocated your shoulder.”
Carnaby waved a hand in dismissal. “The point is, the governor likes you. Play it right and you’ll be fine.”
He flipped open the folder and ran his finger down the schedule for the week. “See, she got in yesterday to drop the starting flag for the race and she and her kids are staying at their place here in town tonight. Like she said, the race leaders will overnight in Isignaq tomorrow, Saturday, and finish here in Chukchi the next day. She’ll park her daughters with her parents while you and Cowboy will fly her and the videographer, who happens to be her son, out to watch Brad mush into Isignaq. Then, while he looks to his dogs and sets up camp for the night, the governor stays with the family of the Episcopal minister there in Isignaq. The next day, Sunday, she barnstorms a couple of the upriver villages for muktuk eating and Eskimo dancing and such, then Cowboy does a 180 and whisks her back to Chukchi in time to cheer Brad on as he leads the pack down Beach Street, after which they spend the evening celebrating his victory in a manner not appropriate for minions like ourselves to speculate upon, however tempting the prospect might be. The evening of the next day, Monday, is the mushers’ banquet, where she passes out the trophies, and the morning after that she jets off to Juneau, restoring peace and tranquility to our little hamlet on the tundra.”
He passed over the folder. “Until next time.”