Degrees of Separation

by Sue Henry

  Along with Maxie’s small suitcase, all this now filled the truck bed under a canvas tarp she had tied down to keep anything from flying out and as protection against the small icy snowflakes that had begun to fall just enough to cause Jessie to turn on the windshield wipers.

  At three thirty in the afternoon, the two women were almost to Eagle River with a ways to go to the Mat-Su Valley, with Tank and mini-dachshund, Stretch, good buddies from prior time spent together, in the backseat of Jessie’s truck. Stretch had curled up for a nap and Tank was watching the world go by out a side window.

  Jessie was quiet for a long moment, then burst out suddenly with an expression of her unexpected relief in seeing her friend.

  “Oh, Maxie, it’s so good to see you! Alex said to tell you you’re welcome to stay all winter if you like—and I totally agree with him. Your company is just what I needed right now.”

  “You sound like you need a good talk,” Maxie commented, hearing the frustration in Jessie’s voice. “That all can’t be due to the earthquake. From what you said on the phone, it didn’t do too much damage.”

  “No, you’re right. It could have been much worse—didn’t come anywhere close to the sixty-four quake. Considering how badly some parts of the community were hit, we got off lucky, nothing major. But the last few days have been more than just frustrating, they’ve been downright frightening.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it all started when it snowed just enough to take out a team with a sled on a training run. Then on the way back we ran over a dead man on the upper trail behind the house.”

  “A dead man? Did I hear you correctly?”

  “Yeah, you did. It turned out to be a young man from Sutton named Donny Thompson who someone shot and left there. Alex is working on the case. So was Becker, until one of the bikers Donny rode with ran him off the road and put him in the hospital.”

  She proceeded to tell Maxie everything she knew that had transpired since the previous Sunday, ending with the incident with the rose she had found and the gun she had found and lost to a stranger in the woods.

  “Good grief, Jessie. You do need at least some comic relief, and if I can provide it along with a listening ear, I’ll be more than glad to.”

  So for the next half hour the conversation centered around the events Jessie had just described, and Maxie encouraged her to talk and get some of the disquiet out of her system. The older woman was quietly and thoughtfully glad she had decided to come up from Homer. If nothing else, she could listen and be moral support, and the timing couldn’t have been better from the sound of it. She knew it took a lot to rattle Jessie’s personal cage, for past history had tangled her in more than one death, and she was pretty good at keeping a clear head. Still and all…sometimes enough was enough. And this clearly seemed to be enough, so she listened carefully, asking only a few clarifying questions.

  Half an hour later, by the time they reached the hospital, which stood high on a hill over the intersection where the Parks Highway branched off the Glenn to run the few miles to Wasilla and on to Fairbanks past Denali Park, the snow had strengthened enough to deposit a light coat over the parking lot and the cars and trucks crowding it.

  “Probably people either taking care of injuries from yesterday’s quake or visiting people who were hurt badly enough to be hospitalized,” Jessie guessed as they crossed the lot to the building after pulling into one of the remaining empty spaces.

  They found Phil Becker in his room with an IV running into his good arm, bandages on the other that lay on a pillow. A sleepy-looking smile spread over his face at the sight of Jessie’s armful of the brightly colored flowers she had found and purchased at the grocery store along with a vase to hold them.

  “Pretty colorful for this late in the year,” he said. “You didn’t need to bring flowers, Jessie. A visit from you is plenty. Alex was here a while ago and said you’d be stopping by on your way back from town.”

  “Thought I’d better check on you. Make sure you were behaving yourself and not chasing the nurses,” she teased and turned toward the bathroom. “Say hello to Maxie while I get some water for these. I know you’ve already met her.”

  “Sure have. Hi, Maxie. Where’d you spring from? Feel left out when the quake didn’t reach Homer?”

  “Hardly. We get enough of our own not to be jealous of yours. If they’re any bigger than a vibration you can have ’em all. How’re you feeling?”

  “Not bad, considering. I’ll be here another day or two. Then it’ll be a while until I do anything but desk work. But the doc said the surgery went better than he thought it would and I’ll be fine as soon as it heals, but there’ll probably be some physical therapy in my future.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Yeah, it could have been worse—a lot worse.”

  By the time the two women had driven to Wasilla, out Knik Road, and were turning into the drive at Jessie’s place, it had stopped snowing for the moment, though it had come down a little more heavily there and left a couple of inches on the ground, house, and kennel.

  Jessie noticed footprints and tire tracks in the drive, and Alex’s truck was parked near the house and bare of snow.

  “Hey,” she said. “Alex is home and must have just come in. He’ll be a help in unloading groceries. The dog food can wait until later, but I want to get the vegetables in so they don’t freeze.”

  Expecting him to appear upon hearing the sound of her truck in the drive, she climbed out and was surprised not to see him in the doorway.

  Maxie had come around to lift Stretch from within the truck and clip a leash to his collar before he escaped into the kennel full of excited sled dogs.

  Tank had, of course, jumped down on his own and stood waiting to escort them inside.

  Though the dogs in the yard had met Stretch before, they had, of course, put up a rumpus at the appearance of the small, short-legged canine, and their barks of greeting should have been enough to attract Alex’s attention if, for some odd reason, he had not heard the truck, but the door of the house remained closed.

  Quieting them in a firm voice, Jessie went up the steps and opened the door, which she found to be unlocked, so Alex had definitely arrived home, but the house felt empty and he did not respond to her calling his name.

  Maxie had followed her into the house with Tank and Stretch and closed the door.

  “Not here?” she asked.

  “He’s around somewhere,” Jessie told her. “Sometimes he rides with one of the other troopers in a squad car. But he wouldn’t have left the door unlocked if he was going somewhere else. He’ll show up soon.”

  Meanwhile, she ferried in the boxes of groceries, leaving the heavier ones of Killian’s and all the dog food for his help later, when he came back from wherever he was, and insisting that Maxie make a start on unpacking the boxes rather than carrying them.

  “If you want to help, you can put the veggies that need to stay cool in the refrigerator. But leave out the Jameson and what you think we’ll need to make a salad. I thought we could have the London broil for dinner with some of those small red potatoes. Does that sound good to you?”

  “Certainly does,” Maxie agreed.

  “Great. I think we might start,” she suggested, “by checking the Jameson to make sure it didn’t go bad on the way back from Anchorage. If that suits you as well, the glasses are in the upper cupboard to your left.”

  “That suits me just fine,” Maxie assured her with a grin, reaching for the glasses. “I’m an expert at testing the quality of Irish whisky, as you well know. Jameson very seldom goes bad, especially so quickly. But we should definitely test it to be sure.”

  Groceries stashed away, except for what Jessie would need to make dinner, they settled comfortably on the large sofa, toasted each other, and began to catch up on what, besides finding Donny Thompson, had transpired since their last meeting.

  “After your trip to Hawaii, I’m sure you spent the firs
t few weeks at home working in your garden,” Jessie said.

  “You’re right. By midsummer I had some of the tallest and best deep blue delphiniums ever. Mixed with my deep orange tiger lilies they put on quite a show. I took some pictures, but they’re only a hint of what those blossoms were really like.”

  “One of these summers I’m going to—”

  Jessie stopped and got up and started toward the window as the dogs in the kennel began their vocalizing again, but Alex Jensen stopped her in her tracks by coming in the front door, bringing a young woman in with him.

  Tall as his shoulder, dressed warmly in outdoor clothing that did nothing to conceal her slimness, she stopped just inside and stared across the room at the two women, who were looking at her in surprise. The lids of her brown eyes were red and her face was streaked with tears—she had clearly been crying. She snuffled and blinked, but said not a word.

  “Hey there, Maxie,” Alex said with a smile. “Good to see you and that you can spend a few days with us before the winter sets in for good. Have a good trip up, did you?”

  She agreed that she had, glancing at Jessie, who was staring with pleasant but questioning looks at both him and the strange girl he had brought into the house.

  “You can take off your coat, Sally,” Alex suggested gently, reaching to take her green jacket and hang it beside his own when she complied, stuffing her knit hat and mittens into the pockets and, before handing it over, retrieving a soggy tissue, obviously already used. After blowing her nose, she wadded the tissue in the palm of one hand.

  “Boots too,” Alex told her. “It’s warm, so they’ll dry on the mat. We all go sock-footed around here.”

  Turning toward the two older women, he put an arm around the shoulders of the girl he had brought into that warmth and guided her forward a step or two.

  “This is Jessie Arnold,” he told her. “And Maxie McNabb on the sofa there. Jessie, this is Sally Thompson, Donny’s sister. I followed her tracks up the hill and discovered her where she’d come to leave another rose at the place where we found him—where you found the first one on Monday.

  “Some of that Jameson would do fine for me, but could you make some hot cocoa? Sally’s been up there quite a while and could use some warming up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE FOUR OF THEM SAT AROUND THE TABLE NEXT TO THE kitchen, Sally Thompson hugging her hot chocolate mug between her two hands to warm them and the other three sipping Jameson.

  Alex explained to Jessie and Maxie how he had followed her tracks in the snow and found Sally on the hill, sitting on the trunk of a fallen birch and grieving the loss of her brother Donny, another rose clutched tight in one hand.

  “So it must have been you who left the rose I found last Monday. How did you find out where he died?” Jessie asked.

  “Pete, the bartender at the Alpine Inn, told me,” Sally said. “I went in and asked if he knew and he did—Jeff Malone had described the place. The first time I came I went up through the trees over there.” She waved a hand toward the woods beyond the dog yard. “When I found a trail I followed it along until the one that comes down to here branched off and went down it till I found the place with all that crime scene tape and knew it was the right place.”

  She glanced at Alex nervously. “I took it down,” she said to him. “It was so awful to look at.”

  “That’s okay, Sally,” he told her. “I can understand, so don’t worry about it.”

  The mention of Malone’s knowledge of the place Donny had been killed narrowed Alex’s eyes and brought a hint of suspicion to his frown, but he had said nothing, filing the information away for later, when he intended to make good use of it.

  “Why did you go up there?” Jessie asked, knowing the answer, but asking anyway to see how the girl would answer.

  “I just wanted to know. It was the only place I could think of to say good-bye the way I wanted to—without my father telling me to stay at home and my mother crying all the time, or everybody in town watching me at the funeral. It’s been just awful at home in Sutton the last few days. I wanted something bright and happy-looking to remember him. He was a great brother.” Her eyes filled with tears again and she swiped at them with the back of a hand.

  Jessie got up and retrieved a box of Kleenex, which she handed her.

  “That’s a long ways. How did you get here?” Maxie questioned. She had been listening closely, knowing Jessie and Alex would explain the details of this odd situation to her later. “Sorry, Alex. I should let you ask the questions.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he told her with a smile. “It’s a good question. Sally?”

  “I drive my own car to work at Fred Meyer in Palmer, so I told Mom that’s where I was going. She didn’t ask any more questions and Dad wasn’t home to stop me.”

  “Where is it?” Alex wanted to know.

  “The car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Across on the other side of the highway. There’s an old road that used to lead somewhere down the hill. It’s pretty overgrown, but there’s room to park on the top part of it. I could see that other people had. So I pulled in there—both times.”

  “Did you bring a handgun with you, take it up the hill?”

  “A handgun? No way! Where would I get one and what would I do with a gun? Besides, my father would have a fit. He hates handguns.”

  “Thought you might have wanted some protection.”

  “From who? Whoever killed Donny wouldn’t come back, would they?”

  “Possibly. Did you see anyone else either time you came?”

  Sally shook her head. “No, but there had been someone else there. I saw tracks in a muddy place in the trail this time that weren’t the same as the ones the police—you—made. These had heavy soles and a piece was missing from the right foot.”

  Jessie, who had been staring into her glass as she listened, looked up sharply enough to distract Alex’s attention.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That same print was near the highway the day I called you and Becker about the truck and motorcycle tracks and the footprints in the mud that came and went into the woods. Before you came and found the bike in the brush.”

  He nodded. “We took a cast of it. I’d probably better make another as soon as we finish here, which we almost are. Do you know anything about the guys Donny and Jeff Malone ride motorcycles with? They call themselves Road Pirates.”

  Again Sally shook her head. “Nothing, really. Donny was afraid my father would find out he was hanging with them. I knew he was doing some kind of wild things and overheard that name when he was talking to Jeff on the phone a couple of weeks ago. He made me promise not to tell my parents and to forget it. Which, of course, made me remember it. I’ve seen a couple of them at the Alpine and their bikes are there once in a while, but I don’t know any of them or what they do except ride together.”

  “Did Donny have a girlfriend?” Jessie asked.

  “Not that I know of, though there was someone he was interested in. He wouldn’t tell me who when I teased him and tried to find out.”

  “How about Jeff Malone?”

  “Yeah, he does. He’s been dating someone named Robin who lives somewhere the other side of Palmer. I’ve seen them together a couple of times, but I don’t know her. Listen,” she told them, getting up from the table nervously. “I need to get home before my father somehow finds out I’m not at work.”

  The conversation ended with Alex walking Sally to her car, then going up the hill to make another cast of the footprint she had mentioned. He came back to find Jessie filling Maxie in with the details she had left out on their ride from Anchorage, including the loss of the handgun she had found near the first rose Sally had left in remembrance of her brother.

  “I think maybe I picked a bad time to invite myself to be your houseguest,” Maxie said thoughtfully.

  “Not at all,” they both reassured her.

  “You know you’re always welcome
,” Alex reminded her. “And I have to admit that I feel better having you here with Jessie. If Sally isn’t the person who brought the handgun Jessie found up there—and it’s pretty clear she isn’t—then there’s someone else who did and who took it back. That makes me uneasy, so I’m glad you’re here for more than just company.”

  “And I can certainly use the company,” Jessie added. “Maybe you can think of something we haven’t about all that’s been going on. And there’re lots of other things to catch up on.”

  As long as it’s just talk, Alex thought. If nothing else, he decided, but kept to himself, it would be a distraction for Jessie—better than an earthquake. Though that had certainly kept her busy. He found himself hoping Maxie would stay for more than a couple of days.

  At least until I figure out who’s responsible for Donny Thompson’s murder.

  Later, when he thought back about it, it was to remember the old saying “Be careful what you wish for.”

  By then, however, when he recalled that the two women had helped solve a case before, on their way up the Alaska Highway, it would be much too late.

  “Let’s take Maxie over to the Other Place,” Jessie suggested after they had eaten dinner and made short work of the dishes—Jessie washing, Maxie drying, Alex putting them away. “Let her meet some of the people we know around here.”

  “Good idea,” Alex agreed. “I could use a break from the pieces of this puzzle that I can’t quite fit together somehow. The earthquake didn’t help—just turned my focus elsewhere for most of two days.”

  “I assume the Other Place has to be that local pub you talk about,” Maxie said, joining them at the door to put on her coat and boots. “Sounds interesting, and there must be a story behind the name.”