KANE AWOKE EARLY AGAIN. THE ROOM WAS COLD, AND with no chance of coffee, the prospect of climbing out of his sleeping bag appealed to him not at all. He lay there thinking about Ruth Hunt and dozing for a while, then wriggled around until he could reach his Bible and flashlight. He turned on the light, held it in his mouth, and leafed through the Bible. He did this for several minutes before setting the book down and shutting off the flashlight. Then he climbed out of the bag, put on some long underwear and socks, and started a fire in the stove. He whistled as he did so. When the stove started throwing off heat, he went into the bathroom, where he stripped and showered, singing Van Morrison tunes in a voice that would have brought the Irish rocker to his knees in tears. When he was shaved and dressed, he loaded everything into his pickup and looked at his watch. Not quite six a.m. He locked up the cabin and drove to the community building.

The lights in the cafeteria came on as he pulled into the parking lot. A couple of men wearing white uniforms and white paper hats were putting out containers of food.

“Ruth Hunt?” Kane said.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” one of the men said, heading into the kitchen for another container.

When the men finished loading the line, Kane picked up a tray. He spooned canned peaches into a bowl. He filled a second bowl with oatmeal and sprinkled brown sugar over the top. He filled a cup with hot water, picked up a package of tea, and carried his tray to the nearest table. Then he went back for silverware and a paper napkin. He’d just taken his first bite of oatmeal when Ruth came out and sat across from him.

“You’re an early riser,” she said.

“You should talk,” he said. “You must get up before the chickens.”

“Not usually,” she said, “but my kitchen manager had to go to town for some emergency dental work. I didn’t find out until I got home last night, so it’s a good thing we weren’t any later.”

Kane felt himself starting to blush.

“Good for Rejoice,” he said, “but not so good for me.”

He ate some oatmeal.

“How do you manage to get up so early and stay up so late?” he asked.

“I take a nap in the afternoon,” she said, grinning wickedly. “Just me, all alone in a big old bed.”

The two of them sat there looking at each other. I must look like a teenager making moony eyes at his girl, Kane thought.

“I woke up early,” he said, grinning back, “so like any good resident of Rejoice, I read my Bible. And I couldn’t find a word about tea in it.”

Ruth looked at him and nodded.

“I might have known,” she said. “I’ve probably told a hundred people the same story, and nobody ever checked up on me before.”

“Once a detective, always a detective,” Kane said. “But surely Moses Wright knows the truth.”

“The truth is, I told Moses Wright that if he didn’t allow coffee, I was going to serve wine with every meal. Wine is in the Bible. So we compromised on tea.”

“Moses Wright made that decision?” Kane asked. “I thought his son was in charge in Rejoice, at least in civil matters.”

“He is now. That decision was made several years ago. Moses Wright handed the administration of Rejoice off to Thomas after Thomas’s wife died. Everyone thought he was trying to take Thomas’s mind off his troubles. Moses said he wanted to spend more time with his Bible. The administration runs much smoother now, but the change wasn’t all good. Moses’ sermons keep getting longer and longer.”

Kane laughed.

“I guess Moses Wright has his followers, though,” he said. “The older people certainly seem to be behind him, and I hear your stepson is a student of his.”

“Matthew is an intensely religious young man. He studies daily with Moses Wright and can’t say enough good things about him.”

She shrugged.

“To each his own, I guess.”

“I’d love to stay and tuck you in for your nap,” Kane said, “but I’ve got to drive to Anchorage and see to a few things.”

“What about your search for Faith?”

“My next step is to talk to her high school teachers and friends and search her locker, but I can’t do that on the weekend anyway. I should be back by the time school opens Monday. I don’t suppose there’s any way you could come with me?”

A long silence ensued. Kane ducked his head and ate. When he was finished, he sipped his tea.

“I was impetuous last night,” Ruth said finally. “I don’t regret it, but that’s not really who I am or how I handle things. So, no, I can’t accompany you.”

“I didn’t think you would, but you can’t kill a guy for trying.”

“That depends on what he’s trying, doesn’t it?”

She reached out and covered his hand with hers.

“If you’re driving to town, you’ll need a lunch. I’ll go make you one.”

He sat sipping his tea, watching the early arrivals picking up their food and chatting. For a moment he wished he were one of them. As his world became more complicated, the appeal of Rejoice’s simplicity increased. He knew he couldn’t settle here with Ruth, but maybe somewhere else. Maybe having her in his life would help him shake off prison and make sense of the rest of the world. Maybe that’s what all this religion on his mind was about, making life make more sense.

Ruth came back with a brown paper bag and set it in front of him, then sat and leaned close to him.

“I’m sorry if I’m giving you mixed signals,” she said, “but I guess it’s a reflection of my own confusion.”

Kane patted her on the shoulder and got to his feet.

“If you aren’t confused about life, you aren’t paying attention,” he said.

He picked up his tray and carried it to the counter, walking along with Ruth like they belonged together. Then he put on his coat, picked up his brown paper bag, and went out to the truck.

He drove to Thomas Wright’s cabin. No lights showed. He walked up and hammered on the door with a gloved fist. After he pounded a second time, he heard the sounds of someone rustling around inside. As he waited for the door to open, he realized that the air temperature had warmed some. Must be cloud cover, he thought.

Thomas Wright opened the door. His hair was uncombed and he was wearing an old flannel robe. His legs, clad in long underwear, stuck out of the robe and ended in big fur slippers.

“Mr. Kane,” he said, opening the door so the detective could step in. “What brings you out this early? Have you learned something about Faith?”

The inside of the cabin was cool but not cold. Kane made a show of not being able to see his breath.

“We have electric heat,” Thomas Wright said. “Rank has its privileges, I guess.”

Kane took off his coat, walked into the living room, and sat down. Wright moved in to join him.

“My cabin was searched while I was out yesterday,” Kane said. “There was no sign of forced entry, so I assume the searcher had a key. You weren’t there looking for something, were you?”

Wright looked at Kane like he’d grown an extra head.

“Why would I search your things?” he asked. “I’m the one who asked you to work for us.”

“Why people do things is often elusive,” Kane said, “even to themselves. But I didn’t really think it was you. How hard would it be for someone to get a key to that cabin?”

Thomas Wright thought for a minute.

“Not that difficult, I suppose. We lock things mainly as a means of impulse control. People, particularly young people, often have poor impulse control. But if someone really wanted to get in somewhere? The head of physical plant has a set of master keys. So does the chief of the volunteer fire department. And there are a couple of sets in the administrative offices. These keys aren’t secret, so anyone with a little bit of guile could get their hands on them.”

Kane nodded.

“I figured it would be something like that.” He took the keys to the cabin from his pocket. “I’m headed to Anchorage. When I come back, I’ll find my own lodgings. No offense, but yours are a little too public for my tastes.”

“Is the trip to Anchorage connected to your investigation?” Thomas Wright asked.

“To one of them,” Kane said.

Wright raised an eyebrow.

“I really can’t say more than that right now,” Kane said.

He got to his feet.

“I’ll be back in a day or two,” he said.

Wright walked him to the door.

“I’m sorry that Rejoice has proven so inhospitable,” he said to Kane.

“Not your fault,” the detective said. “You’re not set up for keeping an investigation private, and there’s no reason you should be.”

“And your investigation?” Wright said. “Is it going well?”

Kane shook his head.

“So far, it’s like a winter day,” he said. “Mostly darkness with a few glimmers of light. But I’m hoping for better soon.”

“We’ll say a prayer for you,” Wright said.

“Do that,” Kane said. “Can’t hurt, might help.”

When he was halfway to his truck, he stopped, turned, and retraced his steps.

“Sorry to bother you again,” he said after Wright opened his door, “but do you happen to know where Gregory Pinchon’s first wife is living these days?”

Wright thought for a moment.

“I don’t,” he said. “She left some time ago, you know. But I can try to find out.”

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” Kane said, “I’d appreciate it.”

“Can you tell me why you want to know that?” Wright asked.

“I’m not really sure,” Kane said with a smile. “It may not be important at all. But I’d still like to know.”

His drive into Anchorage was fast and uneventful. The roads had been cleared, and although the skies were overcast, no snow fell. As he drove, he sorted his CDs into those that still played and those that were trash. There were quite a few of the latter. He knew he’d have to do some shopping to replace the damaged ones. He could live without a lot of things, but not music. The damaged CDs were pretty old—most music recorded since the early ’70s left him cold—so maybe he’d be able to find replacements at a used music store.

He tried to sort out his thoughts about Faith Wright and his feelings about Ruth Hunt with less success. He didn’t have enough information about the first, and he had too much about the second. Best to stick to what he knew and take one step at a time.

Kane stopped in Palmer to get a large coffee. The temperature was easily fifty degrees warmer than it had been in Rejoice. He took his time driving into Anchorage, sipping his coffee and thinking about what he had to do next.

He pulled into a downtown parking garage just after noon. He walked to the Fifth Avenue mall and spent an hour going through the stores, buying clothes that were not blue work shirts and jeans. He drove home, unloaded his truck, stripped off his clothes, and took a long shower, making the water as hot as he could stand. Then he got dressed: T-shirt, Levi’s, athletic socks, and lightweight hiking boots. He stripped the tags off of his new clothes and took them, along with his dirty ones, downstairs to the laundry room. On his way back up, he stopped at the manager’s door to collect his mail. Aside from junk aimed at current occupant, that consisted of a fat, white envelope with an Anchorage Police Department return address. Inside were his retirement forms, all filled out, and a note from Emily Lee telling him that if he would sign them and mail them back, she’d take care of the rest. There was even a stamped return envelope. Jeffords wasn’t taking any chances.

He was hungry, so he opened the bag Ruth had given him. It contained a large tuna sandwich, a wizened winter apple, and three big homemade cookies. It also contained a handwritten note that said: “I want things to work out for us.” The note was signed with an ornate capital R.

He bit into the sandwich, then walked to the refrigerator to get something to wash it down. He passed up the soda there for a glass of water. I must be watching my weight, he thought. But why? In prison, he’d stayed in shape because he knew that he might have to defend himself at any moment. But now? Now, he guessed, he really hoped that things would work out with Ruth and, if they did, he didn’t want to be carrying around any spare tire. He hadn’t been naked in front of any woman but Laurie for a long time, and he didn’t want the sight to cause anybody to go blind. That didn’t stop him from eating the cookies, though. One bite and he didn’t stop until they were all gone.

Poor impulse control, he said, thinking about what Thomas Wright had said.

He went back down and transferred his clothes to the dryer. When he’d finished the lunch dishes, he picked up the telephone and dialed a number.

“Elder Thomas Wright, please,” he said, then waited. “Tom? It’s Nik Kane.” Pause. “That’s right, I’m in Anchorage. Any luck with the former Mrs. Pinchon?” Pause. “Not really, huh? That’s too bad.” Pause. “Well, what do you know?” Pause. “She used the name Feather, and folks think her last name was Boyette. Spell that for me, will you?” Pause. “Thanks. Anything else?” Pause. “Most people think she’s living in Fairbanks but aren’t really sure? Did you ask Pinchon?” Pause. “Yes, I can see how that might be awkward. Okay, thanks. See you.”

He put the phone down, thought for a moment, picked it back up and dialed.

“Lieutenant Littlefield, please,” he said, then waited some more. “Larry? Nik Kane.” He paused, then laughed. “Yeah, it has been a long time. Longer for some than for others, though.” Pause. “No, Larry, prison isn’t as bad as you hear. It’s worse.” Pause. “I appreciate that, Larry. Anyway, I need some information. Anything you can get by running a name for me. First name’s Feather, like ‘feather pillow.’ Last name’s Boyette: B-O-Y-E-T-T-E.” Pause. “Nope, I don’t know that she has a record here or anywhere. So this could be a complete wild-goose chase.” Pause. “Sure, ask the chief for his okay if you want. I’m on an errand for him.” Pause. “Okay, let me give you my cell number.” He rattled off the numbers. “I’m running around a lot right now, so you can leave whatever you find out on voice mail if you don’t get me.” Pause. “Yeah, I know, Larry. I’ll be in touch and we can get together. Regards to Carol.” Pause. “Oh, I hadn’t heard. Regards to Heather, then. Bye.”

Kane hung up the phone and sat thinking. Littlefield had followed him up through the ranks, been his partner on the detective squad at the time he’d been sent off to prison, and he’d never heard from the guy once. Now, on the phone, he sounded like someone talking to a bill collector. That attitude told him plenty.

“You can’t go home again, pal,” he said aloud. He took out a pen, signed the retirement forms everywhere there was an X, and sealed them in the return envelope. He might not know what he would do next, but he wasn’t returning to the police department.

Kane tried reading Montaigne but couldn’t concentrate. He forced himself to keep at it, but finally found himself reading the same paragraph for a third time. He put the book down and turned on the television. He watched part of a basketball game in which all the players could make spectacular dunks but couldn’t hit a free throw. He turned it off, looked at his watch, and went down to get his laundry out of the dryer. Back up in his apartment, he hung what needed hanging and folded what needed folding. Then he looked at his watch. Time to go do something else I don’t want to do, he thought. He consulted a telephone book and dialed a number.

“Charlie Simms’s room, please,” he said. After a wait, he said, “Nobody by that name? Thanks.” He looked in the phone book and dialed another number, again asking for Simms’s room. A pause. “He’s in ICU? What happened?” Another pause. “Yeah, I know the rules about giving out patient information. Thanks.”

He put the phone down, put on his coat, picked up the envelope, and went out. He drove to the post office and dropped the envelope in a drive-up box, then drove over to see what was up with Charlie Simms.

Providence Hospital was a big pile of building wings near the university. The place was always under construction, adding new facilities and equipment that fueled the increasing costs of health care. It’d been years since Kane had been in the place, so he had to wander around for a while before he found the intensive care unit.

Sitting outside it was Charlie Simms’s wife—what was her name?—June, a short, stout woman with graying hair and glasses. She and Laurie had been friends in a casual sort of way. Next to her sat a small, trim old guy Kane recognized as a retired cop. His name was Burke, and he’d been Charlie’s partner back in the day. Kane walked over and sat down next to him.

“Hello, Burkey,” he said. “June. How’s Charlie?”

“Not good,” Burke said. “What are you doing here, Nik? I thought you’d still be in prison, but then I heard you’re back running errands for Jeffords.”

Burke had taken an early out, Kane remembered, after getting crossways with the chief somehow. Nobody who got crossways with the chief lasted long. I’m a case in point, Kane thought.

“Nope,” he said, “I’m doing a private job. The force doesn’t want me back. You must have heard.”

“Yeah, I guess I did,” Burke said. “That’s what loyalty gets you. I told Charlie more than once that carrying Jeffords’s water would turn out to be trouble.”

“Now, Liam, that’s enough,” June Simms said. “The chief was always good to Charlie, whatever your experience might have been.”

“That’s a good thing to say,” Burke said, “in front of Jeffords’s old brownnoser.”

June gasped.

“That’s enough, Burke,” Kane said, dropping a hand onto Burke’s forearm and squeezing. “Why don’t you take a walk now, and come back when you feel like not being a jackass.”

Burke pulled his arm loose, got to his feet, and walked away.

“I don’t know why Charlie puts up with that man,” June said. “He’s so full of hate.”

“They’re old partners, June,” Kane said, “and loyalty was always important to Charlie.”

The two of them sat for a while in silence, which Kane finally broke.

“Can you tell me what happened, June?” he said. “When we put Charlie on the helicopter, he seemed to not be in any danger.”

“They don’t know exactly what happened, Nik. They had him in a room here for observation. Standard practice with head trauma, they said. I was sitting next to his bed and we were talking—Charlie was actually talking about retiring, if you can believe it—when he suddenly stopped making sense. I rang for the nurse and by the time she arrived he was in convulsions.”

Her voice had been filling with tears as she spoke, and when she got to this point she broke down. Kane took a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her and waited for her to regain her composure.

“They took him right into surgery,” she said, “and he was on the table for four hours. The surgeon came out and told me, he told me . . .”

She started crying again, then shook her head angrily.

“This is no way for an old cop’s wife to be behaving,” she said. “Charlie would be embarrassed.”

She shook her head again, dried her eyes, blew her nose, took a deep breath, and continued.

“Anyway, the surgeon said he’d been bleeding in his brain and then something burst. He told me what it was, but I don’t remember. They’ve got him heavily sedated now to help him recover. They’re not sure what shape his brain is in, and they can’t make any tests until they take him off the sedatives. So all I can do is sit here and wait.”

“Are you okay?” Kane asked. “Do you need anything done? Do you have family coming?”

June Simms smiled, just a slip of a smile that changed quickly into quivering lips. She took another deep breath.

“I’m as good as I can be under the circumstances. Our daughter is flying up from Arizona to sit with me. She’ll be here tomorrow. And Liam Burke has been very nice.”

“I’ll tell them what happened over at APD,” Kane said. “I’m sure they’d want to help.”

“Thank you,” June said.

They quit talking again, and Kane sat listening to the sounds of the hospital: the bong of bells, muted announcements, the voices of hospital personnel as they passed.

“I should be in there with him,” June said. “They said I could sit in there. But I just needed a break from seeing him like that.”

Kane didn’t say anything. After a few minutes, she began again.

“Our marriage wasn’t always smooth, you know. Charlie had an eye for the ladies and liked to take a drink. He was a real handful when we were younger. But things have smoothed out now. He cut back on his drinking—doctor’s orders—and I told him that the next time he went out alleycatting would be his last, that I’d leave him. He could tell I meant it, I guess. Besides, how many women can a man who’s more than sixty need? I was looking forward to the rest of our lives together. He was going to work this job another couple of years, then retire. We were going to move to Arizona to be near our daughter. Now, I don’t know if we’ll have any future together at all.”

Kane couldn’t think of a thing to say to that. He put his hand over hers, and the two of them sat quietly. Finally, he stirred.

“I should go let the police department know,” he said. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do for you?”

June shook her head. Kane got to his feet.

“Wait,” she said. “I can’t see you for the first time in so long and talk only about my troubles. How is Laurie?”

“She’s fine,” Kane said.

“And how are the two of you doing back together?” she asked.

“Aw, June,” Kane said with a wistful smile, “now we’d just be talking about my troubles.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

Down the hallway, Burke, who had been leaning against a wall, straightened up and started walking toward them.

“June,” Kane said, “when Charlie stopped making sense, did he say anything at all that you could understand?”

“Not really,” she said. “He said something about pictures, I think, about getting some pictures back. When I asked him what pictures he was talking about, he sat straight up in bed, looked at me, and shouted, ‘No!’ That’s when I hit the call button and started yelling for a nurse.”

“Thanks. You can be sure we’ll catch whoever did this.”

“I appreciate that, Nik, but what good is that going to do me? If Charlie never comes back, I’m going to have to grow old alone. Catching whoever did this won’t change that.”

She began to cry again. Burke sat down next to her, put his arm around her shoulders and gave Kane a dirty look. Kane turned and walked away.

The hospital reminded him of prison in some ways. Maybe it was the smell or the metallic taste of the air, or that the rooms were never really warm or cold. Maybe it was the lighting or the garbled intercom announcements. Whatever it is, he thought, I guess all big institutions have things in common. And that proves?

Kane didn’t know what that proved. Or much of anything else for that matter. He supposed all it proved was that he’d been a prisoner for a long time and, in some ways, was still a prisoner.

With that, he found an exit sign, followed the arrows, and escaped into the clean, cold evening air.