by Sue Henry
“What do you do, Karen?” Laurie asked in a moment of silence.
“Oh, a lot of things, but not necessarily well,” she answered. “I’m a pretty good cook, though.”
“Terrific. You can help me in the kitchen then. But listen up, people. Those who cook do not clean up. Got that?”
As a chorus of groans and laughter answered her, Jessie saw Jim assess Karen’s unrevealing answer to Laurie’s question with an inquisitive look, which Karen, attention elsewhere, didn’t notice.
Tucking it away in her mind for the moment as the conversation turned back to the renovation projects, Jessie leaned close to Don and said quietly, “I can’t come to Southeast Alaska without remembering your cousin.”
Sawyer’s cousin, who had been part of the crew aboard the Spirit of ’98, had been murdered and thrown from the stern of the ship during the voyage.
He nodded. “I think about Donna too—especially in Peril Strait, where she went over. I’ve been through there a couple of times since.”
“How’s her boy doing?”
“Josh?” A smile spread across his face. “He’s great. He’s in third grade this fall—plays soccer and loves video games. I went down to Vancouver and kept Christmas with him and Donna’s mother this year. He’s a pistol, that kid.”
“Hey Jim. Do we start on that boathouse roof tomorrow?” Aaron asked, having emptied his plate for the second time and pulled his chair back to the table.
“Thought we might, unless it rains.”
“Rain is not allowed,” Sandra solemnly announced. “I have propitiated the weather gods with burned offerings tossed into the sea, begging their compassion in providing good weather.”
“But only after you forgot to make offerings to the gods of memory to remind you to remove those cookies from the oven before they were burned,” Whitney reminded her with a grin.
Curt leaned back in his chair. “They were probably gobbled up by that sea lion we saw this afternoon.”
“Where are those cookies?” Jim asked Laurie.
“Coming up. Anyone want coffee? Tea? More wine?”
Preferences were voiced and Whitney, Aaron, and Jessie stood up to clear the table while Laurie went to make coffee and get the cookies. Karen started to help, but Jessie waved her back into her chair. “Three’s enough. You can take a turn tomorrow.”
Laurie brought a large Ziploc bag to the table for the leftover green salad. “Sandra, would you fill this and take it to one of those shelves downstairs where it’s cool? Just put it in that box with the rest of the veggies.”
“Sure.” She rose and came around the table. “Anything else to go down?”
“Something to come up,” Jim suggested, holding up the empty wine bottle. “Another one of these would be good. Look for a box to the left of the door in that storage area.”
Sandra disappeared down the inside stairs, passing Jessie who was collecting a last stack of plates and silverware for the kitchen sink, where Aaron was already up to both his elbows in soapy water. Jim got up and came around the table.
“See you outside for a minute?” he asked quietly, passing Jessie.
“Hey! You’re stealing my cleanup crew,” Laurie chastised him.
“Plenty of replacements,” he told her without pausing on his way out the door.
Jessie followed, knowing she would now be called upon to provide answers to his questions concerning Karen.
Just outside the door was a waist-high, L-shaped cement wall that formed a sort of open porch perhaps ten feet wide and somewhat longer. Anyone going around the left end of it would immediately arrive at the top of the stairway leading to the lower level platform onto which they had climbed from the rocks upon landing. Instead of going down it, Jim strolled across to a set of wooden steps that led up to the helipad. Sitting down on one of them, he pulled a pipe from a pocket and proceeded to pack it with tobacco and light it with a wooden kitchen match. The fragrance of the tobacco caught Jessie off guard, as it was the same blend Alex periodically smoked. She sat down on a lower step, closed her eyes, and inhaled appreciatively.
“Familiar, huh?” Jim’s voice held a smile. “It should be, I guess. Alex turned me onto it on the centennial trip. Wish he’d been able to come along.”
“Me too,” Jessie said, thinking she would call Alex later.
“Now, tell me about this friend of yours,” Jim said, but was interrupted as Sandra appeared at the lighthouse door with the bottle he had requested.
“Jim,” she called hesitantly, a frown of concern on her face. “Here’s the wine, but . . .”
“That’s it, Sandra,” he told her. “Would you ask Curt to open it?”
“Sure, but . . .”
“Something wrong?”
“Ah—well—just a question about something in the basement, but it’ll keep.”
“I’ll be in soon,” he told her, and turned to Jessie as Sandra vanished into the kitchen. “There’s something familiar about Karen that I can’t quite put a finger on. What’s her story?”
“Familiar?”
“Yeah. Like I met her somewhere, casually—maybe. But I can’t think where or when. And I keep feeling that, if I had, I’d remember that hair easily enough. Where’d you find her?”
Jessie could just see his frown of puzzlement in the dull glow from the pipe as he drew on it.
“She’s a puzzle all right,” she agreed. “Actually, she sort of found me—joined me for dinner last night at the Northern Lights in Petersburg. Came right up and asked if I’d mind, since she was by herself and in trouble.” She went on to tell him the whole of Karen’s story, as she knew it, right up to her asking Karen to join them at the lighthouse and their collecting her off the beach as they left town in the Seawolf.
Jim was quiet for a few moments when she finished, reflecting on the tale. She waited without further clarification for his response, which came slowly.
“A stalker? Hm-m. No wonder she wanted out of Petersburg. Hard to hide in a town that small.”
“Yes. And she seems genuinely terrified of him.”
“What she seems is pretty hard to read,” he rejoined, thoughtfully. “Lot going on in that head and she’s pretty cautious about what she reveals.”
He took another draw on the pipe and puffed smoke into the air over his head. “You ever see him?”
“Not once.”
“You believe her?”
It was the question Jessie had been asking herself—one that stifled her answer for a moment or two. She leaned back, raised her face, and took a deep breath, hesitating, considering.
It was full dark. Here and there, through a break in the clouds, a star would twinkle through, disappearing quickly as another cloud floated in to conceal it. Every ten seconds the light that had come on automatically overhead in the tower was now sweeping its long beam across the underside of the low cloud cover that had drifted in. It would, she knew, be only a flash in the distance, but next to the lighthouse she could see its full circle.
Warning, she thought, warning. Here be dragons.
Finally—the danger unidentified, unsubstantiated in her mind—she spoke, still tracking what Jim had told them was a solar-powered aerobeacon as it cast its slim line of caution around above their heads.
“I—think so, but I just don’t know. There’s something . . .” She let this thought trail off unfinished.
“Yes,” he said pensively. “There is, isn’t there.”
What had crossed Jessie’s mind more than once earlier now came together in words. “She could bear watching.”
“She’s doing a lot of careful watching. And she doesn’t seem to like Curt for some reason. You notice how carefully she stays away from him?”
“I hadn’t, but I’ll pay more attention.”
“Good. So will I.”
Neither of them took what they had shared any further, for the moment. In unspoken agreement they rose and headed toward the lighthouse where, inside, they could hear that
Aaron, finished with the dishes, had retrieved a guitar and was trying to elicit a sing-along from a group too satisfied with food to dredge up much vocal energy.
“Keep me up to speed, if there’s anything?” Jim asked as they reached the door.
“Sure. And you.”
“Of course.”
Jessie found her uneasiness somewhat alleviated by having Jim’s company in an evaluation of Karen Emerson.
Sandra was snuggled next to Don on the sofa, her question seemingly forgotten in listening to Aaron’s music and humorous lyrics.
And there were cookies—unburned—on the table.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN DAWSON CITY, ALEX HAD BEEN UP BEFORE THE SUN, ready early to cross the Yukon River on the ferry on Tuesday morning. He had enjoyed spending time with Del and Clair Delafosse and was more than pleased with the amount that had been accomplished in organizing the plan between the Alaska State Troopers and Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a joint effort to improve border security between the two countries. But he had been glad to be heading home with Jessie’s lead dog Tank, head on paws, drowsing beside him on the seat of the pickup truck, both satisfied with the breakfast Clair had insisted on feeding them before they left.
“You can’t make a run to the border on an empty stomach, or just coffee,” she had told him, brooking no argument as she bustled around in the kitchen over sausage, eggs, and Del’s favorite buttermilk pancakes.
“For heaven’s sake don’t discourage her,” Del had begged. “I could eat them every day. But soon she and the twins won’t be able to reach the stove, let alone that skillet, and I’ll be out of luck until they’re born because when I make pancakes they just don’t turn out the same. After that, with three mouths to feed, it’s anybody’s guess.”
Alex had grinned as he drove away from the river, remembering that Clair had also packed him a lunch that he probably wouldn’t need to break into for hours yet.
“Even you were fed a hearty breakfast, weren’t you,” he asked, reaching over to rub Tank’s ears. “Going to be strange going home to an empty house, though, isn’t it? Jessie won’t be back until Sunday, so we’ll have to make do with each other’s company.”
Recognizing the name of his owner, Tank had raised his head to give Jensen a questioning look. He and Jessie went almost everywhere together and were seldom separated for more than a day or two at most. But Jensen knew that if the dog had been able to make a list of favorite people, he would have come in second. It was good to know that he’d been missed during the months he was away in Idaho, as he was very fond of this canine friend and glad of his being along on this trip.
It had been clear and sunny, a good morning for crossing the Top of the World Highway. As they had started down into Alaska, having crossed the border at Boundary, he had been able to see for miles to the distant purple, blue, and white of mountain ranges to the west. It was a favorite part of the trip, so he had stopped twice at viewpoints, once on the Canadian side, once on the Alaskan.
Just after noon he had cruised into Tok, where he had pulled in to fill the tank with gas, and a thermos with coffee, and to let Tank out of the truck again for a rest stop. From there he had taken the Tok Cutoff south, stopping an hour later at a wide spot in the road where he augmented his lunch with scenery:
Mount Sanford rising in splendid 16,237-foot isolation from the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Another hour’s drive had brought them to Glennallen at four o’clock. He felt almost home as he drove out on the Glenn Highway, which had taken him directly to Palmer and the turnoff to Wasilla.
And home they were not long after six, having made good time and stopped for groceries, Alex knowing that, while he could feed Tank easily enough, with Jessie gone he would have to cook his own dinner-for-one. If he had not had Tank along, he might have eaten out, but the dog had been in the truck all day and he didn’t want to leave him waiting in front of some restaurant.
Going up the long driveway from Knik Road, he saw there was a light in Jessie’s new log house. The few dogs she had kept in her kennel, not yet being totally used to Jensen’s truck again, had begun to bark, but quieted when he let Tank out. They had clearly been fed and cared for by Billy Steward while he was gone, so he figured correctly that the boy had left the light on for him in the house. Taking his travel bag and the single sack of groceries, he went up the stairs and unlocked the door, Tank trotting along behind.
It was immediately apparent from the delicious smell that wafted into his nose that there would be no need to cook after all. A peek into the oven revealed a tempting casserole keeping warm, and a note propped against a covered bowl of salad on the table told him he had Billy’s mother to thank.
“Bless her generous heart,” he said, looking down at Tank who, sitting expectantly nearby, cocked his head and gave friend Alex a doggy grin.
“Okay, your dinner’s coming up.”
There was even a fire carefully banked in the cast-iron stove, to which he added a log or two until it was crackling a cheerful welcome. Then he fed Tank, who afterward wandered over to curl up on the rag rug in front of it, hoping he wouldn’t be put out just yet. Glad to be home, Alex got himself a Killian’s and let dinner wait a bit while he drank it. Leaving Tank snoozing where he was, he filled a plate with noodle stroganoff and salad, put some Toby Keith on the DVD player for company, and settled down for his meal.
When the phone rang just after nine, Alex had put Tank back on his tether in the dog yard and was half asleep on the sofa in front of the television, where he had settled in hopes of staying awake until Jessie called, as promised.
“Hey,” she said in answer to his hello. “You two made it home okay then.”
“In good time and fine fettle. It was warm, sunny—a great drive. I could see almost to Magadan from the Top of the World this morning and Mount Sanford was cloudless.”
“Well, almost to Siberia’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I know what you mean. How’s Tank?”
“He’s fine. Just put him out in the yard for the night. How’s the island?”
“You spoil him rotten. The island’s terrific. We had a sunny day too, and a smooth ride from Petersburg. Whales! We saw whales, Alex.”
He could hear her delight at the sighting.
“Bet you see a lot more.”
“That’s what Jim said. Here on the island they have a resident sea lion and an eagle with a baby just learning to fly.” She paused, and then went on. “Everyone says hello and—I wish you were here. I miss you.”
It was worth the long trip from Canada just to hear her say it.
“I miss you too. This house is awfully empty without you in it. Oh—Billy’s mom sent over a casserole, so I didn’t have to cook.”
“Ah, so that’s why you miss me? Cooking!” she teased.
“Not tonight! But there are a few other things I miss you for.”
There was a gentle giggle from Jessie before she said, “Save that thought. I’ll be home Sunday, as planned.”
“Terrific. Now, tell me about this woman you met in Petersburg, who stayed at the hotel with you.”
Jessie told him everything she had told Jim, plus a few speculations of her own, and, like Jim, there was a few seconds’ pause from Alex when she finished.
“And you think there’s really some guy stalking her?”
“Well—I haven’t seen him, but she’s frightened of someone.”
Jensen’s law enforcement persona kicked in with his next comment. “If this guy exists, you should consider that he might figure you’re in his way.”
“How would he ever find us out here?”
“Don’t people in Petersburg know where you were headed? The hotel people, maybe—a few others? Small towns tend to share information and he might ask the right—well, the wrong person—mightn’t he?”
Jessie was quiet for a long breath of consideration before answering.
“It’s possible, I guess, but don’t you think that’s a stretch?�
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“Depends on how determined he is. You should have taken the problem to the Petersburg police.”
“I suggested that. Karen refused.”
“Well, I think you’d better keep a sharp lookout and take care. Tell Jim I said so, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And call me often, so I know you’re safe? Or I’ll call you.”
“Yes, I will. I have to take the cell phone outside, away from the lighthouse, to get a signal. I’m outside now. So if you try and can’t reach me, don’t worry. I’m probably just inside somewhere.”
“I’ll remember that, but keep it with you, okay?”
“Sure. If I can’t reach you in the evening, I’ll try you at work during the day.”
They talked for a few more minutes, but after she hung up Jessie stood in the dark, looking out over the water to the west of the helipad, where she had gone to make the call. It was very still and though the sea was calm, she could hear the gentle sloshing of small waves on the rocks below. Far away across the sound the lights of a boat moved steadily southwest, probably headed for Petersburg at this late hour. A breeze crept in to rustle the brush under the helipad just enough to hear until it was covered by a burst of laughter that drifted out from the group still gathered around the table in the lighthouse.
The clouds had lifted and seemed to be breaking up, for stars now gleamed through several large patches. Something splashed in the water a good distance from the north point, its identity hidden in the dark. Did whales feed at night? Jessie wondered. Or did they sleep, perhaps floating head down, suspended in watery space, rising now and then to the surface to breathe, liquid resistance to their huge weight allowing them to fall slowly back to rest in the deep? It was an agreeable, enchanting sort of thought. Astronauts who slept weightlessly suspended in space must have some idea how whales feel.
She yawned at the idea of sleep, more tired than she had realized and ready to find a bed of her own soon. It would be nice, when she was back home on Sunday night, to curl up next to Alex in her big brass bed, tell him all about her week’s adventures, and hear about his.
