Mara walked to the window, unsure of what to say.
“Pilson says you might be in danger, Mara. I know we already talked about this, but he brought it up again to me. You both could be.” Both Mara and Ellie remained silent.
“I have to go to Palmer to get some feed for the horses and to do a couple of other things on Monday. I'll give you a ride into town to pick up your vehicle, Mara, and after I drop you off, I'll head over to Sassy's and pick up my things.”
“I'd appreciate that,” Mara said.
“Ellie, I think you should keep an eye on things back here. I already talked to Pilson, and he agreed to leave a trooper up here until Ken gets back sometime on Monday. There's going to be a couple of hours after I leave where you will be here alone until the trooper gets here around three in the afternoon, but you should be okay if I leave Thor with you.”
Turning back to Mara, he said, “While you're picking your car up at impound, I'll grab my things at Sassy's —shouldn't take me but a half hour— and then I'll meet you back at the police station and follow you back up here to Ellie's.”
“Okay,” Mara replied.
“And, Ellie, one more thing, I want you to keep my shotgun close at hand till I get back. I know Dan taught you how to use it, and, like I said, Thor will be with you, too.”
“Okay, Doug. If you think it's really necessary.”
“I do, Ellie.”
After a light dinner, everyone went to bed early. As he had promised Ken Tandry, Doug left Thor outside, rigging up a lean-to near the house that contained a bed of straw and a heated water bowl to keep him comfortable. Thor was used to being out at night anyway, since he often slept outside the bunkhouse when Sassy was around, even in winter. He had a thick coat of fur made even thicker and healthier by the diet of salmon that Doug fed him on a regular basis.
On Sunday, Doug put extra locks on both the barn and hangar doors and re-attached the motion light.
On Monday morning, not long after sunrise, Doug and Mara were driving the mountain road down to Palmer. It was a beautiful drive during which they saw plenty of moose and even caught a glimpse of a brown bear along one of the creeks. Doug made a point of dialing Ellie to warn her to keep an eye out for the bear.
“Shush, now, Doug,” she told him. “You know we get bears around here all the time, but thank you for watching out for me.”
“You're welcome, Ellie. Just looking out for Dan's wife's all. Least I can do.”
A light fog was beginning to lift from the gravel bars as Doug drove across the old trestle bridge that spanned the Knik River. Off to the right, the Knik Glacier stood in full view above the fog, its ragged juts of turquoise blue ice in stunning contrast to both the ground fog and the white peaks of the mountains. Through the fog they could see glimpses of the many river channels that formed a lace-like pattern on the ground. Along the sides of the river, the grasses had already begun to turn green. As they drove along, they could feel the crisp cold night air begin to warm in the morning sun, another sign that summer was not far off.
“I hope that when you finally get established down in Homer that life will be a little more settled for you than the stay in Palmer has been,” Doug said, trying to make light conversation.
“I really appreciate all that you've done for me and how you've looked out for me,” she answered.
While speaking, she had placed her hand lightly on his arm in a gesture that was both unconscious and felt as natural as taking a breath. She quickly pulled it away once she realized how forward she had been.
“I can't thank you enough, Doug.”
“Mara…” Doug began, as they pulled into the parking lot at police impound.
At that moment, Doug's truck door was jerked open by an angry Adam Carlson. Before he could react, Adam's fist landed squarely on the bridge of Doug's nose, sending him reeling backwards in his seat.
“You sorry son of a…!”
Adam's curse was lost in the skirmish that followed as two uniformed police officers, who had witnessed the whole event, subdued Adam and pulled him away from Doug.
“Is she who you left my sister for?”
A.C struggled as the officers led him to a waiting police cruiser where they lowered him into the back seat, with one officer placing an open hand on the top of his head, and the other nudging him into the vehicle.
“Maybe the wrong Williams got snuffed,” A.C yelled before the door to the police car closed, relegating his spew to nothing more than silent, angry facial contortions behind the window.
“Somebody help us! Doug!”
Mara began wiping the blood from his nose with a towel she found lying on the seat. “Are you okay? I'm taking you over to the hospital right away.”
Rushing around to the driver's side of the truck, she pushed him over on the seat before starting the engine and driving the two blocks to the hospital right there in Palmer. Two police officers followed them into the emergency room, waiting for an opportunity to take a statement.
X-rays confirmed the doctor's suspicions that Doug's nose was broken, but assured him it would most likely heal without incident. They warned him to be prepared for two black eyes and told Mara they should report back if Doug felt dizzy or lightheaded. Just to be safe, they did a CT scan, which luckily showed no signs of bleeding in Doug's brain.
“Is there any reason Adam Carlson would want to hurt you?” a familiar voice asked. It was Craig Pilson who had been informed of the incident moments after it occurred.
“Not that I know of,” Doug answered, “except maybe that I broke up with his sister, Sassy, Saturday night.”
Mara tried to excuse herself, feeling that this was none of her business. Sgt. Pilson stopped her.
“Miss Edwards,” he began, “Is it fair to say that you heard the comments directed to Doug Williams by Mr. Carlson during the altercation of a few minutes ago?”
“Yes, I heard all of them,” she answered.
“Then would you kindly take a moment to make a statement to that effect?” Pilson asked.
“Certainly,” she replied.
“Don't worry about Mr. Williams, here. We'll see that both of you get home all right. While the doctors finish up here, my partner will give you a lift over to pick up your vehicle. You carry a cell phone, don't you?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“I'd keep my battery charged and keep it turned on until you get safely home,” Pilson told her. “Adam Carlson will be in custody for at least forty-eight hours. After that, we're going to have to re-evaluate the situation for the three of you up at the homestead.”
“If he tries to hurt Ellie because of me…” Doug said, rising off the emergency room stretcher before feeling dizzy and lying back down.
“Mara, I'm sorry to get you involved in this.”
“No one's going to hurt anybody, Doug,” Craig Pilson interrupted. “Not on my watch.”
Once Mara had reached the patrol car with the two officers, Pilson turned back to Doug.
“I didn't want to say anything in front of Miss Edwards, Doug. We ran a check on Adam Carlson and apparently he has a rap sheet three pages long.”
“Well, I'm not surprised,” Doug responded. “Sassy said he had a lot of DUI's and things like that.”
“There's all that,” Pilson said, “but apparently the charges include operating under three aliases and spending two years in a federal correctional facility five years ago.
“For what reason? I mean, besides the obvious?” Doug asked.
“Forgery, impersonating a missionary to obtain donations, and attempted murder,” Sgt. Pilson said somberly.
Doug Williams raised himself up on one elbow, fully intent on hearing the rest of what Craig Pilson had to say.
“We haven't been able to determine if Steve Bitten is tied up with him in any way other than with A.C. being an employee of Steve's portion of his and your brother's business.”
“Hold on now, Craig!” Doug said, trying to get up from the c
art before a nurse made him lie down again.
“If you are trying to lead this into making my brother, Dan, be some kind of off the wall suspect in some funky and weird dealings with Steve Bitten, who isn't even who he says he is, then I'm here to tell you right now and you can write this down verbatim: Dan Williams had nothing to do with whatever mayhem Steve Bitten, or whatever the hell his real name is, and Adam Carlson had going on.”
“Simmer down, now Doug. C'mon man, you're not doing yourself a bit of good with all this agitation. You know damn well we have to look at every possible angle in this case, as much as you know that it's just about the strangest jumbled up mess of circumstances I've encountered in all my years of police work. Now, everyone in Palmer knows that your brother was a stand up kind of guy and I don't think there's a soul among ‘em here in Palmer or anywhere else in the Valley who would have any reason to say any differently.”
“Sorry, Craig. I didn't mean to jump on you.”
Craig Pilson stopped talking and walked over to pick up an envelope that was lying on the desk. He removed a piece of paper and showed it to Doug, who could see that it was an official police request for a restraining order.
“I'm going to have an emergency restraining order issued by the judge on behalf of you, Mara and Miss Williams. Keep your eyes and ears open. If A.C.’s up to something and if this is more than just anger at you for dumping his sister, he may try to up the ante pretty soon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Betrayal
DOUG DIDN'T WASTE TIME WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO ANSWER BEFORE HE pushed open the screen door and entered Sassy's kitchen. Knowing what he had to do next, he had convinced Craig Pilson that he was fine and able to drive home. He would rest in a bit, but first he had some unfinished business to take care of.
“Oh my God, Dougy!” Sassy cried when she saw him with his shirt covered in dried blood and a look of anger she had never seen before on his face.
“Sit down, Sassy,” he said, the evenness in his voice in stark contrast to the intensity in his eyes.
“But, Dougy…”
Frightened by his anger, she stepped backwards as he stepped towards her, turned a chair backwards, and sat, straddling it.
“I said, sit down, Sassy. What the hell did you tell Adam about us?”
“What do you mean, Dougy?” Sassy said, feigning innocence.
“I said, what did you tell Adam?”
Doug started to rise from his chair, but was forced back down by dizziness and the throbbing in his head. Sassy shrugged her shoulders.
“I just told him you dumped me, Dougy.”
“Is that how you put it, Sassy? That I dumped you? Did you make it sound like it was some type of senseless abandonment or something?”
Doug was back out of his chair, his face red with anger as he leaned closer to the woman he had now come to despise.
“Did you tell him to sucker punch me, too?”
Sassy tried to touch his arm, but he jerked it away from her.
“Is that what I get for being honest with you? And what about his comments about Mara? She had nothing to do with any of this.”
“Didn't she, Doug? I'm guessing she did. Everything was fine between me and you before she came along.”
“Everything was not fine, Sassy,” Doug said emphatically. “Everything has not been fine for me for some time now. I tried to tell you in the gentlest way I could, and you send your Neanderthal dimwit of a brother to do this to me?”
“Adam is not a Neander…whatever you called him, Doug Williams!” Sassy yelled, jumping up from her own chair.
“Really, Sassy? Well, in my book, any man who calls a strange woman—or any woman for that matter—the things he called Mara is a Neanderthal. Real men…civilized men…do not punch people in the face over some hearsay about someone else's relationship, and they do not make accusations about things they know nothing about.”
“I can't believe Adam would do this,” Sassy said.
“Well, believe it!” Doug shot back, “and stop trying to convince yourself all of this is over some person you don't know anything about. It isn't, and you know it!”
Sassy nervously grabbed her cigarettes. Doug wrenched them from her hand, before she could even remove one from the package, and threw them out the door.
“Get my things, Sassy. You can smoke when I'm out of here.”
Brushing past her, he went to the bedroom to start packing his things.
“I never thought you'd sink to this, Sassy. I thought we had more respect for each other than this, but I guess I was more than wrong about that.”
“I didn't think he would do something like this, Dougy.”
Sassy suddenly sounded truthful for the first time since the conversation had begun.
“And stop calling me Dougy, Sassy. You're a grown woman. You're not a two year old child.”
Doug dragged his overflowing duffle bag past her, and elbowed the screen door open, before pausing for one last volley of words: “Don't think I don't know about Adam's past, Sassy. Now thanks to his own stupidity, the cops know about it, too.”
“The cops!” she screamed.
“Adam's gonna have some tall explaining to do, especially about his comment—and there were witnesses—about the wrong Williams brother getting snuffed. If I find out you knew anything about Dan's death, Sassy, or God help you, had a part in it, I'm going to personally see to it that you spend the rest of your sorry life in prison, along with your good-for-nothing brother.”
“Dougy…”Sassy ran after him. “You don't think…”.
“I told you not to call me Dougy.”
Doug slammed the truck door shut, cutting off the rest of her words and speeding off before she could finish. “I don't know what to think,” he hollered out his window.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gunfire
IT WAS WELL AFTER NOON WHEN DOUG PULLED INTO GLACIER VIEW Flighseeing and Services. It seemed strange that the house looked so closed when Ellie was supposed to be home. He parked in the shadows alongside the front of the hangar and had just stepped out of his truck when he saw the man who had been calling himself Steve Bitten walk out the front door of the house as Ellie stood in the doorway behind him.
“Where'd ya go, A.C.?” Steve Bitten called out.
The sound of a brief scuffle in the area between the hangar and the barn brought Doug to a standstill. Alarmed, he stayed in the shadows in front of the hangar. What was that noise? It almost sounded like a muffled human voice, but he couldn't be sure.
“Brad!” he heard a woman scream.
Doug watched in disbelief as the man who had been calling himself Steve Bitten whipped around, reached back and pulled Ellie tightly in front of him, while holding his hand over her mouth. Not wanting to accelerate the situation, he put his hand on his .45 and watched as the scene unfolded before him. As far as he could tell, no one knew he was there.
“I know you're out there, A.C.,” Bitten hissed in the direction of the shaded area between the hangar and the barn as he continued to push Ellie ahead of him and walk slowly across the yard.
“Let her go, Brad,” a woman who sounded like Mara yelled from between the buildings.
The sound of a sharp slap and a woman's groan came from the shadows, followed by a man's voice yelling, “Shut up!”
Doug stood frozen. The man was A.C. He knew that voice. How many people were out there and where was Thor? He heard Thor growl up near the house. In slow motion, he watched Brad push Ellie away from him and spin around as a loud pop pierced the air. There was a yelp and then nothing.
“Thor!” Doug hollered impulsively.
Recognizing Doug's voice, Ellie ran towards him faster than she ever knew she could run. Doug pushed her behind him for safety. The crack of another shot sounded. Steve Bitten fell to the ground, motionless.
“Drop the gun, Adam,” Sassy's voice called out from behind A.C.
“No way, Amanda,” A.C. hollered.
/> “I said, drop the gun and let her go!” Sassy yelled to her brother. Inching closer to the end of the hangar, Doug peeked around the corner and saw Adam Carlson holding a gun on Mara, who was seated in the driver's seat of her SUV. The left side of her face was swollen and there was blood trickling down the corner of her mouth.
“Duck, Mara!” Doug yelled, watching as Mara threw herself onto the seat, knocking her hat off on the open window frame as she did.
Again, everything went into slow motion. Two more shots rang out and Adam Carlson slumped to the ground. There was no movement except that of the feather from Mara's hat fluttering silently downward, where it landed next to A.C.’s lifeless body.
“Mara!” Doug shouted while running towards her SUV.
“Stay back, Ellie,” he called behind him.
Doug barely noticed the four police cruisers with flashing red lights as he pulled Mara out of the vehicle. It was then he saw Sassy lying on the ground about ten feet away. She had a gun in one hand pointing directly at the hole in her abdomen. Running to her, he cradled her head in his lap. She was still conscious and was clutching her abdomen with the other hand. Blood was tricking out of both corners of her mouth.
“Call an ambulance!” He hollered.
“We've got one on the way,” Ken Tandry said beside him.
“I missed my heart,” Sassy said, looking at Doug. “Guess I can't do anything right.”
“Adam Carlson and Brad Edwards are dead,” Craig Pilson said, walking up to Tandry.
“I had to kill Adam,” Sassy said in a voice that was strangely calm and caused everyone to stop talking to hear what she was saying. “I had to kill Adam before he killed Ellie or Mara.”
Sassy looked up at Tandry. “They're both innocent. They don't know anything about all this.”
She looked back at Doug. “After you came over today, Doug, when I saw how upset you were, there was something about the way you looked…it had to end…I couldn't let A.C. keep hurting people.”
“Don't try to talk. I need to read you your rights,” Tandry interrupted her. “Just hang on. An ambulance is on the way.”
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