Deep in the Alaskan Woods

by Karen Harper

  “Yeah. Okay. Not my job, though.”

  She left her backpack in the kitchen and hurried out. To her relief, when she ran around the corner of Quinn’s house, she saw that he was talking to Trooper Kurtz outside the front door. The trooper had a roll of plastic police tape in his hands. So perhaps he’d been closing off other areas for the forensic team, which was due soon.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she told them. “Just wanted to tell Quinn everyone’s ready.”

  His forehead crunched in a frown, Quinn told her, “Mary’s necklace is missing from where I put it less than an hour ago.”

  Alex stopped a few feet from them and sucked in a sharp breath. “Well, maybe she—they—had second thoughts. Had you told them where you would put it?”

  He nodded. “I should have locked it in the safe, but I knew I’d be giving it to Trooper Kurtz almost immediately. I had called them on Sam’s phone to explain why I’d like to have the necklace for a few days, then went over to their house to get it, brought it back—went to the dining hall, came back to give it to the trooper for safekeeping... Gone!”

  “You’d said earlier you might give it to the forensic team,” she said.

  “They weren’t here yet and Trooper Kurtz was. And now Sam and Mary have left for Anchorage.”

  Alex nodded and reached out to touch his arm. He had folded them over his chest as if he was trying to hold himself up. He looked even more distraught than he had last night. Mary was dear to him, Sam like a brother.

  Surely he hadn’t feared Mary’s old claws would match the horrible marks on Val that he made it look like someone took the necklace. Or could Sam have done that?

  Trooper Kurtz put in, “The forensic team should be here soon. Instead of heading back to Anchorage with Trooper Henson, I’ll stay to meet them, brief them. I’ll have them check your desk area and that drawer for fingerprints or DNA, not just the scene of the murder. I suppose I could even have them eliminate your prints, but we’d have to have Sam, Mary and others here—” he said, glancing at Alex “—give their prints.”

  “I’d appreciate that—if everyone cooperates,” Quinn said.

  “I’ll brief Hanson right now, get my stuff out of the cruiser and let him get going with Mr. Ryker.”

  Quinn had to unlock the door for her to go inside to check on Spenser. She saw several strands of crime scene tape had been put over the closed office door. It reminded her of a spider’s web, and this was. She hugged and petted Spenser, then rushed back out. Quinn locked the door behind them, and they headed toward the dining hall.

  “I do have an idea,” she told him. “Not about the murder investigation or the missing necklace, but—”

  “If Sam and Mary didn’t take that necklace, she’ll really go off the deep end. My fault. I should have put it in the safe. Nothing’s going right—except you’re here.”

  He grabbed her hand, and they kept walking. “Sorry I interrupted your idea,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “One of your German students had a really nice video camera at breakfast. I overheard him tell one of the Denver ladies that he was going to record some events to show friends at home. I’m sure his work wouldn’t be as good as Ryker’s, but it would get you footage from the hike today and you could explain to your viewers that the living conditions are primitive and so is today’s coverage of the hike or something like that and—”

  “You’re a genius,” he told her, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Now if only we can solve the more important stuff.”

  He held the door open for her as they went in to join the students and Josh, who was actually mingling, though he didn’t look too happy about it.

  “Hey, everyone!” Quinn called out. “We’ve got to let the state troopers and forensics team follow clues to find who murdered Val Chambers. But today, we’re sticking to our schedule, following clues in the forest as if we were looking for someone—someone lost or maybe someone who doesn’t want to be found. Josh, you sure we’ve got enough belly fuel for the morning?”

  “Gourmet stuff, Q-Man! Granola bars and good old water, but it looks enough like vodka so we can pretend.”

  Pretty chipper for Josh, Alex thought, then scolded herself. Maybe he just pretended to be angry sometimes. It was like still waters ran deep, like those in the lake. When she had looked below the surface of that mountain water, she could not see very far in.

  Quinn walked straight to the German men, then, after they exchanged some words, one of them nodded and dashed out, probably for his camera. In this tough situation, at least she’d made a good suggestion. She hoped that Ryker would be back soon, completely cleared of suspicion. But then, if Ryker wasn’t the guilty person, who was?

  * * *

  Quinn took the group on a zigzagging, nearly invisible path she’d never been on before, but she soon saw why. He’d laid out subtle signs and clues for them to follow to mimic the situation of tracking someone who was lost or did not want to be found. Of course, he’d laid down footprints but he’d left other clues, too. A tiny snag of cloth. A discarded bandage. A nearly hidden shred of gum wrapper. A piece of a used tissue, which he said should be bagged for DNA. And in a tight cluster of cedars, pieces of bark off the tree trunks, where someone had pushed through a narrow space.

  “All right, now listen up,” Quinn said. “This is universal common sense, but most people don’t want to think about it. When human beings use the forest for a toilet—we’ll stick to urination—men just spray anywhere and their footprints don’t move much. Women crouch and shift their feet around a bit for balance and will leave more puddle than spray—and forgive me, ladies—but it’s been proved that women tend to shift their feet way around sometimes, nervous someone might see them. In other words they turn around to look behind them, even if they are pretty sure they are not being observed. Human nature. Enough said—but useful info. Useful to observe the differences in the sexes in more ways than one.”

  Several of the men grinned or nodded. Two of the Denver ladies whispered to each other.

  As they moved on, he kept his new cameraman—it turned out his name was Herman, which rhymed with German, so that would be easy to remember—close to him and sometimes suggested angles and shots. Herman seemed all business, yet delighted at the extra attention.

  Alex stuck to the back third of the group, while Josh brought up the rear. She tried to keep an eye on everyone, including Josh. Was he worried about Sam and Mary? Did he resent Sam and Quinn being given tracker knowledge from Trapper Jake when he was not? But why should he when he had not been interested in learning all that, in the patience it took. At least he seemed sincerely concerned about Mary.

  She raced through jagged memories of yesterday from the time Val was killed. Wasn’t Josh walking around with tape to cordon off different sites for the students? He was headed back to the lodge when she saw him last, and that’s where Val supposedly awaited. But why would Val head out with Josh, and what could be his motive? Did Josh feel she was not good for Ryker? Wouldn’t Josh care less about that? She couldn’t fathom him wanting to help the team by getting rid of Val. No, if she had to guess, it would be Ryker, however cooperative he was being with the troopers.

  And where would Josh get bear claws if they weren’t Mary’s? And if they were, who took them today and why?

  “All right,” Quinn was saying, pointing at something snagged on tree bark, head high. “Gather around. Look down, look all around and don’t let your own footprints mar possible clues. What is this, and what happened here?”

  Staying put where they were, people leaned forward, squinting while Herman shot the scene and whatever evidence Quinn was pointing out. Oh, she saw it—strands of hair snagged in cedar bark—long, glossy strands, maybe Mary’s.

  People called out their ideas, but it took a while for them to put other nearby clues together: the footprints denoting a stumble, a bit of what
must be fake blood on the tree trunk farther down.

  “Let’s say you were tracking a lost person,” Quinn told them. “This is evidence, much like search and rescue teams look for. If you were tracing a lost child, the snag of hair and bloody knee or whatever would be lower. So is the person you are tracking injured? Check tracks farther on to decide. Anybody see the cigarette butt I left here? Those can be good and bad. They can cause a fire, but then can also let you follow a smoker and use the butt for DNA, just like with the blood. Obviously, what we’re doing today is a general tracker experience to get you thinking about venturing in or living in the wilds. But who knows where this week’s work could lead you? We’ve had students go on to do forestry jobs, become park rangers and even work search and rescue.”

  Questions abounded about putting the clues together, about how the conclusions depended on who and what they were tracking. People pressed closer, so Alex kept to the edge of the group as did Josh.

  “Did Quinn tell you that Mary’s claw necklace is missing?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. Bet she came back for it or sent Sam. It was her grandmother’s. I swear, that’s who she thinks is the Falls Lake ghost, or who she herself goes out to mourn or contact. Wouldn’t want my wife out at night looking for dead people.”

  “Do you have a wife in mind?”

  “Naw. Not yet. Maybe never. Ryker shouldn’t have trusted that woman, maybe didn’t at the end. She played fast and loose uptown when he was at work here.”

  “Really? You might want to tell the troopers that. I forgot you live uptown. So what did you see or hear about her?”

  He frowned. “Enough said. Not good to speak ill of the dead, even a woman like her.”

  He moved off into the group and started passing out granola bars when the students finally were ready to move on. It was a strange place for a snack stop, she thought, but then lots of things were strange here, including Josh. It snagged in her head that he had told her that he was glad to have a woman—her—around, but just for a while.

  25

  When they got back to the compound, Trooper Kurtz pointed Quinn toward the murder site, so Alex assumed the forensic team was here. In a way, they had been practicing forest forensics out here today. The idea of search and rescue Quinn had just lectured about in the woods could even include tracking a criminal.

  The two men began to whisper to each other while she waited for Quinn. He nodded, then shrugged, shaking hands with the trooper as students streamed past into the dining hall. Then Quinn headed straight for her.

  “The forensic team is going to work straight through, even if it gets dark,” he explained. “So we’re not to worry if we see lights anywhere out there tonight. They’re from Alaska BCI, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Anchorage, and they have a tight schedule. The troopers are still keeping the media out. But once the forensic team is gone, the troopers will have to open up the area.”

  “Too bad,” she said. “I kind of liked the peace and quiet—no shouted questions. Quinn, I know you’re really upset about the necklace but can’t you phone Sam and Mary and just ask them if they took it back?”

  “I think they would have let me know. And I don’t believe he would have let Mary out of his sight right then so she’d have time to sneak in and take it. The door was locked, but my staff—all but Ryker—have a key. Besides, Sam and Mary have enough on their minds without him telling her it’s missing and her freaking out even more. Let’s go back with the students. As for Val’s death, I’m still hoping something turns up in the autopsy report.”

  As the two of them hurried toward the dining hall, he added, “After everyone takes a rest break, I’m going to talk about forest therapy and forest bathing.”

  “Really? I read your topics of study and activities online and I saw nothing about either of those.”

  “After dinner just take a seat in the dining hall, Queen Alexandra. Forest therapy is of current interest, something I’ve had questions on before. As for bathing, we’ll worry about that later.”

  * * *

  With Spenser asleep in her lap, Alex sat listening raptly, as did most of the others, as Quinn talked from the heart about how much the wilderness meant to him, how in a way it was a family heritage of love. Not just preserving nature, but allowing it to be therapy for the body, mind and soul. Nothing was new age about it, he stressed, only common sense.

  She thought again of Thoreau’s quote that he went to the woods because he wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life—and didn’t that include love? To her amazement, Quinn quoted part of that, speaking for himself but citing the author. Had he read her thoughts? It terrified her that they could be that in touch with each other—without touching.

  As he recited the quote, his voice was quiet, almost raspy at the end, and she saw him blink back tears. No doubt, he was thinking of his father, too, who loved the woods, who was attacked there...when it came time to die...

  Poor Val had died in the forest, too, evidently by a human hand, someone she might have known, someone who could even strike again.

  When Quinn finished and stood silent before them, some students began to clap. Herman stepped even closer with his camera, maybe zooming in on Quinn’s face. Slowly, a few, then the rest of the class, stood to give their leader and teacher—their Q-Man—a standing ovation. Alex cried, not only at the power of that Thoreau quote, but because she had reminded him of it.

  And tears burned her eyes, because she could fully admit something to herself: though she’d been in this special place such a short time, it was long enough to bond with a place, the people...and one special man.

  “So, about forest therapy—being outside among the trees can renew and relax you,” Quinn was saying with a gesture for them to sit down. “It’s not hocus-pocus. It’s rooted in the Japanese belief in Shinrin-yoku, which more or less means ‘forest bathing.’ Just like here, you can take other classes with trained guides to understand it more. The forest bathing idea suggests you should immerse yourself in the sights, sounds and smells of the woods, to relax, to get in touch with your deepest self.”

  She saw Herman still had his camera running. She heard a gentle whir from it as he walked behind her, then tilted it this way. Oh, no! Maybe she’d been so relaxed, so at home here, that she’d forgotten to keep out of his shot. Mostly, he’d had the lens trained on Quinn. She’d have to remind him to review it to ensure she wasn’t in the final cuts.

  “So, maybe it’s time,” Quinn was saying as she hurried toward the back of the room to at least now get out of camera range, “for everyone to hit the showers—another kind of forest bathing—after our trek today. Tomorrow covers wild animal tracking, nine a.m. sharp, hopefully with no wild animals in sight. After that final lesson and another dose of forest therapy for everyone, we’ll be saying goodbye. Hard to believe the week is almost over. Thanks for your patience with the tragedy that occurred here this week. I’m not sure if I’ll have any news from the police and forensics before they leave, but I’m sure the media will be reporting soon, anyway. See you tomorrow morning!”

  Alex stood in the rear, rocking a contented Spenser like a baby, as people talked and filed out. Her little dog had been so glad to see her and had behaved very well this evening, fussed over by most of the students before he fell asleep. So many wanted to know how he’d lost an eye, and she’d told them she didn’t know but that his first owner had abused him. One person had said, “There’s so much we don’t know, right? Like even here—life and death, the past, present, especially the future.”

  Quinn spent another half hour answering individual questions until the students were gone. Several times, she could tell, he looked to be sure she was still there, waiting for him.

  It was nearly dark outside when they headed toward his house. She noted the back door to the compound was not only still unlocked but ajar. Even though the forens
ic team were in the sunken area when Val had been found, their lights caught in the trees above and made a faint halo in the dark night.

  “Trooper Kurtz is going to stay out there with them,” Quinn told her, seeing where she was looking. “And one of the new troopers is out in front, one by that back compound door. Let’s see if we can relax a bit, wait to learn what they can tell us—if they tell us anything. By the way, Josh is staying in the compound tonight, bedding down at Sam and Mary’s.”

  “Quinn, he said he saw and knew that Val played fast and loose in town, apparently when Ryker wasn’t around. So that could mean she knew other guys who could have been upset with her for flirting or worse, or her sharp put-downs and—”

  “Yeah. But I just don’t think Ryker would snap to the point that he would hurt her. He could have gotten rid of her by just insisting she leave, that it was over. He’s not an idiot, though he’s acted like it, keeping her around so long.”

  He unlocked his front door. She knew he regretted having to do that in his little Eden that had now been invaded by a serpent. He’d said no one locked anything around here, but now things were different.

  And with the two of them alone in his house, but for Spenser—well, that was different, too.

  * * *

  Quinn boiled a huge kettle of water for Alex to use for a sponge bath, while he waited to get into the bathroom for his usual quick, cold shower. When he really wanted a hot shower, he drove over to the lodge, but that must be crawling with those media hawks now.

  He realized this house was not anything that would attract most women, probably not even Alex for very long as adaptive and receptive as she’d seemed about this lifestyle so far. He wondered if that bungalow in town that had caught his eye was still on the market. In its neighborhood, it was almost a palace.

  But Alex had mentioned once that she’d fallen for her fiancé’s lifestyle and lovely home, so had she changed enough to live like he did here? Granted, she could go with him every other month to New York City for a few days, but wouldn’t that trip make all this look even worse by comparison? Of course Brent had put his two cents in on that, suggesting she’d be homesick for city life. Val she was not, but that still worried him.