by Sue Henry
Alex thought it very possible that by now Moule might be out of prison, and decided it would be a good idea to check, for in this case as well, threats had been made during and after the trial. He couldn’t quite believe that incarceration would rehabilitate this vindictive individual. It usually worked the other way around.
The third suspicious person was a woman. There was no doubt in the law enforcement community, given the evidence that the crime lab had collected and processed, that, five years before, nineteen-year-old Mary Louise Collins had brutally stabbed her next-door neighbor to death for a television set and a few dollars’ drug money. A legal technicality had forced a reluctant judge to dismiss the case halfway through the trial, after a full afternoon of Jensen’s testimony. Though Alex had tried his best to forget it, it rekindled fury and frustration every time it crossed his mind. His long and careful effort to build a clean case had been wrecked by a rookie policeman who, innocently enough, contaminated the most important evidence, leaving less than enough to convict Collins. To make it worse, she had taunted Jensen with an angry, contemptuous comment as she shoved past him on the way out of the court.
“Fucked up, didn’t you? Well, don’t think it’s over. Someday I may decide to make you sorry—or dead. And you’ll never know when or where it’s coming from.”
Could one of these three be responsible for Jessie’s harassment and stalking? Had one of them finally found an insidious way to get even with him? Tomorrow he would begin the involved process of finding out.
14
At three o’clock Saturday morning the storm broke over Niqa Island, wind howling as the sea, which had once again turned tide, roared and growled on the rocks of the beach. Rain swept in, pounding like a waterfall on the roof and deck of the house, startling Jessie awake. When she sat up in bed, Tank raised his head from his paws and cocked his head in mute question.
“It’s okay,” she reassured him and herself. “It’s only the storm.”
Snuggling back into the warm, comforting bed, she lay listening to the fury of nature, glad she was not exposed to it, and actually enjoying its clamorous barrage. The beach house had once again cooled and the air smelled fresh, but the bed and its covers had acquired the luxurious body temperature that always made it hard for her to get up on winter mornings. Smooth with many launderings, the sheets and pillowcase felt like silk against her face. Rolling over, cocooning herself, she was drowsily amused at her own tactile pleasure and indulgence. She had always appreciated the sensation of being protected from the elements—warm and dry. Though she loved being outdoors in good weather or bad, there was a distinct pleasure in watching a storm do its worst from within a shelter.
Got to get some sleep, she told herself. But immediately after it came another thought. No, I don’t. I can do anything I want to—get up, build a fire, make some tea, watch it rain in the middle of the night if I like.
With that, she drifted off to sleep again, secure in her own independence.
Tank put his head down again, but remained awake and listening for a long time after his mistress was breathing in small half-snores. There was something he could almost hear in the wind, far away and overpowered by the rousing sounds of the storm. With his ears perked, he waited and listened intently, finally going back to sleep after moving just a little closer to the bed in which Jessie serenely slept.
She woke again just after seven in the morning, to a feeling of well-being and a steady, but gentler tattoo of rain on the roof of the beach house. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she reached an arm over the side of the bed to give Tank a good-morning pat.
He gave her hand a very small lick and, with infinite dignity, padded away into the outer room, where he sat by the door.
“All right—all right. I’m getting up. I know you want out.”
Taking off the oversized T-shirt she had slept in, Jessie pulled on sweats and stuffed her stockinged feet into a pair of tennis shoes. Stretching her arms to relieve the soreness that still lingered from the wreck of the truck, she shivered in the chilly air. The fire was dead and the house had cooled considerably as the wind slipped fingers in through cracks and crevices to steal what was left of the heat.
Crossing the room, she opened the door, let Tank out, and went to build a new fire in the stove. While it began to warm the place again, she put a large teakettle on the propane stove to heat water for coffee and hot cereal, and, borrowing a rain slicker from the hooks by the door, made a quick trip to the outhouse that was hidden behind some brush a dozen yards from the door.
When she came dashing back, holding the slicker over her head, Tank was waiting for her by the door, ready to go back inside. Opening it a crack, she looked down at his wet coat and instructed him sternly, “Shake yourself. Shake.”
Water flew as he complied, familiar with this request, and they both went in quickly before the rain could drench them again.
“Not too great a day out there, huh? You hungry?”
She put a can of dog food in a bowl for him, made herself some instant oatmeal, and they ate breakfast together near the crackling fire, Jessie with her feet in the pit near the stove. He finished first and sat quietly beside her as they both looked out the window at the rain.
The waters of the cove were dark and uninviting, but the wind that had driven them into white froth during the night had calmed for the time being, though Jessie doubted it was gone for good. No boat, person, bird, or animal was to be seen, and the neighboring island was all but invisible in a bank of fog—a dim gray outline against a barely lighter gray sky, across the arm of water that separated the two.
The jays did not appear on the deck to commence their morning solicitation, but a single, courageous raven coasted in to strut up and down the bench, casting accusatory glances through the window to express its displeasure at not being fed. It was hard to tell if it was the same bird that had appeared the day before, since all of them looked alike: feathers, feet, eyes, bill—pitch-black.
Ravens had always amused Jessie with their antics, for they seemed the jokers of the Arctic world, and indeed were so designated in many tales of Northwest Coast Native cultures. In them, Raven was the Creator, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, who stole the Sun, Moon, and Stars from their hiding place in a great carved wooden chest and fled across the sky, where he was forced to abandon them, bringing light to the world. Legend said he had once been white, but the angry Magician, from whom the bright glitter had been snatched, sent fire after Raven that scorched his feathers black and reduced his beautiful voice to a rough croak.
As Jessie watched, the bird ruffled its damp feathers, scattering tiny drops of rainwater, cast one last disgruntled look, spread its wings, and sailed away toward the shelter of the trees.
With a smile, she got up to refill her coffee mug.
With rain on the menu, Jessie spent the better part of Saturday indoors, finishing the book she had started the day before. It was quiet and peaceful, and the patter of rain on the roof made her feel safe and secure. Gulls, riding the wind over the cove, caught her eye several times, and two fishing boats ran through the passage between the islands in the early afternoon seeking shelter by the shortest route they could find, for the waves grew larger and more threatening as the day wore on.
Although she enjoyed caring for the dogs in her kennel, training and running them, it was good to feel unencumbered by daily chores. A completely lazy, slothful day seemed just what she needed to revitalize her flagging energy and alleviate the fatigue she had been experiencing since the accident. She had to giggle when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, for both eyes were black and looked as if she were wearing an excess of stage makeup. Around three o’clock she baked a chicken and ate with her fingers, relishing the freedom from plates and silverware as well as from designated mealtimes. There was something satisfying about the solitary privilege of greasy fingers—like drinking milk directly from the carton—that, however childish, made her feel more independent, gave her back
control of her life.
When she had eaten her fill, she noticed that the rain had almost stopped. Taking Tank, she went for a short walk on the beach. The west end of its crescent ended in an interesting section of rock, part of which had fallen away, exposing the structure of a hill. It was distinctly volcanic, layer on layer, but these layers had been shoved and twisted until they looked like loops and folds of huge gray ribbon. While she examined them, Tank explored the tide pools between the rocks and found a small crab that skittered off under a stone when he sniffed at it, startling him into a half bark. When Jessie turned to see what had inspired it, he gave her an embarrassed look and trotted off to pick up a piece of driftwood that he brought and laid at her feet.
“Another game?” she asked him, and threw it for him to retrieve. They played until it started to rain again and they were both getting wet through.
He carried the driftwood back to the beach house, where she added it to the one from the day before.
“We’ll be able to keep track of how long we’ve been here, if you keep carting in sticks,” she told him.
Warm and dry again, she started another mystery, feeling luxuriously indulgent, for it was seldom she got to read a whole book in one or two sittings. She ate the rest of the chicken, smearing grease on most of the first dozen pages, and finished up with cookies and tea.
Tank snoozed on the floor beside her until she was ready to call it a night, then he rose and moved to the rug beside her bed.
The night was not quite as serene as the previous one had been. Two or three times Jessie woke in the dark to hear Tank moving around the house, sniffing at the floor and windows, but he didn’t seem to want to go out when she got up and went to the door.
Must be an animal of some kind, she thought, and went back to bed, knowing he would let her know if there was anything to worry about. He came, each time, and lay back down on the rug, chin on paws, making himself comfortable.
Sunday morning dawned to similar weather.
“If the storm’s going to get worse, I wish it’d get on with it,” Jessie told Tank as she gave him his breakfast. “I’m getting bored with this constant drizzle.”
She refilled his water dish, along with her coffee cup.
“Well…I’m not staying inside all day, but we’ll wait awhile and see if it lets up,” she decided.
Lacking a shower, she washed in some of the warm water left from breakfast, brushed her teeth, and combed her short hair. Changing into jeans and a warm sweater over a turtleneck, she strapped on the handgun in its holster. Dressed and ready for the day, she used the last of the warm water to rinse out the few dishes she had used, left them to dry in the rack by the sink, and quickly sorted the rest of the groceries that were still in the boxes on the large table.
“Hey,” she told Tank, “Linda was thinking about you, too.”
A rawhide chew had been included in the bottom of the last box.
“You want this?”
The husky came across the room and raised his muzzle expectantly, but waited without begging, retaining his self-respect—pleading was for puppies. Jessie gave him a pat, along with the prize, which he took back to a spot near the stove and began to gnaw.
At eight o’clock, as she had done the morning before, she called Alex to speak for a few minutes. He mentioned that Caswell and Becker had dropped in for a conference but he had nothing to tell her, except that they had a couple of new theories. The cell phone, crackling with storm-induced static, finally forced a frustrating end to the call.
Jessie put it down with an uneasy, troubled feeling. There had been something about the tone of his voice that made her wonder if he was telling her everything. Of course they had agreed to keep their telephone contacts brief and avoid speaking of specifics in case they were overheard, but it seemed more than that. Maybe she was just letting her imagination run on overtime.
At ten o’clock, she had finally had enough of the solitaire she had been apathetically playing on the table by the front windows. Her book held no appeal, and she had done all the small, make-work chores she could think of. Resolutely, she got to her feet and searched through the rain gear hanging near the door. Donning a pair of waterproof pants three sizes to big for her, she cinched them up around the waist with a belt and retrieved a dark green slicker that proved a better fit. Measuring her feet against several black knee-high rubber boots, she selected a pair and pulled them on, tucking in the too-long pants.
“Okay,” she said to Tank, who, sensing an outing, had positioned himself by the door. Double-checking to be sure she had the cell phone in one slicker pocket, she dropped a handful of ammunition for the .44 in the other, along with a ring of keys for various buildings on the island, drew the hood up over her head, took a machete for clearing trails from its nail on the wall, put the shotgun over her arm, and opened the door. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll hike over to the other cove.”
Behind and to one side of the beach house, two trails rose sharply up the hill. One rambled in curves that made it longer but less steep, while the other ran farther east, more directly up the steepest part of the slope. Jessie started up the latter, Tank dashing back and forth ahead, pleased to be out and given a chance to run. From one of the trees, a squirrel objected loudly to their invasion, and the dog stopped to watch it twitch its tail in time to the chit…chit…chit of its warning call.
There was a third trail that ran from the eastern end of the beach along the top of the cliff. But taking it would mean a longer walk that was more exposed to the rain still steadily falling. It was also possible to walk the beach at low tide, from one cove to the other, but below the steep rocky precipice it was a maze of large rocks, slippery with seaweed over jagged barnacles, and a mistake in timing could strand a hiker. In only one place was it possible to climb the cliff from the rocks. In a narrow indentation a rock slide had opened an abrupt and highly difficult opportunity to reach the ground high above, if one was exceptionally careful—and desperate. Though the tide was once again on its way out, the length of this route would have exposed Jessie to the rain, and she had not even considered it.
For about five minutes she climbed the trail she had chosen, watching where she put her feet: the large, gnarled roots of the evergreens made it uneven, at times almost creating steps to clamber over. Finally it leveled out a little, and she paused between three large spruce to catch her breath and look out over the tops of trees below to the waters of the cove. The fog was lifting slightly and glimpses of neighboring islands faded into temporary view, only to disappear again the next minute. It looked like a long day of bad weather was in store, the beginning of a system that would probably last for several days.
The beach was empty and colorless compared to Friday afternoon’s brilliant sunlight. She visualized Caswell’s plane, where it had rested on the stones, rocking gently against the shore, and suddenly felt solitary in a different way—a little lonely for the first time. A gull floated into sight below her and glided in to land on the roof of the beach house. Following it, a raven—possibly the one she had already seen—coasted silently out of the trees and perched on the deck. It marched the length of the bench in its characteristic swagger, swaying back and forth, foot…foot…foot—making her grin in spite of herself. Ravens were such clowns.
Still smiling, she went on up the trail that now crossed ground that was more level and soon joined the other path, which had meandered its way up a less demanding route.
The machete now became useful, for this part of the way to the other cove had been cut directly through a dense thicket of salmonberry that grew rapidly in season, constantly attempting to reclaim the trail with long, thorny runners. Here and there, Jessie swung the heavy knife to cut the ones that had overreached themselves and intruded into the way. It would have been easier without the shotgun, but, hanging it over her shoulder, she soon found a rhythm with the blade. At first she could feel the ache and pull of bruised arm and shoulder muscles, but as she warmed to th
e physical activity, that soon lessened.
On one runner she found a few late berries, past ripe, somehow missed by the birds, but still clinging to the vine like rubies that shone in the half-light under the trees. The seven or eight that dropped into her hand were swiftly conveyed to her mouth, their sweetness bursting on her tongue. She gathered enough of the youngest leaves to steep later in the day, for they made a pleasantly flavorful tea.
The rest of the trail ran without impediment, curving back and forth, up and down through the forest, until it began a definite descent toward the eastern cove. Broad expanses of devil’s club, flat leaves turned skyward, filled the open spaces between the tall trees—drums for the soft tapping fingers of the rain.
Jessie and Tank came to open ground high on the bluff above the cove. Beneath one of the last trees, she paused to look out across the broad expanse of Eldred Passage to the south and east. The heavy overcast hid the sharp peaks of the Kenai Range and fog shrouded the mainland around Tutka Bay, but much of the arm of ocean and its islands was visible and obscurely beautiful through the curtain of mist and rain—like a pencil sketch on soft gray paper.
Still following the path, they went down between tall grasses, crossed a tiny bridge over the trickle of a creek, and passed between a small, dark, shuttered house that belonged to one of Millie’s daughters, and a large garden space with a tall wire fence to discourage the island’s animal residents. On the opposite side of the building was a berry patch, similarly fenced.
