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guys talk to the girlfriend already?” Active asked when they were back in the Suburban.
    Silver shook his head. “Just Dolly. Queenie’s virgin territory, so to speak.”

    THEY FOUND Queenie Buckland stocking the Pepsi machine at the Lions Club bingo hall in preparation for that night’s game. She was tall, fat, and broad-shouldered, like a linebacker with breasts. A heavy jaw gave her face a certain menacing gravity, redeemed only by laughing eyes. She wore sneakers, jeans, and a T-shirt that said IF YOU LIKE MY HEADLIGHTS YOU’LL LOVE MY BUMPER. Like Maiyumerak, she had a tooth missing in front, and Active found himself wondering how it affected their kissing.
    When they asked if she had seen her boyfriend the day before, her answer matched Dolly Maiyumerak’s account: Calvin had shown up around six with a sheefish and she cooked it for dinner.
    “How long did he stay?” Active asked.
    Queenie popped a Pepsi and took a swallow. “Let’s see, seem like we watch that Millionaire program, then we you-know couple hours, then he go home around midnight, maybe one o’clock.”
    “You-know?” Active asked.
    “Uh-huh.” She lifted her eyebrows and smiled a big smile that showed them the gap where her tooth had been. “You know. Quiyuk .”
    “A couple of hours of quiyuk ,” Silver said when they got to the Suburban. “You wouldn’t think it, the scrawny little shit.”
    Active grunted. “You believe her?”
    “About the two hours?”
    “About the rest of it.”
    Silver shrugged. “She could be lying for him. Just like Dolly could.”
    Active turned it over in his mind, thinking of Victor Solomon dead on the ice, of Calvin Maiyumerak’s rusty snowmachine and ramshackle dogsled, and the one-room home of Dolly Maiyumerak. “What’s the deal with Dolly and Calvin anyway? Why do they live like that? Where are his parents?”
    “They live out in Ebrulik. I guess when Dolly got too old to take care of herself, Calvin’s dad, Dolly’s son, sent him down here to live with her. Apparently Calvin’s mother can’t stand the old lady so she couldn’t move up to Ebrulik. You know how it is with mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.”
    “I’ve heard.”
    “But Calvin’s basically feral,” Silver said. “He likes to live the old way as much as he can, won’t take a regular job. Except for this business about Inupiat sovereignty, I don’t think he has much idea what goes on in the outside world. He traps in the winter and commercial fishes in the summer. Dolly gets some social security and some welfare and sews the mittens and ruffs from whatever it is he catches, and they get by. Somehow.”
    Active started the Suburban and headed for the Public Safety Building. “If you could call it that.”
    Silver nodded. “Tough life. They’re tough people, I guess.”
    “Tough enough to kill Victor Solomon?”
    Silver was silent, thinking it over. “Yeah, I believe so. I think Calvin just plain hated old Victor. And, you know, there’s the talk about him killing dogs with his bare hands.” Silver shook his head.
    “Victor used to call him anaq , huh?” Anaq was included in Active’s limited but growing vocabulary of Inupiaq words. It meant shit. “To his face?”
    Silver nodded. “And in public. Like when Victor had us throw Calvin out of that tribal council meeting. ‘Haul away this piece of anaq before I throw it in a honey bucket’ is what Victor said when we showed up.”
    “Well, that’s pure Eskimo.”
    Silver nodded. “Plus, Calvin probably figured Victor would go out and find Uncle Frosty on the tundra and bring him back and then work out some way to get Calvin thrown in jail for the burglary. He had to know it wouldn’t end as long as Victor was alive.”
    Active thought it over as the Suburban rolled smoothly up Third Street, the only paved road in Chukchi. “I have to find Calvin,” he said finally.
    “Yeah,” Silver said. “I guess you do.”

    “SO, THAT’S about it,” Active