by Alan Russell
The cabin began to grow incrementally darker. Baer had raped her in the darkness before dawn. The better part of a day had passed, and Nina had barely moved. Night would soon arrive. If she was to search for a way to die, she needed to start looking now.
She sat up and waited for her dizziness to pass. It was almost enough to make her give up and collapse once more into the bedding. Her inertia had relegated her pain into the background, but now it reasserted itself. For a few moments it felt like Baer was beating her again.
She took a deep breath and began her exploration. Baer seemed to have put more time into the building of her cage than he had the cabin. Many of his materials seemed to have come from a salvaged dog kennel. Thick wood reinforced by metal framing, rebar, and mesh wiring extended around three sides. Her jail was roughly four feet high, four feet wide, and six feet long. Baer had reinforced the cell with a second layer of mesh-welded wiring. Nina tried pushing and pulling on the metal pickets, but felt no give in them. She checked for rust pockets or worn metal, but the posts and rails were solidly constructed and evidenced little wear.
The fencing was bolted down into the wooden flooring. Baer used the top of the cage as a storage ledge. The wooden walls of the cabin had been similarly reinforced by rebar and wiring. Baer hadn’t skimped on the use of bolts, screws, and nails. There was no escaping his jail, or at least no escaping it while alive.
She needed something sharp. Somewhere in the cage there had to be something that could do the job.
Nina gathered her fur blankets and placed them in one corner of her cell; atop them she put the canteen, chamber pot, and pan of food Baer had left her. In the waning light she began probing the spaces with her fingers. The spaces were too small for them to penetrate. She looked for a weak spot, an area where she might be able to strip the wiring away, but only skinned her fingers in the attempt.
There had to be a chink in the armor. Her uncle had built a custom log cabin on a lake and had talked about the extensive chinking it had needed to keep out the elements. Nina started tapping at the logs, hoping to hear a hollow sound. There had to be some knots or holes or cracks. Maybe she could pull free a length of wood and make a sharpened stake or a daggerlike sliver.
She thought of Dracula. You needed a silver stake to kill a vampire. And then she thought of Baer. Killing him wouldn’t require a silver stake, or at least she didn’t think it would.
“I could make a stake,” she whispered, “and hide it, and the next time he comes at me, I could drive it into his heart.”
The idea gave her hope. Maybe there was a way other than killing herself. She continued to tap and pull and claw. She thumped another section of log. The sound was different, as was the feel. Maybe it was the chink in the armor she was looking for. There was some kind of cavity under the wood.
A section of the log gave way, but Nina’s excitement faded when she saw what was there. She hadn’t exposed a weak spot or the makings of a stake. Just an old caulking tube.
She pushed the tube aside, hoping to find something in the logs she might exploit, but the space was just a natural indentation where the wood was inverted. She continued her search, but something nagged at her, a thought pesky enough to find its way through the dark shroud that enveloped her. Why had the tube been hidden?
Nina picked up the caulking tube and saw it had no bottom. She brought it up close to her eyes. The tube wasn’t empty, but rather filled with rolled-up papers. She carefully tried to slide everything out. It was a snug fit, but with a few twists, she was able to free everything. At first glance she was disappointed. The tube was full of trash, or at least that’s what it looked like. A bunch of oddments had been stuffed inside: thin cardboard, remnants from sacks, large labels taken from the backs of cans. The entire hodgepodge had been bound together. And then Nina realized that what she was holding were actually paper substitutes gathered from a multitude of sources. The way everything had been put together almost made it look like an art project.
Nina turned some of the curled pages, squinting in the waning light. Writing covered the scraps, too small to make out. She flipped a few more pages. The document was full of drawings, maps, and pages with more writing. She turned the cardboard front cover and was just able to make out the words on the white sacklike paper that made up the booklet’s opening page.
“Dear Sister,” Nina read.
She brought the manuscript to within three inches of her eyes. What was that second line? Impatiently she tried to decipher what was there. The encroaching darkness made it difficult, and it must have taken her the better part of a minute to decipher the letters and then make words out of them.
Do not kill yourself. You are not alone.
An onslaught of tears fell from her eyes, but at their root wasn’t despair but joy. Whether or not the message was meant for her, it felt like it was. The message in this unique bottle had saved her.
With great care she rolled up the document and placed it back inside the tube. Tomorrow at first light, she would read all that was there.
Nina put her cage back in order. Even that small activity left her exhausted. If she was to survive, she had to eat and drink. She reached for the pan with the meat, jerky, and starch. Baer had left her an enormous cut of meat, what her father would have called a Flintstone portion.
She began tearing chunks free and chewing away ravenously. Nina had been a vegetarian for the last six years. But now she was a carnivore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What did you hear?”
Greg Martin didn’t even bother to identify himself over the phone. Not that he needed to. Ever since his wife’s jewelry had turned up, he’d been pestering Hamilton in person and by phone.
The cop was tempted to say, “Nothing,” and then hang up. But that wasn’t his way. He was naturally patient and a good listener. Maybe that came from being the oldest of four kids. Maybe it came from being the father of two kids.
“I already told you if anything meaningful turned up, I’d call you. And since I didn’t call you, what’s that tell you?”
“Was there any footage of Blackbeard?”
“That’s a negative. That bar where he had his meet-up and arranged for the roofies has no surveillance cameras.”
“What about nearby businesses?”
“It’s off by itself.”
“Have you talked to the state troopers about the suspected tie-in between Nina Granville’s disappearance and my wife’s?”
“Lots of people are convinced Nina Granville is nothing more than a runaway bride.”
“There was a time when a lot of people were saying the same thing about my wife.”
Hamilton thought about his own wife. They’d been married a quarter century. Carrie was his partner. She worked full-time as a dental hygienist and did the lion’s share of raising their kids. If Carrie had turned up missing, he probably would have been a lot more obnoxious than Martin had ever been.
“Yes, I’ve been in contact with the troopers. They’ve assured me that they’re treating Granville’s disappearance as a possible abduction, and part of their investigation will be to see if there is any connection between her case and your wife’s.”
“That sounds like lip service.”
“It’s not. But AST is stretched thin.”
“How many years you think I’ve been hearing that line?”
AST had 1,300 officers working all of Alaska. In the Lower 48, there were dozens of cities that employed more officers.
“Whether you like it or not, the state troopers are officially handling your wife’s case and Nina Granville’s. They’d have the latest information, not me.”
“You’re the only cop who seems willing to entertain the idea that both women might have been abducted by the same man.”
“If you’re trying to flatter me, it’s not working. In my book you’re still a suspect.”
“I can live with that. But if I got away with murder and if all I wanted to do was collect o
n my wife’s life insurance, then why am I doing everything I can to find out what happened to her?”
Hamilton decided to put his full skeptic on display. “It’s possible you want to be involved in the investigation to take preemptive action against whatever evidence we’ve uncovered that might implicate you.”
“And so I’m using Nina Granville as a huge red herring by tying her into my wife’s disappearance?”
“I don’t have the answers as to what you’re doing or why you’re doing it.”
“No, you don’t. But your presuming my guilt isn’t helping either of us.”
Hamilton didn’t answer other than to say, “Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Martin?”
“Do you know that a private plane went missing a day after Nina Granville went missing?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’m a member of the Alaska Airmen’s Association, and they sent out an e-mail. They were contacted by the Alaska Air National Guard Rescue.”
“I wish a private plane going missing was unusual, but it’s not.”
On average there were more than five plane crashes in Alaska every year, far more than anywhere in the Lower 48.
“So you don’t think it’s possible that Nina Granville was abducted and then flown somewhere? Or that the same thing could have happened to Elese?”
Hamilton took a moment to answer. There were certainly precedents in Alaska for killers being pilots. “You think a pilot did the abducting?”
“I don’t know,” said Martin. “Both the Alaska Crash Database, which monitors all missing planes in Alaska, and the NTSB, don’t like giving out much in the way of details to a civilian. I imagine they’d be more amenable to talking to a cop.”
“Maybe I’ll make a call.”
“It’s also possible the pilot might not have known what he was carrying.”
“That sounds far-fetched.”
“I’m a private pilot now,” Martin said, “and I’m telling you, if the payload was packed the right way, the pilot could unwittingly have transported human cargo.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
“This pilot could have been collateral damage. The abductor might have decided to do away with him because he feared he might make some connection with the Nina Granville disappearance.”
“You’re assuming a lot.”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when supposed coincidences keep turning up?”
“Like I said, I’ll make a call.”
“How about letting me come along if you do an investigation?”
“Civilians can’t be involved in an investigation.”
“Since the pilot lived in the Anchorage area, I assume you’ll be having this talk outside of Seward. That means you’re outside your jurisdiction, right? Doesn’t that make you a civilian?”
“I’m still a cop.”
“But if what you’re doing is unofficial, there would be nothing to prevent me from coming with you, right?”
“Nothing but me.”
“I told you about the missing aircraft.”
Hamilton thought about it. “If anything pans out, I’ll call you.”
Hamilton still wasn’t sure if he should have invited Martin to the interview. As far as he was concerned, it was probably just another wild-goose chase. But it would give him more opportunity to question Martin.
The stop-and-go traffic on Glenn Highway made Hamilton impatient. Their destination was Eagle River, a neighborhood north of Anchorage. The drive wasn’t helped by the gray fog and rain. Ahead of them a Ford F-150 honked its horn. The truck’s bumper sticker read: WE DON’T GIVE A DAMN HOW YOU DO IT OUTSIDE.
“Most outsiders would never imagine traffic jams in Alaska,” Martin said.
It wasn’t surprising that the guy had spent enough time in Alaska to pick up the local lingo. When an Alaskan referenced “outside,” or the “south,” it translated as anything outside the state, but usually referred to the continental United States.
“Still,” Martin continued, “this is nothing compared to Seattle. At rush hour the whole city becomes a parking lot.”
“What prompted you to become a private pilot?”
Hamilton kept his eyes on the road, but he saw Martin glance over. “Are you interviewing me?”
“Old habits die hard. I’m Javert, remember? Wasn’t that what you told the press?”
Hamilton had learned that this Javert was a made-up book character who was rigid, unable to deviate, and fanatical in his apparent delusion—a fictional cop who spent most of his career trying to arrest a good man.
“You remember every insult ever thrown your way?”
“Most of them. So, why did you get your pilot’s license?”
“I did it for my job, mostly.”
“A trooper I know said that earlier this summer you were flying around the state. It sounded like you were conducting your own investigation.”
“I went to a few places and asked a few questions.”
“What did you find out?”
“Less than I would have liked.”
“I know the feeling.”
“You still haven’t asked me the question you’re dancing around,” said Martin.
“Which is?”
“If I’m sure my wife is now dead, then why am I still obsessed with finding out what happened to her?”
“And why are you?”
“Because now more than ever, I want to nail the bastard that took her from me. But I also have this selfish desire to say ‘fuck you’ to everyone who thought I was involved with Elese’s disappearance.”
“Am I at the top of your ‘fuck you’ list?”
“You’re up there.”
“So you think of yourself as Dr. Richard Kimble?”
“The Fugitive—great movie. There’s more than a passing resemblance.” Martin stretched out his arms as much as he could in the enclosed space. Maybe he was fitting himself for a cross. “But Kimble was arrested and convicted of his wife’s murder. I wasn’t even arrested, just convicted by the court of public opinion. That stigma still follows me.”
When Hamilton didn’t respond, Martin said, “No comment?”
“Not one you’d like to hear.”
“Go ahead.”
“To me it sounds like you have a guilty conscience.”
“I do. My wife was stolen away from me, and I didn’t do anything about it. That’s why I’m trying to do something now, even though it’s too late for her.”
Martin turned his head to gaze out the window. “I suppose you think that shows even more of a guilty conscience?”
“I don’t know.”
Both men fell silent as traffic inched forward. After a while Hamilton said, “Robert C. Hansen used to operate in these parts.”
“Who was he?”
“Hansen was called the Butcher Baker,” said Hamilton. He pulled onto the exit ramp. “He died recently. A lot of people celebrated when they heard that news. I was one of them.”
“He was a murderer?”
“I’m pretty sure he was Alaska’s most prolific murderer. We know of seventeen of his victims, but he’s suspected of a lot more than that. He had his private pilot’s license and flew a number of his victims to his hunting shack on the Knik River.”
“How far is that from here?”
“It’s only about forty miles north. They found ten or eleven of his victims there. That’s where he had his infamous ‘Meat Shack.’ That’s where he raped and murdered. But what was the most horrific were Hansen’s cat-and-mouse games with his victims. Deep in the woods he stripped them of their clothes and then gave them a head start. Hansen was an experienced hunter, and they didn’t stand a chance. He tracked the women down and killed them. I can’t imagine how terrified they must have felt.”
Danni Houston met the two men at the door of her condo, her eyes anxiously moving from one to the other. When Hamilton offered his name and showed his wallet-ba
dge, Danni was visibly relieved.
“I was hoping you were the one I talked to,” she said, “but when the two of you showed up all serious-like, I felt like one of those military wives, sure that bad news had just arrived on the doorstep.”
She motioned for Hamilton and Martin to come inside, talking the entire time. “I’ve been jumping every time the phone rings. It’s like I want to answer it, but I don’t want to answer it, and I’m not sure what to do. I want to hear about Tommy, but only if I know it’s good news.
“Take a seat, both of you. Can I get you something to drink? There’s coffee ready, and Diet Cokes in the fridge.”
Both men declined her offer, and Danni reluctantly sat down on the edge of a chair—perhaps to allow her feet contact with the ground, or perhaps as an indicator of her anxiousness, or a combination of both. Danni was no more than five feet tall, even though her spiked blonde hair added several inches to her frame. She was heavy but curvy, what Hamilton’s dad would have appreciatively described as “pleasantly plump.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have any updated information on Mr. Carter’s whereabouts,” said Hamilton. “As you know, he remains missing. That’s why we’re here. It’s our understanding that you were one of the last people he talked with before his flight.”
“I tried to tell him to call it off,” Danni said. “Anyone could see it wasn’t a good day to be flying, but Tommy tried making a joke of the whole thing. He said he’d flown on plenty of small dog warning days.”
Hamilton nodded. Meteorologists in Alaska sometimes referred to windy days as “small dog warning days.” As in, tie down your small dogs if you don’t want them blowing away.
“When he flew out, I had this feeling something was wrong. I was in the shop all day—I’m a hairdresser—and that feeling kept growing stronger and stronger. I remember talking about it with some of my clients. That’s how I met Tommy, you know. Our salon has these windows that look out on the street, and Tommy said he saw me working and figured the best way to meet me was to come in for a haircut.”
Hamilton smiled and nodded again. His calm seemed to have relaxed Danni. She was now sitting comfortably in her chair and no longer looked ready to bolt.
