Dark Witness

by Rebecca Forster

  Andre shook his head. "There isn't any because there's no real benefit. You're not going to get high from this, just dead."

  "Do you think it might be terrorism? Maybe meant for the water supply," Archer asked. Andre shrugged.

  "Your guess is as good as mine."

  Josie indicated the container. She was tired of the chemistry lesson. "I'm going inside. Are you good with that?"

  "Sure. Just be careful."

  Josie motioned to Archer. She was first in, grabbing the sides and hoisting herself up a lot easier than most would do. Archer followed. Andre raised his voice when he heard them head toward the back.

  "Don't move anything. Don't touch anything."

  While he waited, Andre leaned against a tree, put his hands in his jacket pockets, and watched the beams of their flashlight move through the interior. This little exercise in futility reminded Andre of first responders visiting a sunken ship or a blown up building. All Archer and Josie Bates would find would be twisted metal, tumbled cargo, and terrifying silence. There would be no bodies, and yet death was a certainty. Closure, in Andre's book, was a nice concept but never a reality. The promise of it gave survivors unreasonable hope that they would find something no one else could: words carved into the side of a box or etched onto the floor, a loved one buried but breathing under rubble, clinging to a piece of wood floating in the wide ocean, or hanging from a precipice. That's what survivors envisioned because they had such faith in their loved one's will to live. It was a waste of emotion and time. There would be no happy tears, no miraculous rescue. Even Josie Bates wasn't strong enough to raise the dead or find the lost and that was the only closure she seemed willing to accept.

  Tired of waiting, not wanting to interrupt before they reached the only logical conclusion they could, Andre got a plastic bag and a small hand pick and went to collect what he could of the driver's remains. These would be sent to the State Medical Examiner's office in Anchorage for storage until they were claimed – which Andre doubted they ever would be. The rest of him would be collected when the truck was moved. Eventually the bones would be disposed of according to the law and Mr. Green would be forgotten.

  Andre had just finished when he heard the sound of the container floor giving. He went to his pack and stored the opaque, zippered bag just as Archer jumped to the ground. Josie followed slowly, but only went as far as the door. She stabilized herself with the angle of her body and one hand that clutched the bent metal frame. Archer put up his hand to help her down. She and Archer locked eyes; Andre kept his on Josie Bates. Andre had to admit she was more than handsome. Few women could look good bundled up in winter clothes, but she did. Few women could handle their disappointment with such grace, but she did. And few women would remain as stubborn as she when everyone was waiting on her.

  When Archer turned around and looked at Andre, the trooper shrugged. She was Archer's woman, and he'd have to deal with her until it was time to go. Andre dug into his pack again, and pulled out the things he needed, walked through the snow, over the uneven ground, and dropped the new chain and lock near the container figuring that might get her moving. Josie Bates couldn't take a hint. She scanned the terrain, finally focusing on a point over the men's heads. Archer dropped his hand. Andre made an impatient turn. The day was getting on.

  "Ms. Bates," he said. "I've got to secure this site. We have to start back."

  "Where's the closest town?" she asked, ignoring Andre's directive.

  "There aren't any towns out this far. There's nothing out this far." He indicated the open door. "Do you mind? I've got to inventory and get those boxes back inside."

  "Sorry." She moved aside. He climbed in and started counting, but Josie was still talking, and still standing behind him, and still bugging him. "Okay, so where is the nearest human being?"

  "Hard to say." His voice came from deep inside the container. She peered through the dark toward the pool of light from his flashlight. He was bent over, pointing to the boxes, counting them off.

  "Twenty-two inside." He made a note and walked back to the entrance, ignoring Josie and talking to Archer as he pointed to the snow-covered boxes on the ground. "You want to pass those up here?"

  "No problem." Archer handed up the first one while Andre talked more than he had talked in the last three months. Lawyers would ask questions until they got the answer they wanted; Andre figured he would give Josie the truth in the hope that would shut her down.

  "People carve spaces out for themselves in Alaska. The farther north they go, the less they want to be found. They live off the land. They don't get permits to hunt. They don't get married or divorced. They just say they're married or divorced, and that makes it so. There are kids up here who have never seen the inside of a school. There are people who come to challenge the great outdoors and disappear into it without a trace. There are cults and communes and whatever else you can imagine. There are no street numbers out here. No neighbors. Nothing."

  "So why are they here?" Josie persisted.

  Archer handed up another box. Andre took it and walked it back to a stack. The darn things were heavy. His breath blew white as he worked and talked.

  "Sometimes they're fugitives. Most times they're just ornery or lonely or a little off their heads. They're folks that can't make it in the real world, so they hunker down behind some tree. For the most part, they are happy." Andre lifted another box and rested a minute. "If you're looking for a city or a town, you won't find it. You might stumble across some squatters settled into what's left of the old mining stations, but you're talking about tiny communities. Five, ten people at the most. They add to the census data when government types can find them, but it's finding them that's the problem."

  Andre came back to the front of the container and waited for Archer to bring him the next box. Josie moved out of the way but not out of his face.

  "Is that it? Just loners?" she asked.

  "There are Inuit villages. The natives move to the river in the summer where they camp, fish, hunt, and stock in for winter." He turned to look at Josie who didn't move back a step as he thought she would. "But, if I'm reading you right, you're asking whether there's a logical place to start looking for those two kids. The answer is no."

  Archer handed up the second box. The one Andre had opened on his first pass at the site. Andre checked it. Three vials were missing and now were in the custody of the Public Health Office for analysis.

  "There's packing tape in that bag," he directed and Archer obliged. When he found it, he tossed it up. Andre caught it easily, taped the box closed and went to move it, but Josie was in front of him again. He raised an eyebrow as if to ask if she was really going to play this game. She was.

  "So, how do you search for someone who is lost in this state? Or, if someone goes missing, do you just kind of chalk them off?"

  "When it's called for – and there is a reasonable expectation of success – we alert the troopers to keep their eyes open. Believe me, if we had something solid regarding your kids, we'd be on it. We're not lazy, we're practical and we understand our jurisdiction."

  He hoisted the box onto a pile, turning his back on her briefly.

  "There aren't enough troopers in all of the north to scour this kind of wilderness. We send up planes if we have a solid search area." He paused, and then called out to Archer. "Can you get those two over there? I didn't see them before."

  Archer looked around, saw the boxes nearly hidden under the snow, dug them out and carried the top one over.

  "Well–” Josie began but Andre was done with speculation. He rested his weight on one leg. He put his hand up on the broken metal. He looked right at her and told her what she needed to hear.

  "Look, we don't have a search area, Ms. Bates. All we have is a duffle bag, a cellphone, and no proof that either of the kids you're looking for was in that container."

  "There is blood in there," she insisted.

  Archer lifted the box up. Andre stepped over, grabbed it, stacke
d it, and dusted off his hands.

  "We don't know who it belongs to, or how it got there, or how long it's been there. Nobody knows because the driver is dead."

  "The duffle has Hannah's clothes in it. I can tell you, those are her clothes," Josie insisted.

  "The driver could have picked her up anywhere and let her off anywhere." Andre pushed the box to the side. "He could have stolen the duffle. She could have traded it to him for food. He had it. That's a fact." Andre put his hand on his hips wanting nothing more than to finish his work and be done with this exercise in politics. "You're a lawyer, Ms. Bates. You could explain away that bag a hundred ways from Sunday. I'm just a cop, but I can do the same. It's a fact that it was here; it's not evidence of anything."

  They stared at one another, the look of determination in Josie's blue eyes was as hard as old ice and Andre's warm, brown eyes were drained of sympathy. It was Archer who broke the standoff.

  "Guillard. Hey." Andre set his jaw and gave Josie one last warning look. Archer called again. "Guillard!"

  "Yeah. Here." Andre went to the doorway. Archer handed up the last box.

  "This one's open," Archer said.

  Andre pulled back the flaps. Five vials were missing. He knew he had taken only three samples of the load. Andre located the first box and reopened it, confirmed that was the box from which he had take three vials and taped it up again. When he turned around, he saw Josie crouched down by the second box. He thought he detected a smile when she swung her head his way.

  "Someone opened the lock on this truck. Someone besides you took a couple of bottles of this poison. Don't you think there is a good chance whoever did that found those kids, too?" She stood up, put a foot on the open box and pushed it his way. "Now tell me you're just going to let this go."

  "Jo," Archer called, but she was in no mood to be messed with. Her head whipped Archer's way.

  "Do you want to let it go, too, Archer? Really? All this is just so we can stand here and wonder what in the hell happened? Then what? We go home and stand on the pier and throw a couple of wreaths out onto the water, have a beer at Burt's, and get on with our lives? Or, maybe you think we should wait for them to show up? Is that what you think we should do? Because if you think that. . ."

  "Hey! Take a minute," he warned.

  Andre turned his back. This wasn't his fight. Even though Archer moved close, Andre could still hear every word.

  "Jo, we're out of our depth here. There isn't much we can do with what we have. It would be better if we went back, talked to whoever we need to talk to, and get authorized to search. I'm just saying we need a plan."

  Josie stormed back to the opening and held onto that door. She looked down on him, her face a play of anguish and anger.

  "How far could they have gotten, Archer? Hurt? Bleeding? With only what they have on their backs? They couldn't have gotten far without help. I'm telling you, they are out there. If someone found them, they would have slowed down because they were hurt. Maybe there's a camp somewhere, or it's one of those people he's been talking about. We can find them. I know we can."

  "We don't know how long this wreck has been here," Archer argued.

  "It's been at least a week." Andre came up behind her, and Josie whipped around.

  "I'm asking for a sweep. Five miles. That's what I want. We came up five miles easy, and we'll go back another route. We can do one leg today. We'll take our best guess which way to go. Two will do that, and one of us will get back to Nell. Archer, you could find your way back, right? Don't you think you could?"

  "It's not like jogging on The Strand, Jo," Archer said. "We're in the middle of Alaska. It's dark. It's getting darker. What are we going to do in a few hours when we can't see our hands in front of our face? We don't have a tent. No sleeping bags. No food. Listen to the man. Listen to me. Now, come on. Get down."

  Archer put both hands up and crooked his fingers. Josie eyed him as if he had just slapped her. Her chin quivered.

  "It's Hannah, and if you don't care. . ." Josie began.

  "Don't go there, Jo." Archer stepped back. She was making the ground rules, but he wasn't going to play by them. "Now, come on. I'll help you down if you want, but I won't beg, and Andre isn't going to stand there forever."

  Josie's eyes slid to Andre Guillard. Young and handsome, he was a dedicated trooper, but he had no real skin in this game. She appreciated what he was saying. He was warning her off in the same way she would warn a client away from uncharted territory. This was his truth and his truth was that to search was futile. Archer was offering something in the middle, and both men waited for her to choose one option or the other.

  Andre jumped off the container, picked up the chain and lock from the ground. "I've got to close this up."

  Josie didn't care what he had to do or that Archer was angry with her. The good news was that Archer didn't turn his back on her. She stood on her crumpled perch, looking into the gun metal-colored afternoon. The wind was stronger, and it pushed the cold through every exposed inch of her skin. What did that Alaska cold feel like in the dead of night? How dark was dark in Alaska? How terrifying was it to listen to things moving and be unable to figure out what or where they were? Worse yet was to hear absolute silence lying in absolute dark. Josie knew what that was like, and she wouldn't wish that kind of terror on anyone. Now she squinted into the distance and saw what the two men could not: a slim thread of hope running through the trees and across the snow.

  Instead of stepping down, Josie went back inside the container. The flashlight beam bobbed, then stopped, and then start moving again. When Josie reappeared she had a ragged piece of bloodstained cardboard in one hand and in the other a piece of yellow material.

  "I ripped one of your boxes," she said to Andre. "But I didn't do anything to the bottles inside. I found this fabric. There's blood on it. It needs to be tested. We have DNA from both Billy and Hannah to check it against."

  She jumped down from the truck.

  Archer asked, "Are you ready to go back now?"

  "Sure. Why not." Josie grabbed the pack and put her evidence in the side pocket.

  Archer picked up his gear. Andre pushed the metal door shut. It groaned and clanged. He threaded the new chain through the handles twice, secured the lock and posted the warning that it was a crime to tamper with the vehicle. When he was done, he picked up the pack with a bag of bones inside. Josie started to walk before either of the men and Archer spoke to her back.

  "We'll talk to Andre's commander, and we'll get this figured out, Jo."

  "You do that, Archer. I'm going to talk to Nell. I want to see a little more of Alaska than Trooper Guillard is willing to show me."

  Josie paused, adjusted her pack, and let Andre go on ahead of her. He took the lead not liking her at his back anymore than he liked her walking ahead of him. The last time he'd seen a female act like this she was covered in fur, on her hind legs, and ready to devour the guy who was messing with her cub.

  Yep, a mama grizzly was almost as ornery, single minded, and scary as Josie Bates.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ham and bacon.

  That was what Melody brought up the stairs every night. In the morning she only brought bacon. She brought the blue plate because that was what Pea preferred. Melody had tried to make Pea eat a bit of vegetable or sweets, but Pea would have none of it. Melody tried to talk to Pea, but the most she got was a trill or a pretty burp. Though it was well known that Pea spoke only to Duncan, Melody was sure if she were kind enough, nice enough, patient enough, Pea would speak to her, too. If that happened then she would be worthy of Duncan. The circle was obvious. She would be a good servant, atone, be blessed for her efforts, and healed by Duncan who would then take her for his own. It was so simple, so long in coming, and now, seemingly, out of reach because Hannah and Billy had caught Duncan's attention – or rather Hannah had.

  Melody made the turn on the second landing and started up the next flight of stairs, and thought about Billy.
The sheets of his bed were tangled as if his sleep was always disturbed. She saw him looking out the window of Duncan's house where he stayed, watching the big house, waiting. She had seen him go to the river to look at the water and ask about the ice that had formed up against the banks. Robert said he had to chase him off the boat, and Glenn said he could hardly get his wood split with all the questions Billy asked. Teresa fed him, but he sat at the table with his head in his hand, watching them all. He especially watched Duncan.

  It had only been a few days since Robert brought these two back from that wreck and already their world was tilted. It seemed to Melody everyone was leaning different ways trying to right it. She knew one way to make it right. Duncan should set a date for the healing.

  Just as she thought she would like that interrupted conversation to begin again, Melody stumbled. The plate wobbled, the napkin slipped and the scent of the grease made her suddenly sick.

  Twice a day she climbed these stairs and smelled this smell. She used to think Duncan had only chosen her because Pea was her temptation, but now Melody thought it was because she was the only one willing to climb this many stairs. On top of that, she was beginning to think that Pea wasn't really all that. It was Duncan who spoke to them. None of them ever heard Pea say a word; most of them forgot the woman even existed. Melody wondered what would happen if she didn't bring food. Would Pea come down when she was hungry? Would God feed her? Maybe she would starve to death.

  Melody stopped thinking. Disrespect could send her back down the chute of forgiveness. She may have her doubts about Pea, but she had no doubts about Duncan's ability to heal her and that was what was important.

  At the top of the stairs Melody paused, and listened. She heard nothing from Hannah's room. Melody's forehead was so furrowed, her jaw so tight, it hurt. She had only felt like this once before – rebellious and bloated with jealousy – and that hadn't turned out real well.

  She put the blue plate down in front of Pea's door, twisted the knob so that it unlatched, and then picked up the plate again. She pushed the door open with her hip, went inside, and closed it with her shoulder as she had done every morning and evening for the last two years. And, as she had done since the first time she entered this room, Melody took a moment just to 'be' in this place.