Driftfeather on the Alaska Seas

by Marianne Schlegelmilch

  Driftfeather on the

  Alaska Seas

  Ultimate Future of the

  Past--Another Alaskan Mystery

  Marianne Schlegelmilch

  PO Box 221974 Anchorage, Alaska 99522-1974

  books@publicationconsultants.com—www.publicationconsultants.com

  ISBN 978-1-59433-318-7

  EBook ISBN 978-1-59433-319-4

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2012942361

  Copyright 2012 Marianne Schlegelmilch

  —First Edition—

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form, and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  In memory of Shadow Schlegelmilch,

  the Best Dog on Earth

  Contents

  Chapter One Beginning from the End

  Chapter Two Chance Encounter?

  Chapter Three The War

  Chapter Four Clean Break … Almost

  Chapter Five Juneau Office

  Chapter Six Past Present—Again!

  Chapter Seven Inside Scoop

  Chapter Eight Home Sweet Home

  Chapter Nine New Focus

  Chapter Ten Storm Roamer

  Chapter Eleven Settling In

  Chapter Twelve Questions

  Chapter Thirteen Kona Coffee on the Deck

  Chapter Fourteen Maiden Voyage

  Chapter Fifteen What’s with Stu?

  Chapter Sixteen Old Ways

  Chapter Seventeen Dinner for …?

  Chapter Eighteen Fine Dining

  Chapter Nineteen Uncharted Waters

  Chapter Twenty Misty Solace

  Chapter Twenty-One Wedding Bells and the Rain

  Chapter Twenty-Two What the …

  Chapter Twenty-Three Hmm …

  Chapter Twenty-Four Down Time

  Chapter Twenty-Five Java Java

  Chapter Twenty-Six It’s Only Right …

  Chapter Twenty-Seven Stu’s Memorial

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Past Revelations

  Chapter Twenty-Nine Are You Kidding Me?

  Chapter Thirty Casual Invitation?

  Chapter Thirty-One Seeing the Light

  Chapter Thirty-Two The Magic of Spring

  Chapter Thirty-Three Emily

  Chapter Thirty-Four Friend in Need

  Chapter Thirty-Five Will You …

  Chapter Thirty-Six Injustice?

  Chapter Thirty-Seven New Information

  Chapter Thirty-Eight Is It Over Yet?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine Enough Already

  Chapter Forty Heart-wrenching Discovery

  Chapter Forty-One Who’s Who?

  Chapter Forty-Two Facing It Alone

  Chapter Forty-Three Less Is More, More or Less

  Chapter Forty-Four What Really Happened Here?

  Chapter Forty-Five Closure … Almost

  Chapter Forty-Six Fine Dining

  Chapter Forty-Seven To Beach or Not to Beach …

  Chapter Forty-Eight Home

  Chapter One

  Beginning from the End

  The divorce had been acrimonious—unexpectedly, to say the least, and not helped one tiny bit by the fact that Mara’s now ex-husband had brought Sassy’s daughter, Erin, to the proceedings.

  Perhaps it had been some kind of skewed karma or something, since it had been she who Doug had left Sassy for, although by no means had she been instrumental in that happening. Now he had left her.

  No, it had all been out of her control, she having just arrived in Alaska from the South-48 when they met—flung, along with Doug and all those close to him, into the melodrama of international proportions that had marked her first two years in the place many called the Last Frontier.

  Erin certainly hadn’t looked pregnant anymore when she had seen her at the proceedings this morning. Not that that was a tragedy. Being free of any memory of her cruel rape at the hands of the drug lord who killed her mother was probably a good thing for someone as young as she, no matter how well-intentioned she had been about accepting the circumstances of her life. Why, and under what circumstances, nearly 40-year-old Doug Williams had become entangled with the daughter of his ex-lover was the real mystery.

  She shrugged as the scenario played out in her head. Why should she care? She and Doug were now officially divorced, and he had chosen to not even show a final increment of respect by bringing his young paramour to the courtroom.

  She had personally handed their wolf-dog, Thor, over to him on the way out of the courthouse, and it had been hard. She and Thor had always had a close bond and having him with her as she readied her house for sale and packed for the move to Juneau had been her only joy since Doug had shocked her with the news that he was leaving her.

  Doug wanted Thor back, and since Thor was originally his dog she didn’t resist. She and Thor would always be connected—and that was a fact. She had told Doug more than once, and in no uncertain terms, that if he ever changed his mind about keeping Thor, he should find a way to get him to her—no matter what it took to find her. She would try to believe that he had listened.

  According to the court clerk, it would take two weeks before the paperwork making the change to her maiden name would be final. Somehow that made it all the easier to drive down to the glacier-fed Knik River south of Palmer and let the SUV Doug had bought her for her last birthday roll into the river. By the time any of them knew about the “accident,” she would have filed a report on the lost vehicle, claiming that she had, in her distraught state, accidentally forgotten to put it in park when she had stopped near the river to mourn the end of her marriage.

  The newspaper would later report the accident and that she was okay, but by then she would be well on her way to Juneau with none of those who had been her Alaska family aware of how or when she would get there. Although, for some, the act could be viewed as immature and overly dramatic, Brad Edwards had left her a wealthy widow and the sacrificing of the SUV accomplished the dual purpose of freeing her from another memory of the man whose pledge to love her forever had been as empty as he had left her heart, and of securing her freedom from those who she knew might try to find her.

  At least Doug had been decent enough to forfeit any claim to her assets—a relief in view of his otherwise contentious behavior as of late. The new truck and camper she purchased before leaving Palmer the next day would serve to take her to a new life, free from all the horrors of the past two years.

  As far as her friends in Palmer, those with whose lives she had become tightly entwined, having hidden Doug’s activities with Erin from her—well, they would have to be part of the past. Whether intentionally or not, they had betrayed her.

  Never again would she trust as much as she had this time. Except for Thor, none of them mattered anymore—or so Mara Benson’s head tried to silence her heart.

  Chapter Two

  Chance Encounter?

  “Boy, I didn’t see that one coming either, Jane,” a woman at the next gas pump from where Mara was filling up in Glenallen said.

  “Sal?”

  “Well, I ain’t Elizabeth Taylor,” Sal answered, laughing. “Although Joe says I coulda been back in the day.”

  “Is Joe okay?” Mara asked.

  “More ‘n okay,” Sal answered. “I’ll tell ‘im ya asked. Better yet, you tell ‘im.”

  Just then, Joe Michael walked up to his new model one-ton dualie pick-up and wiped a speck off the front chrome bumper bef
ore turning to acknowledge her.

  “You’ re gettin’ to be kinda high maintenance, young lady,” he laughed.

  The sound of Joe’s Native Alaskan accent erased any qualms she might have had about taking this brief detour from her travels. The old man, who had mysteriously walked into her life almost two years ago, soothed her just by his presence—the gentleness of his voice a steadying reassurance that there was some kind of sanity and rationality in life.

  Joe looked grayer now. Maybe it was because he had exchanged his black-rimmed eyeglasses for a more modern rimless pair. She mentioned the change, complimenting him on his new appearance rather than focusing on the added gray hair.

  “Kinda miss my old ones,” he said, pushing on the bridge to move the glasses up his nose. “But Sal says these are sexier.”

  Joe’s lighthearted wink said it all.

  “Don’t ya be an old fool now, sweet baby,” Sal said with mock sternness.

  Mara smiled at seeing the love the two shared. The woman who had taken her in so many times when she was in need, and who affectionately always referred to her as “Jane,” had ended up being the love of Joe Michael’s life.

  If someone who had been through what Joe Michael had in life could find love again, then maybe there was hope for people like her. After all, at least she hadn’t lost her entire family to a fire, nor had she fought two combat tours in Vietnam like Joe had. Then again, hadn’t the stress she had faced in losing Brad in a plane crash, finding him alive under an assumed name in Alaska, and then seeing him murdered before her eyes been just about as traumatic as what Joe had been through? And now there was the divorce …

  “Well, gotta get down to the VFW for taco night,” Joe said, climbing onto the running boards of his truck and sliding onto the seat.

  She watched Sal nudge Joe on the arm and lean over to whisper something in his ear.

  “Oh … yeah,” she heard him say.

  “If ya got nothin’ goin’, why don’t ya join us?” he said out the rolled-down truck window.

  “I don’t know …” Mara hesitated.

  “C’mon, Jane,” Sal said. “Ain’t nothin’ ta be embarrassed about with the divorce.”

  How did Sal know about her divorce?

  “Look, Jane,” Sal said. “Some guys just think they know what they want and some think they don’t, and some just drift around tryin’ to figure out which way they think. But it all comes down to the fact that some guys just can’t handle knowin’ they found a good woman, and so they revert back to what they think they want, and more often ‘n not, that means hangin’ with some skank. Now, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t sayin that’s what happened with yer man—especially bein’ as he hooked up with a babe with bucks, but, on the other hand, skank is as skank does and so—I’m just sayin’ … ”

  She laughed at Sal’s description of Doug and Erin. Certainly Erin De la Corte was a girl—a woman—of breeding, but, historically, she had shown a tendency to display poor judgment in her choice of men. Hadn’t her birth mother, Sassy, been just the same way?

  Maybe character formation was genetic? Why else would a woman like Erin just not know any better even in the face of outstanding upbringing? Sassy was another story, but Erin? Well, that question would be better left to others. She was certainly no psychologist.

  As for Doug, well, what could she say about him? He had been through hell in the past couple of years. First the murder of his brother, then his failed relationship with Erin’s mother, Amanda Carlson, the loss of his beloved seiner—and along with it, his chosen lifestyle.

  Doug Williams had proven himself to be a man lost. Why she, as his wife and closest confidante, had not been able to pull him through the tragedies that weighed so heavily on him—a fact made all the more hurtful by his choosing of a questionable relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter—was the real mystery, or was failure a better word? But, then, wasn’t that just like her—to always take the blame for others’ misfortune? As if reading her mind, Sal leaned over Joe, and called out the truck window.

  “Ya can stand there mullin’ it all over till ya implode, Jane, but the bottom line is that we all got choices, and yer guy, Doug, made his. When ya stop blamin’ yerself for everyone else’s thinkin’, then maybe ya can move on with findin’ yer own happiness.”

  Mara looked at Sal. The woman was scary in her ability to see into her mind.

  “We’ll see ya over ta the VFW,” Sal said. “Jest turn left at the corner and then left again about a half mile up. You’ll see it. There’s about twenty flags along the front. Can’t miss it.”

  She waved to the two as they drove off. Maybe she would just continue down the road. When she saw the flag-lined one-story rectangular building with Joe’s truck sitting out front, she slowed, sped up, then suddenly whipped left into the parking lot, where she pulled up beside the light gray dualie, got out, and went inside.

  Chapter Three

  The War

  Joe Michael was leaning on one elbow against the long wooden bar inside the VFW when Mara walked through the door. Holding her breath in a futile attempt to escape the fumes in the smoke-filled room, she walked up and stood beside him.

  Joe was talking with the bartender, a sixty-something man with the moderate paunch and gray-bearded face so typical of his generation of Vietnam veterans. Seated alone, at the far end of the bar, a sinewy oldster sat wearing a ball cap that listed the unit he had fought with in World War II.

  “Buy my man, Joe, here a drink,” the oldster called out, struggling to catch his breath before taking a long drag on his cigarette.

  “Ya know I cut way back on drinkin’ while you still could stand up without yer walker, Murph,” Joe called to him playfully.

  “Yeah, so ya said. Damn Nam vets—rather suck in somma that illegal funny stuff than take a good respectable drink,” Murph called back, signaling the bartender to give him a refill on his whiskey.

  “Thanks all the same now, Murph,” Joe laughed. “You just make sure ta call yer daughter to come get ya when yer ready to go home, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, but she ain’t gonna like it none,” Murph muttered.

  “You ready to go home, Grandpa?” a young woman called from the doorway to the bar.

  “Now who in the blazes told ya ta come git me, granddaughter? As in if I didn’t already know that yer mother’s hell-bent on bein’ the same killjoy as’n her own mother—God rest her sainted soul—was.”

  Stubbing out his cigarette, Murph gave an exasperated half wave to no one in particular and joined his granddaughter at the door.

  “C’mon, Grandpa. You know Mom’s got dinner waitin’ for ya at home.”

  “I was gettin’ ready to think about headin’ back jest afore ya got here. Weren’t no need fer yer mother ta send …”

  Murph sputtered and spewed as the door clunked closed behind him. Mara laughed at seeing the way the old man became docile in spite of his gruff demeanor. Seeing all the men who had congregated in this place with those like-minded, many with hats or caps identifying their status as war veterans, made her think of her own father.

  He had died when she was nine, making him virtually a stranger to her except for the memory of how he had always brought her something bearing the likeness of an eagle every Christmas—each time telling her the bird was the proud symbol of his Army unit, and prompting her to think of her father every time she saw one of the magnificent birds that were so plentiful in Alaska.

  “Tell me about my father,” she said, sliding onto the bar stool next to Joe.

  “Bring us a coupla beers, would ya?” Joe Michael said to the bartender, before turning to face her, all the while looking down as he talked.

  “Your father was a hero, Mara. Most everyone who was there was a hero. It’s just that in this case, he was my hero. Like Sal told ya—he kept me from steppin’ on that land mine.

  “It was near Thanksgiving in ‘66. Our platoon had just finished a mission outside of Tuy Hoa
and were making our way back to base camp when your father, who was walkin’ point, signaled us to stay back. I was walkin’ right behind him and for some reason I had been lookin’ down and missed the signal.

  “I called to him in a whisper, just like I always did, and told him I was comin’ up on his right. Just as I was about to step forward, he threw himself sideways, knockin’ me off the trail, which was at the top of a small rise. I tumbled down the far side of it, landin’ at the bottom just in time to avoid the blast …”

  Joe’s voice had become low and his speech hesitant. Although she couldn’t be sure in the dark, smoky haze of the bar, she thought she saw a tear fall onto Joe’s cheek and looked uncomfortably away.

  “Your father came rollin’ down the rise right behind me and nearly landed right on top of me,” Joe continued, wiping his eyes before laughing wryly.

  “At first we grabbed onto each other to try to steel ourselves against the concussion from the blast. For a minute I thought I was deaf. It wasn’t long before I knew I wasn’t.

  “You never heard cussin’ the likes of what yer father unloaded on me right there—tellin’ me to never follow the point man that close again, and lucky I didn’t get the both of us killed by doin’ somethin’ that stupid—and a few other choice words you’re better off not hearin’.”

  For several minutes, neither of them said anything as Joe took a couple of swigs of beer, and she sat trying to picture the scene he had just described.

  “Too bad he had to die the slow death by poison that Agent Orange gave him,” Joe said, somberly.

  She placed one hand on Joe’s arm as she watched him fight back more tears and struggled to hold back her own.

  “I just gotta believe that they didn’t know it would kill us all,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “Our own government. We were fightin’ for them and for everyone in our country and everyone held under oppression in Nam. To think they were using somethin’ that could harm us as we served—takin’ that kind of chance—well, I just can’t let myself think they would take that kind of risk. I could never live with believin’ that and I want you to believe that, too, Mara—that they never knew they were killin’ good men like your father and all the rest when they sprayed that defoliant in the jungles we were fightin’ in.”