Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  “Wouldn’t he be afraid of being trapped in the plane, or not being able to make it to shore in such cold water?”

  “No. Not Norm. He knew better. Lots of people are afraid to ditch. Think they’ll drown, or just don’t want to risk losing the plane, but the odds of getting hurt in a water landing are much less than that kind of stuff.” She waved a hand at the uneven ground that extended as far as they could see. “Most planes won’t just sink like a stone. There’s a lot of air—in the floats, the fuel tanks, and wings—to keep the plane afloat for a few minutes, long enough for you to get out, even if you’re partly underwater. And, through the summer, these small lakes warm…a little.

  “But he must have made it, though he was probably underwater when the plane stopped. So…if he wasn’t badly hurt…and…if he was able to get the survival gear?”

  Chelle swung around to look back down the hill, scanning the surrounding trees, brush, and an area of flat ground to the left of the plane.

  “Have you looked for what’d be left of a fire? He’d have been wet. Getting dry would’ve been a priority, assuming he didn’t need a lot of first aid. I’ll bet there was at least a bump on the head. Nosing into that lake was no joyride. Even with the belts, he’d have been thrown around some.” She frowned at the thought and the strain made itself evident in the pitch of her voice.

  “We looked everywhere within a couple of hundred feet. No sign of anything burned. A fire would have left some evidence that wouldn’t disappear over the winter. What else?”

  “The cardinal rule is stay with the plane. Whoever looks, will look for the plane…and they will look.”

  “But there wouldn’t have been a plane to see, would there? And no emergency beacon, right? He’d know that…and that his flight plan said he was supposed to be the hell and gone the other side of Anchorage.”

  “He had a transmitter, but ELTs don’t work underwater. So, if I were Norm, and able, I’d be thinking about getting myself out of here. That’d mean walking…hiking…a long way.”

  “Twenty, thirty miles to the inlet.” Alex pulled a map from his coat pocket and began to unfold it.

  “Yes, and as soon as possible, while he still had energy, because there wouldn’t be much, or any food for a long, strenuous hike…just what was with the survival gear. Can’t be more than thirty miles, and it’s the closest place to go where there’d be people. Almost all downhill.” With a finger, she pointed out a route on the map that led west down a stream into Lower Beluga Lake, then followed the Beluga River to Cook Inlet. “If he could reach the gas field, there’s a gravel road that goes between its buildings and Tyonek to the west. It’s where I’d head.”

  When she raised her attention from the map, Jensen was looking at her with a frown of concern. “Rochelle…” he began.

  Uncontrollable tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks.

  “Yes, damn it,” she said, abruptly smearing them off on a sleeve. “He didn’t make it. I know.”

  But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to know where he is, she thought. If he’s still in Alaska, he’s got to be somewhere between here and there. I know it, and I’ll walk every damn foot of it till I find him, or am sure he’s not there. I’ve got all summer to do it, and I certainly don’t need your help or permission.

  Jensen went on. “There’re other things about this, Chelle. Who shot the plane, and…her. Who is she? Why were they shot? Why is the plane here when Norm filed a flight plan that said he was headed for the Gulkana field at Glennallen? We’ve got some answers to find. They may help find him. We’ll do the best we can and keep you posted.”

  “I know. I hope you will. You should check to see if his survival gear is still in the plane. If he tried to walk out, it won’t be there, unless he couldn’t get to it after the crash. But it was in pretty shallow—if a hiker could find it. Shouldn’t have been much of a problem to dive for it. And…”

  “Yes,” Alex told her, simply. “I will…whatever. And if you think of anything else, let me know. But…let’s go down. Here comes the technical crew.”

  Rochelle looked up and realized she had been half-aware of the pounding of helicopter rotors for the last few minutes. It hovered, now, over her head, beginning a slow descent to the only flat space large enough to hold it. The space Norm would have picked for a fire—the fire Jensen said he hadn’t built.

  She was suddenly exhausted…physically and emotionally. It was time to head back to Anchorage and leave the troopers to do the job she knew they would do well. But she would be back. Soon. Somewhere, Norm could still be out there, and, if he was, she would find him…herself.

  3

  CHELLE USED TWO KEYS TO OPEN THE FRONT DOOR of the house where she lived, off Jewel Lake Road, ten minutes from Lake Hood. One key for the dead bolt, one for the less secure lock in the doorknob.

  From this area most of Anchorage spread out to the east and north, between the mountains and the sea, a city of two hundred and fifty thousand, more than half the population of the state. Jewel Lake Road was a busy north-south street that ran from International Airport Road to intersect with Diamond, a major traffic artery for the heavily residential southwest section of town. That the house was convenient to the airport had been an important factor to her husband, Norm, when he bought it. The streets around it bore a tangled brier patch of names: Loganberry, Raspberry, Strawberry, Huckleberry, and Elderberry, among others.

  Chelle had moved in with him the year before, shortly before they married, almost reluctantly giving up the midtown apartment she had clung to with a superstition that annoyed him and at which she had been somewhat self-critically amused, but stubbornly refused to shrug off. Unreasonably, she had felt that prematurely moving her few pieces of furniture, pride of books, and small but good collection of Alaskan artwork—personal items that defined her—might jinx the relationship, a second marriage for her.

  Norm had never completely recognized what Chelle felt about moving out of her place—if it was not done in the right way and time she might have to move back—and worse, that, when and if it happened, her apartment, the space that had become part of her image of herself, would be gone, leaving her no choice, no option, forced to start over, to search out a new and unfamiliar place to live. She was cautious, wary of starting over, but Norm had responded with irritation, as if she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, to live with him and to live alone.

  Her uneasy irresolution had frustrated him for several other reasons he had not been hesitant to express. He owned the house and had viewed the rent she paid as wasted money that could have gone into the small but growing charter flying business they had started together. There was plenty of room for them both in the house, while her apartment was too small and had no storage space for their expanding collection of gear and equipment. The house was closer to Lake Hood and their two planes, with only one major traffic artery to cross, while the apartment was halfway across town. His last significant argument had been that most of their time had been spent there anyway. “You practically live here already, Chelle.”

  But she had adamantly refused to move in until they had set a date for the wedding. This was not with any intent to force him to formalize their living arrangement. In fact the idea of marriage made her even more uneasy. In a reversal of traditional roles, it had been he who encouraged the idea, and she who hesitated. It was because she knew that, reasonable or not, keeping the apartment was her security, her ace in the hole—the stakes in her intangible blind bargain with life in marrying Norm—trying again.

  Now, each time she unlocked the door, as she did now, she was reminded with a fresh pang of emptiness that it was a wager she had lost. She had not been forced to find a new and separate place for herself, but she was once again—as she had feared and anticipated—alone. One way or another, despite his promises and rationales to the contrary, he was gone—had left her to ache with missing him, to be exhausted with her own anger at him and herself, her sense of betrayal, and the
pain of his absence.

  They had found the plane in which he disappeared eight months earlier, but he was not in it, and she had no sense of closure. All she could be sure of was that whatever had happened to Norm, wherever he was, it was not where he was supposed to be. He was still missing.

  MIA, she thought, as the second lock clicked open and she reached to turn the knob. Missing in action?…in air?…in affection? Who was the woman—that thing—in the plane? Though Ed had hinted at it, she had refused to consider an affair…another woman. Had not believed it. She had always thought—feared—that she would know if that ever happened to her again. Considering her brother as the source, she had ignored his suggestions, knowing that from the time they met, he and Norm had taken an unreasonable dislike to each other, Ed behaving like a jealous child, Norm disgusted and wasting little sympathy on Ed’s egotistical attitude and tendency to switch employment. He’s a goddamn grasshopper, jumping from job to job, trying to find some way to get paid for looking pretty. Thinks the world owes him everything. Still, she couldn’t easily accept the woman in the plane as proof of the infidelity Ed suggested of Norm.

  She was also angry with her brother for his condescending attitude on their way back to Anchorage in her plane. Learning that she was considering a ground search for Norm, he had immediately ridiculed and criticized her plan.

  “It’s a stupid idea, Chelle. You haven’t a prayer of finding him anyway—especially if he’s as long gone as I bet he is. He probably panicked when he knew that woman—whoever she is—was shot—maybe left her in the plane to die and took off on his own. He’s not worth looking for—probably not even there. You never should have married him. I warned you. He was a selfish bastard.”

  “That’s not fair,” she had retorted. “You don’t know—”

  “All he tried to do was turn you against me—the only real family you have. He couldn’t stand that you should care about anyone but him. Can’t you see that?”

  “No,” she had answered heatedly, “I can’t. He never had anything against you that you didn’t give him a reason for. I’ve got to find out what happened, Ed. Got to know.”

  “Well, it’s a really dumb idea. And if you’re going, you’re going without me. I won’t help this time. Not a chance.”

  “Don’t remember asking you,” she countered. Why should it be any different this time, she thought. You’ve always been more problem than help.

  Poor Ed. Through her anger, she had still found pity for him, as usual. She had always felt that most of her only sibling’s nature wasn’t really his fault. Younger than she by eight years, Ed had the same last name that had been hers until she married, though they had different fathers. Chelle’s had abandoned his unwanted family when she was born, and she had always felt responsible for the burden of her mother’s silent, bitter resentment of his absence.

  Working to support herself and her child, her mother had had little social life, and Ed had been the accidental result of a temporary relationship. Guiltily trying to make up for his illegitimacy, she had pampered and spoiled him, requiring Chelle to take care of him much of the time. He was given the best of everything possible because he was the youngest and a boy. “You’ll get married. He has to be able to make a living.” Chelle had chafed at the attitude, furious with the injustice, but kept most of it to herself and mothering Ed had become a habit. When her mother died of pneumonia, Chelle was twenty and working as a receptionist for a charter service, learning to fly. Ed was twelve and a problem that did not solve itself.

  Arrogant, egotistical, and selfish, he expected her to take care of him, and continued to do so long past the age when he should have been caring for himself. He had trouble keeping jobs because of his inflated opinion of himself and a decided lack of patience with other people. He had dropped out of business college after one semester, not willing to do the work, or take a student loan, when Chelle couldn’t afford to pay his way. Tall and good-looking, he insisted on expensive clothes and spent money extravagantly. Often he came to her for enough to tide him over, money he never paid back.

  Norm had absolutely refused to bail him out and discouraged Chelle from doing so. Resenting this, Ed had angrily tried to talk her out of the marriage, insinuating that Norm wasn’t true to her, or good enough, and was trying to break up her relationship with her only brother. From years of practice, he knew just how to push all the right emotional buttons and make her feel guilty, cheap, and mean when she resisted. Sadly, Chelle knew that they had never felt the same about each other since, and never would, whether or not she found Norm.

  She almost wished it were the other way around and Ed was the one she needed to find. Norm, she knew, would have been doing everything he could to help, even if he thought her unreasonable and disliked Ed. How she missed his presence and support.

  Damn. Damn him for forcing her into this situation.

  Impatiently, she turned the knob, thrust open the door, stepped into the entry hall and halted abruptly, totally still, rigid with shock.

  As the door closed behind her, she had taken a deep breath against her anger. That breath had slammed, tenuous and fragile, something hauntingly familiar into her unguarded awareness. There is nothing so poignantly powerful as the sense of smell, nothing to break the heart so completely, without warning or defense. From somewhere in the house, the fragrance of Norm’s pipe tobacco lingered…had filled her consciousness as distinctly as if he had just left the room with it clenched between his teeth, trailing a wake of smoke.

  It was not possible. It hit her with such emotional force that she dropped the duffel she was carrying and froze in shock where she stood. A cramp of real physical pain in the pit of her stomach all but doubled her over. But it was nothing compared to the wave of psychological agony that arrived immediately after it. Ignoring both, she straightened and, against all reason, went swiftly through every room in the house, searching each, opening doors, even stepping out onto the back porch to sweep the wide expanse of yard with her eyes. Whitefaced and trembling, wet with sweat, she did not bother to reason, just looked, and found…nothing. The smell of that special blend of tobacco did not recur. It was gone as completely as if it had never been, as if she had imagined it, as, indeed, she decided, she must have.

  There was no particular sense of anyone having been inside the house, only the scent—initiating a grief as exquisitely fine and sharp as the edge of a well-honed knife. A trick of the senses?

  The last thing she opened was a closet full of his clothes—shirts, pants, jackets—and buried her face in a leather jacket that she knew still held a faint and fading suggestion of the smell of him, including the rich tobacco fragrance. It was painfully familiar because she had slept with it every night for weeks after he disappeared…still did periodically…hugging it to herself in the dark, staining its suede finish with her tears. Now she reasoned that the scent somehow must have drifted through the air of the house, drawn perhaps by the motion of a door closing as she went out, and hung in wait for her to walk, unwarned, unwary, into its agonizing trap.

  Again, she breathed the odor of his body from the jacket and was, expectedly and at once, overcome by it and the reality of the day’s discoveries. Dragging it from its hanger, she moved like an automaton to the bed she had left unmade that morning and curled up with it clutched against her face and breasts, pulled a down comforter over her whole self, and lay racked by heavy, dry, gasping sobs too deep for tears. All her accommodations and defenses, so carefully, painstakingly constructed during the eternal winter without him, were swept away. The hoarse sounds that tore from her throat were those of sustained loss, and also unintelligible resentment that she was vulnerable once more and it was all to go through again…the confusion, the grief…and the unendurable guilt of his leaving her.

  4

  THE COCKPIT LOUNGE WAS NOT THE CLOSEST BAR to the airport or the busy waters of Lake Hood’s charter services, nor was it a tavern that attracted tourists or business people in transit fr
om regular passenger flights. On Spenard Road not far from the west end of the lake, a square box of a building that exhibited numerous coats of paint—the last of them brown—on its peeling, forty-year-old concrete block walls, it sat behind a wide parking lot, twenty yards from the street. The unpaved lot, though sporadically graded and graveled, was full of a series of expanding chuck holes half-buried with mud or dust, depending on the season. It was the kind of place that did not attract strangers.

  For the most part, its regulars were airplane people—mechanics, hunting and fishing guides, the pilots of private and charter planes based around the lake, and the baggage handlers and others who worked behind the scenes to keep scheduled flights in the air. The rest of those on a first-name basis with one another were locals who lived within a few blocks. There were also one or two of questionable reputation who had frequented this particular watering hole, since Spenard was a narrow, winding road, crowded with massage parlors and notorious for its vice. They were accepted as part of the Cockpit’s extended family, their past or continuing occupations never mentioned.

  At almost seven-thirty in the evening, an originally green pickup truck, heavily dented and scarred, one front fender half-rusted off, bucked and rattled its way across the lot to pull into an empty space next to the building. The other fender had at some point been replaced with a red one which offered in structural integrity what it lacked in aesthetics. The windshield was cracked across just below a driver’s field of vision, a condition common in a country of extreme temperature fluctuations that expand, contract, and eventually split glass that has been chipped by a flying pebble.