by Sue Henry
“My son said John was vague when asked where he was from and didn’t have a regional accent. He said he was born in the South and his family lived in several places when he was young, that he had traveled a lot doing construction. He mentioned New Orleans after the hurricane, but said he had no current mailing address.”
“Just where on the spit did you meet him?” Trooper Nelson questioned.
I told him and filled him in on our brief conversation.
“But he didn’t tell you how he arrived here?”
“Yes, he did—said he had come down from Anchorage on the Stage Line last Wednesday and was planning to catch it back today, so he’s probably almost there by now.”
Julia shifted uneasily in her chair. There was a long moment of silence as Nelson frowned down at his notes on the clipboard. Then he looked up and shook his head as he spoke.
“Mrs. McNabb . . . Mr. Walker didn’t take the shuttle this morning. When he didn’t appear for coffee, as he usually did, about an hour later Julia says she knocked on the door to his room, but got no answer. He had paid for four nights in cash when he registered. So, assuming he had probably gone somewhere for early breakfast before catching the shuttle, she used her key and found him lying on the bed.
“Sometime, probably very early this morning, he evidently shot himself in the head with a pistol.”
“Aahh . . .”
For a long moment I stared at him, unable to say a word or release the deep gasp of air I had sucked in. What he had told me just didn’t make sense.
I must have lost color, for he reached across the table and laid a hand on my arm as he glanced at Julia.
“Water,” he said. “Get a glass of water, will you?”
The legs of her chair shrieked on the floor as she hurriedly shoved it back, left the table, and came quickly back with a tall glass, half full.
She handed it to me and I let the second breath I had taken back out before taking a swallow. It helped.
He had leaned forward and was watching me closely and frowning in concern as I drank and set the glass on the table.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’m okay. It was the shock of what you said. You did mean that he’s dead, didn’t you?”
He nodded.
“Yes, Mrs. McNabb, I did. I’m sorry to upset you, but I need information from you if possible. Primarily, we need to know who he is and where he came from. His wallet’s on a shelf next to the bed, but there’s nothing in it to identify him—no papers, driver’s license, credit cards—nothing at all—just two hundred and forty-three dollars in bills and a picture of a young woman. Next to the wallet is some small change—forty-six cents—and a pocketknife. Except for a few clothes in a small duffel and a small kit with a razor, a comb, and a few toiletries in the bathroom, there’s nothing else.”
I frowned, confused.
“But you called him by name—John Walker.”
“Only because that’s the name he gave when he registered here at the inn.”
SIX
A COLD WIND WAS BLOWING STEADILY FROM THE WEST, catching up spray from the crests of the incoming waves of the outer inlet and hurling it onto the spit that afternoon as I walked slowly along the high edge of the shingle that had been left damp by the outgoing tide. Stretch padded along at my side, ears flopping in the breeze, shivering every so often and giving me baleful looks. Though I had insisted that he wear the red sweater I had knit for him, he was not particularly pleased at being outside instead of at home, warm and dry. The damp sand clung to his paws. He disliked it and kept shaking them frequently, to little effect.
Probably, I should have left him in the car, which I had, as usual, parked up by the road near the shops that were closed for the season, but I had wanted the company.
After a few more questions before I left the Driftwood Inn, Trooper Nelson had requested that I formally identify John Walker. So, assuring him that I had seen dead people before, having buried two husbands of my own, and would not faint, he and I had gone together to a small room near the entrance of the inn and I had sadly made the identification.
John Walker, if that really was his name, had looked peaceful enough lying on top of the carefully made bed, his head on a pillow that he had evidently covered with a towel spread over a black plastic trash bag to keep the blood from the bullet wound to his head from staining it.
“What will you do with him?” I asked as we left the room.
“His body will be sent to the lab in Anchorage,” Trooper Nelson told me. “The coroner will try to establish some identification. The lack of any ID makes it seem he made an effort to conceal who he is, so it’s probable that John Walker isn’t his real name. Fingerprints may help us find out who he is. If he’s ever had them taken they’ll be on file in the national index and could help us find out where he came from, if we’re lucky, but it will take some time. I’ll speak to the people who were at your dinner party. They may remember something he said that could help.”
I agreed and gave him the note John had left with the books. “Interesting that he mentions the days as his last,” he commented after he had read it.
“Yes. That struck me, too. And once, the day I met him, he said he might spend the rest of his life here in Homer. But I couldn’t have known he meant anything like this.”
We were standing outside John’s room, facing Duggan’s pub across the street.
“You know,” I offered, “you might check over there. He said he might go there, and after a beer or two he may have been more forthcoming with someone—the owner, a bartender, or another customer.”
“Good idea,” Nelson said, nodding. “I’ll try that. Thanks, Mrs. McNabb, for your assistance—and your good sense. Here’s my card. Call if you have questions, or think of anything else that might be helpful.”
“I will,” I promised. “And could you let me know if you find out anything more about him? I’d like to know who he really was and where he came from—why he chose Homer, Alaska.”
I had gone straight home, but found myself restlessly pacing from space to space inside my house, not ready to light anywhere or get back to the book I had been reading. Periodically I watched the dark clouds that were drifting in over the bay and mountains, tried to eat lunch, but found that the sandwich I made tasted more like sawdust than tuna. Finally I had given up, dressed myself and Stretch for the cold outside, and drove us out to the spit where I had first met John.
I thought it all through again as I walked the beach that miserable afternoon. What a strange thing for someone to do, leaving so many questions unanswered. If I ever decided to do away with myself, which I had no intention of doing, I thought I might decide to hike off into the wilderness that makes up the largest part of Alaska and select a place where no one would ever find or have to deal with me—or even think of looking, for that matter. Not that I really ever would, but . . .
Part of me wished I had taken my Winnebago south for the winter, as I had done the last year or two. If I had I could have avoided all this and never even met John Walker. Though he had been pleasant enough company, it had upset me deeply to think of his dying alone and in that manner. What, I wondered, could possibly have inspired it?
Kicking a piece of driftwood out of my way, I suddenly knew I was not only sad, I was angry—felt somehow used and abandoned, as if he had had some kind of obligation to me and had declined to honor it. What could have inspired that feeling? Just being kind to someone confers no debt—or shouldn’t. Nevertheless . . .
I realized that I wanted answers and had been given none—probably would never get any, for who but John had them to give? And he had, by his personal reserve and his actions, refused. His suicide was clearly the most final rejection of all.
That idea depressed me all over again.
Having slowed considerably as I thought about it, I suddenly became aware that I was walking alone. Turning, I looked back to find that Stretch, unable to get my attention with his shivers and a whine or
two, had simply given up and stopped several yards away. He was sitting down, staring after me, waiting to see just how long it would take for me to understand that this rebellion was serious and he wanted this miserable outing to end—now.
I had to smile. When Stretch decides to look pitiful, there is no dog I know that has perfected the art quite so successfully. He simply droops from nose to tail, cocks his head, stares at you with those irresistible liquid brown eyes, and waits to see what reaction will be forthcoming, knowing full well he’ll win sympathy at the very least.
He did, of course, and I was ready enough to head for home before the oncoming storm broke, as it was threatening to do with a few fat drops of rain that spattered dimples in the sand. Tired, unhappy, and rejected I might be, but soaking wet was a condition I could avoid. I clipped on his leash and headed toward an upward path that would take us closest to where I had parked my car.
Having his way, Stretch spared no time in climbing the bank, but once at the top he hesitated, then turned off the path and onto the wide porch in front of one of the closed shops. At fir st I thought he simply wanted off the damp sand that clung to his paws, but he headed straight on toward a picnic table, which I recognized as the one where John Walker had been sitting when we met him. Without hesitating he vanished under it.
“Come out from under there, you silly galah,” I told him, which had no effect, so I tugged on his leash. There was still no resulting appearance and I could hear him pawing at something on the wood of the deck. Consequently, I bent to peer under the table to see what had attracted his undivided attention.
“Look,” I told him, “I’m a fair bit bigger than you are, and while this may be shelter for you, it is not for me. What have you got there? Whatever it is, let it alone and come along to the car.”
Curiosity to see what he was so determined to retrieve then got the better of me, so I dropped to my knees and leaned as far under the table as I could, banging my head in the process.
He was determinedly pawing at a thing that was caught in a crack between two planks of the decking—something metallic. He hesitated and looked around, clearly wanting me to salvage whatever it was.
I reached and felt a piece of cold metal.
Carefully I worked it out of the crack and, clutching it firmly, edged myself out from under the table, Stretch now willing to follow closely.
“You are a ning-nong for sure,” I told him, using one of my Daniel’s pet Aussie phrases for absurd behavior.
It was now raining harder, so I merely glanced at the object I had collected and hurriedly trotted us both across the road to my car, where, with my assistance, he was soon happily ensconced in his basket and ready to roll.
I hurried around to the driver’s side and climbed in quickly before examining the object I carried. It was a brass belt buckle that shone dully in the half-light—the kind that has a hook on the inside to hold it in place in one of several holes in the leather of the wearer’s belt. Turning it over, I was surprised to see that the outer side bore a representation of the two towers in New York that had been destroyed by terrorists.
How odd, I thought, wondering if it could possibly have belonged to the man who had been sitting there and why, if so, he hadn’t recovered it. Maybe he had not lost it, but intentionally left it, concerned that it could be a clue to where he had come from, which, from his actions and reticence, he had seemed determined to conceal.
Whatever. That notion could just as easily have occurred to me because of the current events involving John Walker—or whatever his name turned out to be—and could be examined later. It was time to get off the spit for the time being.
“Okay, lovie,” I told Stretch, pulling the car back onto the road, headed for town. “I have a couple of quick stops to make on the way, but we’ll be home soon, I promise.”
Leaving him to stay dry inside the car, I went first to take the books back to Andy, and, though I was, as always, tempted by the hundreds of books that cram the shelves of the two flo ors of his cozy bookstore, I resisted and left quickly without telling him about John’s death—simply not ready to talk about it or answer the questions I knew he would ask.
My second stop was the liquor store, since I was almost out of whiskey after Saturday’s party and decided I should pick up a couple of bottles of wine as well.
The wine I found easily near the front of the store. I put three bottles in the cart I was pushing, then went down an aisle to look for my usual whiskey, deciding also to pick up a bottle of Canadian Mist, a favorite of Becky’s, who dropped in to chat from time to time. Reaching toward an upper shelf for my desired Jim Beam, I suddenly froze, noticing that near it stood a bottle of Johnnie Walker. I stood staring at it, lacking both thought and breath, as if a ghost had suddenly appeared in front of me. The letters on the red label swam as tears unexpectedly filled my eyes.
Brushing them aside with the back of my hand, I looked again. Johnnie Walker . . . John Walker! So that was why I had felt the name was somehow familiar on our meeting that day on the spit. It was probably just coincidence, but was there no escape from the manner and tragedy of his death?
Collecting the bottle I had been reaching for, I noticed that it too carried what could be, and probably was, a man’s name—Jim Beam. How many similar labels carried the names of those proudly responsible for their distilling?
My curiosity aroused, I started along the aisle, checking out the bottles of whiskey. It soon became a rather extensive list. Besides my Jim Beam and the bottle of Johnnie Walker that had caught my attention, I found whiskey called Jack Daniel’s, Austin Nichols, W. L. Weller, Evan Williams, Elmer T. Lee, George Dickel, Elijah Craig, and even one named for Sam Houston.
From the information proudly displayed on the labels, all had been distilled in either Kentucky or Tennessee—both states that were part of the South, where John had told my son, Joe, he had been born. It made a sort of sense that he had might have selected a pseudonym from where he had originated, if that were true—and if it really was a pseudonym, as I couldn’t help suspecting.
I retrieved from my purse the notebook and pen I use to make grocery lists and quickly wrote down the names I had found on the whiskey bottles, thinking that they might interest Trooper Nelson. It might possibly be, I supposed, that some of the other names might have been used for the same purpose—worth a thought at least.
By the time I left the liquor store it was pouring rain that fell almost sideways in the wind that was blowing out of the west and would probably turn to snow before nightfall. I was glad to reach home, carry in Stretch and the bottles in two trips, shake out my wet coat, and settle in for the rest of the day. With early darkness in the Alaskan far north and the addition of the clouds that had swept in, it was already time to turn on the lights.
I wanted a fire to remove the chill that had crept in as we entered, though my furnace works very efficiently, thanks to my dear Daniel, who insisted that the old one be replaced a year or two before he passed on. But besides warmth there is something consoling about having a wood fir e crackling cheerfully in the corner fireplace, so I make sure to order up a full winter’s supply of good dry wood each fall. I soon had the logs laid and lit and was ready to appreciate the comfort of my favorite recliner nearby.
After a snack and a long drink of water, Stretch had gone almost immediately to curl up for a nap on the hearth rug, which he assumes belongs to him. With a snoozing dog as inspiration, in the warmth of the fire I was soon nodding over my book, finally gave up, laid it down, leaned back, and followed his example.
SEVEN
MORE THAN AN HOUR LATER the ringing of the telephone brought both me and Stretch back to consciousness.
He sat up and yawned.
I got up and crossed the room to answer its summons.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Mom. It’s me—Joe,” my son informed me, as if I wouldn’t recognize his voice.
“I hear that,” I told him. “So you made it home okay
.”
“Oh, sure. Meant to call you, but Sharon and I got into a conversation that lasted pretty late in the evening, so I decided to wait until today to tell you the news.”
“So—from the sound of your voice I assume it’s good and you’ve settled some things?”
“Yes, all good. We’ve—ah . . .”
I could hear him take a deep breath, then . . .
“. . . decided to get married.”
“Oh, Joe, I’m really happy for you both. When?”
“Well, not right away. We’re thinking next spring—after we get everything settled about our work.”
“So Sharon’s not going to Portland?”
“No, she’s still going—we’re both going.”
“Both?”
“Yes.”
My son works in forensics in a Seattle crime lab, is very good at what he does, and loves his job. The idea of his giving it up filled me with concern that I immediately expressed.
“Oh, Joe. Are you sure you should give up what you like so much and are so good at? What will you do in Oregon?”
“Well, here’s the good part. I spoke with the lab director this morning and, as it happens, we’ve been talking about working more closely with the lab in Portland, so our director has arranged for me to trade places for the winter with a guy down there. It’ll be temporary. We’ll establish better communication and coordination. And, best of all, I’ll have my job back here in the spring. Everybody wins!”
“What about your apartment? Will you have to give it up?”
“Nope. Jacob is single and lives in downtown Portland, near where Sharon will be working, so we’ll trade apartments as well as jobs—both paying our usual rent, since ours is a bit more than his.”
He sounded so pleased with himself and their plans that I couldn’t help being happy for them as well.
“It sounds perfect,” I told him. “Now—about a wedding next year.”
