Degrees of Separation

by Sue Henry

  “Oh, don’t start that again,” Jensen told him impatiently. “Just answer the question.”

  “I went on out to where the Old Glenn Highway meets the new and rode on to Peter’s Creek, where Robin’s brother lives. I thought she might have gone there. I came back on the new road.”

  “But she hadn’t been to her brother’s?”

  “No. He said he hadn’t seen or heard from her in days.”

  The two men glared at each other without speaking for a space so long that Commander Swift leaned forward with a question of his own.

  “So this Fenneli woman has a black jacket with the green Road Pirates patch? And she wears it when she rides?”

  Malone nodded. “Usually. But I have no way of knowing if she wore it whenever she left her house.”

  “Does she own a handgun?” Jensen asked.

  “Not to my knowledge. Why?”

  “One of your biker buddies took a shot at my partner, Phil Becker, and ran him off the road this side of the Matanuska River Bridge on Monday,” Jensen told him angrily. “That’s why. A witness gave us a description of a black motorcycle and a rider in black leather with the green shoulder patch. Becker’s in the hospital with a concussion and a badly broken arm. You know anything about that? It couldn’t have been you. I’ve already verified that you were in Sutton at the time it happened, so don’t climb back on your high horse. But, from what you tell me, it could just possibly have been Robin Fenneli.”

  “Or one of a bunch of other bikers,” Malone shot back. “It wasn’t me. And I know it wasn’t Robin either. Couldn’t have been. She hates guns.”

  “Well,” Jensen said thoughtfully. “The thing to do is find her. Tell us where you’ve already looked for her and anywhere else you can think of that she might go. We’ll get our people looking for her too.”

  He hesitated, thinking. “I also want as complete a list as possible of all the Road Pirates—every name you can come up with, and where they’re from, here to Anchorage and beyond—if there are any who come from beyond there.”

  “There are a few, but most are pretty local.”

  “Is the Aces Wild the only local pub they hang out in?”

  “There are a couple of others, including the Alpine in Sutton and the Knik Bar sometimes, but usually they collect at the Aces.”

  They made the list and Malone cooperated in its creation, though Jensen thought that there was a name or two he had reluctantly added to it and wondered about repercussions from some of the members of the Road Pirates, should they learn who had supplied the information. Several of the names listed he recognized from prior arrests, and two from Anchorage were known to be involved with drug dealing. There were five women’s names on the list, including Robin Fenneli and Sharon Parker.

  As they finished it, a mechanic for the troopers, who had been taking a look at the motorcycle Parker had ridden off the road to her death, interrupted to call Jensen out of the interview room with some new information.

  “Parker’s wreck was no accident, Alex. Someone messed with the steering and the brakes, though I’m not sure how yet—haven’t taken it apart. I’ll let the lab do that. But whoever it was, they intended her to lose control. The brakes failed, she couldn’t stop, and went straight off that corner.”

  Returning to the interview room, Alex changed his mind about informing Malone of Sharon Parker’s death and decided to wait until he received an autopsy report from the crime lab after the coroner’s examination of her body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JESSIE AND ALEX WERE UP EARLY WEDNESDAY MORNING, BOTH focused on what needed to be done after the large earthquake of the day before. There were all kinds of things that would require the assistance of law enforcement, as people reported everything from a gas leak to a robbery in progress. Alex needed to check in at the office and prioritize what would call for his attention, so he was leaving earlier than usual. Becker’s surgery was scheduled for later that morning and the surgeon had promised to call as soon as it was over with his report, so Alex intended to keep his cell phone handy.

  It was still dark enough to activate the motion sensors on the tall pole between the house and the dog yard when he drove his pickup down the drive and turned left on Knik Road, headed for Palmer. Jessie, warmly dressed against the temperature, which hovered just below freezing and had deposited a thin layer of frost on the top of each dog box, stood on the porch to wave him off, hoping it would soon warm up enough to melt the frost.

  She stepped down the stairs and went to prepare breakfast for her dogs. Not long after she started filling bowls throughout the kennel with food and water, the sun’s first rays crested the eastern hill and reached narrow fingers through the birch woods east of the log house and into the yard. Many of the bowls had held a thin skift of ice from the previous day’s water, which broke and began to melt as she poured fresh water, warmer from the faucet, over it. The dogs ate hungrily and were not bothered by the chill in the air, for they were bred with thick coats to withstand cold weather. To them it was normal for at least half the year.

  Too bad mushers aren’t covered with such protective coats, Jessie thought and grinned at the idea, picturing some she knew who wore heavy beards all winter for just such protection from the icy winds of the far north when they were out on the trail.

  Finished with her immediate dog yard chores, she walked to the mailbox to collect the morning’s paper. Then she headed back inside to plan the day ahead, which she knew would be filled with finishing the cleanup from the earthquake. Though the upstairs was clean and the unbreakable items were back where they belonged, she knew that during the quake some of the canned goods in their jars had rattled to the edge of the storage shelves in the basement and fallen to shatter on the cement floor, mixing her homemade spaghetti sauce with raspberry jelly and gooseberry jam.

  Inside the door, she kicked off her boots, hung up her warm coat and scarf, gloves and hat, and crossed sock-footed to add coffee to her cup. As she stirred a little sugar and cream into it, she glanced around the kitchen, now cleaner than it had been before the quake.

  “Ought to be one more often,” she told Tank over her shoulder, for he was already relaxed on the brightly colored rag rug in front of the cast-iron stove. “Or, since I could do without the shaking, maybe I should just clean the floor more often. It didn’t seem dirty, but it sure looks cleaner now.”

  Alex had checked the connections to the propane that provided fuel for the new furnace in the basement and declared them tight and safe to use. The metal chimney that reached to the ceiling high above had suffered no damage, but it needed a little straightening, which he had taken care of with the assistance of a tall ladder. As a result a cheerful fire now crackled in the potbellied stove, warming the room, and the space heaters had been put away.

  Sitting down at the table, she opened the paper and found the whole front page dedicated to news of the earthquake and its results. Pictures of the chaos created in the aisles of the grocery store where she had met Hank Peterson and Stevie Duncan two days before caught her attention and made her glad she had been elsewhere, for it was littered with items that had fallen from shelves and coolers. The accompanying article mentioned that a dozen people had been injured before they could escape, one with a serious head wound from a falling display rack.

  A colored photo showed a clerk with a broom in one hand standing in the doorway to the back of the store near the produce section, which now resembled a giant salad. The carefully piled pyramids of apples, oranges, lemons, peaches, even pineapples had evidently rolled and fallen in cascades from their countertop displays and crowded the floor below. Across the space, next to the wall, some of the stacks of vegetables had followed similarly—tomatoes, potatoes, red, yellow, and green peppers, lettuce, cabbage, and onions. A few carrots, celery, cucumbers, and others less likely to roll because of their shape had fallen anyway and added diversity to the mix.

  Good thing Stevie wasn’t there, she thought. She’d
have hated it worse than the one we felt two days ago.

  Jessie had decided years before that living in earthquake country was just a thing you either got used to and took for granted or you didn’t. You made preparations where possible and got on with living normally. Most people who couldn’t take the shaking as it came and were terrified of it eventually left Alaska for places where they felt safer and were not regularly reminded by small, minor tremblers that a big one would arrive sooner or later.

  As she flipped pages to another section of the paper, Jessie wondered just how much of New York City, for instance, was actually built to withstand an earthquake, if and when one came. This, she recalled from something she had read, was not an impossibility. It was much less likely than in Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or any city that lay around the Pacific on the Ring of Fire, where volcano eruptions and earthquakes happened frequently, but nonetheless….

  The colorful section of ads for the local grocery store fell out onto the floor, and as she picked it up, a special on a London broil caught her attention. Along with asparagus and a salad, it sounded tempting. There were also items that had been expelled from the refrigerator, broken or spilled, and needed to be replaced—milk, mayonnaise, the rest of the stew in a glass bowl. Though she knew a trip was necessary, the idea of braving the chaos of the local store was not appealing.

  “I could run into Anchorage,” she said, causing Tank to lift his head from his nap, yawn widely, and lay it back down again.

  “Yes, I know. I could replenish the supply of food for you too—and the rest of the guys outside. We’re running low. How about it? You want to go along?”

  He raised his head and sat up at the word “go.”

  The roads will be clear by now, Jessie thought. The basement will wait till—

  The phone rang, interrupting that thought.

  “Arnold Kennels,” she said.

  “Jessie? Oh, good. It’s Maxie in Homer. Are you okay up there? Of course we’ve all heard about the quake you had yesterday—epicenter was somewhere on the Denali Fault, from what the paper says. We felt it slightly and I’ve been trying to reach you, but the phones have been jammed. Are you and Alex both all right?”

  “You dear woman,” Jessie responded, pleased. “Yes, we’re both fine, just a few minor problems—half my jelly and jam, for instance, is mixed with spaghetti and glass on the basement floor, so it won’t be used for topping toast this winter. But nothing critical is broken. All the utilities are back to normal—light, heat, phone—obviously.

  “But how good of you to call. What are you doing in Homer? I expected you’d be long gone down the road to the Lower Forty-eight for the winter and I’d hear from you eventually from somewhere in southern or middle America.”

  There was chuckle from the older woman, an Alaskan resident, who, after her second husband died, had bought a motor home and for several years had spent the winters “Outside” in the contiguous states, mostly the southwest—a snowbird, following the warmth and sun with her mini-dachshund, Stretch, for company. Jessie had met her on a spring trip up the Alaska Highway and they had been friends ever since, talking often and seeing each other when they could.

  “Well,” Maxie confessed, “I did mean to go down the road, maybe see a bit of Texas or even Mexico. But somehow I just couldn’t get myself geared up for it this year. Would you believe me if I told you I’ve a hankering for snow and northern lights?”

  “You’re asking the pot to call the kettle black with that one,” Jessie told her. “You’ve no idea how much I’ve been yearning for snow, now that my knee is well enough to get back on a sled.”

  “We haven’t had any yet, though, have we? It’s going to be a beautiful sunny day and, with that in mind, I have a question for you. Could you put up with a houseguest for a day or two starting this afternoon? I’ve decided to store my house on wheels in Anchorage for the winter this year. It needs some minor repairs and one big one—something hokey going on with the cooling system. So I thought before it decides seriously to be winter I’d drive it up and fly back. But I’d love to see you. If you would give us—Stretch and me—shelter for a couple of nights, I’ll rent a car and drive out.”

  “What a great idea! We’d love it,” Jessie told her with a grin that evidently carried over the line along with the enthusiasm in her voice, for Maxie laughed again before she spoke and Jessie could picture her expression clearly.

  “Well, then—”

  “Wait a minute,” Jessie told her. “I’ve got a better idea than your renting a car. I had just decided to drive into Anchorage on a supply run. Our store, as you can imagine, is total chaos—impossible for the moment. So I’ll be headed that direction and can pick you up wherever you leave the Winnebago. When you’re ready to go home—hopefully more than two short days—I’ll drive you back to Anchorage. There’s always some excuse to go to the big city, even if I don’t want to live there with over three dozen dogs. How would that be?”

  “Just dandy, as you know. But you’re sure you were already planning to drive in?”

  “Definitely. Gotta have supplies for the mutts and sustenance for the lawman. We’re low on Jameson as well, and you can’t ever be too prepped for the winter with a case or two of Killian’s. Can’t be caught out of the necessities of life now, can we? And your company will make it perfect.”

  Another two minutes of phone time and they had arranged for Maxie to call Jessie’s cell phone when she was ready to be picked up at the address she provided on the Old Seward Highway in Anchorage.

  “Good. About three, you think? I’ll go in about noon, get the shopping done, and be ready to find you there. Oh, Alex will be pleased. Me too, of course. See you then.”

  Jessie immediately called Alex, who was delighted to hear that Maxie was coming to visit and added a few things to her grocery list before he gave her the news on Becker’s successful surgery.

  “It evidently went just fine. They found setting the arm was easier than anticipated and he’s resting comfortably, sleeping off the anesthetic. Even the concussion was less serious than they thought at first. It’s a relief.”

  “I thought I’d take some flowers to the hospital,” Jessie told him. “That okay with you? Something bright and cheerful.”

  “Works for me. By the time you get back from Anchorage he’ll be out of recovery and you could probably stop by the hospital and say hello. You and Maxie would be a double ray of sunshine and could bring the flowers with you. He’ll probably be groggy, but you know Phil—he’s tough, and besides, he likes you a lot and has met Maxie before.”

  “Great idea. Then I’ll be able to pick up a humorous card as well. I’ll do that and put your name on it too. Okay?”

  “You bet. Get chips and some of that spinach dip at the grocery, will you? And filling in the Killian’s supply isn’t a bad idea.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You’ll have your cell phone. If I think of anything I’ll call you.”

  After giving the dogs in the kennel extra water, cleaning the floor of the basement after all to have it out of the way, and changing the linen on the bed in the second upstairs bedroom, Jessie was ready to leave for Anchorage just before noon, as planned.

  She closed and locked the front door, walked with Tank to her truck, and headed down the driveway to Knik Road, pleased to be heading for Anchorage and seeing her friend.

  Waiting for a blue van to pass before turning left, she didn’t notice a car more than half hidden in the old overgrown road where she had found the evidence of a truck and motorcycle on Monday. Focused on the idea of welcome company, she also missed seeing a person in a green jacket who stepped quickly behind a spruce and peered out cautiously to watch her leave before walking to the drive and up to the house. Passing along the north side of it, the figure went on into the trees and started up the hill.

  When it had vanished from sight, the dogs stopped barking at the trespasser. Some went into their boxes,
others jumped atop them, but some simply stood staring in the direction it had gone and might return.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “IT WAS PRETTY EASY ON DRY ROADS UNTIL I GOT THROUGH Cooper Landing to the Seward Highway junction,” Maxie told Jessie in answer to her question about the two-hundred-plus-mile drive from Homer on the Kenai Peninsula to Anchorage. “Then it was icy in spots, mostly over Turnagain Pass, where it snowed several inches a couple of days ago and caught a little more last night from the look of it. It’s beautiful up there this time of year, but it can be treacherously slick, so I took it slow and easy, and made it the rest of the way with no problem. From Girdwood to Anchorage the road was dry. Have to admit, though, that I’m glad I don’t have to drive the rig back down till spring.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” Jessie agreed. “I hadn’t thought about there not being winter tires on your motor home. But then you wouldn’t need them if you were going someplace warm, would you?”

  “No. Lots of Alaskans do have them, of course. Those who take their rigs out during hunting season, for instance, and mushers like you, who drive with dogs and also have helpers to drive them from checkpoint to checkpoint during races.”

  “That’s right. I have all-weather tires on this truck now, but will trade them off for studs when it finally snows enough to need them, especially if I run the Iditarod or the Yukon Quest.”

  Arriving in Anchorage just afternoon, Jessie first stopped at Alaska Mill and Feed to pick up a number of large bags of dry dog food she had ordered by phone and which were waiting for her to load with the help of two young employees and a low rolling cart. It would be part of what she fed her forty hungry sled dogs and had to replenish often. The bags filled much of the bed of her truck and the rest was taken up with people food in boxes from the grocery store, where she spent well over an hour and filled three carts, adding significantly to her list in terms of unbreakable canned and frozen food to have on hand in case of future earthquakes. Knowing she and Alex had not paid enough attention to the things they should have on hand in quake country, she had also replenished their supply of bottled water, flashlight and radio batteries, and a few items for the first aid kit.