Death Trap

by Sue Henry

  Turning a little to the right, she looked out the small square of empty window into the shadows of the dark spruce outside. A ray or two of early evening sunlight glimmered through the thick branches as a breeze set them waving gently. A bedraggled spiderweb hanging in the window frame was momentarily caught and gilded in one narrow beam of light.

  Jessie sighed in discouragement. It would eventually grow dark and there would be another night to endure. The hours of the night had been the worst, for the dark had prevented her from seeing across the room to her dog. She had only been able to speak encouragingly to him now and then and hope that he would stay where he was. She had been able to hear him shift position, which he had done several times, but not being able to reassure herself visually that he was safe had been a nightmare of stress.

  Don’t think about it now, she told herself, turning back to look toward him again. Think of a way to get us both out of here.

  Her arms, shoulders, and back were now on fire with cramp and strain. She could not feel her hands. But she stubbornly refused to permit the chain that held the platform on which her lead dog rested to slip and tip him off to strangle. Her whole body protested the ill treatment, and lack of sleep was making it increasingly hard for her to concentrate.

  The dog lay, listless and still, where she had ceaselessly encouraged him to stay. He was such a good dog. Any other would long ago have refused to obey commands and tried to jump down, throttling itself in the process. She knew he was as hungry and thirsty as she was, and she was amazed at his capacity for compliance in the face of such punishment. Her stomach had burned with ravenous complaints, but now she only felt light-headed. How much longer could it last? How much longer could she last?

  As she shifted position slightly, Tank lifted his head in her direction.

  “Stay,” she tried to say, but her word came out as a croak, forcing her to clear her throat in order to be even hoarsely understandable. “Please stay, good puppy.”

  Once again his muzzle dropped wearily back onto his paws, though his eyes never left her. Somehow he seemed to know how important it was to do her bidding. At some time during the long hours of captivity, she had noticed that he was no longer wearing his new orange bandana and had wondered where it had gone.

  Her view of Tank and the room swam in sudden helpless tears and she was overwhelmed with the knowledge that she had never loved this dog so much, needed so much not to lose him, or felt so helpless. Tears that she was unable to wipe away ran down her face. Would this never end? Would no one ever come? Was this what her captor had intended all along; that she would watch her favorite dog die out here, before she died herself? The diabolical cruelty of the situation roused her anger again, which was marginally strengthening because it roused her determination as well.

  Calculating the risk, she had tried once to free the two of them and almost lost Tank in the process. Earlier that afternoon, knowing her strength was failing and that she would soon be physically unable to make an attempt, she had tried to jump high enough to reach the beam above her. She had reached it with the fingers of one hand and clung perilously, catching the chain under her fingers to keep it from slipping away. But it had proved impossible to hold on or to pull herself up.

  Keeping tight hold on the chain alone, she had been forced to allow herself to slide back to the floor, landing hard on the leg with the injured knee, which had left her gasping in pain as it collapsed under her. The resulting jerk had almost tipped the dog from his precarious perch on the plywood platform, but Jessie had clung tenaciously and righted the situation by sliding a few links back over the beam in his direction.

  There was still a throb of pain in the knee, which turned to flame with any motion, and she could only hope she had not ruined the surgery performed earlier that summer. But even that didn’t seem to matter much. Only one thing was important: maintaining the status quo.

  Briefly she wondered what Joanne had thought when she didn’t appear as planned to help out at the Iditarod booth. Had Maxie called, as promised, and left a message in an empty house for no one to hear? She thought that perhaps tomorrow, after two nights with no answer, her friend might call the troopers to let them know she hadn’t been able to reach Jessie. That, she decided, was probably wishful thinking. Maxie would leave at least two or three messages before becoming seriously concerned. What would Becker think when he couldn’t find her and wanted to know more about the phone call? She was glad now that she had called him, but didn’t see how it would help anyone find her. Would someone notice that her truck had been abandoned and wonder why she hadn’t returned?

  It was hard to focus—easier just to wait and try to rest, reserving any remaining energy for the task at hand. Nothing else mattered.

  Jessie stared across the room at the shattered window. A tiny spider crawled out onto a web it had spun between the frame and a shard of broken glass. It reached a small fly that had been unlucky enough to become stranded on a sticky thread and began to restrict its struggles by encasing it in a silk shroud, skillfully turning it over and over. A breath of breeze caused the web and its passengers to shiver, but the spider took no notice, continuing its task until the fly hung motionless, its fate secured.

  Where was the inhuman spider who had spun this web of chain on which she and her lead dog hung powerless? Jessie wondered. Who was he, and would he return to seal their fate as well?

  CHAPTER 21

  “What did Lynn say when he called?” she asked Jensen now, leaning forward in her seat on the sofa.

  “He and several others had been looking for you until dark the night before,” he told her. “You’ve got a lot of friends out there, Jess. When it got dark and they’d come up empty, they went back out the next morning. Six of them went in pairs. One pair drove to Talkeetna, where they found that no one had seen you, and started back, searching every road and trail as they came. Another pair went to Houston and started searching between there and Nancy Lake. Ehlers and the musher he’s staying with were working the roads and kennels northwest of Nancy Lake.

  “For most of the morning they found nothing. Then, on one of the roads that ended in a trail too narrow for their truck, they found a blue plastic five-gallon water container with ‘Arnold’ written on it with black felt-tip marker.”

  “That was in the back of my pickup,” Jessie said with a confused frown. “But they didn’t find it on the same road where you found my truck, did they?”

  “No. It was on one a few miles farther toward Talkeetna. From what we can figure out now, he transported you—from where he hit you to the location where Ehlers found the water can—in your own pickup. I don’t see any other way your tire tracks could have wound up in the mud at the side of that road. And they were there. After leaving you in that cabin, he must have driven your pickup back to where it was found, then hiked back for his own. That road by the trail was rough and full of potholes, several right there where he stopped. The can was empty and must have bounced out. Evidently he didn’t notice. Your name wasn’t visible until Ehlers turned it over. Then he left it and found a phone to call us.”

  “Thank God he didn’t assume it was trash,” Jessie sighed.

  “Just after Ehlers called, your call came in, Frank,” Becker said, turning to Monroe. “We were already headed out the road, having left Danny’s parents with the assurance that all our resources were aware of his disappearance and looking for him.”

  “Correct.” Monroe nodded agreement. “That’s when Danny appeared on his bicycle.”

  Frank Monroe, neatly dressed, sat on a bench outside the Palmer Senior Center for Assisted Living so he could smoke his pipe while he worked. With care and resolution, he was going through the newspaper’s list of advertisements for apartment rentals in downtown Palmer and circling any that interested him with a red pencil.

  For the most part the staff of the senior center had treated him in a respectful, if cautious, fashion since his return from his brief vacation, though some of them, N
urse Doris Richards in particular, had tried to pretend he hadn’t returned at all and assiduously ignored him. No one had entered his room without knocking, not even the housekeeper. The nurse’s aide had gone so far as to put a flower on his breakfast tray rather than complain because he wasn’t eating in the dining room.

  The administrator had passed him twice that morning with a resentful frown, but he expected nothing less. She was clearly angry, but his attorney would take care of that. The attorney had dropped in on his way to the office to have a long talk with Frank Monroe, to ascertain his wishes before approaching the administrator, and had assured him that he had nothing to worry about contractually with the institution.

  “They can’t have things both ways,” he had stated categorically. “By contract, they were responsible for you. What makes this easier is that they allowed you to slip away for more than twenty-four hours without informing law enforcement or your nephew. We can, and will, threaten legal action over that if they refuse to refund a reasonable amount of your money. Don’t worry about it. They’ll be glad to come to a realistic agreement. You’ll be fine.”

  Neither the solicitous nor the disapproving treatment within the walls of the center bothered Monroe in the slightest. He was cheerfully eager to start rearranging his life to suit himself. He had just circled the last interesting ad in the paper when the sound of swiftly approaching tires on the circular driveway in front of the senior center attracted his attention. Looking up, he was startled to see Danny Tabor swing himself off his bicycle and wheel it rapidly up the walk toward where his friend sat on the bench.

  The boy was panting with the exertion of pedaling. Sweat stood out on his face, and his T-shirt was damp with it. Eyes wide with alarm, he began to spill out words between gasps faster than Monroe could completely understand, but it was clear that he was frightened.

  “There’s a guy—after me—in a pickup truck—tried to grab me, but—I got away. He’s coming—I gotta hide—”

  “Danny. Danny. Slow down. Stop and slow down. I can’t understand. Who’s after you? The guy from the fair?”

  “No. Some other guy in a truck. Help me. Hide me before—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle on the circular driveway. They both turned their heads to see a pickup coming toward them.

  “That’s him,” Danny piped, his voice high with fear. “O-oh, I gotta get away.” He shoved his bicycle to the open front door of the senior center and vanished into the lobby.

  With the distraction of two things in motion, Frank Monroe didn’t have the opportunity to get more than a glancing impression of the driver or of the pickup, which did not stop but continued on around the driveway and back out into the street, where it sped away. Aside from the fact that it was brown and white, he had no idea of the make or model, nor did he have a chance to read the license plate number. It came and went too fast and was gone as he was rising to his feet.

  Dropping the newspaper on the bench, he went into the center, where he found Danny being confronted by the angry administrator.

  “You can’t bring that bicycle in here,” she was admonishing the boy. “Take it back outside where it belongs. Immediately.”

  “But—but—” Danny was trying to explain.

  “Here now,” Monroe told the administrator. “Leave the boy alone. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “Well, I should have known.” She whirled and stalked back in the direction of her office.

  “Is he still out there?” Danny asked.

  “No. He’s gone. Bring your bicycle over here by the door and lean it against the wall where it’s out of the way. No one will bother it. Right?”

  He aimed the question at the administrator, who he could see was watching from inside her office, and allowed himself a smile of satisfaction when she sharply shut the door.

  “Come with me, Danny.” He laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and guided him down the hall toward his pigeonhole. “You’re safe here with me. You can tell me all about it, and we’ll figure out what to do.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The radio in Becker’s pickup crackled to life as he and Jensen sped up a hill on the far side of Wasilla, heading out the Parks Highway to where Ehlers said they had found the water container that bore Jessie’s name. In a quick exchange, the dispatcher relayed information from Frank Monroe that Danny Tabor was with him at the senior center and that someone had chased him there in a pickup truck. Becker told them to call his parents and to make sure both the boy and the old man were safe and taken care of until he could make it back to Palmer to talk to them.

  “We sent a patrol car,” the dispatcher responded. “The parents are on the way.”

  “Good. Be sure someone keeps track of the two of them. It’s important.”

  He concentrated on his driving for a minute or two before breaking the silence.

  “Exactly how the hell is all this connected?” he asked Jensen finally, gnawing at his lower lip in frustration. “There’s so much going on at once that it’s hard to get a handle on how it fits together.”

  “We don’t have all the pieces,” Jensen stated flatly. “There’s one very large one missing—who else is involved? We’ve got two dead men. Wease, who I’m willing to bet killed Belmont—if we’re right, the boy can identify him as the person who was fighting with Belmont that night. But someone else killed Wease. Who and why? The best I can come up with is a falling out of some kind among thieves. The fact that the boy and the old man are the only two that may be able to put the two of them together doesn’t seem to matter with both of them dead. Someone else was chasing Danny Tabor this time. Who? At a guess, it might be the person who killed Wease. But why? The boy couldn’t have witnessed that. Going after the boy indicates a degree of desperation over something we don’t know about. The thing that makes most sense is that one of them, or both, saw or knows something significant, or this someone thinks they do. If they do, they may not even realize they know it.”

  “It’s possible that whoever it is doesn’t know that we developed the photos of the armored car and are onto this robbery idea,” Becker speculated. “An alternative is that he doesn’t know I even have the bag and thinks Danny or Frank Monroe still has the bag, film, and photos and is trying to get them back.”

  “Either of those things is imaginable. There are several things that do relate in all this. Danny had the bag. Whoever stole Jessie’s dog wanted that bag. Wease chased Danny because he said the bag was his and he wanted it badly. So he may have been Jessie’s threatening caller. Jessie went looking for Tank and vanished. Wease may have been responsible for both disappearances before he was killed. But he was a security guard at the fair, with a schedule to keep and people like Dave Lomax who would notice if he was absent for any significant amount of time. Lomax did say it wasn’t the first time Wease had missed work. I wish we’d asked him exactly when and for how long Wease wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

  “What I can’t get hold of is just how the two locations—the fairground and out here somewhere—fit together. The area out here on the Parks Highway is where Jessie obviously came looking for Tank, but only on a hunch about where he might be most easily hidden. According to that friend of hers, Maxie, it was just an idea. She didn’t know he was here.

  “The whole thing with the boy and Monroe took place at the fairground. Tank was taken from the fairground, and Belmont was found there. There has to be someone involved besides Wease who knew everything that was going on. So maybe this someone who’s there a lot works there, or volunteers, like Jessie. It took more than a few minutes to remove Tank from the fair to wherever he was taken. If it’s a worker at the fair, someone may have noticed that whoever took him was gone for that vital amount of time. One person can’t be in two places at once, can they? Of course, there may be more than one.” He shrugged in bafflement and hauled out his pipe.

  Becker frowned as he increased his speed to pass a lumbering motor home with a Kansas license plate. />
  “We should do a time line on all of this. If the times are just right, it might be possible. I’d also like to know when the fair is busiest—when they take in the most money. That might give us a clue as to when a robbery would be most lucrative. With everything else going on, we haven’t really had a chance to look into that. The management and security at the fair will have to be warned to take precautions.”

  “We’ll do that as soon as we get back to town. But that warning, unfortunately, could make it harder, or impossible, to figure out who’s responsible. For the moment, we’ve got to focus on what Ehlers has found for us—see about locating Jessie. I wonder if Jessie’s hurt herself with that bad knee and is somewhere unable to get back to her truck. But if Wease didn’t make that threatening phone call—and now we may never know—we’ve got to consider that someone out here may be involved in the robbery plot—that she got too close and was grabbed to keep her quiet. If Wease killed Belmont, that’s one thing. Someone else killing Wease makes me very uneasy about her being missing.”

  As they sped past Nancy Lake, Becker glanced across and recognized the apprehension on his partner’s face. Though he said nothing, he found it familiar because it matched his own.

  On the road he had described to Becker on the phone, Lynn Ehlers and another man were waiting in a truck. A box used for transporting dogs took up the bed of it, covering the rear cab window and obscuring the rearview mirror, but in the side mirror he saw the two troopers pull up behind the vehicle. He immediately climbed out and came walking toward them.

  “Hey, Phil,” he said, offering a hand to Becker and a nod to Jensen, who had stood on the passenger side of the pickup after getting out. “Jensen.”

  “Dick Ray,” he introduced his friend. “We work dogs together out of Dick’s kennel.”