by Karen Harper
She saw Mary was slanting her a sideways look in the sudden silence between them.
“I meant to ask you about your bear claw necklace.” Alex said. “It was so unique I wanted to see it again.”
“Broke. I have to restring it. It’s very dear to me. My mother’s taking it away to restring it is what saved her from the flood.” She minced the apple ever finer, then scooped up the nearly crushed pieces with her fingers. When she noticed Alex watching, she shrugged.
“My jaw hurts a bit if I chew something big. Besides, I like to think I am cutting it up for my baby—ha. Like he eats it direct instead of through my blood.”
“Do you think you will have a boy?”
“I don’t know, but he—or she—does not like me joking about him. My stomach is starting to feel funny again. I will go home and lie down. Tell Sam if you see him.”
“Yes, I will,” Alex promised before she realized that the last time she played messenger for Sam and Mary she had stumbled on Val’s body. “Here,” she said as Mary stood, “let me just walk to your door with you.”
Mary shrugged, which meant either, Thanks but you don’t have to do that or I wish you wouldn’t. But since Alex was going to be staying for a little while at the compound, she wanted to know what and where all the buildings were. She intended to volunteer to help with Quinn’s team here, and she had to know the lay of the land in more ways than one.
They walked outside toward an even smaller house in the back corner of the property. The meeting area with the food hall was the only large building here.
“We will add on a room soon,” Mary said.
“That will be great. Before the snow, I would think.”
Alex decided she would not go in with her, even if asked. As they approached the house, she noticed a massive rack of caribou antlers over the front door.
“Those antlers are amazing!” Alex whispered.
“They’re special to Sam because Trapper Jake, who taught him and Quinn so much, had them over his fireplace at his cabin in the woods. It’s no longer there—the cabin. But many places we no longer have are still in our hearts. Like the cabin where I spent so many happy times with my grandmother after my own mother died.”
“I can surely understand that. You were blessed to know her. I—I lost someone I keep close to my heart too.”
Mary heaved a sigh that either meant she was tired of talking or was just plain tired. Alex touched the woman’s elbow when she seemed to waver. She did not pull back, but a frown crunched her face as she went on.
“I wish for no one’s death. But Val was bad for Ryker, bad for our work here. I just hope Ryker stays, doesn’t get discouraged or—or arrested.”
“But he seemed to care for her, despite her temperament at times.”
She nodded. “More fool he, but we all make mistakes we regret.”
So did Mary mean that Ryker himself might have killed Val? Or worse, maybe Mary had wanted Val gone to protect Ryker. If so, did Mary now see her, another outsider, as a threat? Was she in danger, distracting the man who was the face and brains behind the classes and TV program—Sam and Mary’s income and future?
No, she was letting her imagination run wild, but what about those claw marks outside her bedroom? Was it a warning or a threat?
“I’m going to lie down now,” she told Alex, shrugging off her touch.
She was relieved Mary did not ask her in. She watched the woman disappear and hurried back toward Quinn’s house, glancing more than once over her shoulder and into the trees.
* * *
Alex was tempted to join Quinn and his students in the dining hall, but with Spenser curled up beside her, she fell asleep, fully dressed and exhausted, on his bed, dreaming of swimming in Falls Lake, looking for drowned people with bloody scratches on them, people she didn’t know, people she was afraid of, people...
Oh, but someone was swimming with her, coming right behind. Thank heavens it wasn’t Mary, but Allie with her hair streaming out behind in the water, or was that the wind? Alex reached back for her sister’s hand, trying to pull her closer, closer, and save her...but then she disappeared into the floating houses and bodies...
She jolted awake as Spenser gave a single, little yip. Someone had knocked on the bedroom door. Oh, right, she was in Quinn’s room, on his bed.
“Quinn?” she called out, swinging her legs over the side and getting up. “You can come in.”
He opened the door halfway and poked his head around it. “Looks good. I’d like to get some sleep, too. It’s finally dark and may be a long night. Troopers Kurtz and Hanson are still here. They’ve talked to everyone to explain basically what happened, and I promised our students it will be business as usual tomorrow.”
Alex lifted Spenser down, who ran to Quinn to be picked up. At least she could totally trust Quinn—Spenser said so.
She shoved her feet in her low-cut boots and raked her hair back with her fingers. She hadn’t noticed before, but there was not a good mirror in here, only a small one on the pine dresser. Well, she was hardly staying at the Sheraton or planning to go out on the town.
“If you need the bathroom, I hope you’ve seen it’s right across the hall,” he said. “I brought you a plate of sloppy joes and some salad and cake from the dining hall. Josh fixed it for you. I’ll wait in the kitchen until you’re ready. I’ll fill you in on what’s happening,” he said, and moved away.
What’s happening, she thought to herself, is that, despite the horror and chaos, she was falling for Quinn Mantell. Spenser was, too, and that little guy was the best barometer she knew for trusting people. It scared her that she could tell Quinn had something important to tell her, but he was waiting.
She hurried into the bathroom. A toilet and washbasin, a shower and tub, too, but obviously, she thought as she washed her hands, no hot water. At least water ran and the toilet flushed. That’s right, Suze had said something about how they boiled water for washing over here. So Quinn took cold showers? Maybe that was a good thing, if he was feeling even a little bit toward her as she did him.
She joined him in the now-familiar small kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar again. Spenser was on Quinn’s lap eating a piece of cheese as if that were the most natural thing in the world. She saw no sign of Mary’s knife or the apple and cookie crumb mess she’d left. And yes, there was a tray of food waiting for her, covered with tin foil. Oh, Quinn had the same, so he meant to dine with her. Dine—that was a good one around here. And yet this place seemed “so him” that she liked it, was intrigued by it all.
“The troopers are staying at the lodge tonight,” he said, “but they’re still on-site and plan to join us here soon before they leave. They’ve permitted Brent Bayer to tag along for now, since he’s convinced them he’s my lawyer. But I told Brent he doesn’t have to stay, so he’s still leaving tomorrow.
“The two extra troopers are going to take shifts and bunk in the dining hall tonight,” he went on. “They’ll be in charge here tomorrow when Kurtz and Hanson go back to Anchorage to report in on their investigation so far and Brent leaves. But, I’m afraid, more media are expected.
“I poured us some ginger ale instead of beer, which is the drink of choice tonight over in the dining hall,” he added, gesturing to the glasses next to the trays as if she hadn’t noticed the big tumblers with ice cubes. He handed her her glass, clinked it with his, and each took a swallow, staring briefly at each other over the rims.
“But let me bring you up to speed on the rest before we eat,” he said. “I can rewarm this stuff in the microwave if it gets cold. See, I have some of the modern world in here—including you, right now.”
He gave her a taut smile. Still holding his steady gaze, she nodded as he went on. “I’m glad you weren’t in the dining hall this evening because a lot of people asked what Val’s body looked like, and they would have driven you nu
ts with questions. Your keeping a low profile is best right now—but for the troopers, who may have more questions, of course. Trooper Kurtz told me they are rushing the autopsy results in Anchorage, though some of the toxicology tests take time.”
“Do they believe you it wasn’t a bear?”
“I’m not sure, but I have some cred with them. Alex, just like what was found outside your window, I’d know. Hate to bring this up before we eat, but I know what a bear mauling looks like. The back of Val’s neck, maybe her entire neck, would be bitten through with lots of blood from the carotid artery. Those throat and chest scratches are deep enough to make her bleed but not to bleed out. I’ll bet if we’d turned her over, we would have seen a blow or blood on the back of her head or maybe neck.”
“Which maybe means whoever killed her—if he or she were from this area—might know, too, that her body should have looked different if it was a bear. By that, I mean, her killer might not be local.”
“Good point. I thought at first it had to be someone from around here, and that’s tearing me up. I know—and I think the troopers have figured it out, too—that Val was not liked around here, by my staff, by me. I tried to tell them who knows who she offended or even attracted in town.”
“Ryker might not know about a bear biting the neck in a fatal attack, if someone needed to stage that. He kept going in and out from your students’ area, darting off here and there to film. Did the troopers ask for his film footage—whatever you’d call it?”
“It’s all video these days. No, not until he’d gone back to the lodge with his camera, but he let them see what he had—or says he did. The final editing goes on in New York, but I’ve seen him delete sections on his own. Our lawyer visitor challenged the troopers on taking the show’s video, as if he were representing me and my staff, which wasn’t the case and had not been decided. I know he’s trying to help—he called Geoff to explain what happened—but I don’t think anyone here needs a lawyer. Frankly, I’m glad he’s leaving tomorrow and told him not to change his mind about that.
“Here, let me warm up this food, and we’ll eat before we’re questioned again,” he said, suddenly looking very upset when he’d seemed stoic before.
He removed the tin foil from the trays. “I’ll just put these sandwiches in,” he said, sliding them with a fork onto a plastic plate, then moving them to the microwave. “I’ll bet you’re hungry, so sorry I held up a while. Dig in.”
He came back quickly. She ate a few bites of the fruit salad with apples and oranges among other things.
“Oh, no,” she told him, “I forgot to tell Sam that Mary didn’t feel good again and went back to their house to lie down. I walked her to her door.”
Like a kid—she’d seen Chip do this—he took a big bite of his cake before touching his salad as the microwave buzzer went off. “Sam went to check on her when she didn’t come back,” he said. “He said she was sleeping, which is good because she’s had worse insomnia lately, wanders around the house, even sits outside until he wakes up and makes her go back to bed. Probably nervous about the baby after all this time they were hoping for a family.”
He got up to open the microwave and bring their sandwiches back.
“Mary and I sat right here earlier and had apples, cookies and milk,” she told him. “She did not want to talk about her bear claw necklace when I mentioned it. She said she broke it, and it had to be restrung.”
Quinn stopped his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Meaning what? What are you thinking?”
“Quinn, I’ve never been pregnant, but I know women can sleep more when they are, and you just said her insomnia’s worse. I know people didn’t like Val—I think even Ryker didn’t at times—but Mary wanted Val gone. She was in the vicinity and—”
“And so were Josh, Sam, Ryker—even you. Even Brent Bayer. Mary’s a haunted woman, I’ll admit that. But Sam loves her, she’s loyal to our project and she would not kill anyone. Alex, don’t suggest any of this circumstantial stuff to the troopers, but let them work this—this homicide, okay?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll only answer questions if they are put to me. Nothing leading. I’m sure they’ll talk to her, too.”
“First thing tomorrow, to her and Sam. They’ve already grilled Ryker.”
“Any hint of what he said?”
“I’ve advised the troopers before on a couple of search and rescues, working with a friend of mine who is full-time SAR, but I’m sure as hell not advising the authorities on this beyond saying—sadly so, because it would solve all this if it was an animal—that a bear did not kill and maul Valerie Chambers. Now, let’s try to eat. We’re going to need our strength for what’s yet to come.”
“Nothing else dire, I hope,” she said, and took a bite of the sloppy joe.
“Not between you and me at least,” he told her with his mouth half-full and a drop of red tomato sauce on his chin. Like an idiot, she reached out with her paper napkin to wipe it off.
Their eyes met and held again. She had the strangest and best feeling he was going to put his sandwich down to reach for her.
“Just did that since your mother’s miles away,” she told him, and took another bite.
The tenuous moment didn’t pass but hung between them. Despite living at the edge of a forest frontier, despite a murder investigation going full swing—despite her own sanity to keep in control here—she felt suddenly safe from everything but her feelings for this man.
21
Alex had been hoping that Quinn could stay with her when she was questioned again by the state troopers. But sitting in the privacy of Quinn’s office, it was just her and Trooper Kurtz. He tossed his brimmed hat on the desk, so at least she could see his face and eyes better.
“I’m especially interested in Valerie Chambers’s comments and actions when you spent time with her the day she died.” He glanced down at his notebook. “That would be both when she visited the lodge gift shop and in your car on the way to the tracking and survival camp.”
She wanted to be careful what she said. People could testify that she disappeared for a while—in the area of the murder—when she went to find Mary for Sam. No doubt law enforcement didn’t rule anyone out until they had to.
Kurtz had rolled Quinn’s chair out from behind the desk and had her pinned in where she sat on the couch. She gripped her hands together, then loosened her fingers as she did not want to seem overly nervous.
Before she could begin, he added, “I realize you have been through other tough times—trauma—than this, Alex. Quinn made the point that your privacy should be protected since you have escaped a dangerous domestic situation. We will do what we can to protect your identity, but I can’t promise you that information won’t leak out through the media. The last time we had a bear mauling death, it made big news, even in the lower forty-eight news cycles.”
“I appreciate anything you can do. And yes, the fear of discovery—by someone from my previous situation—does worry me. But as for Val, she did seem to flaunt her love of the good life, city life, California life, so I wondered from the start why she wanted Chris Ryker, who evidently loved working in the wilds. She had dreams of taking him to LA, of his working in Hollywood movies. She didn’t read him very well.”
“And from other interviews, I take it almost everyone, especially Chris Ryker, knew she was not a fan of Alaska.”
Her eyes widened. Was that a hint that Ryker was under suspicion? Maybe Val had pushed him too far, tried to bribe or pressure him to leave and he had lost control. But if he had bear claws in his backpack—and Val had mentioned he collected such items—had he ditched them now? Could he, for some reason, have scratched the wood outside her window?
Alex cleared her throat and went on. “As to what she spoke about in that store visit, it was her love for Los Angeles, the lifestyle there. She bought some bear bells, the ones she had strung around
her neck when I found her, and talked about the fact they were cute and reminded her of the USC Bruins. You saw that bear sweatshirt she had on. How ironic, bear bells and a bear outfit, and then a bear—or, as Quinn says, someone wanting to make it look like a bear—killed her.”
“By the way, my partner, Hanson, got a search warrant so we could take a look at Ryker’s room in town where the victim was staying with him. Did she reference anything about items she or he had there?”
Alex frowned, concentrating, remembering. So much had happened. “She did say she was annoyed at how he collected local memorabilia, but I’m pretty sure those bear bells were not for him.”
“Memorabilia, such as?” he said, his pen poised again. “It will help us to know what we’re walking into.”
“She did say,” Alex told him, speaking slowly, “that his camera cost twenty-eight thousand dollars.”
Kurtz’s eyebrows lifted before he frowned as he wrote her words down. “So Ryker must have confided in her. Maybe confided too much, because he told me he wasn’t leaving ‘this gig,’ as he put it, to go to California.”
She almost blurted out that she’d heard Val and Ryker argue just before everyone went out to the forest. But she might as well have because it was as if the trooper had read her mind.
“Did you hear Chris Ryker and Valerie Chambers have a disagreement that afternoon, just before everyone went outside? Several others reported they did, and Ryker admitted that.”
“I heard them from a distance. Although they were not talking quietly, I don’t know what it was about.”
“Quinn and Brent Bayer are telling me she was fed up here and he wouldn’t leave—no breaking news there, only corroboration.” He reached back for his hat on the desk. “Both Mary and Sam Spruce brought that argument up right away—even stressed it—so I was surprised you didn’t.”
“Of course, if Ryker planned to harm her, I doubt if he would have had a public falling-out with her right before,” she said, but she was thinking that Mary and Sam seemed set on emphasizing Ryker as a suspect, even though they’d wanted to defend him earlier as part of their team. She realized she had just given an opinion again, but he nodded.
