by Henry, Sue
When she came through the front door across the room on her big desk, the answering machine was blinking, and, removing coat and boots, she padded across in her wool socks to play back the tape, which contained no messages, only two hang-ups. Clearing it, she was turning toward the bedroom with another yawn when the phone rang again.
“Arnold Kennels.”
There was only the sentient silence of an open line.
“Hello. Anyone there?”
“Jessie?” a hesitant voice queried.
“Yes, this is Jessie. Who’s this?”
“It’s Anne, Jessie.”
“Anne?”
“Anne Holman. Don’t you…remember me?”
“Anne Holman? My God, I don’t believe it. It’s been years. How are you? Where are you?”
In a part of her mind, Jessie was suddenly ten years younger, spending the winter in a borrowed cabin far from road or highway, just getting started in the sled dog racing game, and relishing miles of wilderness in which to train her dogs. A mile away on the wilderness trail that ran past her cabin, Anne Holman had lived in a similar log structure with her husband, Greg. With only each other for female company, she and Jessie had grown to be good, casual friends, encouragement for each other through a long cold winter, support in time of need or trouble.
“I’m in…ah…in Seattle.”
Jessie’s surprised response was a tumble of questions. “Seattle? Are you living there? What—”
Anne interrupted. “No…No, Jessie, I just flew in from Denver—a couple of hours ago. Jessie, I’m sorry, but—I’m in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Alert now, her attention was caught and she focused on the words and the stress-filled tone of the voice in her ear.
“Ah—well, I’d—ah—rather tell you when I get there. Sorry.”
“You’re coming? When?”
“If you’ll have me for a few days. I already have a ticket. Is it okay?”
“Of course it is. You know that. But can’t you tell me—something?”
“I’d rather wait till I see you.” The voice on the line was momentarily stronger, but it held a note of unsteadiness, hurt, and—something else. It faded back to a soft monotone, “Sorry. I just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Come on ahead and we’ll talk when you get here. When do you get in? I’ll pick you up.”
“I can leave here at six-fifteen tomorrow morning on Alaska Airlines flight number eighty-one. It gets into Anchorage at nine-twenty. Got that? Nine-twenty.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. I’ll be there waiting. Anne? Are you okay?”
“Ah…I think—hope—I will be. I’ll explain when I see you tomorrow. Sorry. Nine-twenty. Right?”
“Right.”
“Thanks, Jessie. Just—thanks. Bye.”
There was a click on the line, and she was gone before Jessie could respond. She stood holding the receiver for a long minute before laying it back in the cradle, thinking hard.
Anne Holman, of all people. I haven’t heard from her, haven’t even thought of her in a long, long time. Trouble? What could that mean? She sounded so strange—broken—kept saying she was sorry. What could be the matter? And why would she be coming to Alaska so unexpectedly?
Well, tomorrow would answer the questions. But the odd, impulsive nature of the call made Jessie decidedly uneasy.
Out of the dark between birch and spruce trees, an almost invisible shadow slipped swiftly through the falling snow, along a packed trail used by many mushers, across the open space behind Oscar’s Other Place, now closed and still, to a window near the back door. The distinct sound of glass breaking was followed by a listening silence. When the noise elicited no response, there were some sharp snaps and the tinkle of a few shards falling, before the figure easily hoisted itself up to slide through the empty window frame.
In a moment the door was unlocked from the inside and opened. The figure returned quickly to the trees and soon reappeared, pulling a child’s sled upon which the limp body of a man lay curled in a fetal position. The dark figure dumped the body from the sled, dragged it through the door and out of sight into the building.
For a few minutes there was only the almost-inaudible sound of snowflakes hitting snow, ice, and ground, a continuous whisper in the night. The faint crash of more breaking glass disturbed it, soon followed by the small snick of a lock clicking closed, and a muffled thump as the shadow slid back through the paneless window and dropped into the snow on the ground. Had anyone been there to see, the figure would have been easier to distinguish on its way out the window, for a slight glow within the building now caught its agile motion in silhouette.
In seconds, the figure was once again only a shadow among shadows as it vanished into the white of the storm between the dark spruce and pale birch trunks, pausing only once to look back and allow a shrill scrap of vindictive laughter to float away through the falling snow. A few minutes later, somewhere far away, a vehicle engine purred to life. The muffled rumble faded quickly and was gone.
But the glow in the window of the Other Place remained—flickered and grew stronger. A thin thread of smoke found its way to the broken window and escaped into the night, drawing more smoke after it. Quickly it increased to fill the opening, pouring out in billows from under the edges of the roof as well, as the fire burned through part of the ceiling. Tongues of flame leaped and danced, following the draft, licking, then devouring the paneling of the interior walls. The blaze spoke in cracks and pops, sucking oxygen into its fiery maw until its voice gradually became a ravenous, insatiable roar.
Part of the ceiling fell with a crash, giving the fire access to the roof, which scorched through in minutes, allowing sparks to swirl upward in the cloud of blackening smoke, the bellow of the fire overwhelming the tiny hisses of snowflakes landing on hot surfaces.
The rear half of the building was an inferno before the driver of a truck passing on the road caught sight of the unmistakable glow and thick haze above it. Snatching up a cellular phone from the seat beside him, he punched in 911 as he turned into the parking lot, simultaneously applied brake and gas to swing the truck around in a spray of wet snow and gravel, aimed the still-rocking vehicle onto the road, and headed back the way he had come.
“Fire,” he yelled frantically to the dispatcher who responded. “Oscar’s Other Place is on fire. Twelve miles out of Wasilla on Knik Road. Hurry!”
2
A FRANTIC POUNDING ON THE FRONT DOOR OF HER CABIN and someone shouting her name rudely yanked Jessie from sleep. She could hear the yard outside resound with the familiar barking of her dogs.
Sitting up in bed she struggled to clear her head. It had been long after Anne Holman’s phone call before she had been able to fall asleep, consumed with worried curiosity at the trouble to which her friend had alluded, mixed with memories of their wilderness days.
Now she could feel the vibrations of the desperate door pounding.
“Hold on. I’m coming,” she called, struggling to wrap a robe around her as she padded barefoot to the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s me—Hank,” his excited voice told her. “Open up.”
She unlocked the door and he almost knocked her over, barreling through when it was half open.
“Gotta have your pump and generator—fast. Oscar’s is on fire.”
She handed him a key that hung on a hook beside the door.
“In the storage shed behind the house. Get it open while I put something on.”
Jessie raced back to the bedroom and threw on the clothes she had been wearing the evening before. Stomping her boots on and grabbing her parka, she followed Hank around the side of her cabin to the shed. Together, through the snow that was still falling heavily, they wrestled the heavy generator, then the pump, into the back of the pickup he had backed close to the door.
“What happened?” Jessie panted as they worked.
“Don’t know.”
“How’d it start?”
“No idea. Looked like it started in the back room after Oscar was gone. I left Bill Thomas and Ned trying to break in through the front to get some water on it with a couple of buckets. There’s enough overflow rainwater running in the creek to use your pump, I think.”
“Fire department?”
“On their way. Called them on my cell phone—and five or six other people who live close.”
“I thought you went home.”
“I was going, but Willy’s car wouldn’t start, so I took him into town. Lucky, because I saw the smoke when I came back by. It could have burned down before anyone else noticed at this time of night.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost two-thirty.” He slammed the tailgate.
Jessie hesitated. “Do we need anything else? My truck?”
“No. Just get in and let’s go.”
“Sorry, Tank. Not this time,” she told her alert lead dog as she sprinted past him to the passenger side.
As they sped down her drive toward Knik Road, rocking through new snow and muddy potholes, a fire truck raced past, siren screaming, followed by the vehicles of several volunteer firemen, emergency lights flashing from their dashboards. Turning in behind them, Hank drove fast enough to keep pace, allowing them to clear the way for him as well, though there was not much traffic at this hour. His windshield wipers beat time, regularly sweeping wet, sticky snow off the glass.
They were almost to the pub before Jessie could see the red glow of fire reflected from the trees around Oscar’s and the huge column of smoke that rose into the snowy dark. As they pulled into the parking lot behind the firefighters, she could see bright sparks being sucked aloft and thought it was a good thing that the surrounding forest and fields were too wet to burn.
“Too late, dammit,” Hank swore, seeing that the building was more than half engulfed in flames that were spreading fast. They jumped from the cab into a confusion of people in motion and a tangle of vehicles hastily parked to leave room between for the fire equipment.
The firefighters went immediately to work to contain the blaze. Dark shapes against the red-orange rage of fire, they moved swiftly, unrolling hoses, directing streams of water from a pumper truck onto the angry, roaring inferno the building had become.
“Now the rain stops,” Jessie growled in frustration. “This afternoon it could have put this out.”
“Would have gone anyway,” a musher she had earlier seen at the dartboard told her. “By the time it burned through the roof, even a hard rain wouldn’t have done much good.”
The roar and crackle of the fire drowned out all but the shouts of the firefighters, professional and volunteer, as they threw their efforts into moving equipment and training water on the flames. Hank had headed off at a run to join them, but Jessie stayed by the truck, shocked and incredulous. Several neighbors and dog drivers were already assisting where they could, but many others simply stood as she did, watching in disbelief and dismay. She knew without being told that it would be better to stay out of the way since she could see nothing that would benefit from her effort. With the arrival of the firemen, the need for her equipment had disappeared as well. There was no room to move Hank’s truck close enough to use the generator and pump. The inactivity made her frustrated and impatient.
A gust of wind caught a large part of the smoke and sent it billowing through the parking lot, smelling acridly strong of scorched wood and chemicals. The momentary suffocating nastiness made the bystanders cough and rub their tearing eyes, reminding Jessie of all the flammable petroleum products that were used in modern buildings. The Other Place had been full of them—plastic chair seats, vinyl flooring, plastic shades over the lights above the pool tables, unseen PVC pipe in the plumbing, and coating on the electrical wiring inside the walls. All released gases to poison the smoke and those who inhaled it.
She heard the sharp report of glass breaking inside the building.
“Bottles,” someone behind her muttered.
“Lot of good booze going to waste,” another observed. “Hope he had insurance.”
A front window exploded in the heat, scattering shards into the parking lot, and, after a long, agonizing complaint of twisting timbers, half the roof collapsed in slow motion. A wall quickly followed, falling with a crash, creating a giant fountain of sparks that reminded Jessie of Fourth of July fireworks.
It was now possible to see the once-familiar room glowing like a furnace, white hot in spots, almost unrecognizable. The falling wall had missed a small group of chairs that stood in one corner around a table with a flaming top. They looked untouched in the inferno of shimmering heat, but Jessie realized it was their metal frames she was seeing, padded seats long gone.
Her stomach lurched with nausea. She wondered if she had breathed too much of the smoke that had now swirled away in another direction, but knew that the knot in her stomach had more than a chemical trigger. It was also the result of apprehension and helpless anger. She was furious that it was too late to do anything but watch while the remainder of the Other Place burned.
It took quite a while, but when the firefighters finally had almost contained the blaze and were pouring water on defiant hot spots, Hank returned, soaked, covered with soot and grime, and smelling as evil as a demon out of nightmares. He stood slump shouldered and coughing, but he retrieved a crushed package from one pocket, dug out a bent cigarette, and lit it with a kitchen match. When a woman standing nearby cast a startled glance at the small flame, he chuckled humorlessly and wound up coughing again.
“Guess we’re all gonna be spooked after this.”
“What started it?” Jessie questioned. “Electrical? Something Oscar forgot to turn off?”
Hank frowned and shook his head. “No way. Oscar always checks everything—twice. I’ve helped him close up, and he never leaves until he’s sure it’s all off.” He lowered his voice. “Not sure yet, but I heard one of the Wasilla guys say that it didn’t look like an accident.”
“Oscar—where is Oscar?” She turned to scan the yard full of people. Another truck pulled off the road into the crowded parking lot. The telephone system had evidently been used effectively.
“Don’t know.”
“Did you call?”
“Tried,” Hank said. “His line was busy, so I figured someone else got him.”
“I haven’t seen him.”
As Jessie carefully searched the faces of the crowd, a car with state trooper markings pulled into the lot, drove through a narrow space in the sizable collection of cars and pickups to park behind the fire truck. A uniformed figure stepped out and moved to join the firefighter who was directing the efforts to extinguish the last flames in the smoking ruin. For a few minutes they conversed, then walked together and disappeared behind the blackened remains of the Other Place. She knew him. Phil Becker was a trooper who had often worked homicide with Jensen. Why was he here?
The fire was now under control, reluctantly it seemed, as greedy fingers of flame flared up momentarily and were knocked down by water. The glare became a black, charred heap of rubble, still glowing here and there and putting out clouds of wicked-looking and-smelling smoke.
A tall man, looking as exhausted and filthy as Hank, strode across to the woman who had flinched at the lighted match, and stood frowning tiredly down at her.
“There’s a body,” he said, “behind the bar. Somebody died in there.”
“Jesus.”
“Behind the bar? Oh, God,” Jessie blurted, without thinking. “It’s Oscar.”
Heads turned in astonishment, eyes widened, and no one moved or spoke for a couple of shallow breaths as the appalling idea sank in. The silence was broken only by the sound of two late-arriving vehicles pulling off the highway.
A hand was laid on Jessie’s arm and she turned to find a frowning Phil Becker standing next to her.
“Are you sure, Jessie?”
So it was true. Someone really had died in the fire.
“No, Phi
l. It just makes sense.”
“Why?”
“When Oscar’s tending bar, he’s always the last to leave—he locks up.”
“He was behind the bar tonight?”
“Yes—and—”
The group of people, crowded around them to listen, suddenly parted, and there were gasps of recognition as a figure pushed its way through.
“Whoever it is, it’s not me,” Oscar informed them, reaching Jessie. “What the hell happened? Someone’s dead in there? Good God. Who?”
“You’re the owner?” Becker asked.
“Was. The operative word seems to be was. Yeah, I’m Oscar Lee and this was my Other Place.”
“What took you so long?” Hank Peterson asked. “I tried to call you at home, but the line was busy.”
“I wasn’t there. We almost ran out of Budweiser tonight, so I went to town for another keg.”
“And you were headed back here?” Becker questioned.
“No, I was headed home. It didn’t seem cold enough to freeze a keg in the truck tonight, so I was going to bring it over in the morning.”
“Took you a long time after closing.”
“Damned incompetent bartender left without restocking. I had to clean up there, too. There’ll be somebody else behind that bar tomorrow. You can bet on it.”
“Anyone with you there?”
“No. Why?”
“Just checking, Mr. Lee. Someone died in this fire. We’re going to have to check a lot of things.”
“Do you know who?”
“Not yet.”
“What happened? Everything was fine—everybody had gone—when I left.”
“We don’t know, but an investigator will be here soon. I called dispatch in Anchorage and he’s on his way.”
“What kind of investigator?”
“An arson investigator. It looks like this fire might have been set, Mr. Lee.”
“Dammit. You mean somebody burned my place on purpose?”
“It’s possible, but that’s not my call. You’ll have to wait for the results of the investigation. Right now we’re concerned with the identity of the body. You have any ideas at all?”
“God, no. Everyone was gone when I locked up. My truck was the last one in the lot, except for one that wouldn’t start and was left.”
