by Henry, Sue
“Thanks. I’ll do that. Keep your ears open, will you?”
“Sure. No problem.”
The door protested once again as Alex went through it and out into the dusty, unpaved parking lot. He had almost reached his truck when it squealed again and he heard Raite call his name.
“Where’d you find that plane, Alex?”
“Lake the other side of Susitna. Why?”
The big man walked across to speak in a lower tone, as a pickup pulled in and the driver got out near the door. He frowned, concentrating.
“Well, Greeson has a way of carrying on a conversation that doesn’t get overheard, and I don’t even try to eavesdrop—too much to do anyway. But yesterday I did hear him mention Beluga Lake to one of the bunch that hangs out with him. Didn’t get anything as to what it was about, just the location. That mean anything?”
Shaking his head, Jensen thought for a second before answering. “I don’t really know, Johnny. But thanks just the same. It may tie in somewhere. There was a woman in the plane, and she didn’t die of the crash. That’s all I can tell you. Keep it to yourself if you can, but I’d appreciate anything you might pick up that relates.”
“Like I said…sure. Don’t forget that Greeson is a mean SOB,” Raite cautioned. “April sure nailed that one right.”
As Jensen drove away, heading for Rochelle’s, he thought about Greeson and people like him. Greedy, egotistical bastards. Somehow he connected to what was going on, he was sure. Now to figure out just how.
10
AS SOON AS ALEX PARKED IN FRONT OF THE LEWIS house, he felt that Rochelle wasn’t there but went to knock anyway. For some uneasy reason, he still half expected her to come to the door. The house didn’t feel empty somehow, but she didn’t answer and all remained quiet.
What was it, he wondered, that made a knock sound different when there was someone inside a house? Could even one human body within four walls create a variance of sound, and exactly how was it not the same if empty? Could it be a subtle change of heat, or sound and motion, almost beyond one’s ability to detect? It was similar to the way you could at times intuit that someone driving ahead of you was going to make a turn or change lanes long before he switched on a signal or reached an intersection. Sometimes you just knew and found yourself driving accordingly, though it hardly made conscious sense.
He knocked again, almost as an experiment, listened, then, lost in thought, started down the wide cement driveway to his truck. He had expected to find her home. From the way she had made a recluse of herself for the last few months, he had assumed she would be. Gone for groceries, maybe, or…damn. What if she’d gone back out to the crash site to begin her search for Lewis? Could she have got it together that fast? Doubtful, but…just possible.
Nearing the street, he picked up his pace, intending to head for Lake Hood to see if her plane was in its usual place, when a car, traveling too fast, turned from behind a wall of bushes into the drive and screeched to a rocking stop just short of hitting him.
Good reflexes and an adrenaline-assisted leap carried him off the cement and onto the brown, winter-matted lawn on all fours, soaking the knees of his pants. From where he landed, he looked back over a shoulder to ascertain the identity of the driver and knew immediately that wherever Rochelle had been it had not been the grocery store.
Though her eyes and mouth were wide in shock at the near accident, there was something else about her face that caught and held his attention as he clambered to his feet. Surprise had not erased the frown that drew her brows down and impressed two vertical lines between them, or a less than subtle tension that paled and pinched her face. She looked ready for fight or flight. It would not have amazed him if she had jumped out of the Subaru wagon and threatened him with fists or four-letter words. She seemed angry and ready to blame someone for more than just a close call.
Instead, as she saw he was whole and uninjured, she dropped her forehead onto her hands on the wheel and her shoulders started to shake. Her posture did not astonish Jensen. He had expected an emotional response when he saw the expression on her face. That she should be overcome by tears was anything but surprising, but he wondered, as he approached the car with its rolled-up windows, what else had complicated her day.
“Rochelle,” he instructed loudly, “roll down the window. It’s all right. I’m not hurt.”
When she did not move and continued to tremble, he opened the door and reached to lay a hand on her shoulder in sympathy.
“It’s all…”
At his touch she straightened abruptly, throwing her head back, and he realized she was not crying, after all, but laughing. Uncontrollably, and with very little sound, almost hysterical, she rocked back and forth with a mirth so strong it left her almost unable to breathe.
“S-s-or-ry,” she gasped. “I’m-m s-s-s…” As she swung her feet out onto the cement of the driveway, another wave of laughter overcame and bent her double. Gradually she regained control of herself and looked up at his astounded face, which set her off again. Momentarily swallowing her reaction, she reached a hand to grip his arm, partially bracing herself upright.
“I’m sorry. Really…I…You looked so…ridiculous…funny…all knees and elbows flying through the air. Scared the hell out of me…but…” She choked again.
Alex recalled his giant, uncoordinated leap and tried to picture it from her angle. In spite of his concern, he had to smile.
“I do that sort of thing best with no warning,” he told her. “It’s not so easy to throw around my extremities that way when I have to make an effort.”
She looked up at him with a grin, clearly glad he wasn’t angry with her reaction. Then, as suddenly as she had laughed, she fell apart, dissolving into tears. As though every emotion had gone crazy at once, she now shook with sobs almost as intense as her gales of laughter.
“Hey. Chelle. What’s wrong?”
With hands on her shoulders, Jensen half lifted her from the car to a standing position. Automatically pulling her toward him to comfort if he could, he grew more anxious when she shoved him strongly away with both hands.
“No…no. I can’t stand…” Leaving him beside the car door, she turned and, in an odd, crippled sort of run, fled up the driveway to the front door of the house, where she fumbled with the locks and disappeared inside, leaving it wide open.
Jensen stood looking after her for a minute, then got in and pulled her car up close to the garage, locked it, and went slowly to the house, giving her time to gather the pieces of her scattered emotions. As he reached the front door, she came back through it, almost at a run, barreling into him hard enough to carry them both a step or two into the yard. Her tear-streaked face was white with anger and shock as she yelled something almost incoherent and wrenched herself around to wave an accusing arm toward the house.
“Bastards…damn them.”
Jensen grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to stand still, though she continued to gesture.
“What, Rochelle? Is somebody in there?”
“Don’t know, but there obviously was. It’s trashed. The place is trashed. Damn it. Who the hell…?”
Immediately all law enforcement officer, Jensen hurried her to his truck and yanked open the door. Retrieving his off-duty Colt .45 semiautomatic from the glove compartment, he turned back to Rochelle and thrust his keys into her hand.
“Get in here and stay till I check it out. If I’m not back in five minutes, or anything bad happens—you hear shots—call dispatch for backup. You know how to use the radio. If you’ve got to use it, use it fast. If there’s any threat, get out of here. Got that?”
“But, I want…”
“No. Get in and lock it. You’re holding me up and maybe letting the perp get away.”
Without another word, she obeyed his directions, climbed in and shut the door, looking furious, resentful, and scared. Before she had it locked, Jensen was halfway across the yard, moving swiftly, on full alert, toward the house.
<
br /> Quietly, carefully, weapon leveled and ready, he stepped through the door and stopped, back to the wall, while he swept the room visually before moving cautiously through the rest of the house in the same manner, room by room.
It was, as she had said, trashed, but not vandalized. The furniture—tables, chairs, lamps—had not been tossed about vindictively. To his experienced eye it was clear that the place had been systematically searched. The drawers in every room gapped open, or had been pulled free and dropped by someone who didn’t mean to waste time, their contents dumped on the floor and pawed through. Closet doors hung wide and everything that had been on their shelves was now scattered outside on the rugs, jumbled with clothing that had unmistakably been stripped from hangers an article at a time.
The office was the worst, with paper strewn everywhere from the desk, file cabinets, and storage cupboards. Every book in the room had been removed from its shelf and evidently flung down when ruffling through it proved unrewarding, as had others elsewhere in the residence.
As he cursorily examined the clutter, it occurred to Jensen that it had been accomplished with an order of sorts. The perpetrator had gone about it in a planned and semicoordinated way, never bothering with nonessentials. The search had been conducted only where it would have been possible to hide whatever had been the object of the hunt—something specific. It must have been small and thin enough to fit within the pages of a book, or, perhaps, between or behind them. Judging from the pages and sheets scattered around, it could have been paper. This was no burglary for gain. The VCR, television, music system were all untouched. A gold bracelet of Chelle’s lay on top of a chest in the bedroom. Something else was at work…a desire for information of some kind.
The back door, he found, had been kicked in, splintering its frame. At the extreme outer edge, a line of trees separated the backyard from its nearest neighbors, effectively assuring that no sound or unusual behavior would have attracted attention, though they were still without their new leaves. The intruder had been reasonably safe in assuming privacy, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few questions concerning strangers anyone had seen in the area. It was also reasonable to expect that such a professional searcher had worn gloves and there would be no fingerprints, but that, too, would have to be verified.
What had been the goal of this flagrant, determined disturbance? If anything was missing, it would take Rochelle days to figure out what…if she could. Only the kitchen and the large double garage, half full of gear from the Lewis charter business, seemed undisturbed. A number of cardboard bankers boxes stood on garage shelves, the kind you would fill with paper…records. These had not been touched. Had his knocking on the front door interrupted the intruder short of these last two rooms?
Alex had little belief in coincidence, and this breakin seemed too well timed to be one. Did it somehow relate to the disappearance of Norman Lewis? To Karen Randolph? If so, how? All his intuition told him there was a connection in this to the whole puzzle, and whoever had broken in here had, or was, at least part of the answer. Did Rochelle know more than she was telling? It was time to do some real digging.
Leaving everything the way it was, touching nothing, Jensen quickly assured himself that whoever had caused this chaos was no longer on the premises, then returned to the truck. Rochelle Lewis waited, unmoving, in the cab, hugging herself with folded arms, a frozen expression on her face that betrayed no single emotion. She watched him cross the yard and climb in on the driver’s side.
“No one,” she stated flatly.
“Gone,” he admitted, and frowned, picking up the microphone to contact dispatch. “Got to get the crime unit on it. You won’t be able to get in for a while. They’ll want to walk you through to see if you can tell if anything’s missing. Then it’ll be closed off while they do what they can to salvage any evidence.”
“When?” she demanded, when he had finished the call.
“When can you go in? Couple or three hours, probably. Depends on what they find…or don’t. You have somewhere to go? Someone I can call?” He thought briefly of Jessie in Knik, but decided to keep her out of it for the moment.
Chelle shook her head and asked an unexpected question.
“You check the garage?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Was it a wreck?”
“No. Doesn’t look like whoever it was got in there…or the kitchen.”
“Can I stay and work in the garage?”
“Why, Chelle? Give yourself a chance to catch your breath somewhere else.”
He could understand her wanting to stay near her own space and possessions. The police investigation of a crime like this often seemed like another intrusion to the victims of such a breakin. Already feeling violated and upset, some responded with exaggerated possessiveness, protecting what they had left. Others wanted nothing except to be somewhere else. But…the garage? What could she want to do there?
“I need to get some gear together. I’ve got to get ready for…a charter. Everything I’ll need, except for the plane and a few clothes, is in the garage or kitchen.”
Something about it didn’t ring true. He began a protest. “I don’t think…”
The look on her face was grim, as she shook her head and raised a hand to halt his comment.
“Look, Alex. This is the first…ah…reservation of the year. I can’t just stop my life now, can I? If there are jobs to be done, people to fly, then I have to do it, to keep the business going. If Norm’s not here, I still have to live somehow and what money is left in the bank’s supposed to go to finish paying for my plane. Without more, I could lose my wings and the business too. Then where would I be? Just let me get on with it, okay? I’m okay. Really.”
An hour later, Chelle was, as she had requested, in the garage, sorting out a pile of equipment and supplies for what she estimated would take at least a week.
Jensen was in the kitchen, speaking intently to Caswell on the phone. From Ben’s impression of her, he thought she was probably right and could take care of a reduced charter business alone, if that’s what she had in mind. He wasn’t convinced, however, that it was. But, it wouldn’t hurt to keep track of her for the next few days, just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid—like going off alone to look for her husband’s body.
11
BY THE TIME POLICE FINISHED GOING OVER HER house, Rochelle had all the supplies and equipment she would need for at least a week in rugged country neatly piled in the center of the garage. From a tall stool, elbows on the kitchen side of the breakfast bar, a mug of black coffee warming her palms, she watched without speaking as three officers carried out their cases of investigative technology, photography, and print lifting, knowing they had little to show for their efforts. Shaking their heads when she nodded at the coffeepot, they thanked her politely, and closed the front door as they left.
Ten minutes of thumps from the rear of the house stopped about the same time and Jensen came back to the kitchen, a hammer in one hand, to tell her the back door was solidly secured until she could get someone to repair the frame.
“Couldn’t get through it without waking up half the neighborhood,” he assured her, and from the number of nails she had heard being pounded, she believed him.
“You sure you want to stay here tonight?” he asked, perching his long-legged frame on another of the stools, facing her across the bar.
“I’ll be fine, Alex. Really.”
“Well…I think you might feel better in a hotel, but I’ll ask the APD to drive by every hour or so. Okay?”
It’s my space, she thought. Nobody—damn it—is going to take it, or scare me out of it tonight. I’ve got too much to do.
She looked up at his concerned face and agreed.
“Okay. If it feels bad, I’ll let them know and go to a hotel, but I’d rather stay here.” Without asking, she filled another mug with coffee and pushed it across the bar. “Take five. You’ve been at it for hours. Sorry”—she smiled crookedly—“n
o mustache cup.”
“Thanks.” He returned the smile and smoothed his expansive handlebar mustache. “Only five, though. I’ve got to get on down the road. We’re supposed to be at Caswell’s for dinner and I’m already going to be late.”
Good, she thought. Something to keep you occupied—your mind on someone other than me.
“Tell Jessie hello for me, will you?” she asked, looking down at the counter, but the expression on her face—distracted and unhappy—said something else to Alex.
“Sure. Ah…” He paused and a frown creased his forehead. There was something…several somethings. She was exhibiting concern and stress.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
Though she appeared worried, her overall attitude had changed slightly. She seemed less fragile, more focused, as if she had made a decision of some kind. He suddenly felt uneasy about leaving.
She looked up at him, frowning. “You said it didn’t seem like whoever broke in had searched the kitchen, or the garage. Right?”
“Didn’t seem like it. Nothing scattered around like the rest of the place. Why? You find something?”
She nodded. “A few things missing, but nothing else was disturbed. I can’t really say how long they’ve been gone.”
“What’s missing?”
“As far as I can tell there’s a sleeping bag, a flare gun, a set of rain gear, a first aid kit, and a heavy hunting knife.”
“That all?”
“No. There’s a radio transceiver gone, too. There were two old ones we used as spares on the shelf and now there’s only one.”
Alex’s forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. “How long since you remember them being there?”
“God, I don’t know. Weeks. I haven’t had charters—haven’t needed anything.”
“How about before. Could Norm have taken them for some reason last fall?”
She hesitated, trying to remember. “I don’t think so. I did a lot of flying—going in and out of there—after he went missing. I think I would have noticed, but it’s possible, I guess.”
