by Henry, Sue
Mentally she swore again, pausing briefly in her effort to snap up the sled bag and give Murray all its enclosing protection.
What the hell was she going to do now?
“What’s wrong?” the other musher asked from her prone position in the sled, where, for the first time in a long, cold time, she was somewhat sheltered from the blasts of the wind and snow. “What is it, Jessie?”
Jessie was thinking hard, trying to analyze the problem and see her way through it to some kind of solution. She was faced with an impossible situation—a completely horrible choice that was no choice—and there was no good answer.
She plainly could not leave Gail Murray—injured, hypothermic, frostbitten—alone in the storm on American Summit, ransom or no ransom. Murray could die.
But if she didn’t deliver the money the kidnappers had demanded, it was perfectly possible that Debbie could die. They had already killed one person, Rick Roney’s handler, B. J. Lowery. Why should they hesitate to get rid of another? They wouldn’t care that there were extenuating circumstances—solid life-and-death reasons that Jessie had to go down, instead of up, the mountain. They would only care that they didn’t get what they had demanded.
Oh, God, she thought, what can I do?
If only Ryan were behind, instead of ahead of her. He already knew about the abduction of Debbie Todd. She could have told him the rest and counted on his discretion as well as his help. But there was, of course, no way of reaching him—he was already going down the other side of the summit toward Eagle.
Damn, and double damn.
“What’s wrong?” Murray asked again, now struggling to lift her head and shoulders to get a look at Jessie’s face.
“It’s nothing, Gail,” she lied firmly, and closed the sled bag around her. “Just a snap that wouldn’t work right. Okay? Don’t worry, and don’t you dare go to sleep. You hear me, Gail? Stay awake and as warm as you can, and I’ll get you down from here. That’s a promise.”
But what could she do about Debbie? She had almost reached the top. Someone could be waiting for her somewhere up there and now she wouldn’t show. But Gail Murray was real, right now, and Jessie’s help was essential to her immediate survival. The only thing she could do was take events as they came, in order, whatever the result with its accompanying burden of guilt. Where was it written that making this kind of choice had to be fair? She didn’t have to like it—she just had to do it.
She had made her choice.
“Let’s go, Tank,” she called to her leader, and they started back down the impossible hill, through the whirling whiteout, in wind that angrily threatened to blow them off the mountain.
Whatever she did, she was wrong before she even started.
Jessie’s heart was a lump in her throat.
19
“It is clear and cold, and there is no wind. When daylight comes we can see a long ways off. And it is very quiet. We can hear no sound but the beat of our hearts, and in the silence that is a very loud sound.”
—Jack London, “The Sun-Dog Trail”
WHILE JESSIE WAS GRAPPLING WITH HER TORTUROUS DECISION on American Summit, her friends in Dawson were anxiously waiting for time to pass, expecting that she should soon be on the downhill side of the mountain, on her way into Eagle, and that they wouldn’t have many more hours to endure before hearing from her about the ransom drop.
Caswell had informed the Alaska State Troopers in Fairbanks of the abduction of Debbie Todd, carefully making them aware of the consequences of any leaks of information. They had agreed to send a trooper to Tetlin Junction to establish a roadblock, from which they would watch for anything suspicious where the summer road from Dawson joined the Alaska Highway. With luck, it would be worth the trouble of a trooper spending long hours in a camper on the back of a truck, with a generator running to keep from freezing. Any vehicle carrying snowmachines, a young woman, or a dog would be looked at with particular care.
Of course, as Delafosse and Caswell had agreed, this might be fruitless, for there was no way of knowing where the ransom would be handed over. It was a long way from Dawson City to Eagle, and there were hundreds of places Jessie could be contacted. The summit, however, was the most isolated and led to a direct route west into Alaska for anyone on a snowmachine. The last few miles before Tetlin Junction would be open for people who lived along it, and Delafosse thought the summit was the most likely spot for the ransom transfer to take place.
Late in the afternoon of the day after their meeting, a call came through from the small forensics lab in Whitehorse.
“We checked everything for possible fingerprints,” the technician told Delafosse, “and found partials from three individuals.
“One set is smaller and more detailed than the rest. It came off one of the candy bar wrappers and is a complete set, both hands, as if someone had spread it out and held it down with all ten fingers. If the woman you’re looking for was trying to leave prints to let someone know she’d been there, these would be the ones.
“Another set of partials, which we got from the underside of the gas can handle, is interesting for another reason. It’s the right hand—didn’t get a thumb, but the index finger and one next to it are good ones. The next, the ring finger, is about half missing on the pinkie side. Not just partial—missing. There is no pinkie print at all. In two examples this pattern shows, so we think that whoever made the prints may be missing that little finger and part of the ring finger as well. You’re looking for a three-fingered man—well, almost three fingers—on the right hand.”
“Interesting,” Del agreed. “Anything else? You said three people.”
“Yes, but only partials on the third. There’s just enough so we know there was another person, not enough to really do any good. Oh, the sandwich bag also had the woman’s prints on it, partials only, if it was the woman—the same smaller ones, anyway.”
“Any luck on the burned letters?”
“The burned ones were made with the pen your guys found. It was also used to print the first note, but not the second one. Handwriting matches, as far as we can tell. There wasn’t much left to compare on those scraps.”
“So, the writer may have lost the pen in the cabin and used another for the next note. He might have been practicing with the burned scraps, or made a mistake.”
“Right-o. And you can tell Michael he was right, the sandwich was ham and cheddar—with mustard—dark German variety. You want the brand?”
Delafosse chuckled and told them that if he found it necessary, he’d get back to them on that.
Turning to Cas, who had been trying to track a one-sided conversation, he filled in the details.
“So…” Cas said slowly, thinking hard, “we could presume that Debbie was probably in that location, at least for a short time.”
“I think we can say that. It’s a good assumption. There’s some other assumptions that can be made as well, and a couple of considerations I didn’t want to talk over with the whole group, especially Leland.”
“Yeah, I’ve got one or two of those myself—like the transportation of her team to where it was found near the highway.”
“From the tracks in the snow, they didn’t drive the sled to that spot. It was unloaded—both dogs and sled—from a truck, which means they had to have a truck that would carry both. Now, it could have been an open truck, but that would be unusual, and, with a lot of people involved in mushing traveling that road—and we’ve asked a good number—we haven’t found anyone who saw anything like that. I would guess they moved that team and sled on a truck with a dog box—a rig no one would notice as odd.”
“Right.” Caswell nodded agreement and took it a step further. “It would also make sense that anyone who had access to that kind of vehicle had some kind of connection to sled dog racing—a musher, or handler.”
“You’ve got it in one. I think this is all connected to the race and someone—more than one someone—involved in it.”
They look
ed at each other, frowning.
Caswell swore. “There’s too many people, scattered from here to Fairbanks, to even begin to question them all.”
“We could narrow it down some if we knew who was where at what times, but it would take days, and half of those we’d need to talk to are in transit, either on the race route or heading west on the highway. But there’s another thing that bothers me. That dog of Leland’s—Royal? The one that was missing from Debbie Todd’s team, when they found it?”
“Yeah?”
“Why the hell would they have taken just one dog?”
“Leland said it was a very valuable leader—worth a lot.”
“But they haven’t mentioned it at all—just the woman. You’d think they’d have raised their ransom demand to account for it, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe. Maybe it was some kind of a problem—got protective of the woman, or something—and they killed it. It’s easier to shoot a dog and get rid of it somewhere it’d never turn up. I still can’t quite understand why they left Lowery’s body so close to that team, knowing it would be found—that it had to be.”
“I’d guess that killing wasn’t planned and they didn’t want to take the time to move it. He must have stopped to help them with unloading the team, or saw something he questioned and wanted to know what was going on—he may have recognized them, if they are connected. Most of these mushers know each other—sled dog racing’s a pretty small world.”
“Couldn’t that missing dog have escaped in the transfer? He could have run off into the woods and been impossible to catch. They wouldn’t have wasted time on it. He couldn’t identify anyone.”
“Possible. Someone may yet pick him up running loose.”
“Del?” Claire appeared from the kitchen, where she was concentrating on dinner for the three. “I’m out of cream. Will you make a run to get some? I need to watch the pie.”
“Sure. I’m sorry, hon—that pie was my job.”
“That’s okay, you’ve got other things to take care of. You had everything together to make it, so I just went ahead. The crust won’t be as good as yours, but it’ll be edible.”
She smiled at Cas’s interest in their division of duties.
“Del’s a much better baker than I am. He had a mother who won prizes for her pies.”
“What kind?”
“This one? Apple. That okay with you?”
“Better than okay. My favorite.”
“It’ll be better with cream.”
“I’m gone,” Del said, stomping his feet into boots at the door. “You want to come, Cas?”
“Naw. I’ll stay here and make sure the fire doesn’t go out—and soak up the scent of apples and cinnamon.”
It was after midnight and half the pie, along with dinner, was only a memory, when the phone rang sharply in the Delafosse residence.
Used to wake-up calls, Del caught it on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Inspector Delafosse?”
“Yes. Who’s this.”
“My name’s Jim Ryan and I’m calling from Eagle.”
“Racer? I think Jessie Arnold mentioned your name.”
“Right. She’s an old friend. I understand that you know something about Debbie Todd’s disappearance?”
“Who told you that?”
“Ned Bishop gave me your name.”
“He there in Eagle?”
“Yeah. He came in earlier today.”
“Okay. What can I do for you?”
“Well…look, I left Dawson ahead of Jessie—she’s still behind me on the summit. I just got in over here. She told me what she knew about Debbie from Jake Leland, before we got into Dawson—we were running together. On the way here, I got to thinking about something that happened in Pelly Crossing and began to wonder if it could be connected to this kidnap thing.”
“What’s that, Ryan?”
“When Jessie was ready to leave Pelly, the vet found that two of her dogs had chips that didn’t agree with the numbers they had on the list. He—and Ned—made her leave the dogs before she could go on.”
“Chips? What kind of chips?”
“Computer chips. Identity chips that’re read with a scanner—sort of like the zebra labels on stuff at the grocery store. They have numbers that are unique to each dog, so they can tell that the dogs in your team are the same ones you started with.”
“Okay. How does that—”
“It was weird, because the numbers of the chips in Sunny and Wart—that’s the dogs Jessie left—had numbers that said one of them, Sunny, was one of Leland’s dogs that he had loaned to Debbie for this race. A dog named Royal.”
“Royal? The dog that was missing from Todd’s team when they found it?”
“Yes. Confusing, isn’t it? What I don’t understand is how those dogs of Jessie’s could pass screening at two checkpoints before Pelly, then suddenly come up with some other numbers, especially one listed to another dog. It doesn’t add up. Those chips are inserted under the skin, between the shoulders. They can’t be switched. So those bad chips were the same ones Sunny and Wart had had from the start of the race—before that, since they were put in a couple of weeks before the race. Understand?”
“I think so. How big are those things?”
“Small. Tiny. The size of…say, a pencil lead.”
“And couldn’t be extracted?”
“Not without cutting the skin to find them. They move sometimes, if they’re not placed just right, but are supposed to be permanent.”
“And you think this is connected? How?”
“I have no idea. I just thought it was a piece of information somebody ought to know.
“Have you heard anything about Jessie? She was acting kind of funny when I last saw her along the Yukon. We stopped together for a rest, but she insisted that she wanted to run alone. We often run together.”
“Not yet. You were ahead of her?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, she should be coming into Eagle soon. Maybe you’ll see her there.”
“I hope so. I’m kind of keeping an eye on her in case she needs help. Listen, Inspector. Just tell me one thing. Is Jessie carrying a ransom for Debbie Todd?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“Nothing…oh, everything. It was just a thought that would explain a couple of things—her running by herself, not wanting me to wait for her. I’m no dummy—I can piece things together. Is she?”
“Ryan, I can’t talk about this. Just keep a lookout for Jessie, and tell her I said to call me immediately, if you see her.”
“Okay. I will.”
“Thanks for calling about those chips.”
“Sorry it’s so late.”
“That’s all right.”
“What difference could a confusion over a couple of identification chips make?” Del wondered out loud at breakfast, after filling Caswell in on Ryan’s phone call in the wee hours. “How could it be connected?”
Caswell shook his head and shrugged, his attention focused primarily on demolishing a stack of sourdough pancakes with homemade syrup.
Claire, her red hair pinned onto the top of her head, Celtic blue eyes turned to her husband, laid down her fork, took a sip of her coffee, and frowned thoughtfully.
“You say she had to leave two dogs in Pelly Crossing?”
“That’s what Ryan said.”
“But they let her continue the race, obviously. She made it here.” Claire paused to pour them all more coffee.
“That’s right,” said Del.
“Well, what was the result of leaving two dogs? It must have slowed her down some. Less power to pull her sled.”
“That’s right. Maybe someone wanted her to slow down, you mean?” asked Del.
“Yes, or thought it would take her out of the race completely—some illegality. I don’t know what the rules are.”
“Hmm, possible. But why? If they had her in mind to take the ransom—and the first note had
her name in it—they wouldn’t have wanted her out of it.”
“Well, then, maybe a slow-down was the reason. But how could they confuse the chips? If Ryan is correct, she went through the first two scans with no trouble and the chips were the same in all three cases.” Claire pushed her chair back.
“Maybe it’s not connected at all,” Cas suggested. “It may be a complete coincidence—just a mistake, as Ryan speculated.”
“Also possible. But it’s almost too much, that dog having the number of Leland’s Royal,” said Del.
“I think you need to figure out who would want Jessie either to slow down or be taken out of the race,” Claire said. “If it’s a coincidence, then someone besides whoever took Debbie Todd had a reason to give Jessie trouble. Maybe they wanted to be sure she didn’t win.”
It sounded much more ominous than that to Caswell, but, as usual, he wanted to think it over thoroughly before coming to any conclusions.
“I think we need more information,” he said, lifting another forkful of pancake mouthward. “There’s a whole bunch of pieces that don’t fit this puzzle. And isn’t it about time we heard from Jessie?”
20
“…I looked about me; saw…the grub sacks…the frosty breaths of the dogs circling on the edge of the light; and, above, a great streamer of the aurora bridging the zenith from southeast to northwest. I shivered.”
—Jack London, “A Relic of the Pliocene”
EVEN DRIVING ONE STRING OF DOGS AND LEADING ANOTHER, it took Jessie less than half the time to go back down from American Summit than it had taken to go up, though it was still slow going through the whirlwind of snow that continued its relentless assault upon the mountain, eradicating any suggestion of a trail.
Periodically, she would halt the tandem teams for a short rest, and go back to be sure that Gail Murray was all right and still awake in the sheltering sled bag. Plowing through the drifts was rough going, however, so she remained conscious partly as a result of the bumps and jolts.
