“Ken—I mean Sgt. Tandry,” Sarah said, catching herself, “Sgt. Tandry said he would meet Doug at the Anchorage airport and drive him up here since he has to pick some paperwork up at the hospital anyway.”
Sarah embraced her friend and told her how much it meant to her that she had left her job to come back to Palmer to help support Ellie right now.
“I guess Doug's planning on staying in the bunkhouse, at least for tonight. That is, unless something changes and he thinks he needs to stay down in Anchorage with Ellie. It wouldn't surprise me if that's what he does.”
“That's good,” Mara answered, thinking about what a tough job the two people closest to Dan, besides Anna, had in store.
“Tomorrow the doctors are going to make the final decision about keeping Dan on life support. I know Doug is going to want to be there in the morning when they do,” Sarah finished.
Mara was already asleep by the time Ken Tandry dropped Doug off at the bunkhouse that night. By nine the next morning, she was on her way into Palmer to pick up some necessities. She managed to stay busy the better part of the day, returning to Ellie's around seven, knowing full well that she had been avoiding any discussion surrounding the issue of Dan's life support. As much as she was learning to love them both, she didn't know Ellie or Dan well enough to become involved in that kind of decision. Besides, her own painful memories of Brad's death increased her feelings of avoidance.
When she pulled into Ellie's driveway, Sarah was seeing a somber-looking Sgt. Tandry off. Mara could see Doug through the window. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. For a moment, she was tempted to just drive away, leaving Palmer, Homer and everything Alaska behind her. Maybe she was cursed. Bad luck for all who she came near. Instead she walked slowly through the door and laid her coat on the sofa before filling the kettle with water and placing it on the stove to heat.
“I'll make us some tea,” she said quietly.
Doug raised his head and looked squarely at Mara. Tears welled in the vacant stare of his eyes. A stifled sob, followed quickly by another forced his head down to his hands again.
“He's gone, Mara. They pulled the plug this afternoon.” Looking up at her, he said, “I was with him and so was Ellie.”
Mara had no words she could think would be enough to comfort him. Instead, she walked over to Doug and put her arms around his shoulders and laid her head on top of his. For only a few moments, she held him, before returning to get the water that was now boiling on the stove.
“An autopsy has already been done—expedited at the request of the State Police. It showed multiple blood clots—embolisms they called them—in both lungs. There wasn't anything anyone could have done.”
Doug paused to take a sip of the tea Mara had brought and placed on the table in front of him.
“They said the clots came from his legs and from the immobilization caused by the multiple trauma suffered in the crash.”
Doug sat for several minutes while Mara busied herself around the kitchen. He continued:
Sarah told you how Dan was having trouble getting back up to speed, didn't she? The weakness—he just never came back full strength. He kept complaining about his legs cramping and hurting every time he tried to do anything.” “But didn't the doctors check things out?” Mara insisted.
“They examined his legs and thought it was just weakness from the cold and the electrolyte problems he had suffered. They considered the possibility of at least one small clot and they had him on blood thinners to prevent any more.”
By now, Mara had joined Doug at the table and was sitting next to him as he continued to talk.
“You know, Dan didn't complain much and getting information out of him was like pulling teeth. In the autopsy, they found clots in his groin area and some inside his main blood vessels. The doctors said that in situations like this, sometimes the symptoms can come and go. Dan's main doctor said he never saw this coming though, and even if he had, there wouldn't have been any more he could have done.”
Mara shook her head slowly from side to side and sipped her tea.
“Last week,” Doug continued, “Dan stayed in bed a lot. He said he thought he was coming down with something. Ellie made him homemade soup and kept him bundled up, afraid to let him weaken further. Apparently the inactivity allowed the clot situation to progress until several of them broke loose all at once, cutting off circulation to his lungs.”
“And Ellie?” Mara asked.
“She blames herself,” Doug answered, a single tear falling onto his cheek. “It wasn't her fault. We all know that, but she's taking it hard.”
Again, there was a long silence before Doug spoke again, “He was only forty-two. I always told him that flying would be the death of him and he always countered that fishing was for people too afraid to fly. It was a little joke we shared. Dan was always the dreamer and I was always the realist.”
“I'm sorry, Doug,” Mara said softly, turning away from him to hide her own tears. She wasn't good at this death thing and she certainly wasn't good at seeing other people suffer. It was a weakness, she guessed. She wished she could be stronger. The two sat there quietly until Sarah came in, breaking their solitude.
“I'm sorry to interrupt,” she began, not wanting to disturb Doug, and casting a knowing glance at Mara.
“I thought I should let both of you know that I'm going to need to go into Palmer first thing in the morning to give some personal information about Dan to Sgt. Tandry for Ellie. That is, unless you would prefer to take care of that,” she said looking at Doug.
“Ellie is going to take Anna over to a place by the river that Anna, Ellie and Dan used to go to when Dan was teaching Anna to fish.” Sarah stopped to stare at her feet for a moment before finishing. “She is going to tell Anna about Dan then.”
Mara felt overwhelmed at the thought of the devastation that Ellie must be feeling. Again, she remembered her own grief at losing her husband. She wanted to run and leave this place where she had experienced more highs and lows in three months than she had in her entire life. She didn't want to go through this mourning again—not now—not ever. This was not why she had moved to Alaska. All of this was making her sad and angry at the same time. They were all good people, she chastised herself, but she needed to find a way to get out of here. In her heart, though, she knew that she would stay. She settled down as Sarah and Doug continued their conversation.
“Maybe I should go into town with you and take Ellie and Anna with us, then go with them down to the river,” Doug said. “It's too much for Ellie to have to deal with alone.”
‘Well, I'm sure you have been made aware that each of us is going to have to make another statement to police,” Sarah said, “so maybe it would be a good idea to get that out of the way first, since Sgt. Tandry is now calling this a murder investigation.”
Doug and Sarah agreed to meet in the kitchen and be ready to leave by 8:30 AM the next morning. Sarah told them that she would wake Ellie and tell her then.
“Good night,” Sarah told both Doug and Mara.
“I'm going to turn in, too,” Doug said, grabbing his coat. Sarah went to get ready for bed as Mara watched Doug walk across the yard to the bunkhouse. She finished her tea alone, lingering to wash and dry the cups before putting them away. Finally, around midnight, she went to bed. She never heard the start of a truck engine around 4:30 a.m.. When she met Sarah in the kitchen at 8:15 a.m., there was no sign of Doug or his truck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Strange Find
WHILE SARAH CALLED SGT. TANDRY TO EXPLAIN THAT DOUG'S TRUCK WAS missing and they would be about fifteen minutes late while they waited for Mara to get ready, Mara walked out to the bunkhouse and found the door ajar. Slowly pushing the door open, she walked in. There was no sign that Doug Williams had been there only a few hours ago.
The bed was made although the spread was rumpled, as if someone had slept on top of it. The glass shower doors were sparkling clean w
ith no sign of moisture or even water spots on the glass. Two clean towels hung neatly on towel racks near the shower, and there were a couple of hand towels and washcloths folded, unused, on the shelf above the sink.
She pulled the door tightly closed behind her and heard the lock click before starting to walk across the porch. For just the instant that she hesitated, she looked down to see a small piece of folded paper lying in the dirt next to the steps, and stopped to pick it up on the way down. It was a torn piece of note paper about three inches square, like the type that came in small pads with stick-um on one side. She unfolded it. The ink was slightly blurred from lying on the damp ground but she was able to make out the numbers 907 555-1423 and the initials A.C. For reasons she could not explain, she tucked the piece of paper into her jacket pocket.
“You ready, Mara?” Sarah called from the car. “Did it look like Doug left his stuff in there?”
“No,” she answered, climbing in behind the wheel, followed by Sarah climbing into the passenger seat after securing Anna in the child safety seat in the back. “It didn't look like he did much more than lay on top of the bed. Nothing was disturbed.”
“What was that you were looking at?”
“Just this note I found on the ground.”
Holding it up she showed it to Sarah. “I thought maybe Doug dropped it on the ground and might need it. It looks like somebody's phone number.”
Sarah examined the paper and had to agree before handing it back to Mara.
THE INTERVIEW WITH SGT. TANDRY WAS LONG AND THOROUGH, AND Sarah waited while Mara gave her statement. Sarah was exempt from the process; having arrived well after Dan's plane had crashed. After talking with Ken Tandry for nearly an hour, he told Mara that she was not a suspect and that from what he could determine, she had neither the motive nor the opportunity to tamper with Dan's plane. Any final decision on the matter, though, would be handed down by investigators far more removed from the incident than himself.
“One last thing,” he said before she left. “Sarah mentioned something about you meeting Doug Williams on the Alaska Highway on your way up to Alaska. Can you tell me about that?”
Mara explained how she had met Doug Williams on the ferry on which they were both traveling, when his dog had found her wedding ring after she accidentally dropped it overboard. She told him how she saw someone who looked just like Doug Williams again as she went up a steep incline out of Haines, where he was pulling several cars out of the ditch, and that she had later learned, when he saved her from a grumpy Canadian attendant farther up the road, that it had indeed been him.
“I think we were both pretty surprised to run into each other again at the home of Dan and Ellie,” she continued.
“Wow, that is quite a set of circumstances,” Tandry commented.
“I know,” Mara answered. “I remember thinking at the time what a small place the biggest state in the nation really was. Who could have ever predicted that the only person I could possibly know up here in Alaska was related to the only person I had actually talked at any length with on the trip up?”
Mara stopped talking and looked at her hands before looking at Ken Tandry again.
“And, to find out that he also lived near my destination city of Soldotna was even more surprising. I don't even want to think about the fact that my job ended up actually being in his hometown of Homer. It's like a bizarre kind of destiny thing. Kind of weird, isn't it?”
Ken Tandry offered no comment on Mara's supposition about destiny or weirdness. He had learned in his many years in law enforcement that much of what happened in life was a matter of being in a certain place at the right time—or wrong time—depending on how you wanted to look at it.
“Thank you for coming, Mara,” he said, standing to show her to the door.
“There's just one thing I want to caution you about,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Please keep my comment about you not being a suspect to yourself.”
“I'm not sure I understand,” Mara answered.
“This is an unusual case,” Tandry said. “Unusual in that the victim…Dan… I'm sorry to sound so detached,” he said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “It's unusual in that it has been nearly three months between the time of the accident and Dan's death.”
“Oh,” Mara said.
“The other thing is that the circumstances are strange.”
“Strange?” she asked.
“Strange in that we have been unable to determine any reason why anyone would want to see Dan Williams dead,” he continued. “Until we figure that out, it's going to be hard to know who to suspect and who not to.”
“I see,” Mara answered.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, if you would. If you see anything or hear anything, no matter how insignificant it might seem, please let me or one of the other detectives know.”
“I will,” she answered.
Tandry finished with a final warning, “There is no one who should know what I told you. Not even those you think you can trust.”
“Okay,” she said meekly, while staring at the feather in the band of the hat she held in her hands. Placing the wool hat back on her head, she walked out of Ken Tandry's office.
Part way down the long hallway to the outside door, she turned around and walked back to Tandry's door. Reaching into her pocket, she handed him the piece of paper that she had stuffed into her pocket that morning,
“I found this laying on the ground outside the guest cabin this morning when I went looking for Doug Williams,” she said. “I don't know how long it's been there or if it's even important, but I think you should have it.”
“I'll put it with the other evidence. Thanks, Mara.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Evidence?
SARAH WAS WAITING OUTSIDE WHEN MARA WALKED OUT OF THE BUILDING.
“I'm glad it's over.”
“Me, too,” Mara answered.
“Let's pick up Ellie and Anna. They're over at the store looking for a new dress for Anna to wear to her father's funeral.”
Ken Tandry watched the two women drive away from the window of his office. He studied the paper Mara had given him one more time before filing it in the evidence locker. Right now he needed to resolve two questions surrounding this case: Why would someone want to kill Dan Williams and where was Doug Williams?
He recognized the number on the scrap of paper as a local cell phone number and had written it down. A call to the phone company verified that and that the number belonged to a person named Adam Carlson. When he looked up after ending the call, he saw an unshaven and tired looking Doug Williams standing in the doorway to his office.
“Good morning, Ken,” Doug said hoarsely. “Sorry I missed our appointment this morning.”
Tandry slid a chair over to Doug Williams before walking around his desk to sit in his own well-worn recliner.
“You kinda got my antenna up when you didn't show up, Doug.” Tandry paused for several seconds and shifted in his chair before continuing. “You're not lookin’ too good this morning. Been out late?”
Doug shifted uncomfortably in his chair while at the same time stifling a yawn and running his tongue over his teeth as though his mouth were dry.
“I just needed some time alone; some time to sort out my thoughts. Yesterday was rough. One of the worst, if not the worst days of my life.”
“You're lucky you came in when you did,” Tandry said, stopping short of mentioning that he had been about to issue an APB for Doug to be brought in for questioning.
On a personal level, Ken Tandry knew that Doug was hurting and that he had every reason to want to disappear for a few hours. He also doubted that Doug would ever do anything to hurt his own brother, although, in his line of work, stranger things had happened.
Rather than viewing Doug's actions as defiance of his authority, he chose to see them as evidence that Dan's death was the biggest blow in life that Doug Williams had ever faced, and t
hat included the tragic loss of Doug's parents in the car accident he had investigated twenty years ago when both Doug and Dan were barely into adulthood, and he, himself, was just a rookie. Still, as the investigating officer, he had to keep his distance, and so far, as a seasoned cop, he had managed to do just that.
“Pulling the plug on my own brother…” Doug said, “well, it doesn't get any harder than that. Seeing Ellie so devastated…knowing that Anna would be growing up without the father who loved her so much…my own loss… wondering why the hell anyone would want to hurt that family…”
Tandry could see that Doug was wrestling to get a grip on his emotions and on the anger he was feeling at the circumstances that had cost him his only brother.
“It's all too much.” Doug put his head in his hands. “It's just beyond belief.”
Ken Tandry fought to maintain his professional distance. The two men had spent days side-by-side searching for Dan. If nothing else, they had developed a strong, mutual respect.
“You didn't violate any subpoena, Doug, Tandry said quietly.” Coming in… the appointment…it was all voluntary.”
“It's not Mara or Sarah's fault,” Doug said, looking at Ken. “I hope you know that. They didn't know anything about where I was today.”
“Yes, I know that,” Sgt. Tandry answered. “As a matter of fact, the two of them, Mara and Sarah, just left to go pick up Ellie and Anna at the store. They all are feeling pretty puzzled about why you didn't show up, Sarah, especially. I guess she heard you leave in the middle of the night.”
“I'll talk to them,” Doug answered.
Sgt. Tandry got up from his chair and walked down the hall to the clerk's window. Leaning in, he whispered something to her before he leaned back against the wall until she returned and handed him a manila envelope through the window. Once back in his office, he removed the crumpled blue piece of paper that Mara had given him and showed it to Doug.
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