by Sue Henry
“One was found early that morning and one later in the day. They were probably set and left on Friday night.”
On the board, he put “Friday—traps set” above what he had already written.
“A note came that same Saturday in the birthday package that had been tampered with, right?”
He added “note in package” to Saturday.
“Two notes had come earlier—one in August.”
Alex agreed.
“Nothing happened Sunday. The note arrived at Iditarod Trail Headquarters on Monday.”
He wrote, “Monday—ITC note and brake line punctured.”
“Tuesday was the accident with the truck, but the brake line was most likely punctured during the previous night, not in daylight, when the perp might be seen, so put it under Monday.”
He wrote, “Tuesday—truck crash.” Then, “Wednesday—flowers, note, and pictures.”
“While Jessie was in the hospital, the lilies, pictures of the women in the dog lot, and another note arrived there. Nothing Thursday. Friday we flew Jessie to Kachemak Bay. A lot happened that day. The goat was attacked by dogs and the note left on your neighbor’s door. The boot prints were found in the trees behind the dog lot.”
On the board he wrote, “Friday—goat injured & note to Bradford,” then went back and added “boot prints made” to the Monday notation.
“Actually,” Alex told him, “Bradford’s goat was hurt on Thursday. He came to yell at me on Friday about it.”
Caswell moved the note to Thursday.
“At two o’clock Saturday morning, you got a rock through the window with note number five. On Sunday, you went home to find the cabin had been trashed.”
He wrote, “Saturday—rock breaks window; another note” and “Sunday—B&E, cabin trashed.”
“That’s it, right? Except for the phone calls, I’ve covered everything?”
Jensen and Becker took a long minute to go over what Caswell had written, then agreed.
“Simplified, but basically that’s what happened,” Jensen nodded. “What’s your point?”
Cas turned once again to the board.
“Let’s go back and add the times we know Moule had opportunity—was available to do any of this. From what his boss and parole officer say, I mean.
“If the traps were set on the first Friday night, he could have done it—can’t prove where he was. He says he always goes to a local pub on Friday night, but can’t verify that particular day.
“Anything done on the weekends or evenings was done at times he was not at work and has no real alibi—including the birthday package note. The notes that were mailed could have been posted at any time a day or two before they were delivered. This includes the ITC note. Dropped in a postbox, they could have waited hours for a postmark and don’t prove anything.
“Tuesday he was late to work and—”
Alex interrupted. “That’s not right, Cas. His boss said he worked a full day on Tuesday, but didn’t come in until just before one o’clock on Wednesday.”
“Are you sure? I have Tuesday written down in my notes.”
In answer, Jensen took out his own notes and thumbed through them until he found his record of their conversation with Al Peters.
“Yeah, here it is—Wednesday.”
“I think maybe we’d better check that one, just to make sure. But for now, I’ll take your word for it and make it Wednesday that he was absent from work in the morning. He was also missing all day Thursday and Friday, when a lot of this happened.”
“And the breakin happened that following weekend,” Jensen added.
“Right. Now—I thought there was a way he could have worked it out somehow. But if he missed the afternoon’s work on Wednesday, as you’ve got written, then there’s a problem. John McIntire says Moule was in his office on Wednesday morning. If he met with McIntire at eleven-thirty and left at twelve-fifteen—as John has in his notes—and went to work just after one, he couldn’t have brought the flowers, pictures, and note to the hospital during the noon hour. There just wasn’t time to make a stop and arrive at work when his time card says he clocked in.”
“Could have paid someone to deliver them.”
“Maybe, but the receptionist says it wasn’t a florist’s delivery—just someone who walked in, gave it to her, and said it was for Jessie Arnold. Another thing to check?”
“Right.”
Cas suddenly stopped his explanation and frowned, thinking hard.
“What?” Jensen asked.
Hesitantly, he began to think aloud, a process he usually avoided, preferring to complete his analysis mentally before attempting to express it. As he defined his idea, words came faster.
“Well, the pictures…those pictures of Linda and Jessie in the dog lot…”
“Yeah. The ones he took while they were watering the dogs.”
“That happened on Tuesday, right? Just before the accident?”
“Yes. They were out there when Billy Steward showed up. That’s how he happened to be in the truck when they crashed.”
“And you just said that Moule worked a full day on Tuesday. Yes?”
“Yes, so…”
Cas, words coming quickly now, interrupted him. “So if he was working in Anchorage, then he couldn’t have taken those pictures in Knik.”
Stunned, Jensen thought it over.
“You’re right. He couldn’t. But…”
It was Becker’s turn to interrupt. “They found some camera stuff in his room when they searched it.”
“They did? Why didn’t I know that?”
“Didn’t know it was important. Still don’t. It was in the back of a closet—camera, film and some negatives. It’s at the lab.”
Jensen grabbed and dialed the phone.
“John? Understand they found some negatives and a camera in Moule’s room and brought them to you…. Yeah…. They are? Damn! That ties it up. Thanks for getting right on it.”
He turned back to the two waiting troopers with a grin.
“Those negatives are the roll of film he took, including those for the pictures he brought to the hospital. We win!”
“All right,” Becker enthused.
Jensen turned to Caswell, who nodded, but was wearing a tense expression that conflicted with his agreement.
“Looks like it, but there’s something else that concerns me.”
Jensen and Becker waited.
“It fits, but don’t you think it seems to fit a little too well? Up until now, Moule had managed to keep from leaving evidence that would convict him of a lot of things—that kid McIntire says he almost killed and left brain-damaged in prison, the guy he fought with at work whose truck brakes went out, and who knows how much more. Doesn’t this evidence make him look pretty sloppy? Would he leave the camera and film in his room? Why would he suddenly stop covering his tracks—well, tracks are part of what he left, aren’t they?”
“Maybe he just got cocky,” Becker suggested.
“Maybe, but it seems out of character, doesn’t it?”
“Are you saying that Moule’s being set up?” Alex asked.
“I’m just saying it seems a little too convenient.”
“But, who…”
“Don’t know. Anyone and anything’s possible—even that he got cocky, after his success with the other incidents I mentioned. But if he was being set up, there’s another thing to consider.”
“Yes?”
“The last thing on this list—the breakin at the Knik cabin—happened on Sunday. Yes?”
They nodded.
“Okay—what’s happened since? It seemed to have been escalating, but this is Tuesday and we haven’t heard anything at all from our stalker since sometime Sunday. It’s like everything stopped when he broke in and found that Jessie wasn’t there. Why?”
“He’s stopped, knowing his notes and stuff won’t reach her?” Becker ventured.
“Possibly.”
“Or,” Jensen sai
d, slowly and reluctantly, apprehension showing plainly on his face, “you could be right—it isn’t Moule—and whoever it is may not be here at all.”
He followed this thought up, logically, with another.
“Jones isn’t here. Collins knows something that’s amusing her—and I don’t like the feeling of her smug satisfaction. Could they be working this together—set up Moule to take the fall…and have somehow figured out where Jessie is, Cas? Dammit. And I can’t even reach her, with that storm in Kachemak Bay screwing up the phone.”
“Hey,” Caswell cautioned. “Hold on a minute. Don’t jump to conclusions just because it’s Jessie and rattles you. We still don’t know for sure that Moule isn’t the one we want, even if I’m beginning to think there’s something going on here that we’re not seeing. If he is, we’ve got him contained.”
“But if he’s not?”
“Then we still don’t know that it’s Jones, either. I want to know where he is. So it’s time we made a concerted effort to get it out of Collins, or find someone else who knows. I also want to know more about Moule’s stolen boots, for another thing, and whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday that he missed work. We can ask Al Peters to check that. There was something else we were going to check. What was it? Oh, yeah—who actually delivered the flowers? Let’s get that receptionist to take a look at Moule and see if she can identify him.”
24
Hours after it was full dark, after midnight, Jessie slipped like a shadow from the protection of the trees onto the bluff above the eastern cove and moved toward the house of Millie’s daughter. For a long time she had been sitting on a log, camouflaged by a clump of brush, watching for any movement or light. Though she couldn’t see the buildings below the bluff, everything else had remained still as the darkness increased, deepened, and settled into the early morning hours. The wind had decreased a little, but it still rained steadily, and she was damp through, chilled, and miserable. Still she refused to give in to it and go back to the small amount of cover she had found earlier.
Sometime that afternoon, she had stumbled across a place deep in the forest, where a huge tree had fallen in some prior storm and formed a hollow beneath its tangled root base that was just large enough to shelter herself and Tank if she curled into a ball, knees to chest. As they huddled together, it had kept them dry and a little warmer, and enough devil’s club grew around it to form a curtain of concealment. She had waited out the daylight there, even slept for a few minutes intermittently, knowing she was all but invisible, her dark green rain gear blending with the natural forest colors. Twice she had heard someone or something moving through the brush not far away, but lay still as the sound faded away. Animal or human, it had not stumbled upon their hiding place.
It had continued to rain and the ground under her had been cold. She wished she had dressed more warmly, had another sweater or two under the slicker and leggings under her jeans. Her feet were cold in the rubber boots with only one pair of socks. Still, Tank, resting against her, was warm, though his coat was damp and nothing dried much in the humid air. Moist cold, she had decided, was worse than the dry cold she was used to during the winter. Even if the temperature was below zero, if it was dry she could always keep warm by adding layers of insulation between herself and the air—down clothing, sleeping bags. Damp cold crept in and permeated everything she wore, drawing the less-than-comfortable temperature in with it.
After it grew dark, she had moved down the hill and selected the observation point near the narrow trail that crossed the island, where she could see most of the house and the area around it. The lower building that contained the shop, apartment, and sauna was obscured by the bluff, but she could examine most of the space beyond it, including the cove’s rocky beach, without being seen. She hid herself as well as she could, Tank beside her on the ground, and watched, taking her time to be as sure as possible that the enemy was not present. She would have only one try at making an attempt at the supplies in one of the houses and did not want to fail at what could make the difference between freedom and capture.
She also scanned the cove for any sign of a boat.
During her time in the hollow it had occurred to her that given the fact that the stalker could not walk on water, he must have had some way to reach the island. He had to have come in a boat, probably alone, and he had to have left it somewhere. If she could locate it, she could escape Niqa and head somewhere else—anywhere. Even in the rough surf, Tutka Bay should be reachable, and there were full-time residents and telephones on that mainland. She could get help—to contact Alex and, perhaps, rescue Rudy. At worst, if she could reach only one of the nearby islands, at least it would not be this one, where she was trapped with an obsessed maniac—but that would leave Rudy, unless she could somehow free him and take him with her.
There was no boat to be seen, so it must be hidden. After she attempted her planned breakin, she would have to make a serious search. It had to be there, and she told herself she would find it.
When she had waited, seeing, hearing nothing suspicious, she crept silently down the trail, passing tall brown grasses that swished together damply, mixed with salmonberry bushes that waved runners in the wind like reaching fingers that clawed at her coat sleeves. Listening intently, taking one cautious step after another, Jessie used almost ten minutes to reach a low muddy spot before the tiny bridge, perhaps fifty feet away from the back of Millie’s daughter’s house. She could hardly see in the dark, wished she had a flashlight, but knew it would have given her away anyway.
About to step into the edge of the grass to avoid the mud, she stopped, as Tank growled low in his throat. What? Was there someone? She froze, waiting, listening. There was no sound.
The husky surprised her then. Moving close to her, he took her left hand in his mouth, gently but firmly, and applied pressure to tug her back, away from the trickling creek with its miniature bridge.
Jessie, totally astonished, trusted him and allowed herself to be led. He had never done such a thing before, but he was evidently aware of something she had missed. She was his human and where he didn’t want to go, he clearly didn’t want her to go, either. Ten feet from the creek, he released her hand and sat down in the trail, looking up, first at her, then at the bridge, conspicuously satisfied with his action and no longer concerned. So, she reasoned, it was not someone, but rather something.
She laid a hand on his head, rubbed his ears, and whispered, “Good dog, Tank. What is it, good dog? Stay. You stay.”
He licked her wrist.
Then she went back. Cautiously, she searched the trail, poking into shadows with a stick, parting the tall grass on either side, until she found what had disturbed him. Cleverly hidden in the grass, exactly where she would have stepped to avoid the mud of the swampy spot, was a trap like the ones that had been left in her kennel in Knik. Jaws open, sharp iron teeth upward, it lay in ambush, waiting for her careless weight to spring it, tearing flesh and tendons, perhaps breaking a bone, as it had Nicky’s.
She stared at it, repulsed and shaken. So he had not been content simply to wait for her to attempt a raid on the supplies. What other booby traps might he have left her, assuming she would come eventually? This one told her he was confident and willing to cause injury to assure himself of her capture. Who the hell was this person, and what did he want? It frightened and confused her.
Tank suddenly growled behind her, and she turned, just in time to see a dark figure rise out of grass in the dark beyond him and loom toward her—tall and with a strangely shaped head.
Tense with anticipation, almost without thought, Jessie whirled and was in instant motion. With one long leap she cleared the muddy spot, touched down momentarily in the middle of the small bridge, and leaped again. Her momentum carried her far enough beyond the bridge so that if a second trap had been secreted on the opposite bank of the creek, she would clear it. Then she was running flat out toward the black rectangle of the house that belonged to Millie’s daughter.
It remained dark, but she knew her way around it—had walked it only days before. She called for Tank as she ran and heard his paws on the wooden bridge as he bounded after her without barking, praying he would also avoid the trap. Over the sound of her own breath and pounding feet, she tried to listen—to know if the dark figure was in pursuit.
As she rounded the corner of the building, Tank now running close beside her, she heard a sharp, familiar crack, and the great crash and thump of someone falling, behind her at the creek. Immediately there was a howl of pain, cut off in mid-lament, that was replaced with what sounded like muffled curses.
A sense of satisfaction swept through her as she realized that whoever had loomed at her out of the dark must have stepped in his own trap. But was it the stalker himself, or did he have a partner? She had no way of knowing and had no intention of going back to find out. Unsympathetic, she ran on, slowing only slightly to take more care in the dark, concerned that she might trip and fall, making herself vulnerable again.
Reaching the long flight of stairs leading down from the bluff to the shop and sauna building below, she paused to listen—ahead of her, as well as behind. The night was silent again, except for the patter of rain still falling on the foliage around her.
Slowly, one tread at a time, she descended the weathered steps, right hand on the rail, as quietly as she could in a pair of rubber boots and rain gear that whispered and crackled as it folded around her knees with each step. She could hear the surf on the rocks of the crescent beach of the east cove as the tide flooded in, and smell the sea in the wind.
Without further incident, she reached the bottom of the stairs and once again stopped to look and listen. What she needed now was to get into the apartment over the shop, collect what she could find in the way of food, medical supplies, and anything else that would be of assistance under the circumstances, and then get out—fast—before she was caught.
She thought of the lock on which she had used a key on her previous visit. Without that key, how could she get in? She walked slowly to the large double doors of the shop. If they weren’t locked, she might be able to find a tool that would allow her to separate the hardware that held the lock on the door. Miraculously, one side of the door was open when she turned the catch that held it. Slipping inside, she paused for Tank to follow before pulling it closed. The space around her was pitch-black.
