Face Off

by Brenda Novak

  After a slight pause, Amarok spoke again, and she could tell he was now wide awake. “I see. More than you’d find if, say, that person was alive.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You believe it might belong to Sierra Yerbowitz.”

  “Don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer the question; he didn’t need to. “Where did this CO make his find?”

  “I’ll let him tell you. His name is Jordan Hyde, but we call him Easy, and he’s right here. Let me put you on speaker so we can all hear.”

  She pressed the appropriate button, put down the handset and gestured for Easy to lean in. “Easy, have you ever met Sergeant Murphy?”

  “Not formally,” he replied. “I’ve seen him at the Moosehead or around Hilltop when I was getting gas, that sort of thing. But I have a wife and family waiting for me in Anchorage when I get off work. I can’t go to the bar as often as most of the other guys.”

  “So how did you come across such a gruesome thing?” Amarok asked.

  Easy used his sleeve to wipe the sweat beading on his forehead. “I noticed something dragging from my rear axle. I can’t tell you how it came to be there in the first place. I must’ve picked it up somewhere. That’s all I can figure.”

  “Have you been anywhere unusual lately?”

  “No. I’ve had to work the past five days, so that’s about all I’ve done. And I’ve only owned my truck for a week. My wife and I bought it last Saturday.”

  “You haven’t been out to any hunting cabins.…”

  “No. None. I’ve gone from Anchorage to Hilltop, and Hilltop to Anchorage. Other than stopping at the grocery store and taking my older kid to school, if I’m available, that’s it.”

  “How long would you guess that piece of scalp has been there?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “You don’t think someone attached it to your truck, do you?”

  “You mean as a gruesome prank or something? No. I don’t have friends like that. I don’t even have enemies like that.”

  Before Amarok could lob another question at him, understanding dawned on Easy’s face. “Oh, wait! You’re asking if it’s possible someone wanted me to find it—like that severed head I heard about behind the Moosehead a couple years back.”

  “Does that seem like a possibility to you?” Amarok asked.

  “Not really. If I’d driven around with it much longer, it could easily have fallen off. Then I doubt anyone would ever have found it.”

  “So you picked it up somewhere—by accident.”

  A pained expression appeared on Easy’s face. “No disrespect, Sergeant, but I certainly didn’t pick it up on purpose.”

  “The question is … how’d it happen?”

  Easy shook his head. “Like I said, I have no clue. No one would’ve had a chance to steal my truck from the parking garage or from my place. And with the weather as bad as it’s been—” He stopped.

  “What is it?” Evelyn could see his expression, knew he’d just thought of something.

  “On my way to work yesterday, I saw a set of tire tracks leading off into a field. I was excited about my new truck, and I wanted to try it out in the snow, have a little fun without the wife around to worry and harp at me. So I followed those tracks and did a few donuts. The fact that someone had been there before me made me feel confident that I wouldn’t get stuck, and I didn’t. But I ran over something on my way out.”

  Amarok jumped in again. “You don’t know what it was?”

  “I assumed it was a large rock or maybe a log. Why would I think anything else?”

  “You didn’t get out to check?”

  “No. It was an empty field. The ground was uneven to begin with, and I didn’t want to be late for work.”

  “I see.”

  Easy stepped back, as if he’d done his duty and was ready to go. “Is that it? Because I’m completely creeped out and I’d like to go home to check on my wife and kids.”

  “Do you work tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m off. Thank God.”

  “I’m afraid you’re not going to like this,” Amarok said. “And I can understand why. But if I get you a motel room, will you stay in town tonight so you can show me where you went off-roading yesterday?”

  Easy scratched his neck. “Can’t I show you now?”

  “I’m in Anchorage.”

  “Then maybe I can point it out to Dr. Talbot before I go home. Or circle it on a map.”

  “I’m afraid not. This is important, Easy. I need to meet with you, have you go over everything you saw and show me where you found that scalp. We have a woman who’s gone missing. I’d like to be able to tell her family what happened.”

  “Right,” he said on a heavy sigh. “Of course. It’s not far from the prison, so it shouldn’t take long. Will you be back early?”

  “Not sure yet. Head over to The Shady Lady. I’ll let you know when we can meet as soon as possible.”

  “Okay,” he said, but his tone of voice made it sound more like, Shit.

  He’d already turned to go when Amarok said, “And Easy? There’s one more thing.”

  The CO sent Evelyn a worried glance before asking, “What’s that?”

  “Don’t mention what you found to anyone else. Until we know more, it’d be best to keep this between us.”

  “Andy Smith was here earlier. He heard what I said.”

  “That can’t be helped now, and I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’ll ask him to keep it to himself, too.”

  Easy shifted uncomfortably. “When I took this job, I knew I might see some stuff I’d rather not, but I assumed the worst would be a prison fight or … or a shanking. This is beyond belief. You don’t think we have a murderer on the loose, do you?”

  Evelyn didn’t want a rumor like that to get started, especially when they couldn’t say for sure. Not only would it throw the whole community into a panic, it’d put Hanover House in the news again, and she wasn’t convinced the institution could survive more bad press. “Nothing’s certain yet, Easy,” she said. “For all we know, this woman wandered away from that rental cabin and froze to death.”

  “Did she have her own vehicle? Because I followed a set of tire tracks into that field—not footprints.”

  Sierra hadn’t had a vehicle. So how would she have gotten that far? “There’s a lot riding on this,” Evelyn said. “Please use some discretion. We need to know what we’re dealing with before we cause a panic.”

  He gestured at the sack. “I think that tells us enough, don’t you?”

  “It’s possible the hair and scalp belong to Sierra, the missing woman, but we need to confirm it first.”

  “Waiting for confirmation could be dangerous, Doc. People should be warned. If I lived in Hilltop, I’d sure as hell want my wife and kids to know they should be extra careful, lock the doors, stay in a group, that sort of thing.”

  She cleared her throat. “Amarok will alert everyone if and when he feels it’s necessary.”

  “If you say so,” he muttered, and cast a final horrified glance at what he was leaving behind as he walked out.

  Closing her eyes, Evelyn rested her head on the back of her chair.

  “You still there?” Amarok asked.

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “He has a point. You realize that.”

  She opened her eyes to stare at the sack on her desk. Was Jasper behind what was happening? If so, he’d destroy her yet. “I realize that.”

  “Can you give me Andy Smith’s number? I’ll ask him to keep what he heard quiet for now, but I’ll have to make a public statement, revealing it, soon.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know that, too. Anyway, you’re busy. I’ll leave a voicemail for Andy Smith, asking him not to say anything. So don’t worry about that.”

  “Okay. I’ll call Phil and have him bring me what Hyde found.”

  “Do you want me to do that, too?”

  “Have you
gotten any sleep?”

  She covered a yawn. What with Andy banging on the door and waking her, she hadn’t gotten enough. She’d been seriously annoyed by the interruption. But since she would’ve been awakened, anyway—by Leland Yerbowitz’s call and then Easy Hyde’s appearance—it seemed childish to resent Smith. She felt like a jerk for disliking him so intensely. “Not much.”

  “Then no. Phil can do it.”

  She tested the coffee Smith had brought her, but it had gone cold. She picked at the donut instead. “With the blood on the mattress and this unidentified scalp…”

  “Things don’t look good,” he filled in.

  “It’s Jasper,” she said. “It has to be.” She expected him to deny it, to tell her they didn’t know that yet. She’d wanted to blame every problem they’d run into on Jasper, so she could see why he might argue. But he didn’t. Someone had murdered Sierra. They hadn’t recovered her body, but they were almost certain of that now. And they’d essentially picked a fight with Jasper last winter when Amarok had contacted his parents and managed to get a little information out of his mother. After all her research, Evelyn knew the kind of man Jasper was, how he’d likely respond. He certainly wouldn’t let it go. “I’ve been waiting for him to come after me again.”

  “So have I,” Amarok said.

  Evelyn drew a deep breath. “Don’t take this wrong. I feel terrible for Sierra and her family. I wish he hadn’t harmed her. But he’s been torturing and killing innocent victims for over twenty years. The bodies discovered near that burned-out barn in Peoria tell us that. So, as frightened as I am, I’m sort of relieved, too. If that makes sense.”

  “Relieved that it might all be over soon?”

  “Yeah. One way or the other.”

  “Don’t talk like it might not go our way. We’ll get him.”

  She wished she could believe Amarok. But after twenty-two years spent chasing someone who seemed capable of slipping through the tightest net, she knew they could easily lose in the end.

  12

  “This is it?” Amarok glanced over at Easy Hyde as he pulled to the side of the road.

  Easy nodded, but, unfortunately, there weren’t any tire tracks they could follow today, so there was no way to be positive it was the exact spot. There’d been too much snowfall since Easy had come here before. But the skies were clear at the moment. Although it was still colder than normal for this time of year, Amarok felt he was catching a small break, and he was determined to make the most of the opportunity.

  As they got out and stood at the edge of a large field surrounded on three sides by Sitka spruce, mountain hemlock and black cottonwood trees, Amarok was glad he’d left Makita at the trooper station. He loved having his dog with him, but Makita wasn’t a trained police dog. Amarok didn’t need him making tracks in the snow or doing anything else that might make his job harder. “Where were you when you hit that bump?”

  Easy pointed. “Right about there, not far from that burned-out stump.”

  Amarok unloaded the snowmobile from the trailer he’d been towing and grabbed his snowshoes, a shovel and the avalanche probe he kept in his truck. “Get on,” he told Hyde after he’d secured his equipment to their new mode of transportation.

  Once he felt the other man climb on behind him, he gave the sled some gas and they jetted across the snow. The motor was so loud he didn’t attempt to communicate again until he came to a stop at the place Easy had indicated from the road. “Here?” he asked as he let the engine idle.

  Easy didn’t seem completely convinced. He looked around, obviously trying to gauge where they were in relation to where he thought they should be. “I guess we could start here. I can’t be positive it’s the right place. I just rolled over something while I was driving. It happened fast, and I thought nothing of it, so there wasn’t a lot to fix the location in my mind. But this should be close.”

  “Okay.” If it wasn’t close, Amarok could be out here for hours—until after dark. But he’d brought lights and he could only work with the information he had.

  He killed the engine and they got off. After putting on his snowshoes, he deployed his avalanche probe to its full 240 centimeters. He had another probe that went to over 300, but while the snow was deep, it wasn’t as deep as it was going to get in full winter.

  He began poking the probe into the snow in a spiral pattern, making sure each new hole was no more than the width of an average-size body from the last.

  Evelyn wasn’t the only one who believed Jasper was back. Amarok had known he’d probably blame them for the fact that he’d felt the need to kill his own parents, which meant it was only a matter of time before Jasper tried to take retribution.

  And maybe that time was now.

  Just in case, Amarok had to be ready for him, had to outthink him and outwork him if he planned to keep Evelyn safe.

  “We’ve got company,” Easy said.

  Amarok, breathing heavily from the physical exertion, looked up. Sure enough, there were several cars parked behind his truck and a handful of people stood at the edge of the field, gawking at them.

  “Everyone’s curious about what’s going on,” Easy added.

  This road led to the prison, which meant the COs, the kitchen help, the administrative staff, the warden and the mental health team came past here. So did the supply trucks. “No surprise there. I’ve been flashing Sierra’s picture all over town.”

  “So most folks know a woman’s gone missing?”

  “By now they do.”

  “Then why are we keeping what I found a secret?”

  Primarily because Amarok had been trying to buy some time so Evelyn wouldn’t come under fire from the community again. But he didn’t want to admit that. “They know someone’s gone missing. They don’t know she’s dead.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not for sure. I’m still holding out hope,” he said, but he was almost certain his hope would be in vain. And if he didn’t find Sierra’s killer soon, he could be searching for Evelyn’s body next.

  * * *

  At four twenty, Evelyn was relieved when she saw a call coming in on line one. Penny wasn’t at the prison to answer the phone. None of the support staff worked on Saturdays. Only a few of the mental health professionals ever appeared. Today there were two—Russell Jones, the youngest, at thirty, of the psychologists on her team, and James Ricardo, the only neurologist. She wouldn’t have been at Hanover House herself today, except she had so much to do and she’d felt that working would make the time pass faster while Amarok was busy. She’d been waiting to hear from him all day.

  She asked James, who’d stopped by to say hello, to give her a moment, and he shut the door as he walked to his own office. “Where are you?” she asked Amarok as soon as she was alone. Judging by the noise in the background, he wasn’t at his trooper post.

  “At the Moosehead, grabbing a bowl of chili,” he replied. “I haven’t had lunch, so I’m starving.”

  She’d been battling a headache since before noon, but good news should help. “Did you find anything in that field?”

  “No.”

  The worry that had been plaguing her grew worse, made her feel like her stomach was churning with acid. “But her body has to be there. Where else would Easy get that hunk of human hair?”

  “I have no idea, but I was in that field all day, probed the whole damn thing.”

  “Didn’t Phil do part of it?”

  “No, he didn’t get back from the coroner until I was well into it, and then he had to do something for his wife. Now I’m glad I didn’t ask him to come out. I wouldn’t have trusted the results if anyone else had helped. That’s how positive I was she’d be out there.”

  Evelyn sank back into her chair. “So what now?”

  “Easy must’ve picked up that … biological matter from somewhere else.”

  “Damn it!” She’d been going all day on almost no sleep, hadn’t so much as managed to nap. Even after Easy left and she’d calle
d Andy Smith, who’d already called her back to say he’d keep quiet, Phil had come to the prison to pick up the sack. Every time she tried to rest her eyes, she saw the shack where Jasper had murdered her friends and tortured her. He was here. In Alaska. He had to be. That was what everything that’d happened recently had to mean—and it left her with the creeping sensation that she’d be hearing from him herself soon. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to keep looking.”

  “But we live in a vast wilderness! There are so many places to stash a body. And with all the snow…” She rubbed a hand over her face. Once again, Jasper would win. “You’ll never find her.”

  “Yes, I will. Maybe it’ll be in the spring, when the snow melts, but—”

  “Did you say ‘in the spring’?” she cried. If Jasper was here, she’d be dead by then.

  “These things don’t always move fast. Even if I don’t find her body, there could be a piece of clothing or something the perpetrator dropped that we can’t see right now.”

  A knock interrupted, and Russell Jones poked his head into her office. “Got a minute?”

  She didn’t. Neither was she in the mood to deal with him. He’d been Tim Fitzpatrick’s protégé and had always sided with him against her. Even without the politics of the past and the frustration that had engendered, Russ was so negative it was difficult to like him. He was sloppy, too. Short and cannonball-round, he wore a shirt and chinos every day that looked as though he’d slept in them—and his appearance matched his general mood. She still wondered why he hadn’t quit when Tim did so he could move back to the Lower 48. He did nothing but complain about Alaska.

  Still, now that Fitzpatrick was gone, Russ was relatively harmless; that was the main reason she hadn’t put any pressure on him to leave Hanover House. “I’m on the phone.” She held up the handset as if to say, Do I have to state the obvious?

  “I just need a second of your time,” he said. “Please? I have to go, but before I do, I’d like to show you this.” He came forward with a letter in his hand.

  Evelyn managed to keep herself from snapping at him only because her conversation with Amarok was pretty much done. “I have to go,” she said into the phone. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”