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Molly didn’t get a chance to find out, because at that point Sam reappeared, followed a moment later by Luke, and they all proceeded to eat the stew, which turned out to contain moose meat.
The rest of the conversation was about how the clan had fared over the winter, the new baby just born to one of the Chilkoot cousins, and—Molly’s ears perked up—the avalanche.
“Unusual so late in the season,” Sam commented.
“Not really. The weather warms up and things start moving. Sometimes they move in the wrong direction.”
“Still, I was surprised when I heard the location, on the road to the Ice Falls. That area isn’t generally prone to avalanches.”
“It’s the mountains. They happen,” Luke said brusquely.
Molly jumped in. “I never imagined that within a week of me getting here, there would be such a tragic accident,” she said. “Daniel was one of the first people I met here. He seemed like a nice guy, very friendly.”
Naomi clucked her tongue. “Everyone who lives in a place like this knows the risks.
“I suppose a plow truck driver must know the risks better than most.” When no one reacted, she went on. “I’ve been told that he rescued a few people who got trapped inside their houses by the snow. I’d never thought of a plow truck driver as a hero, but I can see how in a place like this, he must have had one of the most important jobs there is.”
Luke’s jaw ticked and a slow wave of red crept up his neck. “Daniel was no hero. Like a lot of folks, we have a plow attachment on our truck, we take care of our own selves.”
“That’s smart. I guess not everyone has that, though, or Daniel wouldn’t have had a job.”
Someone nudged her leg under the table. She glanced at Sam and saw his eyebrows coming together in a warning frown. For some reason, he didn’t want her pursuing this line of questioning.
Line of questioning? She wasn’t in a courtroom, she reminded herself. This was supposed to be a social event, a nice dinner with some rather odd locals apparently obsessed with red hair.
Sam shifted the conversation to the borough’s plans to open a clinic in Firelight Ridge this summer. No surprise, the Chilkoots weren’t in favor of it. They had their own homegrown remedies and believed the clinic would simply encourage the townspeople to rely on others for their medical needs instead of being self-sufficient.
Molly held her tongue for the rest of dinner, smiling and nodding and asking a few polite, uncontroversial questions at appropriate moments. Do your hens lay eggs all year round, what games keep the kids occupied in the winter, that sort of thing. But the whole time, her wheels were turning.
When they got back in the truck, Buttercup whimpered at them and pawed the back of the driver’s seat. “I’m going to let him out to pee,” said Sam.
He did something to Buttercup’s collar—Molly couldn’t quite see—then opened the back door for him. Following Sam’s signal, Buttercup trotted a short distance away from the truck, sniffed around, then did his business. With his nose to the ground, he loped around the clearing, making a few more pee stops, until Sam whistled for him to come back to the truck.
After a wave at whoever might be watching from the longhouse, Sam opened the door for Buttercup’s graceful leap onto the backseat. The dog stretched out on the seat and let out a snuffling breath of contentment.
Molly waited until they were well out of sight of the Chilkoot property before she turned on Sam. “What was that all about?”
“Just a little local color. Too much for the girl from New York?”
“Oh no, don’t you even go there. It wasn’t ‘too much.’ It was weird as hell and you had some kind of hidden agenda. You don’t like Luke Chilkoot one bit. I could tell. Why did you want to come out here?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders as they bounced along the same icy ruts as before. Buttercup sat on his haunches on the backseat, looking out the window as if hoping a rabbit would appear in the snow.
“It’s good for business. I like to stay on good terms with all my neighbors.”
“That’s bullshit. What were we really doing there?”
“Apparently we were impressing Naomi with your magnificent red hair. It really is stunning, you know. Have I mentioned that?”
She swatted him on the arm, outraged that he would try to use flattery to distract her. “Don’t even try. If you’re going to use me as your entrée into the Chilkoots, the least you could do is tell me why.”
Finally he looked over at her, rueful respect in his dark blue eyes. “You figured that out, huh?”
“And why didn’t you want to talk about Daniel? Do you think they were involved in his death?”
“Do I think they triggered an avalanche to knock off the town’s only plow truck driver? Of course not.”
When he put it that way, it sounded absurd.
