Everything To Prove

by Nadia Nichols

  “Athapaskan,” Frey said. “They’re all I can get out here. Now, what do you want to know about Ben Libby?”

  Libby poised her pen over the notebook. “Everything, I guess. I mean, I already know a lot about how he made his fortune. What I really want to know is what kind of man he was. What he was like. Did he have a sense of humor? Did he like animals? You know. Human interest stuff like that.”

  “Sense of humor?” Frey clearly thought this was an odd question.

  “Well, maybe you could start by telling me how you met him. How you became partners.”

  “We were officers in the navy and we served on the same sub.”

  “Wow. I mean, I just can’t imagine being in a submarine under all that water. So, what did the two of you do on the sub?”

  “We played cards. Poker. Endless games of poker.” Frey took a sip of his whiskey. “Ben always won. He won at everything. When the torpedo hit, that was the only time I thought he might lose.”

  “You were playing poker when a torpedo hit the sub?”

  “It flooded the forward compartment. There were two men trapped inside. We could hear them shouting, screaming for help. Everyone else evacuated because our compartment was starting to flood, too, but Ben stuffed his cards inside his shirt and went to rescue the trapped men. He couldn’t do it alone, so I helped him.”

  “That was courageous of you.”

  “On the contrary, it was quite stupid. Our rescue attempt could have lost the sub. But we were lucky. We got the two trapped men out and managed to seal off the compartment behind us. Afterward Ben showed me his cards. He had a full house. He said that was why he knew he’d make a successful rescue.” Frey barked a humorless laugh. “He was a brave son of a bitch. Smart, too. We survived the war and when we were discharged he asked me if I wanted to go in on a business venture. He told me he’d found some weird patents he wanted to back. He thought they’d be big moneymakers. I had some money saved up so I said, sure, then went home to Maine. Ben took my little wad of savings and in less than two years he’d made me a millionaire.”

  “He must have been a genius.”

  “He was. I quit my job as a shift supervisor at the paper mill in Rumford, bought a better truck and went to work at a furniture factory making chairs. I’d always wanted to learn how to make furniture. A year later I was discovering that making it wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be when Ben calls out of the blue and asks if I want to go on a fishing trip to Alaska.

  “I said sure, and this is where we came. He’d been studying maps of Alaska for years but had never been here. We were flown in with all our gear and camped in a tent on this very beach. We fished and explored the country. At the end of the week Ben said he didn’t want to leave, and neither did I. When the plane came to pick us up he told the pilot we’d be staying another week. Then he asked me if I wanted to go in on a fishing camp in this very spot.”

  “And you said ‘sure,’” Libby said, scribbling like mad.

  Frey barked another laugh. He lifted his glass in a gesture toward the lake and the majestic Brooks range beyond. “By ‘fishing camp’ I thought he meant a little log shack on the shore we could come to for a week or two every summer, but this is what he built.”

  “Have you lived here ever since?”

  “Pretty much. I spend winters in Hawaii now. It’s warmer.”

  “So your initial investment in Ben Libby’s entrepreneurial genius made you a rich man.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can you tell me anything about Ben’s wife? The article barely mentions her.”

  “Ben fell in love with a German girl he met while on leave. He married her after the war and when the lodge was completed, he brought her here. She was a nervous thing. Pretty, but highstrung. Definitely a city girl, born and bred. She didn’t like living on the edge of nowhere. She was afraid of the dark. Ben thought she’d get used to it, and once the guests started coming she’d be okay. But I knew she wasn’t right for the place. When she heard a wolf howl for the first time she ran inside and cried in fear.”

  Frey realized his cigar had gone out and paused to light it again. Libby caught up on her notes and when she smelled the rank odor she glanced up. “What happened to her?”

  “She went nuts. Wacko. She left him, finally, and went back to Germany.”

  Libby paused and glanced up from the notebook. She’d half expected the omission of Connor Libby. “But wasn’t there a son?”

  Frey took another sip of whiskey, puffed on his cigar, gazed out across the lake. “Connor,” he said. “Right after Ben brought her here she got pregnant and insisted that she had to be near a good hospital with good doctors. Ben kept her in Anchorage at this fancy town house he rented until she had the baby, then brought her and the boy back to the lodge.”

  “Whatever became of her?”

  “About a year after that, she left the boy with Ben and returned to Berlin. Just as well she did. We later learned that she threw herself beneath a train as it pulled into a station.”

  “She killed herself?” Not even Marie knew about this. She knew only that Ben’s wife had died. “How awful. She must have felt hopeless even after she returned to the place she loved.”

  “She was crazy,” Frey said with a shrug. “I guess that proved it.”

  “What became of the boy?”

  “Ben raised him, made me the boy’s godfather. When the wife ran off, Ben hired people to manage his money and his properties and pretty much planted himself here. He loved this place.”

  “Did the boy like it, too?”

  “Connor? This life was all he knew until he went off to college.”

  “Did he know about his mother?”

  “We told him she’d gone to visit her family in Germany and got sick and died there. He never knew she’d abandoned him.”

  “What happened to Connor?”

  “He graduated college and about that time the war in Vietnam was getting into high gear so he joined the air force and learned to fly.”

  “I remember the article said he was killed in a plane crash. Was that during the war?”

  Frey gave Libby the first real stare since she’d arrived. She felt the dark malice in his flat gaze and dropped her eyes to her notebook while he took another sip of whiskey. “No. He survived two tours, got a bunch of medals, served out his enlistment and came back here.”

  Libby could sense the gathering tension in Frey as he spoke about Connor. “What did Ben Libby do during the war?” she asked, changing the topic in an attempt to relax him.

  “He made another billion dollars on some sophisticated electronics they were putting into the same jets his son was flying. And then he was diagnosed with liver cancer. By the time the war was over, Ben was gone.” Frey finished off his drink. “I still miss him.”

  I just bet you do, Libby thought, scribbling furiously. “The article in Forbes stated that Ben divided his estate between you and his son. Did that surprise you?”

  “Yes. I thought he’d leave it all to his son.”

  “How did Connor feel about that?”

  Frey shrugged. “He didn’t give a damn about money. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Ben left me half of the estate, to keep an eye on the business end of things. That, and Connor was my godson.”

  “So, what happened to Connor?”

  “When he came back from the war he was pretty depressed. Suicidal, I thought. He bought himself a float plane. Pretty plane, bright yellow.”

  Libby glanced up again and frowned to mask her outrage that Frey would imply her father had been suicidal, when in fact he’d been in love. “Oh, no. You’re going to tell me that he crashed that plane, aren’t you?”

  Frey gave her another flat stare. “How long have you been freelancing?”

  “Not that long, actually. I hope you don’t hold that against me, sir.”

  Frey relaxed and gave her a thin smile. “No, not at all.” He poured another glass of whiskey.
“Connor crashed the plane. He hadn’t had the thing for a month and he crashed it.”

  “That’s terrible,” Libby said. “I’m assuming he was an experienced pilot, after all that flying in the war. How did it happen?”

  “LUANNE!” Frey belted out for the second time, causing Libby’s heart to skip several beats. She heard the same soft scuffle and the young woman reappeared, eyes downcast. “Where are my medicines?”

  “Coming, sir,” Luanne said, retreating.

  “No matter how many times I tell her, she always forgets. You can’t train them. I don’t know why I waste my time trying.” Luanne made another appearance, bearing a glass of water and two tiny pills on a small tray, which she left on the table. Frey picked up the two pills, placed them in his mouth, and chased them down with a swallow of water, followed by a bigger swallow of liquor. He puffed on the cigar for a few moments, then gave her another predatorial glance.

  “Who’re you writing this story for?”

  “Actually, sir, the Libby Foundation asked me to write it.”

  Frey grunted and seemed satisfied with her answer. “Ben did a lot of good things. He had people and organizations after him all the time with their hands out. He supported more damn causes and still felt like he wasn’t doing enough.”

  “Was his son the same way?”

  “Connor didn’t hold a candle to his father.”

  “Were you here at the lodge when Connor…crashed the plane?” Libby asked.

  “I was fishing up on the Kandik. The first I knew something had happened was when I saw the warden’s plane buzzing up and down the lake.”

  “So they think the plane went down in the lake?”

  “That’s what they figure. Only thing they found were the two floats hung up about half a mile down the Evening River, just below the big rips.”

  “No other wreckage was found? No body was recovered?”

  Frey shifted in his seat. His shaggy white brows drew together in a frown. “I thought this article was supposed to be about Ben.”

  “Yes, sir, it is, but the fact that he had a wife and child is a great human interest angle. Where do you suppose Connor was going when he took off that day?” Libby asked, fishing for some mention of Connor’s wedding.

  “LUANNE!” Frey belted out, startling Libby yet again. For the third time Luanne scuttled out onto the porch, eyes downcast. “Get down on the dock and tell that bastard he’s not welcome here.”

  For the first time Libby noticed the canoe that was approaching the dock. “Who is it?”

  “That damn Indian guide who works for those flatlanders across the lake. He knows this place is off-limits to him. He tried to sic the Department of Human Services on me last summer for some alleged infractions of human rights. He told them I mistreated my employees, didn’t house them properly or pay them their legal wages and overtime. Overtime, for cripe’s sake. They actually sent someone out from Fairbanks to inspect their living quarters and check my books.” Frey made a sound of disgust. “Overtime! They’re lucky I pay them anything at all.”

  Luanne was speaking to the man in the canoe. She turned and walked swiftly back to the porch and stared at Mr. Frey’s slippered feet. “He says he is here to take Ms. Wilson back across. He says Joe Boone is busy guiding two clients and couldn’t come.”

  Libby stood, folding her notebook. “Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Frey.”

  Frey grunted and picked up his glass of whiskey as Libby started down the steps. She paused at the bottom and glanced back. “Were you surprised that Connor left everything to you in his will?”

  Frey shook his head. “He didn’t have anyone else.”

  “Did they ever find Connor Libby’s plane?”

  “They’ll never find that plane. This lake is bottomless, part of an old volcanic cirque,” Frey said with a shake of his head. “End of story.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Frey,” Libby said. “I haven’t even started writing it yet.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LIBBY WALKED OUT onto the dock to meet the canoe, and the man seated in the stern nodded to her. He was much younger than Joe Boone and stockily built. Black raven’s wing hair was pulled back with a strip of red cloth that hung between his shoulder blades. He wore faded jeans, a red flannel shirt and a green wool cruiser. On his feet were a pair of moose-hide moccasins. “I’m Graham Johnson, one of Mike and Karen’s guides. Karen thought you might prefer a canoe ride this time of evening.”

  “She’s right. This is much nicer than a motorboat. Thank you for coming to get me,” Libby said. She knelt in the bow of the canoe and picked up the paddle as he swung around and started along the edge of the lake.

  “How did your interview with Daniel Frey go?”

  “Okay.” It was a beautiful evening. The wind had died, the lake was calm and reflected the majestic mountains upon its silken surface. “Actually, I didn’t learn anything new. A plane crashed in this lake twenty-eight years ago and I came here to see what Daniel Frey might know about it.” She spoke without turning, and the air was so still that she feared for a moment that Frey might have overheard.

  “You’re talking about Connor Libby’s plane?”

  “Yes. Do you know anything about the crash?”

  “It happened before I was born, but there was a lot of talk in the village about it.”

  “What kind of talk?”

  “My mother had a cousin who worked here at the time. Frey gave all the hired help the weekend off because Connor was getting married to a native girl from Umiak, who worked at the lodge and had invited them to the wedding. But Daniel Frey didn’t come and never planned to come. So mostly the talk was about why he wouldn’t attend his godson’s wedding.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Everyone thought it was because he didn’t want his godson to marry a native girl. He doesn’t like Indians much. That’s common knowledge. And some thought he didn’t want to be in the plane, either.”

  “Because Frey knew it might crash?”

  “Maybe.” Graham’s answer was noncommittal.

  “Is there anyone else at all who might know something about it, other than Daniel Frey?”

  There was a long pause, just the sound of the paddle dipping into the water. “My father, maybe,” Graham said.

  Libby felt a jolt of surprise. “Was he living around here at the time?”

  The silence stretched her tension to the limit before Graham spoke again. “My father lived out here most of the time, fishing in summer and running a trapline in winter. He only came home maybe once, twice a year. When I was old enough, I spent summers with him. He didn’t talk much, but every once in a while he’d tell me a story. There was one story he liked to tell, to scare me and make me stay close. It was the story of a yellow three-legged dog. He said the dog howled in the night like its heart was broken and wandered like a ghost along the shores of the lake, looking for lost souls. He said if I wandered off into the woods, Windigo would get me. He told me the three-legged dog would carry my soul to the land of the forgotten. When I got older, the people in the village told me that dog belonged to a white man from the lodge, the one who died in the plane crash.”

  “Do you think your father would tell me that story?” Libby asked, turning to face him.

  A brief pause followed, the length of three paddle strokes. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him.”

  “Where does he live now?”

  “Where he’s always lived, a few miles up the west arm.”

  “Could we go there now? It won’t be dark for another three hours.”

  “He might not talk to you. He doesn’t like whites much.”

  “I’ll take my chances. I need to learn all I can about that plane crash.” She waited with bated breath for his answer, because his expression wasn’t promising.

  “All right,” he finally said. “We’ll trade our canoe for a motorboat and take a trip up.”

  KAREN WAS WAITING on the dock when they arrive
d. “I hope you didn’t mind coming back by canoe,” she said as Libby climbed onto the dock.

  “It was wonderful. Thank you for thinking of it.”

  “How did your meeting with Mr. Frey go?”

  “He was more talkative than I expected.” Libby glanced back to where Graham was already shifting his gear into a motorboat. “Graham is going to take me to talk with his father. He says he might have something to add to the story.”

  “How’s Solly doing, Graham?” Karen asked.

  “Not so good. He still has a cold, but he won’t see a doctor. Doesn’t trust the white man’s medicine.”

  “I’ll pack you some food to bring to him,” Karen said, and Libby accompanied her up to the lodge. “Well, you’ve managed to accomplish two things in less than a day that I’ve been trying to do for several years,” she said wryly while arranging food in a basket in the kitchen. “You’ve met Daniel Frey, and now you’re going to meet Solly Johnson, though I don’t know what light he’ll be able to shed on Ben Libby.”

  “Actually, I’m hoping he’ll know something about the plane crash that killed Ben’s son,” Libby explained.

  “Ah. Well, it’s possible. And if nothing else, you’ll get a good boat ride with Graham. He’s our best guide. He knows this lake better than any of the others, all the lore and legends, and he knows where the best fishing can be found. Our guests really enjoy being guided by him. They request him more than all the others.”

  “Does he have any family other than his father?” Libby asked.

  “His mother lives in a village on the Yukon, and I believe he has several brothers and sisters,” Karen replied. “I think he has a soft spot for a certain girl who works for Daniel Frey. Luanne Attla. He’s brought her here a couple of times. She’s a nice girl.”

  “Yes, I met her this evening. She has a tough job.”

  “I offered to hire her but she seemed determined to stay with Frey. He must pay his help a whole lot better than I can.” Karen handed the basket to Libby and smiled. “Tell Solly he’s welcome here any time. And good luck.”