by Henry, Sue
“He discovered the fire?”
“That’s what he said. He was almost in a panic wanting to put it out.”
“He lives farther on out the road? Why was he going past the bar?”
“He gave Willy Wilson a ride to town because his car wouldn’t start, so he was on his way home.”
“You see him going toward Wasilla?”
“No. I left before they did, so I was already home.”
“So you just think that’s true because—”
“I know it’s true, because he told me. Ask Willy, if you don’t believe me.”
“We will.”
She got no reassurance, and Becker gave Tatum an unhappy look.
“How and for how long have you known Hank Peterson, Jessie?” he broke in.
“Ever since I moved to Knik eight—almost ten—years now. He’s a local musher who’s been handler for me a couple of times—once for the Iditarod.”
The inspector again: “He doesn’t get paid for that. What’s he do for a living?”
“He works construction in the summer. Odd jobs the rest of the year, I guess.”
“He ever work for Lee?”
“As a matter of fact, I think he helped build the Other Place. Probably volunteered half his time. He’s a nice, dependable guy.”
“So he’d be familiar with the building,” Tatum said, ignoring her endorsement.
“Yes—but so would a lot of other people.” She hesitated, frowning. “You really think the fire was deliberately set?”
“Don’t think so—we know so. The evidence is clear. Nothing but arson could have done it.”
“How do you know that? Where did it—”
The beep of Becker’s pager interrupted her question, and he took it from a pocket to read the number.
“The office. Use your phone, Jessie?”
“Sure.”
He crossed the room to the desk and was soon deep in conversation.
“Comfortable place you have here,” Mike Tatum commented, suspending his interrogation and looking around.
“It works for me. I built it several years ago with help from friends—lots of them regulars at Oscar’s—including Hank Peterson,” she told him pointedly.
“Good place to raise dogs?”
“It’s far enough from town so that the neighbors aren’t bothered by their noise. Easy connections to the trails I use for training, including the Iditarod Trail, and it goes all the way to Nome.” She smiled at the thought.
“You’ve run some big races. And done pretty well, I hear.”
“I’ve done okay. I’d like to win the Iditarod once, though.”
“Running next year?”
“Hope so. I skipped it this year—did the Yukon Quest instead.”
“Tough race?”
“Different. It’s more rugged and has fewer checkpoints.”
Becker hung up the phone and tossed a name to Tatum as he crossed the room.
“Robert Martin—the guy who died in the fire. Lab just finished and ID’d him from prints off the hand that was under him and didn’t char. He’d spent some time inside for—guess what?—arson.”
“Interesting,” Tatum said. “Makes sense. Caught in his own game—maybe.”
“Maybe you should say flame.” Becker grinned, unable to resist the pun.
“Robert?” Jessie repeated. “Oscar said, ‘Bob something.’ Was it the same guy who was asleep on that table when I left?”
“Can’t say for sure. Maybe. Oscar didn’t know him?”
“No. First time he’d been there, I think. He came with a friend.”
“We’ll get someone to take a look at his file photo—Oscar, or…Do you know the name of his friend?”
“Chuck. Chuck Warner. But I didn’t see him there last night. Wonder why he’d leave without someone he brought and who was—”
The bedroom door opened suddenly and Anne walked in stretching and yawning sleepily.
“I thought I heard voices.”
“This is Anne Holman—old friend of mine who’s visiting. Anne—Phil Becker and Mike Tatum. They’re investigating a fire that burned down our local pub last night.”
With only a glance at the two men, Anne made an abrupt right turn into the kitchen.
“Any coffee left?”
As she started to get up to show Anne where to find a mug, Jessie was caught by an unexpected expression on Tatum’s face—a gleeful mixture of satisfaction and suspicion.
“Martha Anne Gifford. What a surprise,” he said in a tone that made it clear his prior acquaintance with her had left no warmth in its wake. “Hey, Marty. Set any nice fires lately?”
5
THE TWO MEN HAD GONE, TATUM GIVING BOTH WOMEN A look of distrust and skepticism that left Jessie bewildered and troubled and Anne angrily sobbing on the sofa.
“Can’t you leave me alone?” she had wailed at Mike Tatum.
“Not likely. Now that you’re back in town, I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Marty,” he warned sharply as he went out the door. “Don’t think you can get away with it again.”
“Don’t call me that,” she howled furiously back, glaring at him. “My name is Anne.”
“Right. And you had nothing to do with the Mulligan’s garage fire.”
“You know I didn’t, you bastard. Get a life.”
Tatum would have slammed the door on his way out if Phil Becker, following close behind and looking as perplexed as Jessie felt, hadn’t caught it.
“What the hell was all that?” she demanded, as soon as the two men had disappeared and she could hear the car going away down the drive.
When all that came back was tears and swearing, Jessie lost what composure she had left.
“Dammit, Anne. I not only don’t know what’s going on—I’m beginning to overload on all this. You’re telling me part of the story. There’s a lot more, isn’t there? Well, you’d better spit it out, because I’m not helping with anything I don’t understand.”
She stood glowering, fists on hips, waiting for an answer.
Anne reluctantly sat up and wiped at her face with the sleeve of her sweater, glanced at Jessie, then away, once again calculating a response.
Grabbing the box of tissues from the desk, Jessie shoved it at her.
“Grow up, blow your nose, and tell the truth.”
Swiveling a straight chair, she sat astride, facing Anne, arms crossed over the back.
“Don’t try to sort it out. Just tell me.”
“Aw-w, Jessie. It’s such a mess that—”
“It sure is. So get it straight. I’m not a total dummy.”
“You don’t understand.”
“That’s right, I don’t. So you’d better make sure I do. What’s the Mulligan garage fire? How does Tatum know you?”
“It was a long time ago—before I knew you or Greg even. There was this fire…”
“Where?”
“Not a house garage—a truck-repair place up the road from Wasilla. Somebody set it on fire and Tatum tried to pin it on me.”
“Why?”
“Well, I was living out near Big Lake at the time and I was—ah—friendly with the guy who owned it. The thing was—his two kids were asleep in the apartment upstairs. Tatum was one of the firefighters and he got burned trying to get them out, but he couldn’t save them, and he let it get to him. Mr. Wonderful—what an ego. He wanted someone to blame and I was handy.”
For a second or two, Jessie couldn’t say anything as she absorbed this appalling information.
“His hand—right? In that fire?”
Anne nodded. “Yeah. His own dammed fault—and hers. Shana should have got those kids out, but she didn’t. Just herself.”
“The owner’s wife, you mean? Oh, I get it—you were having an affair with her husband.”
“Well, yeah—okay—I guess you could call it that.”
“What else would you call it? What made Tatum decide it was you?”
Anne shifted unea
sily on the sofa, pulled up her knees, and peered at Jessie over the arms she wrapped defensively around them.
“They found out from a guy who was working late in the shop that Cal had had a fight with Shana the night it happened. This guy, Buzz, heard them yelling at each other and saw him take off. Cal—you know, the owner—came by my place for a while before he went on to a bar in town.”
Clearly uncomfortable that Jessie was so close, she got up abruptly and moved away from the sofa as she continued. “I was home all by myself, so I didn’t have an alibi like he did. I couldn’t prove I didn’t go out and, since I’d been in the shop before, they found my fingerprints.” Turning from the window, she flung out an arm in anger, fist clenched. “Cal—that son of a bitch—didn’t back me up. He told them I was jealous of her—that I could have done it, damn him. He made like he was all broken up over losing the kids—hell, he hated those kids. And she told a bunch of lies about me—probably to keep from admitting she hadn’t tried to get the kids out. Who knows? She was probably down in the shop doing Buzz.”
“My God, Anne. That’s too much. So what finally happened?”
“Oh, Tatum couldn’t ever get enough evidence to prove I had anything to do with it, because I didn’t. Honest, I didn’t, Jessie. I don’t know who did. Somebody with a grudge—her—Buzz, maybe. I really did think that maybe she and him were—you know—so it could have been her. But Tatum was—like—obsessed or something. He wanted someone to pay and I was an easy target, so he tried really hard to make sure it was me. Even after it was over, he followed me around. I’d see him watching me everywhere I went. Finally, when I married Greg and moved out to the cabin, he couldn’t find me. But I still saw him a time or two in town. He’s a real bastard. It was all so stupid—and scary.”
She plopped back down on the sofa and sat still, looking at Jessie with her chin in the air defensively.
“Now. Let’s go out to the cabin right now—this afternoon, okay? How do we know Greg isn’t on his way here at this very minute?”
Jessie sat staring at her, astonished at the repeated demand and what she had walked into by agreeing to give Anne a place to stay and listening to her troubles. Could this possibly be the same person in whose company she had taken casual pleasure ten years before? How much worse was it going to get?
“No, Anne, we can’t. This afternoon I’m running my dogs. But, if I can arrange for my handler to stay here and take care of them while I’m gone, we’ll go tomorrow. There’s stuff to do before we can take off, and you’ll have to help.”
“Oh, I will—anything you want. Thanks, Jessie. I knew you’d say yes. You won’t regret it. I promise.”
Jessie already regretted it, but she would just do it, get it over with, then, like it or not, Anne would have to leave.
On the road to Wasilla, as Tatum took a corner too fast in the fire department car, Phil Becker gave him an anxious, quizzical look, then covered it with his usual boyish grin.
“Hey, Mike. Never seen you treat a suspect quite like that before. I assume you don’t think too much of Jessie’s friend. What’s the deal?”
Tatum eased his foot off the gas a little, shrugged in rueful apology, and frowned.
“Sorry about that. Marty Gifford is the last person I expected to see back in Alaska—and in Jessie Arnold’s house, for Lord’s sake.”
“Who the hell is she?”
“Old news—bad news—is what she is.”
Lifting his scarred right hand from the wheel, he held it up for Becker’s attention.
“I can personally thank her for this, Phil. But worse—she should be locked up because two kids died in a fire over ten years ago—a fire she set.”
“Why wasn’t she?”
“There wasn’t enough evidence to take it to trial. It didn’t help that the police still tend to view fire as an occurrence, not a weapon—a circumstance surrounding a death—but the kids who died weren’t the intended victim.”
“Who was?”
“The owner’s wife, Shana Mulligan. Gifford was having an affair with Mulligan—wanted his wife out of the way. How well do you know Ms. Arnold?”
“Very well,” Becker informed him, irritated. “Don’t get any dumb ideas about Jessie, Mike. She’s the real thing—totally reliable. She was in a close relationship with one of the guys that was in our division until a month ago.”
“Yeah? Smart. Maybe too smart. But Marty Gifford’s another thing and the company you keep…you know. People cover things. She said Gifford was an old friend.”
“Jessie’s friendly with a lot of people. She’s okay. Believe me.”
“I’ve learned the hard way to believe what I know and can prove, Phil. Sorry, if that crumbles your cookie, but it’s the way I am.”
“Well, you’re wrong about this one, Mike. I don’t know anything about Anne Gifford—Holman—whatever her name is. But I do know Jessie—who’s no cookie, by the way—and you’re wrong. You’ll find out.”
“We’ll see.”
They rode the rest of the way into town in silent disagreement, Becker thinking that perhaps he should have a private chat with Jessie about the situation and Tatum’s negative attitude. The next time he saw her, however, so many things had happened that he forgot.
By the middle of the afternoon, Jessie and Billy were several miles from her kennel, each gliding along a trail on the back runners of a sled behind their two teams of dogs. The new snow that covered everything looked like a soft fuzzy blanket and was not melting, for, though the temperature had risen a little, it was still below freezing. The sky was pale as milk with an even cloud cover that hinted at more snow on the way.
Though she’d been unable to locate her favorite blue knit training hat, Jessie’s mood had grown lighter with every bend and turn they followed. She had determinedly left Anne’s troubles and last night’s fire behind her and was almost singing as they climbed a gentle hill and wound to the right around a small stand of birch. On the crest, she whistled to Billy, who was ahead of her, whoa’d her dogs to a halt, and paused to take an appreciative look at the tremendous landscape that flowed away to the west as far as Mount Susitna, the Sleeping Lady, that rose to dominate the horizon beyond the wide reach of the Susitna Flats.
Jimmy, a promising pup just over a year old, instantly, and not for the first time that day, sprang over the gang line to be next to his teammate, Tux, who finally lost patience with this misbehavior and nipped at the transgressor’s closest ear with a warning snarl. The pup yipped and tried to move away; but, caught between Tux and the line, he couldn’t get back to his place. The older dog ignored him and lay down to take advantage of a few minutes rest, leaving Jimmy to cast an apologetic and imploring look back at Jessie, the accepted alpha leader of this pack. She couldn’t help being amused. Tux was easygoing but would tolerate only a limited amount of such nonsense. She managed to keep a straight face as she stomped in the snow hook and walked forward to assist the culprit.
“No, Jimmy,” she told him, as she took him by the loose skin over his shoulders and rump and gave him a light shake as she lifted him back over the line. “No jumping. Sit down and stay on your own side.”
He gave her a soulful, embarrassed glance, knowing he had been literally out of line, and sat down obediently. Before the rain interrupted the training, he had almost given up this bad habit. Now he was backsliding, which wasn’t totally his fault, but must be corrected. He liked to run in front of the sled and was an energetic team member who pulled strongly and well, as long as they were in motion. Now he simply needed a firm reminder to forget about playing enthusiastic games when they stopped.
Part of what Jessie enjoyed most about raising and racing Alaskan huskies was training the young dogs. It was a satisfying pleasure to socialize puppies; teach them obedience and good manners; accustom them to line and harness when they were six to eight months old; then, at almost a year, when they were big enough, gradually to show them what it was all about by adding them to th
e experienced teams and watch them realize the delight of swift running through the northern wilderness that she loved. The puppies she had brought into the cabin the day before already had individual collars bearing their names and hers, and they were being trained to leash and picket line. Their minds were wide open, so the best ones caught on fast; required little correction; and were quick, intelligent, and good-tempered. But discipline was sometimes necessary, and it had to be applied quickly before the canine transgressor forgot what behavior had precipitated it.
Believing in positive reinforcement rather than punishment, she very seldom felt a need to discipline a dog physically. When she did, it was limited to a flat-handed swat on muzzle or rear, depending on the situation, and was reserved for the most serious offenses, like fighting or willful disobedience. A sharp “No” was usually enough. Though puppies were allowed a lot of leeway as they learned, only a few older dogs pushed the limit—and that rarely—or they didn’t last long in her kennel or on teams. Most tried their best to please her and were rewarded with an abundance of petting and verbal approval.
Now, as she walked back to the sled, she doubted Jimmy would jump again—at least today. Sweet and smart, he was quickly outgrowing his grasshopper inclinations.
Billy had stopped thirty feet beyond her on the crest of the hill and was shifting the position of two dogs in his team. She drove forward and stopped again just behind him.
“Problem?”
“Naw. Tom and Sunny aren’t working out like we thought. Maybe he’ll do better by his mom.”
“Worth a try. Sadie’ll let him know if he’s slacking. Ready?”
“Yup.”
Jessie drove her team on past to take the lead for a while. They were soon winding through the trees near one of the small lakes that dotted the flat near Big Lake. The new snow on the trail had already been packed by the runners of other mushers’ sleds. Practically everyone who had been trapped by the rain must be out running today, she thought, and she was glad to be one of them. They had passed several teams headed the opposite direction and one taking a break in a clearing a mile or two back.
She wondered what Anne was doing back at the cabin, but resolutely refused to follow that line of thought, glad to be away from her friend’s demands and histrionics for the moment. Instead, she began to determine what would need to be done so they could leave in the morning for a quick overnight to the wilderness cabin. A trip to the grocery wouldn’t be necessary, since she had plenty of food already on hand, prepared and frozen for training runs. She would have to take a big sled, for Anne must ride in it, but it wouldn’t take long to pack enough for an overnight—or possibly two; a couple of expedition-weight sleeping bags, cooking gear for humans and dogs, first-aid kit, and a few other necessities like ax, handgun in case of threatening moose, odds and ends. Only what was necessary, but even that was considerable.
