by Rich Foster
The next plane was a Canadair CL215, though smaller than the Mars, it still carried significant amounts of water or fire retardant.
“They were lucky to get those planes. I think they are out of Canada. Maybe the Forest Service has them under contract for the season.”
They watched as the planes made several passes. From the north came the drone of other aircraft, presumably dropping Phos-Chek fire retardant on the northern flank.
By mid morning the wind came up out of the west. The smog over the lake built up like water against a dam and then retreated from where it had come. As the wind cleared out, the smoke and ash the eastern shore of Red Lake became visible. There was still a line of green running from town up past Rocky Nook Point and toward their home.
“Do you think our house survived?”
“For now.”
They came down from the roof hungry for breakfast. Restaurants and cafes were crowded with people who fled the flames and were hanging out in town. Tourists whose vacation plans were ruined, grumbled. Service was slow because many employees did not make it in to work.
Harry, Barton, and Paula caught a table at the back of the Canaan Grill. After they ordered Dirk asked, “What now?”
“I’m going to see Alison’s mother again.”
“Why?”
“Gaines is going to be occupied until this fire is under control. If they end up evacuating more areas, he will need to run extra patrols, besides dealing with traffic. Hell, the whole eastern shore is shutdown. He won’t have any time to go see Dave Barnes. And, if I go without him, he'll be irate.”
“I don’t think he gets irate.”
“Okay my love, let's say extremely annoyed.”
“That reminds me, I told him last night that I would send him the list of schools Reverend Holland worked at.”
“Do that Paula, but I doubt it is high on his agenda this morning. I want to talk with Holland again. It's possible Doreen Corbett lied, or perhaps her ex had resources we don’t know about.”
Chapter 20
Harry drove over to the Greenbrier Tract. A wildfire a few years back cleared the mountainsides above the area. Undergrowth returned, but lacked the density to fuel the current fire. To the east the fire bombers continued their steady attack on the flames. For now the wind was light and blowing the fire back on itself. But the rising afternoon heat would create its own wind in the mountains.
There was little sign of ash on the ground; though, some of the parked cars carried a hint of grit. Carole Albright was in the front yard when Harry pulled up. She stood on a stepladder cleaning the windows. She suffered from middle-age spread, as she reached and rubbed, with her backside toward him. Harry found it an unpleasant sight.
“Mrs. Albright?”
She looked down. “You’re the detective, right?” Her animation made Harry feel he was the one person she hoped to see. He supposed her liveliness gave everyone that impression.
Harry nodded. “Yes Ma’am. I have a couple of questions.”
Carol came down the ladder. Standing on terra firma she appeared more petite.
“Sure, ask away. Anything for my girl.”
“You said Alison didn’t have a boyfriend.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then why was she on the pill?”
Carole Albright seemed genuinely startled, as though this news was about a current teenage daughter, not one that died two decades before.
“What ever gave you that idea?” She spoke indignantly. “Alison was not loose, like some girls.” Self-righteousness permeated her words.
“There were birth control pills in her suitcase.”
“They must belong to someone else!”
“Her name and Dr. Oliver’s were on the prescription label.”
Once again Harry noticed her startled response, as if she suffered a shock.
“Doctor Oliver?” She shook her head, momentarily at a loss for words. “Why would Alison see him? Our family saw Doctor Stevens, at least until he retired. Now I see Dr. Davenport, she’s my OBGYN.”
“Perhaps she saw him to avoid your family doctor?”
“Alison? She’d never go behind my back! And even if she did she knew how I felt about him. She would never use him.”
Carole stressed the last word.
“And how did you feel about him?”
Carole’s mouth opened and then clamped shut. Harry waited.
“Never mind. It was a long time ago.”
“If it was so long ago, how can it still matter?”
Harry sensed she wanted him to push. She wanted to tell him something.
“I don’t care for him. When we were in school we went out a few times. He spread it around that we were a couple. Can you imagine it?” Her shock at the thought seemed immediate, not a thing from the past. “Well I broke it off and made it very clear I never wanted to see him again.”
“That’s all?”
“No! Certainly not! The man’s a stalker! He wouldn’t take no! He persisted in calling; he would corner me by my locker. After I complained to the principal he stopped doing that and took to following me home. He was a second shadow. Everywhere I went Otis would turn up. Then he took to sitting in his car, just watching my house. My father complained to Sheriff Whittier but even that didn't stop him. Finally, Dad went to court and sought a restraining order against him.”
“That sounds unpleasant.”
“I should say so! I had many admirers and I did not like having a nut case like Otis Oliver scare them off. He actually asked for a clipping of my hair!”
Her indignation rang false to Harry’s ear. She roamed between the past and present so freely, it was at times confusing.
“Did he stop?”
“Mostly. But even today, when I run into him, the way he looks at me makes me feel uncomfortable.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Albright.”
Her smile was warm again. “Of course, anytime.”
Harry walked across the lawn to his car.
She called after him, “Mr. Pim?”
He looked back, “The name is Grim.”
“Oh yes, sorry. Anyway, Mr. Grim, I am sure this is all a mistake. Alison would never go to Dr. Oliver. A mother knows these things.”
Harry drove around the corner and parked. He thumbed through his notes looking for the name of Oliver’s nurse twenty years ago. When he found it he opened the phone book he carried under the seat and ran down the list of Smiths. There was an H. Smith on Pine Avenue. He called the number but the listing was for Margaret, the widow of Howard Smith who, the loquacious woman said, passed away three years before. Before he could ring off she continued to explain how unsafe it was for a single woman to use her name. When he was at the point of exasperation she finished with, “I get a number of calls for Helen.”
“So you know her?” Harry asked, surprised to get useful information from this garrulous woman.
“Yes. We're not friends or anything, but I met her at the hospital when Howard was ill. Poor Howard, he was in St. Catherine’s for months and then he died anyway.”
“Helen works at the hospital?”
“Well she did. I suppose she is still there, but her name is Jorgensen not Smith. She remarried. That’s not for me! My dear Harold, he’s my one and only.”
Harry thanked her and tried to politely hang up.
“Do you want her number?”
I need to be more patient, who would have guessed. “Sure, thank you.”
While he waited he looked under Jorgensen in the directory. There were three. Just when he thought Mrs. Smith had forgotten him, she came back on the line.
“It’s 208-1555. Tell her Margaret says, hello.”
The number matched the second Jorgensen in the phone book. Sven and Helen lived on Stony Brook Lane. He dialed the number.
“Hello.” The voice carried a cheerful quality.
“Mrs. Helen Jorgensen?”
“If you’re selling something, I’m sorr
y, but I have to go. I need to get to work.”
“This is Harry Grim, I’m a private investigator. I wondered if we could meet. I am investigating the Alison Albright killing.”
A brief silence hung in the air.
“If you can come to the hospital I will speak with you. I have a lunch break at four.”
“I’ll be there, thank you.”
“How will I recognize you?”
“I’ll wear my Sam Spade fedora.”
Harry heard a chuckle. Nice she caught the humor.
“I have to go, I’ll see you later, Mr. Grim.”
The docks at Cody's Marina were covered by ash and grit. So were the boats. Paula was topside in a spectacularly small bikini hosing down Harry’s boat. The gold stern lettering, ‘Lost Forever’, glittered in the muted sun. Despite the breeze pushing the smoke eastward, the sky was the yellow hue of a Midwestern sky before a tornado.
From the parking lot Harry put two fingers to his lips. A shrill wolf whistle split the air. Paula looked up, smiled, waved, and then shook her butt at him as she returned to her work
Paula came to the boarding steps and gave him a kiss.
“Heard the news?”
“Not today.”
“I wonder what the weather forecast is.”
Harry looked to the east. The smoke was thinner but by day the flames were difficult to see. Northward, toward Praxis he saw a fire bomber make a pass and drop fire retardant which turned the hillside iron oxide red. He looked at the pennants hanging from the spreaders of a neighboring sailboat; they barely fluttered in the breeze.
The salon was cool, the air-conditioning provided relief from the summer heat. However, it was almost impossible to move around the stacks of things they removed from the house. Harry leaned over a pile of clothes, still on their hangars, and turned on the television mounted above the navigation table.
Tanya Talbot of Channel 13 stood beside a fire captain who turned away just as the sound came up.
“There you have it. If conditions hold they expect to have containment on 60% of this fire before dark. However, lower humidity levels and higher winds in the forecast for tomorrow still pose a threat. This fire is far from over. Back to you, Bob.”
Harry put together a sandwich while he listened, layering ham, cheese, pickles and lettuce, onto sourdough bread. Then he slathered on Dijon mustard and mayo. As he ate he watched the news.
“Authorities announced that six structures are confirmed loses and dozens, if not hundreds, of resort cabins are threatened. Earlier a hot shot team became separated from their vehicle which was lost to the fire as the flames made a rapid advance.”
Someone walked on and handed the anchor a piece of paper.
“This just in, a car gutted by fire was discovered below a logging road in the fire area. Early reports said there are human remains in the vehicle. If this is so, it would be the first fatality from the Wapatco Fire, so called because it originated in the Wapatco Flats back country area.”
Harry was tired. Half a night’s sleep left him feeling raw. In the forward cabin he made a space upon the berth, lay down and closed his eyes. Soon he fell asleep.
*
Dispatch put out a radio call to Detective Pat Egan.
“Egan here.”
“We have a 10-54 a half mile north on the Wapatco Flats fire road.”
“Crash victim?”
“No, a hotshot found a car with a body in it. The car was burned.”
“I’ll need a 4-wheel drive. I’ll be in to get the Cherokee.”
Thirty minutes later, Pat Egan stood at the edge of the dirt road. Not that the road was very distinct, it was more inferred by the cut bank on the high side and the drop off on the other. Around him lay a lunar landscape of destruction; a plane of monochromatic gray and black above which jutted charred trunks against the sky. Smoke plumes still trailed upward from embers smoldering in their bowels.
Down the slope was the car, gutted and burnt raw by the flames. The chance of finding useful clues was zilch. It looked like a Volkswagen hatchback but Egan was not even sure of that. The tires were burned away but the way the front wheel hub lay over, Egan figured the car rolled down the hill and a nearby boulder snapped the front axle.
Egan hiked down to the car. The fenders were dented. Large patches of rust resisted the blackening of the flames. The passenger door was sprung. When he looked in, a skull stared up at him from the floor. Mangy tufts of what was once hair clung to it in isolated patches. A collapsed skeletal ribcage lay across the passenger seat and the melted center console, beneath the ribs were pelvic bones. He did not see any arm or leg bones, but he couldn’t be sure.
The year and state of the license plate was impossible to tell, all that remained were raised numerals. He copied them down. The crime scene photographer called him from up the hill.
“Okay to come down this way, or do you want to rope it off first?”
Egan looked around at the wasteland. “We’d need a sieve to find anything among this ash. Just document the car and the remains.”
Pat left the photographer to work. Climbing the hillside was a slippery affair, each time his foot slipped it left an earthen slash showing through. He slid into the Jeep and typed the number into the computer. A minute later the DMV database produced a registration record. He skipped over the VIN number forensics would match that later.
Make: Volkswagen.
Model: Rabbit
Year: 1985
Registered Owner: Hank Stanton.
Address: 12 Maple Ct. #3
Red Lake
Status: Expires Sept 1993
Richard Lang, the county medical examiner, arrived. From the fire road Egan impassively watched the team work. Their white suits rapidly became filthy. He looked down at his own slacks and grimaced in disgust.
An aerial bomber flew low overhead. Its thunderous roar shook the air, then it disappeared beyond the rise. A minute later Egan heard the throaty rumble of the engines as the plane dropped its load and climbed hard. He spotted it again banking up and away to the north.
Lang trudged up the slope.
“What do you think, Richard?”
“It's old. Takes awhile for a body to get like that. We won't find much. The fire came through here hot. Some of the bones crumbled when we touched them. Judging from the pelvic bones I’d guess we have a female, besides, look at this.”
Lang held out a plastic evidence bag. Two gold hunks glimmered inside. “We found these on the floor near the skull.”
“Jewelry?”
“Probably earrings, but to melt these the temperature had to get up to 900 degrees. It wouldn’t take a lot more to turn all the bones to dust. Probably not a great deal of material left to burn in the car. As long as that car's been there, the fabric was likely rotted away.”
“Anything else?”
“The legs and arms are missing. But we found some small bones that were from the fingers.”
“How do you lose arms and keep your fingers?”
“Animals. If the door were left open, scavengers would find the body. Small animals gnaw the fingers leaving bones. As decomposition sets in arms and legs are the easiest parts for a larger scavenger to haul away. If you look around you’ll probably find them within a hundred yards or so.”
Egan scanned the ashen hillside. “Not likely we’ll do that. At least not until we get some rain.”
“Not my problem” Lang said. “We’ll finish up, shortly.”
Nearby, Homer waited by his tow truck, chain-smoking to kill the time. He worked on a flat fee basis to the county and was eager to get out of there.
“We good yet?” he called over.
“About five minutes.”
For Egan, Homer evoked images of turkey vultures that fluttered and flitted around road kill.
Normally, a news crew would be on site, but the fire kept them at bay either busy covering the fire or they found the route up inaccessible. Finally, a reporter from th
e Clarion came hiking up the road. He hung around taking photos as Homer retrieved the vehicle.
“Who is it?” the reporter asked. “The radio call said there was a body.”
“No idea and no body, just bones.”
“Was it homicide?”
“I have no idea. We'll need to see the medical examiners report first.”
“Do you think it was murder?”
“Could be or it might just be an accident.”
Egan noticed the reporter jotting down the plate number. Silently he wished he had covered it over or sealed off the area. No matter, it would have come out soon enough.
Back at the station, Egan ran Hank Stanton's name, he came up with a current driver’s license. The address was for a mobile park in town. Pat checked the phone book and dialed Hank’s phone. It rang a dozen times, no answer.
Gaines put his head in the doorway.
“What do you think Pat?”
“The bones were on the passenger side. I don’t think the car was driven off the fire road, at least not by the deceased.”
“What did you come up with on the registration?”
“Hank Stanton still lives in town, though not at the old address.”
“Talk to him yet?”
Egan shook his head. “No one’s home. I am going to canvass the houses on Maple Court. There might be someone around who remembers him.”
“We have any missing persons from back then?”
“Alison Albright.”
“I mean beside her?”
“Nope.”
Gaines stroked his mustache. “We had that girl in 1991, the Jane Doe.”
“You think there’s a link?”
“None that I see so far. But it is odd, three dead females in the space of two or three years. Maybe you’ll find something.”
*
Maple Court was a dead end street not far from downtown. Modest wooden houses lined the lane. Mid-block there was a grassy courtyard surrounded by eight small bungalows. A neat sign read 212. Two strips of concrete ran up the middle. Each structure had a peaked roof and a flat roof addition. Pat began at unit A and worked his way around the court. At A and C there was no answer. B, D, E, F, and G proved to be transient. No one had lived there longer than three years, most for less.
