Down River

by Karen Harper

  This was all too much, delayed reaction from her river ride, childhood flashbacks again. Paranoia that someone had tried to kill her. Exhaustion, physical and mental. Survivor's guilt. Compassion fatigue. She knew all the terms, the psychobabble buzzwords, diagnoses and verdicts. She was what an attorney would call an unreliable witness. Had she been pushed into the river? Should she tell Mitch she was wavering on that and just back off on Vanessa and Jonas?

  She heard the door open above and quickly righted the crate and chair. Her pulse still pounding, she moved toward the stairs as Mitch came down.

  "I was hoping to get a good night's sleep, but I guess none of us did," he greeted her. He looked as if he'd tossed and turned all night. His hair was mussed like a boy's and little wrinkle marks where he'd slept against a pillow or blanket marred his left cheek.

  "I know I look like a wreck," she admitted, wanting to stroke those lines from his cheek and brow, "but Ginger's face haunted me."

  He pulled her to him in a strong hug. She held on to him hard, her chin clamping his shoulder to her throat, her arms tight around his waist. He felt so strong, so stable in her sliding, shifting world.

  "So," he whispered, his warm breath moving the hair by her ear, "I heard Graham and Ellie arguing last night."

  She raised her head to look at him as he set her back, then pushed her gently down into the single chair. He sat with one hip on the edge of the crate, leaning toward her. "I don't think I've ever heard them raise their voices to each other before."

  "Me neither. Could you tell over what?"

  "Her giving money to Ginger and promising more. Since I'm playing Sherlock Holmes lately, I actually listened at their door."

  "I didn't think he ever objected to her charity projects, large or small. I used to think it was because the firm's financial base--and his wealth--was really from her father, and that gave her a certain unspoken power over Graham."

  "Agreed, but he may be worried Ginger's death will turn out to be more than an accident, and he doesn't want his wife--or any of his lawyers--to be even slightly involved or tainted."

  "Why would he assume her death might be more than an accident? He should be thinking just the opposite."

  "Because he's been a lawyer for years, and he's seen the worst in humanity. He's dealt with some really devious people who could swear up and down they were innocent when they weren't and then--I'm sorry to say--he'd defend some of them anyway."

  She heaved a huge sigh. "I know you've always admired him."

  "Haven't you?"

  "Of course. But, if someone's clever, apparent accidents can actually be murder, which is what we could be up against here. On the other hand, I'm wondering if I should stop suspecting anyone of attempted murder for pushing me in the river."

  "Second thoughts on if that really happened?"

  She looked up at him. Maybe she should stop suspecting people she thought she knew and respected and just go on. Be very careful and aware, but just go on. No one had murdered her mother and Jani--no one but life's hardships and her mother's sick soul. But the denial of her being deliberately shoved into the river wouldn't come to her lips.

  "I still think I was pushed," she whispered.

  "Then we go with that. So have you thought any more about Vanessa setting you up to find Ginger's body?"

  "As you said yesterday, it's all circumstantial. It's like, maybe Jonas cut his own towline on the sled, maybe Vanessa is out to cut me off from the competition...or from life...maybe, maybe...Mitch, it's driving me nuts."

  "Though I don't want you to go, I'd send you home, but no one's going anywhere until the sheriff says so."

  "Except to the Mountain Mother Festival. I think we'd all agree to cancel that, but we can't just sit around here and stare at each other while waiting for the coroner's report. And it is a good idea to sell the baked goods Ginger left to help Spike out."

  "Ordinarily, he'd be taking festival visitors flight-seeing on short jaunts today, but he's not up for that. The sheriff told him he could have access to Ginger's cabin, so he wants to spend the day there. I told him I'd go with him, but he wanted to be alone, and I had to honor that."

  "I'll bet Christine would like to be with him, but she's going with us, too. She said Ginger had a booth rented, so setup won't be too hard."

  "I thought maybe you were learning more about what Christine's really like, one strong woman to another, who has risen above a personal tragedy."

  "But it's still pulling me under," she muttered as she turned away. She started up the steps, careful not to look at the array of bottles lighted from behind again.

  "What did you say?" he called after her.

  "Onward and upward. See you at breakfast." She hurried up out of the green-gray depths of the little room.

  Maybe, Lisa thought, as they carried Ginger's baked items into the Mountain Mother Festival grounds in Talkeetna, this would be good for all of them. She saw normal people everywhere--families, activities, laughter, noise. Reality that didn't threaten and endanger or drown one's rational thoughts.

  As they set up their money box and neatly arranged the variety of muffins, breads, cookies and cakes with their price labels, Lisa looked around. In the next booth, a woman hung small, quilted wall hangings, now and then shouting at her two young boys to stop hitting each other. Across the way two women who looked like sisters put out painted tole wear in their booth; both had babies in carriers on their backs. Two men helped to tack up a sign reading Talkeetna Tole Wear Tells A Tale. What would it be like to live here, to raise a family here?

  "Talkeetna certainly is the big city compared to Bear Bones," Vanessa said, interrupting Lisa's musings. Vanessa had been really cold to her on the way in, but everyone was uptight, so she'd tried to ignore that. No way was she going to let herself get all tied in knots every time Vanessa said something bitter or nasty. She had to accept that, once out of the office where camaraderie was expected, the woman's snippy self came out. But mostly, Lisa was trying to cut Vanessa some slack because she'd scared herself lately, wavering on whether she'd really been pushed. One minute she was certain of it, the next, she realized her flashbacks could have made her memory untrustworthy, no matter what she'd vowed to Mitch in the cellar earlier this morning.

  Also, Vanessa seemed to really be sucking up to Ellie today, much more so than usual. Perhaps she sensed or had been told how shaken Ellie was from her interview with the sheriff.

  "You think this place is packed now," Christine told them, "wait till you see it later. People around here go on what they call 'Talkeetna time'--always running late--but they'll all be here in time for the Moose Dropping part of the festivities."

  "The what?" Ellie asked. "Vanessa, you've done several cases concerning animal rights. Christine, exactly who is dropping a moose from where around here?"

  Christine smiled--a rarity, Lisa thought. "No, Mrs. Bonner," Christine told Ellie. "It's the moose that make the droppings, and people find plenty of them each year when the snow melts. While they're frozen, they get shellacked--the, you know, the droppings, not the moose--and made into either jewelry or something to throw at a target today. See here, these earrings I'm wearing today," she said, pulling back her black hair and shaking her head so her dangling earrings bounced. "You haven't been to Talkeetna if you don't have some of this jewelry!"

  "Oh, my word!" Ellie muttered with a roll of her eyes as Christine displayed her shiny gems.

  Vanessa grinned, too. "I thought those were polished or shellacked Sitka spruce," she said. "Mitch said it's used to make Steinway pianos and other wooden instruments, because of its tight spiral grain, so I just thought..."

  Despite their dire circumstances and Ginger's lovely baked goods laid out before them like a memorial to her, they all had to laugh. It felt good, so good, Lisa thought. Poor Ginger had evidently loved life. In honor of that, suddenly, Lisa was determined to have a good time today. Maybe nothing else terrible would happen on this entire trip--that is, until she h
ad to say goodbye to Mitch again.

  When Lisa took her turn to walk around the festival for a while, Mitch quickly appeared at her side. "So what do you think?" he asked, with a sweep of his hand around the bustling, noisy scene.

  "I think it's great. A far cry from the Broward or Dade County Fairs."

  "Come on over here so you can see what a Mountain Mother is supposed to be able to do."

  "Swim a rushing river and come out alive?" she asked, as he took her hand and pulled her into a cheering crowd.

  "Not even some of them could handle that--unless they had Mitchell Andrew Braxton at their beck and call, of course."

  She laughed for the second time today and punched his shoulder with her fist.

  They wove their way through the thickening crowd to a central area with a lake and a culvert filled with water. With baby dolls in their backpacks, ten women took turns walking a log in hip waders while toting two buckets of water. Their audience whooped and hollered encouragement. One woman had a sign on her back under her doll baby: Attila the Mom!

  Other parts of the round robin of tasks included chopping firewood, carrying bags of groceries, and running an obstacle course which included a simulated river crossing, using logs and stepping stones.

  "That's nothing!" Lisa told Mitch with an elbow to his ribs. "Where are the live bears and the cable car?"

  Lisa was especially touched by the children cheering on their mothers, while the fathers clapped and hooted encouragement. She wondered again what it would be like to be a mountain mother here, not in this fun festival but in daily life.

  She and Mitch wandered past stores with sidewalk sales, art galleries, museums and restaurants.

  "The cultural side of the town reminds me some of Taos, New Mexico," she told him. "I had no idea about the art galleries and museums. I just expected gift shops."

  "Some great restaurants, too, not just greasy spoons if that's what you were thinking. By the way, the prize for winning that Mountain Mother contest is a trip to Europe. See, we're not all heathens and savages here."

  She turned to smile at him. Again, despite the whirl of noise and movement, their gazes met and held.

  "Except in bed," he added with a grin and turned away before she could comment.

  They wandered over to the Moose Dropping Festival near the VFW building. "Even this has a veneer of civility," Mitch told her. "It's a fundraiser for the Talkeetna Historical Society, and it brings in a bundle. There's a raffle, and people buy numbered, shellacked moose droppings that are let go from that big net up there," he said, pointing. "See that moose-shaped board on the ground? Whoever has the number that hits closest to the bull's-eye on it wins big prizes."

  "Most unique," she said with another little laugh. "But, still, I preferred the way I played my own moose game. Of course, I just pretended that bull moose coming out of the lake scared me so I could jump into your arms."

  "Hah! Wish that were true!"

  Lisa knew they were flirting just the way they had when they first knew each other. Here she was with a man she'd thought she never wanted to see again. Being with Mitch might be a dead-end street, but she loved it--maybe still loved him.

  As the two of them headed back toward the rows of rented booths, they saw Jonas, Graham and Ellie in the distance, heads bent together in earnest conversation. Then nodding at something and somehow looking relieved, Jonas went off by himself, talking into and snapping pictures with his cell phone.

  "That reminds me," Mitch said. "Graham wants to have one-on-one interviews with his three candidates this evening. More of a debriefing, if you ask me. Then tomorrow, I thought we'd have a memorial service for Ginger, and Spike really liked that idea. He asked that we have it at the ziplining site, since she liked that so much, but I'm wary of actually doing the ziplining. Too many so-called accidents lately."

  "But if it means something to Spike..."

  "Yeah, I know. Maybe we can just have the service out under the platform and make the ziplining completely voluntary. I can picture Ginger now, zinging along, red hair flying, whooping and hollering. She never liked flying like Spike does but she loved zooming along on my zipline."

  "You know, when Spike was flying us in to the lodge, Jonas was kidding about our challenges here being like that Survivor show, but Ellie vehemently said this was as much for bonding as competition. At that moment, it almost made me think this might be her idea as much as Graham's. I think she's always been the power behind the throne, but she sure was shaken last night."

  "Alaskan sheriffs aren't supposed to step behind the throne or even near it," Mitch muttered so darkly that Lisa turned to look at him. He'd seemed so even-tempered and strong through the chaos of this week, but she saw that he, too, was deeply bothered by the betrayal of someone he knew and trusted.

  As they turned the corner toward the bakery booth, where Vanessa and Christine were taking their turns, Gus appeared, putting himself in their path. Lisa thought he must have been waiting for them. As far as she could tell, the cranberry muffin he was just finishing had been baked by Ginger, so he must have been over to the booth. Wasn't the fact he wasn't shunning any of them a sign he wasn't guilty of anything? The guy didn't seem to have a duplicitous bone in his big body.

  "Hey, Gus," Mitch greeted him.

  Gus motioned them off to the side, and they walked over to a quiet spot where they could hear each other better. Gus kept looking around, rather furtively, and Lisa's lawyer antennae went up. She could tell the big man was distraught, so he'd probably not only been told about Ginger's bizarre death, but interrogated about it. Lisa had known the sheriff would question Gus immediately.

  "Sheriff Moran came to Bear Bones to talk to me," Gus said, "then drove me here to get fingerprinted. He was asking all kinds of stuff about me and Ginger. Mitch, you know I'd never hurt her. Fighting--arguing, I mean--that's how we got along half the time. She wouldn't move into town, said I'd have to live in the boonies if we got married, but I said no way."

  Mitch put his hand on the big man's shoulder. "We've all been questioned and several of the women, including Lisa, were fingerprinted, too. The sheriff has to look at all angles."

  "Never thought I'd say this, but I might need a lawyer. Heard tell you got your license for here."

  "I did and I'm willing," Mitch assured him. "Listen, Lisa, could you give us a minute in private so I can talk to my new client?"

  Mitch knew Lisa would understand attorney-client privilege. She nodded, patted Gus on the shoulder and moved away from them, strolling past the craft booths.

  "So, Gus, let's just get to it," Mitch said as they walked farther away from the crowd. "When you left Ginger, you swear she was all right?"

  "If you call spitting mad at me all right. Cussed me out, said she had a ship coming in, whatever that meant. Said she didn't need a man in her life who tried to tell her how and where she had to live. Except for the ship coming in, same stuff she yelled at me at the cafe in town--which lots of people saw and will prob'ly tell the sheriff about."

  Mitch realized the ship coming in could be the money from Ellie that both Ellie and Graham had mentioned to him. He told Gus, "Mrs. Bonner gave Ginger some cash but she can't have thought that would add up to much or be a long-term thing."

  "And Ginger said she was selling some of her baked stuff to your guests, but I didn't figure that was much of a ship coming in."

  "I take it the sheriff didn't charge you with anything," Mitch said, looking the big man straight in the eye.

  "Naw, but he told me not to leave the area. I just didn't like the way things were going when he questioned me."

  "Then until something else happens, lie low, and don't tell anyone you've hired a lawyer."

  "You need payment up front? I always pay my bills."

  "How about free chainsaw sharpening for life?" Mitch told him. "But there's something else I would like to know. Did Ginger say anything at any time about enemies or someone else she was angry with besides you?"
r />   "Naw. Angry with not having money for what she wanted sometimes, that's all."

  "Did she ever say anything about the day Lisa fell in the river?" Mitch asked. "We think Ginger was in the area that day and might have seen or heard someone or something."

  "You mean like a scream when she fell in? Someone like who?"

  "Gus," Mitch said, "Lisa and I will keep your secret that you're lawyered-up, so we'd like you to keep one of ours. She didn't just fall in the river. She was pushed."

  "Who by?" he demanded, frowning, then shook his head. "Not by Ginger."

  "I didn't say that. We're trying to find out who. So did Ginger ever breathe a word about seeing or hearing anything that day? You did talk about driving us back to the lodge, didn't you?"

  "Yeah, she was glad I found you. But she said nothing about the day Lisa went in the river. Did you tell the sheriff she was pushed? What if there's like--I mean, a mass-murderer type who drowns women or tries to, anyway?"

  Whoever thought Gus Majors didn't have much upstairs was wrong, Mitch thought. Dead wrong.

  PART III

  Meeting the Monster

  It was a monstrous big river down there.

  --Mark Twain

  17

  "L

  isa, please come in and sit down," Graham said as she entered the lodge library that evening for what the Bonners were calling an informal interview and Mitch had called a debriefing. He'd rearranged the furniture and was sitting in a chair under Christine's shelf of dolls. At a glance, Lisa could tell the dolls had been moved around, but by Graham or Christine? Did he hope to manipulate his three candidates the same way in these private sessions?

  She sat in the leather chair facing him, one that was lower and smaller than his, much the way he had things set up in his office back home. A table next to him displayed neat piles of magazines on Alaska. Graham's chair had arms so he could rest his elbows; hers did not, so she clasped her hands lightly in her lap. He had no notes, not even a pen out, but she saw a small tape recorder on the table. He was going to tape these sessions? Perhaps another ploy to keep his candidates off guard to see how they would react.