Deadfall

by Sue Henry

  “Come on,” Gill told her, getting back to his feet. “It’s getting light. Let’s get going.”

  28

  “Where the heck were you all yesterday afternoon?” Gill asked Jessie as they neared the east cove end of the trail by the cliffs. “I looked everywhere for you. What’s his name was looking, too.”

  “I found a place under a fallen tree back up the hill,” she told him. “Crawled in and waited for dark. I thought I heard someone a couple of times, but you—or he—went away when I didn’t move.”

  “Pretty good spot, evidently. I didn’t see you.”

  They came around a curve that passed beneath another huge fallen tree. It had come down years before and obviously been too large to remove, so the trail had been established under it.

  Jessie, now quite confident that Gill was who he said he was, tucked her .44 back into its holster and hurried a step or two to catch up with him as he bent forward to pass under the obstacle. Without warning he froze and she almost ran into him.

  “Don’t move,” he warned her in the same quiet tone he had used earlier. “Stand very still for a second.”

  She watched him carefully as he examined something on the other side of the tree trunk.

  “Now step back a couple of steps,” he told her, “just enough to let me move out from under this thing.”

  She complied and he eased back until he could stand upright again.

  “What is it?” she asked, unable to see anything threatening.

  “It’s a nasty deadfall,” he informed her. “This old log makes it invisible from here. You can’t see that there’s another log just past it, carefully balanced, ready to fall. All you have to do is brush against a specific branch and the last thing you’d notice would be that second log falling on you. Good trick, huh?”

  “How did you know?” Jessie asked, eyes wide.

  “I’m supposed to know.” He grinned. “It’s my job and I’m good at it.”

  She and Tank followed as he moved up the hill and gestured to show her where to safely walk around the trap. He was more than competent. He had spotted the trap she would never have seen, and suddenly, Jessie was very glad for his company and expertise. If she had missed this trap on her way over, it must have been created since that time.

  But where was the stalker? She had seen nothing, heard nothing of him since he had shot at her on the west beach. She wished Gill had shown up then with his rifle. Two of them could have pinned the stalker down and forced him to surrender. Well—that was then, and it hadn’t happened. Thankfully, he’d been there, at least, to drag her off the cliff, when she certainly would have fallen.

  They continued along the trail till they came to the bluff above the second cove.

  As they came out on the clear ground near Millie’s daughter’s house, Jessie halted, peering down to the rocks of the beach below them. It was full daylight now, and she could see clearly.

  “Terry…”

  He turned to see her face, alerted by the concern in her tone.

  “There’s something down there, high on the rocks, next to the water. The tide’s turned and left something. Do you see?”

  She felt a little light-headed, could feel her heart thudding against her breastbone, and it was suddenly hard to get enough air into her lungs. The something was blue…and tan…and the dark green of a slicker that she knew she herself had taken from one of the hooks by the door of Millie’s beach house.

  “Oh, God, Terry…it’s Rudy. He’s hurt. We’ve got to go down and help.”

  She darted off, Tank beside her, and half ran, half slid down the bluff, not taking the time to cross to the long stairway. Then she was racing across the open field, over the sandy rise, and onto the beach toward her piano-playing friend.

  Startled, it took Gill a moment to follow, then he loped after her and caught up as she dropped to her knees beside the still form that lay on its back, where the sea had gently laid it and retreated, twisted in the slicker and tangled in a strand or two of kelp. The gray-green eyes were slightly open, but no longer shone like the waters of the bay. They were dull and lifeless, though the expression on his face was relaxed and peaceful.

  For a long minute, Jessie looked and wept softly, knowing there was nothing, now or ever, she could do for him.

  “This is the old guy that played the piano?” Gill asked.

  “Yes. You heard him?”

  “I was on the hill behind the house. Saw you chase him down. He was no threat.”

  She shook her head. “Rudy Nunamaker was a good person. Just a sweet, harmless man with a kind of old-fashioned charm. He liked Debussy…and apricot brandy in his tea.”

  Gill nodded, but shrugged a little impatiently.

  “He was an old man. Let’s get him up off the beach. It’s pretty clear he drowned somehow.”

  He wrapped the body in the slicker that hung from it, and Jessie helped him carry Rudy into the tall grass on the other side of the rise and lay him carefully down against a driftwood log.

  “He had a boat,” she said. “Maybe he tried to go home.”

  “Home?”

  “He had a little place in Jakolof Bay. Only came here a couple of times a year.”

  “Somebody miss him?”

  “Someone might, I guess—people around here watch out for each other—but not soon. He said he’d lived alone for a long time.” Though she had known Rudy only a short time, she was dejected, saddened by his death.

  She looked up at Gill’s face and was a little surprised by the uneasy expression in his eyes. She hadn’t been able to see him in the dark, during her rescue from the cliff. Now she assessed his worried, dirty face, and long-fingered hands.

  “What happened to your face?” she asked, suddenly, noticing a redness and cut over one eye.

  “Hit by a branch,” he told her. “Yours?”

  She had forgotten about her black eyes and how she must look.

  “Wrecked my truck,” she told him.

  He nodded and turned away. “Oh, well…come on,” he encouraged, “let’s get going.” Leaving Rudy, he led her toward the building that housed the shop, sauna, and upstairs apartment.

  “I thought we were going to the goat shed.”

  “Changed my mind. We’ll go up here, where we can look out around us. Make sure no one creeps up without our seeing them. I’ll go down to the goat shed later.”

  It sounded like a good idea—warmer and drier—and Jessie had to smile a little. Ironically, she would be returning the items she had so hurriedly tossed into the pillowcase to where they belonged.

  Gill trotted up the stairs to the apartment, his boots clattering loudly on the steps. She followed, wondering how he could be so sure there was no one waiting for them inside, remembering her own apprehension and hesitation as she had listened at the door earlier. Well, if there was someone, he would be in front to take care of it. If nothing else, she could run again.

  The rooms were as empty as before. The door that opened into the air above the shop was still swinging on its hinges, leading nowhere. Tank wandered over to it and stood looking out into the gloomy morning.

  Gill pulled it shut, but didn’t bother to close the sliding bolts. Crossing straight to the window that overlooked the cove, he carefully examined the area. Satisfied, he leaned his rifle against the wall by the door and pulled the poncho off over his head, sat down on the edge of a straight chair, and nodded at Jessie.

  “Get some of that wet stuff off. Make yourself comfortable. We may be here awhile. Don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Think you could find us something to eat while I stand guard?”

  Remembering the supplies on the kitchen shelves, she thought she could, but making herself “comfortable,” as he put it, appealed even more than food. Setting down the pillowcase bag, she pulled off her muddy boots, and waterproof jacket and pants, removed and wrung out her socks. Unbuckling her belt, she took the holstered .44 from it, but, not content with being completely separated fro
m her firearm, laid it on the kitchen table, near where she would be cooking.

  “Could we build a fire?” she asked. “I’d really like to get warm—and dry.”

  “Sure, why not?”

  He took kindling and paper from a handy pile on the floor and laid it in the cast-iron stove.

  “Got a match?”

  Jessie found the box she had put in the pillowcase and, while he worked at getting the blaze going, also took out the canned ham to use in improvising a breakfast. Locating a can of coffee, she filled a pot with water and set it to perk on a stove much like the one at Millie’s beach house. That done, she lit the oven and began to combine the ingredients for biscuits, gathered from the storage pantry. The idea of something hot to eat made her aware of her own healthy appetite, and the tension that she could still feel as a stiffness in her back and shoulders. Her injured fingers had all but stopped aching, but glancing in a mirror she saw that the area around her eyes was now an ugly yellow, along with the darker bruises.

  While she worked, Gill moved back and forth between the two rooms, unable or unwilling to settle, keeping watch from the windows. Jessie could hear his even steps on the wooden floor and was reminded of her own discomfort upon moving into the beach house—how she had worried about light and smoke giving away her presence. She thought of the smoke from the woodstove now rising in its chimney to be whipped away in the wind, practically invisible, but carrying a smell that could provide information to the stalker. Did he know that Terry Gill existed? If he came looking, would he expect her to be alone?

  As she slid the biscuits into the oven and took out a skillet for frying ham, Gill walked over to stand near the stove.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  Tank moved closer to Jessie as she turned to answer and suddenly growled again.

  “Hey. What’s wrong with you? Stop that,” she admonished, and looked up, intending to apologize for the impolite behavior of her dog, but was startled into silence.

  Gill had frozen at the sound and stood staring at Tank with a lip curled in an expression of extreme distaste. Aware of her astonishment, he took a deep breath and raised a hand to hide his mouth for a moment. For that moment, all she could see were his eyes, suspicious and wary, looking straight into hers.

  The nightmare realization that she had been deceived was instantaneous. Jessie recognized those eyes—knew she had looked into them before, from behind a mask, across the room in Millie’s beach house, facing a handgun. Rudy had stood there, as well, miserably aware of his status as accomplice to the threat, before he took a chance, threw the pot of hot coffee directly into those eyes, allowing her to escape. Rudy, who was now cold and wet, shrouded in the slicker she had loaned him, and would never go home to his little place at the end of Jakolof Bay.

  Suddenly she knew what had made her uneasy as she listened to Gill pacing a few minutes ago. His steps were even. What had happened to the limp he had exhibited earlier? Since climbing the stairs, he had shown no sign of it, and he had gone up those stairs with a clatter, uncaring at the noise, not favoring his supposed injury. He wouldn’t care, would he, if he knew there was no one to hear it or to notice even a thread of smoke from the chimney? He had known the place was empty. And what kind of survivalist didn’t have a match to build a fire?

  Other clues flooded into her mind.

  “…Sunday—no, Saturday,” he had said. The stalker had showed up on Sunday. Was his correction a slip of the tongue, his change of words an attempt to keep her from connecting the two in her mind?

  Had he seen the deadfall on the trail, as he had claimed, or known its location because he had placed it there? Had he left it rigged for his own protection—to catch someone else? Had it been there at all, or was he only telling her so, in order to gain her trust in his abilities as a pararescue expert? She remembered his grip on her wrist at the cliff. Though strong, his long-fingered hand had seemed too soft for the rugged outdoor work of pararescue—survival techniques, emergency medicine, parachuting into remote locations.

  “He was an old man,” he had said about Rudy, and she had dismissed this apparent lack of feeling as impatience with the situation. Perhaps Rudy had had assistance in his drowning.

  She stared at him, rigid with the fear that was rising like a sickness in her chest. He stood directly between her and the .44 that she had so carefully left on the kitchen table. She noticed that his camouflage uniform didn’t fit, seemed made for a larger man. Was there a real Terry Gill? If there was, what had happened to him, that this stranger now had his clothes? She thought again of Rudy, and didn’t like the possible answer her thoughts suggested.

  The wary look in his eyes changed and became certainty. Taking a step backward, he picked up her .44 from the table and held it casually aimed in her direction.

  Tank growled again, louder now.

  “Well,” he said, with a sardonic half smile, and his whole attitude changed, along with his voice. She recognized the tone he had used in the beach house. “I guess we’ve gone about as far with this charade as we can. I suggest you keep the dog away from me, Jessie. I’m not fond of dogs—nor they of me, as you can see.”

  Reaching down, she took firm hold of Tank’s collar and hushed him with a word.

  “He knows you’re afraid of him.”

  “Does he know you’re afraid of me?”

  “Probably.”

  “Good,” he said. “Don’t forget that. We’re back to where we started, aren’t we? Minus the old man, of course. No one to create a diversion this time, right, Jessie?”

  “Did you kill Rudy for that?” She needed to know.

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t have to. He took his boat into the cove in the worst of the storm. I saw him capsize from the hill. He couldn’t make it to shore. He was headed this direction, though—probably hoping to find you.”

  She stared at him, white-faced, a great shard of grief twisting in her throat for Rudy and his courage, joined by the fear that made her breathless, and her anger.

  “He wouldn’t have tried that if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “No, Jessie. He wouldn’t have tried if it hadn’t been for you,” he said evenly, and, in the same flat tone. “Watch that ham, it’s going to burn. You finish cooking breakfast, while I decide what to do with you.”

  He leaned against the wall beside the door and trained the gun in her direction. She looked at him for a long moment, then turned to automatically flip the ham in the frying pan, while trying to concentrate beyond her anxiety.

  He would not be so easy to surprise this time. He was alert, tense, and ready for trouble. Knowing that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Tank, she made the dog lie down on the floor by her feet. He was not happy, but did as he was told and stayed there quietly. As long as Gill did nothing to threaten her, Tank would obey, but his eyes followed the man’s every move.

  “Is there really a Terry Gill?” she asked him.

  “There was. He wasn’t expecting the trap I set for you. Lost his rifle in the fall and didn’t know I was there until too late.”

  “How did you know Ah…Jensen sent him?”

  “Who else?”

  “So you killed him, too, and took his clothes.”

  “No, Jessie,” he chided her, almost gently. “I haven’t killed anyone. He won’t be showing up anytime soon, but he’s alive. He just doesn’t interest me.”

  His expression changed from one of watchfulness to a grimace of anger and hate. “There’s only one person I want to see die,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Why me? Just tell me that. What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know you.”

  He shook his head. “Ah, Jessie. You’re just the means to an end. Haven’t you figured that out yet? I wonder how long it will take your friend Jensen.”

  29

  Jensen had figured out most of what was going on and was on his way, but it was taking longer than he liked.

  “How soon can we get to Homer?” he
asked Caswell, who was driving his truck east on Tudor Road toward the crime lab as fast as traffic would allow.

  He had tried again to reach Jessie on Niqa, but there was still nothing but static on the line, and Caswell had seldom seen him so frustrated.

  “As soon as I can get my plane and take us there,” he answered, glancing at his watch. “It’s ten-thirty. It’ll take me over an hour from here to be airborne. I can come back and pick you up, but if you come with me to Wasilla, we can fly directly without the Anchorage detour.”

  “I’ll come with you, but I need to stop at the lab first to pick up the gear in my truck.”

  “Gotta warn you, we may not be able to make it. I won’t be able to land in that unprotected cove in the kind of weather they’ve been reporting. It’s blowing like a son of a bitch.”

  “Can you get us to Homer?”

  “I think so. There’s a sheltered lagoon near town that may be a little rough, but I can have a shot at it. Worst case, we go back to Soldotna and drive the rest of the way down.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “You know, he may not have been able to make it to Niqa, either. It can get pretty isolated in a real blow.”

  Jensen’s jaw was stubbornly rigid, and what he spit out was half sarcasm and more tension.

  “He’s been down there since Saturday. He just might have been able to find a way out there in that amount of time, don’t you think? So we’ll have to do the same, but a lot faster. There’ll be some kind of boat—Coast Guard, something—that can make it. I’m not leaving her out there alone—not if Wynne’s there, too, and there’s a hell of a chance he is. I think we should count on it. Now I wish we’d sent someone out there, whether she liked it or not. I’m too damned easy, Ben, and she’s too damn independent for her own good.”

  Cas hesitated, but said nothing, and turned his attention to what he would need to ready his plane.

  Caswell’s estimate was right on the money. An hour and a half later, they were halfway to Homer, bouncing around the sky, knocking Jensen’s knees and elbows on interior parts of the plane. The weather was lousy on the Kenai Peninsula, but the storm had centered on Kachemak Bay. According to the Weather Service, it was about to blow itself out, was now only half as fierce as it had been for the preceding twenty-four hours. They should be able to land at the lagoon near Homer, though it might be a bit dicey, but a flight to the rocky beach of Niqa Island was still out of the question and would remain so for at least another day.