Feather From a Stranger

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  Aftermath

  BRAD EDWARDS WAS OBVIOUSLY DEAD. THE BULLET WOUND ON THE FRONT of his chest and the four-inch exit wound just below his left shoulder blade made that a certainty. Staring down at the corpse of what had been a ruggedly fit man, Ken Tandry wondered how someone so young could have had his life end this way.

  Ken was on one side of Mara and Sarah on the other as they walked up to the body. Mara looked at the man she had been married to, feeling numb. Even now, gray in death and covered with a thick brown stubble from lack of shaving, he had the same face she remembered. She looked at his hands. They were the same hands that had caressed her, the same hands that had held her, the same hands that had steered their plane on so many flights.

  Missing was the gold wedding band that she had placed on the ring finger of his left hand nearly five years ago. Suddenly she remembered. Last Wednesday would have been their fifth wedding anniversary. She looked at his face again. There, above his left eyebrow, was the scar that he got when a tree branch fell on him while they were hiking right before he had proposed to her. The watch he now wore was the same one he had worn ever since she first met him.

  “This is definitely Brad Edwards,” she said in a barely audible voice to Ken Tandry and Craig Pilson, who both had her sign independent statements, witnessed by each of them, to that effect. “This is Brad Edwards, but my husband died four years ago.” “I'm sorry. What was that?” Ken Tandry prodded her gently.

  “I mean that this is my husband's body, but the man I loved, the man I thought I knew… he's been gone from me for four years.”

  Staring at the lifeless form of the man that she had once loved, Mara took the St. Christopher medals from around her neck and placed them over his head.

  “He's going to need these more than I do,” she said before quietly walking away.

  Ken took a similar statement of identity from his wife, with Craig Pilson co-signing the identification forms before allowing the coroner to remove the remains of Brad Edwards from the scene. He added a few notes.

  The body would be donated to science after forensics tests were completed. Once his usefulness to medicine had been exhausted, Brad Edwards would be cremated and his ashes placed in his family's vault in South Dakota. In spite of the previous death certificate declaring her husband legally dead, Mara made these decisions as his wife, since Brad had officially been determined not to have died four years ago.

  Mara signed the instructions that Ken had written as being her own. She said she understood that these arrangements were pending further investigation and release of Brad's body by the federal officials. There was no one else, she told him, and signed a paper attesting to that fact. Like her, Brad had been an only child, and like her, both of his parents were dead, killed in an automobile accident six years ago. She had met them, she told Tandry, only once.

  She verified the address of the county clerk in their hometown, after police officials had located it, and authorized release of any and all information to them as they deemed necessary. Later, alone in her room, she released the flood of emotions that she had been holding in for so long.

  SASSY HAD ALREADY IDENTIFIED ADAM CARLSON AT THE SCENE, AND HIS identity had been confirmed through fingerprints. After forensics tests were completed, his remains would be buried in one of the two graves that Sassy had purchased for them near her ranch. Sassy had asked Craig Pilson to see to that as she was being loaded into the ambulance.

  “What are the odds of Amanda Carlson making it?” an officer at the scene asked Ken Tandry.

  “Wouldn't even want to try to guess,” Tandry answered.

  “We'll know more in a couple of hours after I go down to Anchorage and talk to the doctors. In the meantime, we've posted an officer at her door and plan to place her under arrest the moment she shows any sign of recovery.”

  Getting into his police car, Ken lowered the window and called to Ellie.

  “Tell Sarah I probably won't be back until late. I'll call her from Anchorage as soon as I get a chance. The three of you will be fine now. Doug should be coming back with Thor soon, too.”

  Ken Tandry drove down the drive followed by two police cars and two tow trucks that were pulling Amanda Carlson's and Adam Carlson's vehicles, respectively, behind them. By the time the women reached the house, Doug had arrived and pulled up in front of the bunkhouse. After unlocking the bunkhouse door, he walked back to his truck and lifted Thor off the seat, carrying him inside.

  “You're sleeping inside tonight, buddy, and every night from now on,” he told his dog, as he placed a dish of fresh water on the chair seat and pushed it next to the bed so that Thor could drink without the strain of trying to move from his comfortable spot. “The vet says no food tonight, boy. Try to understand, okay?”

  Doug helped Thor onto the bed and put a blanket over him. Still groggy from the anesthetic, Thor went right to sleep. Doug turned the heat up a couple of degrees warmer than usual and latched the door from outside, leaving Thor alone to rest.

  On his way over to the main house, he noticed blood in the dirt not far from the front door, in just about the place that Brad Edwards had died. After a quick call to Ken Tandry to make sure it was okay, he proceeded to wash the area down with a heavy spray of water from the hose, before raking up the loose dirt and hauling it off to the woods where he hosed it down some more.

  Along the way, he saw drops of blood from the other victims and handled them all the same way. He walked over the area at least twenty times to make sure he hadn't missed any.

  By the time he was done, he felt sickened. Two people had died here today, and one was critically injured at her own hand, while over in the bunkhouse, his own dog lay recovering from a bullet wound.

  He wondered what twist of fate had allowed all of this to happen? How could his only brother be murdered, his brother's business partner be someone else thought long dead, and his girlfriend's brother be tied to both. How could three women close to him—four, really, if you counted Sassy—have become entwined in this mess?

  He went back to the bunkhouse and saw that Thor was sleeping comfortably, his chest rising and falling with each breath. After locking up again, he walked over to the house.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Joe Revealed

  “I CLEANED UP THE MESS OUT IN THE YARD,” DOUG TOLD MARA, SARAH, and Ellie as he sat down at the kitchen table.

  Sarah whirled around with a scowl that prompted him to explain.

  “Don't worry, Sarah, I called Ken first and he said it was okay.”

  “I'm sorry, Doug,” Sarah told him. “I guess I was just thinking of all the work Ken has to do and the answers he has to come up with to put this case to rest. I was wrong to jump to any conclusions and imply that you might be messing up any evidence.”

  “No offense taken, Sarah. You and Ken should be thinking of nothing but your honeymoon, but instead you got caught up in all this.”

  “I know, Doug, but as hard as it is to admit this, if not for Dan's murder— and forgive me if this comes out all wrong—what I'm trying to say is that I would never have met my husband at all.”

  Sarah was fumbling for words and getting flustered in the process.

  “Oh, Doug. There is just no right way to make the analogy. Now I'm sorry.”

  “I think Sarah just means that something good seems to always come from something bad,” Ellie said. “Thank you for cleaning up, Doug.”

  “Thank you for being there for me, too, Doug,” Mara said. “Without you, without all of you, I don't know if anybody would have believed me when I said that Steve Bitten was really Brad.”

  Doug looked at Mara, whose eyes were still swollen from crying and face still swollen from being hit by A.C. He looked at Ellie, who was so thin and drawn that she looked as if she had aged ten years, as he reached up and felt his own swollen and tender nose.

  “I think we have all been through as much strain as anyone should have to go through, and I want all of you to know that you wil
l always—each one of you—be the center of my universe for the rest of my natural life,” Doug said, hugging all three women one by one.

  Sarah brought two ice packs and handed one to Doug and one to Mara, just as Ken Tandry walked in.

  “It looks like Sassy is going to pull through, at least for now,” he said. “She's in surgery right now, so I won't get a chance to talk to her anymore today.”

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the feather that had landed on the ground next to Adam Carlson's body.

  “I remember seeing this in your hat, Mara. I thought it might be important and that you might want it back.”

  Mara reached out and took the feather from Tandry's outstretched hand. Holding it, she was speechless, almost hearing the words of Joe Michael on the day he handed it to her on the ferry. She had long ago memorized his words.

  Your present is the future of your past.

  You will need this to protect your future from your past.

  All who come here seek the future of their past.

  Mara picked up her hat and placed the feather back in the band, noticing as she did, the small red dot painted on the edge of the feather.

  “I really must ask Joe the meaning of the dot,” she said out loud, but no one seemed to hear her as they sat huddled around the table discussing the investigation.

  “I GUESS THE FEDS WILL BE COMING UP TO PALMER TOMORROW TO MEET with me and the D.A.” Tandry said. “It's possible they will want to talk to all of you as well. I don't have much to report except to tell you that they are exercising their higher authority in obtaining the body of Brad Edwards, and have obtained a court order to delay the autopsy and cremation. Do you know any reason why they would be so interested in your husband, Mara?”

  “Hold on a minute, Ken!” Doug said jumping up. “You make it sound like Mara was in on something here.”

  Tandry, his face flushed with embarrassment, turned to face Mara.

  “Mara, I…” Mara stopped him from finishing the sentence.

  “It's a legitimate question,” she said, looking first at Doug and then the others.

  “Ken…Sgt. Tandry, no, I don't know why they would be so interested.”

  Sitting back in the rocking chair, she repeated the story of how she and Brad had met in college, married right after, and moved to Brazil to begin research work in the Amazon. She told how it had been Brad's research plane that crashed and how intensive ground and air searches had turned up no sign of him, both in the days immediately after the crash, and in subsequent independent searches conducted over the next six months. The only things found, she told Tandry, had been his research notes and the St. Christopher medal that he wore.

  She re-iterated how she had been told that the steepness of the terrain and the surrounding unexplored jungle had made recovering his body all but impossible. After four years of waiting, she emphasized to Tandry, and after numerous investigations by the Brazilian, Peruvian and United States Governments—investigations that had been formally requested by both the members of the university they worked for, and by herself— Brad Edwards had been declared missing and presumed dead.

  Finally, she said in closing, she had received Brad's death certificate just one month before leaving for Alaska, and had used that short time frame before her departure to finalize his affairs.

  “I can guarantee you and I can guarantee the federal investigators and anyone else who cares to know, that Brad was just as surprised to see me as I was him, at your and Sarah's wedding, Ken. The Mara that my husband knew would never have had the courage or resolve to move to Alaska, not to mention, alone, and in the wintertime. Neither would she have had the courage to tell you and everyone else who wants to know, how utterly tired she has become of repeating this same story so many times that it is almost insulting to have to answer it again.”

  The sound of a pin dropping in the room as Mara spoke would have sounded like a kettledrum against the silence that ensued. Even Mara was shocked at her newfound verve.

  “I apologize to you, Ken, if I sound rude. Please try to understand that I just simply have reached the end of my tolerance for all that has happened.”

  Sarah walked over to Ken and put her arm around his shoulders, while Ken stared at his feet. Ellie got up to wipe the kitchen counters and Doug simply sat there, staring at her.

  “Something about Brad's death—then and now,” Mara continued, “has made me re-evaluate everything about my life. Certainly, I am no longer afraid of the unknown,” she said with a hollow laugh.

  “I'm not afraid to live anymore, either. The truth is…the ultimate irony in all of this pain is that I can take whatever life throws my way now. Bring it on, I say. I've got nothing left to lose.”

  Mara left them all standing there while she walked outside for some air.

  “It's been such a long day,” Ellie said. She looked up at the clock in the kitchen that said it was six o'clock. “It's hard to believe that just four hours ago, we were involved in such violence right here in my own yard.”

  “Mara's right, Ken,” Sarah told her husband. “She's been through enough.”

  Ken nodded silently before getting up and stepping outside for one of the rare cigars he indulged in. Mara passed him on the way in, stopping to squeeze his arm and flash him a weak smile.

  “I know you're just doing your job, Ken.”

  Flicking on the TV set, Doug flipped to the local news channel.

  “Might as well see ourselves on the news,” he said.

  Mara looked at the screen, stunned to see a picture of Joe Michael with a caption underneath that read: Southeast Alaska Native Elder, Dead.

  “Quick, Doug, turn it up,” she insisted.

  The urgency in her voice caught everyone's attention as they listened to the words of the news anchor's report:

  Southeast Alaska native elder Joe Michael died of cardiac arrest at 2 p.m. today at an Anchorage hospital.

  His age is unknown, but he is believed to have been born on a beach near Hoonah, Alaska, in the first decade of the twentieth century.

  According to residents of the native population in Hoonah, Joe Michael was abandoned at birth and adopted by local Christian villagers in Hoonah.

  He married Hoonah resident, Mary Chapell, who later perished in a house fire, along with their five children five years ago. That fire was determined to be from faulty wiring.

  A carver by trade, Joe left Hoonah shortly after the fire and severed most ties with the community. Many said that it was just too painful for him to stay there where he had lost everything dear to him.

  Two Hoonah residents reported seeing him from time to time in remote areas of Southeast Alaska. They say he was known to wander there alone, living off the land, and seldom asking for assistance from anyone.

  They report that he returned to the village two years ago, where two sick children became well after his visit. Many villagers report instances of hearing him vow that no others centered in his spiritual awareness would suffer a violent fate, such as the one that befell his family.

  No one is sure why Joe Michael left Hoonah two years ago and never returned. It has been reported that he was sometimes seen on the ferry that traveled between Southeast Alaska communities.

  A few who have come forward to discuss these encounters have reported feeling a sense of unexplained connection with the mysterious elder. Some even go so far as to claim to have felt a protective aura surround them after encounters with this man.

  No one who we have been able to talk to has indicated that Joe Michael was ever considered a danger or a menace to society. To the contrary, he seems to have been accepted—not only in his community, but elsewhere—as a compassionate, albeit mysterious, figure of goodness and healing.

  According to authorities, a well-worn and simple hand-written will was found in Joe Michael's possession. In keeping with his wishes, there will be no funeral, and Joe Michael will be buried on an unnamed beach near Hoonah sometime next week.


  Mara gasped as a photo of a younger Joe was flashed on the screen alongside a more recent photo of him wearing the same ball cap and dark rimmed glasses that she remembered. Unbelievably, in the photo, there was a feather identical to the one he had given Mara, laying across the brim of his hat.

  “What time did everything happen outside?” Mara asked in a steely whisper.

  “It was 1:45 when I pulled into the driveway,” Doug said. “I know because I remember looking at my watch. It was about fifteen minutes later when I told you to dive in your SUV.”

  “The official police report has the time of death of Brad Edwards at 1:55 and Adam Carlson at 2 p.m.,” Tandry added.

  “As I dove,” Mara said so softly that the others had to strain to hear, “my hat flew off. “And when you gave it back to me, Ken, the feather was gone.”

  Mara looked at Ken Tandry, who stared at her in astonishment.

  “And that is the feather that I picked up off the ground next to Adam Carlson's body.”

  “Dear God,” Mara said in barely a whisper, “Joe sent the spirit of his life to protect me.”

  She paused to take a deep breath.

  “In doing so, he must have lost any strength he needed for his own heart to keep beating. That's why he was in the hospital—for his heart. I saw him there, and when I checked back the next day, he had been admitted to the Coronary Unit and was not allowed any visitors.”

  Mara got up and walked slowly outside while the others sat in stunned silence. All had seen the feather before and had even heard her comment on how it kept falling out of her bag or off her hat at the most inconvenient times. None had thought the feather important except for five-year old Anna. Mara heard Thor whimper in the bunkhouse and opened the door to see the dog looking straight at her. Crawling onto the bed, she wrapped her arms around the huge animal and wept.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE