by Sue Henry
There was one other woman sitting halfway up the small plane on the opposite side. I had guessed that, probably, she was not a Homer resident, for I had seen her in the waiting room before boarding looking through the brochures that filled a rack on the wall with information on Homer and the surrounding area. As I watched she had collected a few that she tucked into the large shoulder bag she carried and, now aboard the plane, she was studying one I recognized as containing a map of the spit and its various offices and businesses. We have few tourist visitors to Homer so late in the year and I wondered briefly what had brought her there, but people do come and go for all kinds of reasons.
As we had approached the plane, with a hand motion she had offered to let me board in front of her, but knowing I wanted a rear seat I had thanked her and waited until last.
Though there were a few clouds, it was mostly clear and sunny as we flew northeast over the Kenai Peninsula. I was able to see the lakes, large and small, as they passed beneath us. Knee-deep in one of the small ones a moose and her half-grown calf were browsing on the reeds and pondweed that were still scantily available at its thinly frozen edge. During the winter when the ponds freeze solid and the snow is deep, the huge ungulates rely on the needlelike leaves of conifers for the up to forty pounds of food they need each day.
Though much of the peninsula is a national wildlife refuge and is full of moose, I saw no more from the air that morning and we were soon passing over Cook Inlet headed for the Anchorage airport.
Where the inlet divides, Anchorage occupies a projection of land between it and the Chugach Mountains to the east. The northern waters become the smaller Knik Arm and the southern, Turnagain Arm, so named in different languages by at least three captains of sailing ships, including Captain Cook, who was searching for a northwest passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. All, however, were disappointed in their quests and had to turn back into the Pacific, thus the name.
On sunny days I always love flying between Anchorage and Homer because, besides the inlet and its arms, several mountain ranges are often visible from the air, all beautiful at any time of year.
By the time we landed I was ready to collect the rental car I had called ahead to reserve and Stretch and I were soon headed for downtown Anchorage, where I had booked a room at the Hilton Hotel and asked for one high on the north-facing side. From there, I had found that if I woke early on a clear day I could watch the rising sun cast a rosy glow over both Mount McKinley and Mount Foraker, the rest of the Alaska Range, and Mount Susitna farther west. It was a grand view, but usually hidden in clouds. Still, it was worth a chance.
Leaving the rental car to be parked by one of the hotel staff, I checked in and Stretch and I went up to our room to leave the necessaries I had brought along for the two of us. I let him out of the carrier, gave him water, and put him on his leash and myself into my coat, and we were off for a day of shopping and enjoying the downtown section of Alaska’s largest city.
Going through the lobby on our way out I was surprised to see the woman from the plane sitting in a chair to one side of the elevators. As we headed for a side door, she looked up over the top of the Homer News that she was reading, but gave no indication that she recognized me, her attention on Stretch, who had been out of sight in his carrier when we boarded and disembarked. I would have smiled and nodded as we passed, but she had already returned to her reading and didn’t seem to notice. As I held the door for Stretch to exit in front of me, however, I glanced back and found her watching us leave.
Outside, I was glad to see, as I had noticed driving in from the airport, that the streets and sidewalks were bare of snow. We walked up to Fifth, then turned east for half a block to Penney’s department store, which forms the west end of a large downtown mall that connects to numerous tempting shops on several levels, none of which we have in Homer.
I had a great time perusing the offerings of a number of stores and shops for a couple of hours, then, after a sandwich lunch at a table in the upper food court, decided to leave the mall and head for Title Wave, a bookstore across the street. There I spent more than an hour and added three books to my purchases, one on the Revolutionary War that I was almost sure Lew didn’t have and knew I hadn’t read.
It was well into the afternoon when we finally returned to the hotel. I had a nap in mind before dinner and knew that Stretch would be ready for one as well. He is a welcome and patient travel companion, interested in just about everything he sees, but he tires faster than I do, his short legs a blur of motion in keeping up with anything but a casual stroll.
Though my shopping, for Christmas and in general, had gone well, I was ready to give it up for the time being and settle in with my new books. I had found a warm sweater for Sharon in a luscious shade of peach, a couple of old favorite movies on DVD for Joe, and a few other small gifts for friends and family.
The message light on the telephone was blinking demandingly when we came through the door to our room.
Oh, no! I thought, assuming that someone else with questions concerning John Walker had somehow tracked me down. After putting my purchases on the bed I would not be using, I shrugged off my coat, kicked off my shoes, and sat down to check the message—or messages, as the case might prove to be.
I was relieved to hear Jessie Arnold’s recorded voice instead, requesting that I call her back at home, and did so immediately.
I had talked to her the evening before, but we had not decided on a time to get together for a visit, though she had invited me to come and stay with them for a day or two before I headed back to Homer.
Jessie and her significant other, Alex Jensen, have become two of the best friends I have, whose company I don’t have the chance to enjoy often enough. They live together outside Wasilla, which is about forty miles east of Anchorage, off the Parks Highway, which winds its way north to Fairbanks, passing Denali Park about halfway.
Jessie is a musher of sled dogs, and keeps and trains a large kennel of them in the yard next to the comfortable log cabin she had constructed there a number of years ago after the original burned.
Alex is an Alaska state trooper with the detachment in Palmer, another Matanuska Valley town a few miles east of Wasilla.
The pair met when Jessie was running a team of dogs to Nome in the famous Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and tangled with a killer on the trail. It wasn’t long afterward that Alex moved in to live with her, and they’ve been together ever since.
I dialed the number and Jessie was quick to answer on the second ring, which told me she had been waiting.
“Hey, Maxie! How are you?”
“Fine—pretty much,” I told her. “Some disconcerting things going on in Homer, but I’m fine and simply playing hooky from a few unwelcome phone calls and questions I’ll tell you about later.”
“Well,” she said, “I was hoping you’d take time from shopping to call this afternoon. The Caswells have invited us for bridge tonight, so I wanted to talk to you before we went out for the evening and make sure you were coming to stay with us tomorrow as planned.”
“We’d love to, if it’s not interrupting anything for you.”
“Not at all,” she told me. “I’m assuming from that we that you brought Stretch. But you know me this time of year. There’s not enough snow to run sleds and dogs on, so I keep wandering around the lot, keeping an eye on the sky—which has remained sunny, dammit!—and hearing how you’re getting snow in Homer. I’d more than welcome you if only as a distraction. But you know you’re much more than that and are welcome here anytime.
“And I can’t forget to tell you that Alex agrees and is looking forward to your arrival. You did bring Stretch, didn’t you? Tank wants to know.”
I heard the grin in her voice and assured her I was accompanied by my usual canine companion, who had become fir m friends with Jessie’s lead dog, Tank.
“I’ve got a little more shopping to attend to out at the Diamond Center, but will drive in your direction tomorrow�
�arrive midafternoon, if that works for you.”
It did and we ended the call, knowing there would be plenty of time for conversation in the next couple of days.
Running away from home is sometimes best when you can avoid telling anyone just where you are going. That was exactly what I had done, except for Jessie, and, to my great satisfaction, my phone didn’t ring once that evening, nor did anyone knock on my door.
Leaving Stretch in the room, I had gone downstairs for dinner after watching the news on television. After dinner I watched an old favorite movie on television, went to bed early, and slept well and dreamlessly.
The next morning I got up early to take Stretch for a quick walk, knowing he would need to be taken out for his morning constitutional. It was still dark outside and cold, so we didn’t stay put long and were soon back in our room, where I ordered breakfast, fed him, and, while I waited for my meal, read the Anchorage Daily News, which I had found outside my door. A glance out the window had shown me that the whole sky was overcast, so there was no sunshine to gild the faraway mountains to the north, which were so tall they were hidden in the clouds. This was more often than not the case, with Mount McKinley the highest mountain in North America. I guess we are lucky that we see it at all from Anchorage, considering how far away it is. Ah, well—one can’t have everything, can one?
The coffee that arrived swiftly was good and strong, the eggs Benedict and toast tasty and still warm under their metal cover. So I took my time eating, and by the time it was growing light outside I was ready to dress, pack up what little I had removed from my small suitcase, and head for the Diamond Center, another mall across town.
TEN
AFTER ENJOYING A LITTLE MORE LEISURELY SHOPPING and lunch at the Diamond Center south of downtown Anchorage, I drove out the Glenn Highway toward Palmer, turned left just before reaching it, and was soon in Wasilla, a smaller community north of Palmer. Taking the road that angled west I had soon driven just over ten miles to where Jessie lived and was expecting me.
She must have been watching when I turned the rental car into her drive that Thursday afternoon and drove up to park in front of her log house at just before three. She came flying out the door, pulling on a jacket as she took the stairs from the broad front porch two at a time—somehow without falling—her sled dog Tank following more cautiously behind her. Reaching the bottom, she all but hurled herself into an enthusiastic hug for me as I stepped out of the car.
“Oh, Maxie,” she told me, leaning back and giving me a grin. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“And I you,” I told her.
“I feel like it’s been ages since I saw you last.”
“Well, it hasn’t been that long actually. I was here just after the earthquake.”
“That’s right, you were, but it feels like longer ago. I just wish we lived closer together—either you here, or us there. How long can you stay? A week? A month?”
I had to smile at her—more than welcoming, as always.
“Not anywhere near that long. But if you can put up with me and Stretch we’ll stay tomorrow and Saturday, then head home on Sunday. I already have a reservation with Grant Aviation.”
“Of course it’s okay. What’s your excuse for coming up this time?”
“Do I need one?”
“Of course not! I’m just curious, as usual, and you sounded a bit in need of an escape on the phone.”
“You have no idea how right you are,” I told her. “And that’s exactly what I did—escape! But let’s get inside where it’s warm and I’ll tell you all about the past few days. I’m sure you’ve a cup of tea for an old lady in need of it. And somewhere here in a paper bag I have a bottle of Jameson that I picked up in Anchorage.”
“‘Old lady’? Hardly!” Jessie scoffed. “And leave the whiskey where it is,” she instructed. “You’re carrying coals to Newcastle. I have a brand-new bottle waiting on the table in the house and the water’s hot enough for tea, if you’d like to have both.”
She helped me by lifting my small bag out of the backseat while I collected Stretch from his basket and put him on the ground so he could greet Tank, who was eagerly awaiting him with tail wagging.
Jessie’s larger dog then followed close at my heels as I picked up and carried Stretch up the steps to the porch.
In just a few minutes Jessie and I were settled at her table near the kitchen with welcome shots of Jameson and an accompanying cup of tea for me, as promised. Accompanied by her sled dog, Stretch had reacquainted himself with her house by padding around the large open area that was kitchen, dining area, and living room combined. Satisfie d, he lay down side by side with Tank on a color ful rug near Jessie’s potbellied stove.
“Here’s to lasting friendships,” she said, lifting her glass.
“And the friends that treasure them,” I gave back.
We sipped and Jessie leaned forward to set down her drink and rest both elbows on the table.
“Now,” she requested, “tell me why you’ve run away from home. What’s wrong?”
I hesitated and thought for a long moment before answering her.
“You know,” I said finally. “If you’ll wait awhile for an answer to that, I’d much rather tell it just once and I’d like Alex to hear it, too. He may have some ideas to contribute to the strange and puzzling situation I’ve inadvertently become part of and run away from.”
“Interesting,” she returned. “But wait if you want. Alex should be home soon anyway. When he heard you were coming today he decided to play hooky himself and take a couple of hours off this afternoon.”
“Good. And thanks.”
“No problem for me—but it sounds like you may have one.”
“Sort of,” I answered. “Tell me how your kennel is stacking up for racing this year. Are you going to run the Iditarod again—or the Yukon Quest?”
Less than an hour later we heard a truck in the drive, footsteps on the stairs and front porch, and someone whistling “She’ll Be Comin’ ’Round the Mountain When She Comes.”
The door flew open and Alex Jensen appeared through it with a grin and a hearty, “Hey there! Hello-o-o, Maxie! What a treat to find you here keeping company with my favorite girl.”
He leaned to give Jessie—who had risen and hurried across the room—a one-armed hug and a kiss from under his handlebar mus tache, then handed her a grocery bag.
“Good to see you, too, love. Here’s the stuff you wanted from the store.”
“Thanks,” Jessie told him, and headed for the kitchen with the bag.
After removing his coat, hat, and boots, he crossed the room sock-footed in long strides to share a hug with me as well.
“Did you come to help me solve crimes again?” he teased as he sat down at the table. “I’ve not got much that’s really interesting just now.”
“Well,” I told him, “I just might have something that will pique your curiosity at least.”
“Fire away,” he told me, leaning forward to reach for the bottle of Killian’s Jessie had brought from the refrigerator to set on the table in front of him.
“Wait a minute,” she called from back in the kitchen. “I want to hear, too, and need to do a couple of things in here first.”
When she came back to the table and sat down, Alex nodded in my direction. “Go ahead, Maxie. Have you been stirring up trouble in Homer, or just playing detective again?”
“Neither,” I told him. “I’d much rather this thing had never landed in my lap, but . . . It all started a week ago when Stretch and I went for a walk on the spit and met a man who said he was just visiting and had hiked out from town. A storm was on its way in, so we gave him a ride back to town when it started to rain. Then . . .”
As they both listened attentively, I told them everything I could think of about John Walker, how I had met him and that he had come to dinner that Saturday night and fit in well with the group, but left son Joe wondering why he was vague about where he had come from and be
en doing. I related how he had left the two books on my doorstep Sunday night and that I had assumed he had caught the Homer Stage Line back to Anchorage, the phone call I had received from Trooper Alan Nelson, my subsequent visit to the Driftwood Inn, our interview and my identification of John’s body. I fin ished with the belt buckle Stretch had found under the table on the spit, then my shock at finding his name on the whiskey bottle, and having it backed up by his way of signing the guest book at the inn.
“After that my phone rang constantly from people asking questions, and I decided to run away for a few days. So here I am and more than grateful for this port in a storm.”
Alex had leaned back in his chair as I talked, a thoughtful frown lowering his brow as he listened closely until I was through.
“I know and respect Alan Nelson,” he told me. “He’s good at his job, so you can count on his doing it well and thoroughly. The dead man’s body would have been brought up to the crime lab in Anchorage yesterday or the day before, and they may have been able to identify him by his prints, if he’s ever had them taken. It’s one of the fir st things they’ll do. I can check with a phone call in the morning, if you like.”
I nodded. “I’d very much like to know who he really was and where he came from.”
“It’s interesting that he would take a name from a brand of whiskey,” Jessie said. “He must have had a sense of humor.”
“If he used that one, he might have used some of the others,” I told her. “I found that there’s a lot of whiskey named after the people who made it.”
She had also been listening intently while I told my tale and now, as she reached to pour us all another shot of Jameson, she ventured a question concerning something I wondered about, but had not really considered, given that I had no way of knowing, or finding, the answer.
“Do you suppose he might have been in New York when the towers fell and got the belt buckle there? If so, given his obvious intent to hide his identity and where he was from, it would make sense that he would get rid of it.”
