by Sue Henry
“Hey,” Hank broke in, “I’m not just any help! But it was a lot like the Keystone Kops.”
Lynn nodded and, finally, grinned. “Might as well laugh, I guess.”
“What I’d like to know,” Hank asked, “is why you thought you needed to watch Jessie’s yard in the first place.”
Startled, Jessie realized that Hank knew nothing about the intruder she had seen, and neither he nor Lynn knew what Becker had told her concerning the roses. She spent the next few minutes explaining the situation to both.
Hank, sensing Ehlers had more to say to Jessie that would not be said with him there, went home to catch a few winks before it was time to come back again for work. Jessie walked him to his truck and thanked him for coming to her rescue, even though, as it turned out, she didn’t need rescuing. He became serious after he had climbed into the truck, leaning out the window with concern that was rapidly becoming a familiar litany to her.
“It sounds to me like you’d better think again about all this, Jessie, and maybe stop trying to take care of everything by yourself. I might not be able to get here fast enough if this guy you saw came back again and caught you off guard. That cop didn’t get here until after I did. Just keep in mind that friends help each other. It’s what friends are for.”
“I know, Hank. It’s hard for me. I’ve taken care of myself for most of my life. That’s all mixed up with some old history, but I’m trying to work it out, okay?”
“Well, don’t get stiff-necked. Call if you need me, and I’ll try not to swear at you over the phone.”
Lynn stayed to keep Jessie company for a while longer as it gradually grew light again outside. When the sun began to come up at three-thirty, he went home to catch up on his sleep, but before that they sat together at the table over the breakfast Jessie made and talked a little.
“Where’s your family, Lynn?” she asked, pushing fried potatoes around her plate with a fork. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
“Oh, yeah.” He grinned. “They’re spread all over Minnesota—three brothers and two sisters. My dad says I collect dogs now because I miss the company of all us kids when we were growing up. He could be right.”
“Are they older or younger?”
“Both. I was fourth in the litter. You?”
She laid down the fork and picked up a strip of bacon with her fingers.
“My folks sort of had two families. I have a sister nine years older in Ohio.”
“That it?”
It was a simple and not unusual question, but Jessie felt her breath catch in her throat, once again confronted with the past. The emotional roller coaster of the last few hours collided with the loss that had been hovering at the back of her mind and derailed her without warning in a sudden flood of tears.
“Dammit!”
Lynn froze in surprise and puzzlement as a sob escaped her. Concern deepened his voice. “Jessie?”
Swiping angrily at her face, she picked up her cup and took a long drink of hot coffee, scalding her mouth. Jumping up from the table, she snatched a glass and gulped water from the galley tap, then grabbed a handful of tissue to dab at her face and blow her nose.
Lynn waited, saying nothing, till she came back and sat down. When she had settled, he gave her a troubled and questioning look.
“Sorry,” she told him. “I don’t like to talk about this, Lynn. It’s old and it’s over, but it’s still painful, okay? I had two sisters. Jane’s, the oldest—the one in Ohio. Then there was Lily, who was three years younger. But she’s…We lost her.”
“You mean she died?” he asked gently.
“No–yes.” Tears started again, but she ignored them. “I mean we lost her. She disappeared one afternoon, on her way home from school. She was only seven years old, and she was just gone. We’ve never known—what happened to her.”
“Jesus!”
Once started, Jessie couldn’t seem to stop. Words tumbled out in a flood of self-recrimination.
“It was my fault. I was supposed to walk her home. But I wanted to talk to a teacher first, so I told her to wait. Instead, she started without me. The police thought someone must have taken her, but there was nothing to find; no one saw anything. It was my fault. My parents just about went crazy looking for her. My dad still looks. Everywhere he goes, he’s always looking for Lily.”
“It wasn’t really your fault, Jessie,” Lynn said carefully, quietly. “It was the responsibility of whoever took her.”
“I know. I’ve been told that all my life. But I know my parents didn’t think so. It was never the same, for them or for me. That’s how I learned to take care of myself—feeling guilty and not wanting to be in the way while they searched for her.”
The tears were running down her face as she stared out through the blinds he had opened when they sat down.
Without another word, he stood up and came around to her side of the table, slid in, and reached for her. She let him hold and rock her as she wept, accepting, for the moment, the small hushed sounds of comfort he breathed in her ear.
When she had cried herself out, he put her to bed, covered her warmly with her northern lights quilt, and sat on the edge of the bed until she had fallen into an exhausted sleep. Though Pete kept his place under the table, Tank came and jumped up to curl at Jessie’s feet, a thing he did when she was sick.
Ehlers, recognizing the bond between them, knew she would be all right and left her, making sure the doors were securely locked and the blinds once again closed.
But he stood for a long time, watching the shadows lengthen and darken in contrast as the sun came up to splash light across the clearing, appreciating the scent of warming spruce needles, listening to the birds begin their familiar daily chorus, the buzz of a lazy bumblebee, a dog or two stirring in the yard.
“No wonder,” he muttered finally, in a low voice. “No wonder.”
Then he hiked back along the road to replace the distributor cap under the hood of his green pickup.
18
AT CLOSE TO ELEVEN O’CLOCK ON A MIDWEEK EVENING, the side streets of Anchorage were deep with purple shadows. But the tallest buildings on the main streets that ran east from Cook Inlet still retained a hint of the sunset that had set the thin close-clinging bands of cloud on the western horizon afire with brilliant hues of gold and fuchsia that slowly faded into mauve.
Some people and vehicles moved along Fourth Avenue, but it was far less crowded than it would have been on a weekend night. A musical performance at the Performing Arts Center had just let out, and the crowd was dispersing along Fifth and Sixth. Few had parked as far away as Fourth, so only a couple or two and a small group of women strolled toward their cars, parked in a lot below the bright-yellow Sunshine Mall, which seemed to catch more of the late light than the less colorful buildings around it.
Outside the Bottoms Up, two blocks east, it was quiet, the parking lot only half full of cars and trucks. A dark brown pickup swung into the lot from the alley that ran behind it and pulled into a rear space next to the concrete-block building. Its driver shut off the engine, stepped out, and locked the door, pocketing his keys. He then walked past the other vehicles and around to the front door.
Inside, he stopped for a moment to let his vision adjust to darkness not matched outside at this time of year.
Only half the seats in the place were occupied, most of them at tables near the extended runway of a stage. A spotlight illuminated the nearly nude woman who was gyrating to the loud music in nothing but a fabric brief that scarcely covered her crotch and narrowed to a thong in back. Her naked breasts bounced with her suggestive moves, the color of her nipples enhanced with a bit of the same lipstick that stained her mouth.
For a long minute, he watched the woman as she lay down and spread her legs wide apart to exhibit herself to two men at a table next to the runway. Someone at another table whistled as one of them reached to tuck a bill under the thin strap she wore around her hips. But she was not to the taste o
f the man at the door, not what he had in mind in coming there. Her thighs were too heavy, in his estimation, and her large breasts too obviously silicone. He liked them to quiver more naturally.
Turning, he walked across the room to an empty table in the dark, beyond the bar and away from the stage, where he could see not only the woman who danced but those who watched as well. A scantily clad barmaid was instantly at his elbow to take an order. She stalked away in a pair of high-heeled shoes and returned quickly with his drink. Close behind her came a tall woman, another dancer, who had been sitting with two others on tall stools at the bar. She cocked her head and asked a question, but he frowned without looking at her and waved her away without a word. With a shrug, she went back across the room and sat down, elbow on the bar, chin on her palm, a study in ennui.
The front door opened, letting in outside light that seemed brighter than it was in contrast to the darkness within. Two uniformed policemen walked through it and paused just inside, giving the place and its entertainment a thorough visual inspection. The shorter of the two gestured toward the swiveling hips of the occupant of the stage and made a comment to his partner, who grinned and nodded, attention now focused on the dancer. Crossing to the women at the bar, they asked a question or two, but all three shook their heads and the officers left the way they had come in, with a last look at the woman in the spotlight as they went out the door.
The man in the shadows observed all this without turning his head and relaxed slightly when they had gone. The music ended, and the dancer disappeared behind the curtains. There was a pause before the music started again with a livelier beat and another woman stepped onto the stage. His attention was drawn to her face, figure, and particularly her dark hair, but the brunette did not interest him either. Lifting his glass, he drained it in one long pull and raised it in the direction of the waitress, who quickly brought him another. He sipped it more slowly, casually observing the action on the runway but clearly waiting for something more to his liking.
The third dancer to appear from behind the curtains was a blonde. A glitter of rhinestones caught the light from her pubic area and around her neck as she strutted onto the runway swinging her hips, a little awkwardly but in time to the bump-and-grind music. It was immediately apparent that she was younger—hardly more than a girl—and less skilled than the previous women. Where they had been blasé, seldom exhibiting more expression than a sensual parting of the lips to mask boredom, this one was very aware of her audience and working hard to please. A tight artificial smile gave away an attempt to cover nervousness, and her eyes never quite met those of the men who surrounded the stage. Though her rhythmic thrusts and poses were decidedly amateur, she was energetic in presenting herself for the attention of her audience.
The man at the table in the back straightened slightly in his chair at her appearance. This was what he had come to see, and his eyes never left her as she strutted and writhed through the exotic number.
The preceding dancer, now strolling through the room to solicit table dances, approached and laid a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to distract his attention from the girl on the stage. Without so much as a glance, he jerked his shoulder from under it and shook his head emphatically. She curled a lip, drifted off with a shrug he did not see, and was instantly as absent from his mind as she was from his purview, his interest fully focused on the young woman in the spotlight.
When the music ended and she vanished behind the curtains, he did not linger, knowing she would not dance again this night, at least on this stage. Finishing his drink, he refused another, and handed a few coins to the barmaid, earning the disgusted look she cast at his back as he left.
Unlocking his pickup, he climbed in and sat, waiting silently in the dark, patient and predatory.
When the blond woman came around the corner of the Bottoms Up he watched her head across the parking lot toward a car. Before she could reach it, he had started the engine of the brown truck, backed it up, and pulled forward to cut her off. She stiffened as he addressed her through his open window, but soon relaxed when she recognized him. This man was familiar and, if not a regular, at least an occasional customer she knew by sight. She smiled and turned her head to glance at a car that passed on the street with a whistle from a male passenger.
In the glow of the streetlight, he could see the side of her head, and he grinned.
She wore a red rose in her hair.
19
JESSIE DIDN’T SLEEP FOR LONG AFTER EHLERS LEFT. SHE was awake again in just over an hour, finding herself alone except for Tank, who raised his head when she moved, and dependable Pete, whom she could hear shifting position under the table in the galley.
She lay staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, feeling ashamed of her outburst of tears. She didn’t cry often and hated it when she did, considering it a sign of weakness. Now, twice in only a few days, she had allowed herself to be defeated by her emotions.
Covering her face with both hands, caught in an ache of humiliation and fatigue, she rolled over toward the window, pulled the quilt over her head, and considered the causes for her uncharacteristic behavior. Tension was the culprit, she decided. And what exactly was causing so much tension? The threat of the roses, she could identify and understand. But hadn’t she done everything possible to protect herself? Except for letting others take charge when they had every right to do so, she knew she had.
An idea she had heard somewhere and taken for her own crept into her thinking: If something bothers or upsets you, one of two things is happening: Either you are taking too much responsibility for someone else, or you are letting someone take too much for you.
That had always made sense, but what specific responsibility was she not taking, or taking when she shouldn’t? She had had little control over most of the events of the last few days. Her discovery of the old man’s body; the delays in construction that resulted; the confusion caused by Becker, Timmons, and other people, like Bonnie Russell, making demands: all created tension by eroding her ability to be in control. But was she letting someone else take too much responsibility for what she should be doing herself? From the reaction of those around her—even Lynn Ehlers and Hank Peterson—it seemed the other way around and she was taking too much on herself. Was that true?
There were other things to add to the equation. She recalled her resistance to more digging when Timmons had showed up to search for another body in her yard. Her reluctance was not simple fear of another interruption, she also disliked having other people intrude on her personal space. Her property, especially that occupied by her kennel and cabin, was personal space. The idea that there could be another body lying beneath the ground somewhere on her land was a possibility that had haunted her thoughts like a restless spirit refusing to depart—a ghost demanding attention, unearthing, and remedy. But if the butterfly necklace had been found in her yard, didn’t it make sense that the woman who wore it could be there as well? Was she buried out there—somewhere—waiting to be found?
Well, by God, if she is, I’ll find her and have the matter over and done, Jessie told herself, and sat up abruptly, causing Tank to jump down from his place at the foot of the bed and stand waiting to see what she intended. She got out of bed still dressed from the evening before and went hunting for her shoes. Finding them on the floor at the foot of the bed where Lynn had neatly aligned them, she jammed them on.
She started to take the shotgun, thought about the awkwardness of carrying it around in the woods, and belted on her dependable Smith & Wesson .44, grabbed a jacket, and went out, taking Tank but leaving Pete to guard the Winnebago. Locking the door behind her, she dropped the keys in her pocket and started across the yard.
“Come on, buddy. We’ll do our damnedest.”
It was growing light enough to see everything in the yard, but it was still fairly dark under the trees that edged the clearing. Jessie stopped by the half-built cabin and assessed the spot where the old man’s bones had been dug from the
ground.
If I were going to bury someone, why would I do it so close to my living space? she asked herself, trying to think like someone with a body to hide. Because it was handy and could be done quickly?
That didn’t make sense, for it was also where anyone coming to the cabin might notice and question disturbed earth alongside it. Besides, Timmons thought the old man might have frozen to death and been buried later, when the ground thawed. If that was true, wouldn’t a second body be buried in or near the same spot—even in the same grave, for that matter? Since the lab crew had carefully searched this area and found nothing, did that mean there wasn’t another body or that that person hadn’t died to be buried at the same time?
This grave had been dug on the south side of the old cabin, she realized, the side that would thaw first in the spring. Was the answer to the old man’s burial as simple as that? It seemed reasonable. But if he had frozen to death, where had his body been kept until winter released the ground from its icy grip?
Where would I keep a body—maybe two bodies—I was waiting to bury?
It would have to be out of sight of the cabin and anyone who happened to visit the claim on which it sat. The woods, of course. Somewhere deep in the woods but close enough to make retrieval quick and easy. Perhaps a second body had been buried there instead of here in the open.
Jessie turned and headed for the trees behind her storage shed, an area Timmons’s assistants had not yet searched. As she entered the woods, the shadows of the sheltering branches of the trees blocked off most of the light but left her enough to see. Tank halted next to her and looked up.
“Hey, guy. Got any good ideas?”
If he had, he wasn’t sharing. She walked a little deeper into the grove, his presence at her side reminding her that other animals still roamed these woods at times: bears, foxes, wolves. Twenty years ago wolves had not been uncommon, though they were now seldom seen. People back then had built caches on tall stiltlike legs or roped their frozen winter meat up into trees to protect it. Jessie remembered no evidence of a cache, but the old guy might not have bothered to build one with so many convenient trees close to his cabin. A killer who didn’t want his human meat to be disturbed, and possibly revealed, by canine predators might have stashed a body overhead in similar fashion.
