Down River

by Karen Harper

  Lisa glanced around the room. No one else in sight yet. This woman was in earnest. She was warning her because she cared, maybe only for Mitch, but she cared. Christine wanted to help not harm; Lisa felt that to the very marrow of her bones. Mitch knew and trusted Christine, and he knew her much better than Lisa ever would.

  Before she even realized just how much she'd come to trust Christine, she told her in a low, urgent voice, "I was pushed in the river. I didn't just fall in."

  Christine's eyes widened, and she nodded. "And maybe Ginger was pushed, too?" she whispered. "Spike still doesn't believe she fell."

  "About Ginger--I don't know. But I'm asking you to tell no one what I said right now--even Spike--but to keep your eyes open. I see you do that, too."

  "I can tell you one thing. I overheard Vanessa tell Mr. Bonner you screamed and screamed your dead mother's name when you found Ginger's body."

  "I knew it! I did not, but she--"

  "Sorry to interrupt." A man's voice came from the kitchen as the door opened. Spike walked in. "Thought I'd find you in here, Christine. Hi, Lisa. Is everyone going with us for the memorial today?"

  Christine stood, went over to Spike and took his hand to tug him over to the table. "Yes, to the ziplining platform, like you suggested. They may all be gone when we have the funeral service in Bear Bones, and they want to pay their respects before they leave."

  "Good morning, everyone." Ellie's voice resounded as she came downstairs. "Oh, Spike, I didn't know you were here yet. We are all so deeply sorry for your loss," she added, looking as if she would cry.

  "I know you understand, Mrs. Bonner," Spike said as Christine put a cup of coffee into his hands and poured one for Ellie. "I remember on our flightseeing tour to Wasilla, you told me how proud you are of your brother, how you'd hate bad press like what happened to our governor. Christine, Mrs. Bonner's younger brother's big in Florida politics and is probably going to be a secretary of something or other in the new administration in Washington."

  "Yes, I'm so proud of Merritt," Ellie said. "Who knows how high he can climb, and he began as a lawyer in our firm. And you are so right, Spike. My closeness to my 'little' brother, my only sibling, makes me sympathize with the loss of your sister. I think a memorial service she would have liked is a lovely idea, and Graham and I are honored to be a part of it."

  The others filtered downstairs: Jonas, still limping slightly; Vanessa, dressed all in black, even to her jewelry, as if she were in formal mourning; then Graham and Mitch, who came downstairs together talking about something. Everyone took their places at the table.

  Christine had just carried family-style plates of eggs benedict, sausage and bacon from the kitchen when there was a knock at the front door. Before anyone could answer, it opened, and silence fell in the room. As if he were a harbinger of doom, in full uniform with a paper in his hand, Sheriff Mace Moran walked in the doorway.

  Mitch jumped up and went to greet the sheriff.

  "Sorry my timing's so lousy," he told Mitch, shaking his hand and glancing over his shoulder in the expectant hush. "I asked Sam Collister to expedite the findings on Ginger Jackson, and he did. Got the results right here."

  "Would you like to go upstairs to use my office, just tell Spike first?" Mitch asked. Not a murmur or a clink of dishes came from the table behind them as everyone obviously strained to listen.

  "It will soon be public knowledge anyway. The local paper's already been asking, and a Fairbanks reporter in town to cover the festival wants the story. Mitch, when I hauled Gus Majors in again--"

  "A second time? After yesterday?"

  "Yeah, early this morning. Thought maybe he'd crack, but he didn't. I swear he only told me you represented him after I had another go at him."

  Spike rose from the table and came over. "Is this about my sister?" he asked the sheriff, pointing to the paper in his hand.

  "Yes, Mr. Jackson, it is. The coroner's report is inconclusive about whether or not it might have been foul play."

  "Foul play--a stupid way to put it," Spike insisted, balling up his fists at his sides. "It sounds like a mistake in baseball, not a cold-blooded murder."

  At that, Graham and Jonas came over with Ellie and Lisa right behind, followed by Vanessa and Christine.

  "Those are the findings, Mr. Jackson. It wasn't a cold-blooded murder or any murder."

  "You want me or Spike to read the ruling, Sheriff? Or will you?" Mitch asked.

  The sheriff cleared his throat, glanced down at the paper and said, "According to Dr. Samuel Collister, coroner, Ginger Jackson died of asphyxiation--lack of oxygen--not drowning per se."

  "But she was in the water!" Spike protested. "You don't mean she was strangled?"

  "No, not at all," the sheriff said. "Actually, Doc Collister said it's called a dry drowning. Her lungs were dry because she'd had a--" he glanced down at the paper again "--a laryngeal spasm, which kept water from entering. The doc says about fifteen percent of drownings are like that. It's no doubt why she stayed so buoyant in the water--air in her lungs."

  Mitch shook his head, remembering how Ginger had looked below the surface, moving, shifting. No wonder Lisa had nightmares about her own mother and sister's deaths, because Ginger's haunted him.

  "She did have a head injury to the back of the skull," the sheriff said, "but that's consistent with her hitting her head on the dock or boat when she fell in. No doubt, it disoriented her, may have almost knocked her out."

  "But," Lisa said, "no one saw any blood on the dock or boat, right? I didn't, and I sat there a while."

  "Right," the sheriff said, sounding annoyed and frowning at her. "But I figure, if she fell right in, she may not have bled right away, then the water washed away whatever there was on her skull. Obviously, the heart stops pumping at death, so bleeding stops, too. But hemorrhaging was found in the sinuses and airways," the sheriff went on, then paused. "You sure you want this read aloud, Mr. Jackson?"

  "Go ahead. Dry drownings don't make sense to me, but we're loaded with lawyers here."

  "The hemorrhaging means she was conscious when she entered the water and struggled to breathe," the sheriff said, looking more nervous after the reference to a lot of lawyers. He spoke more deliberately and slowly, as if that would clarify his explanation. "She sucked in water and her larynx spasmed, so indirectly the water still caused her death. The blow to her head could have incapacitated her from getting back up for air. She had tiny plants and lake-bottom debris under her fingernails but nothing else--nothing to show she'd struggled with a person, that is."

  "But depending how long she was in the water, that trace evidence, like the blood, could have been washed away," Lisa argued, despite the fact Ellie put a restraining hand on her arm. "Did the coroner calculate a time of death?"

  "Only within a big time frame that takes in the hours she had all those visitors. He recorded the time he pronounced her as the time of death--perfectly legal. Lastly, I surmise that, as she tried to kick to get herself back up to the surface, she snagged her leg in the anchor chain, and that was the last--the last straw. I'm very sorry, Mr. Jackson, Mitch, everyone, but at least we can now close this inquiry as a freak accident and not something else that needs to be pursued. End of story."

  End of story for Ginger, Mitch thought, but what about for Lisa? If they had proof she had been pushed, they would lobby for Ginger's case to be reopened. But now that everyone could still leave in forty-eight hours, was it end of story once again for him and Lisa? Worse, if someone had meant to kill her here in the Alaska wilds, away from the Fort Lauderdale police and gung ho Broward County prosecutors and D.A.s, the murderer's time was also running out.

  The mourners for Ginger's memorial service walked along a cross-country ski path through a pine-scented forest, with Spike leading and Mitch bringing up the rear. Mitch had explained to everyone that the steel cable zipline began at a high point from a tree platform, built in a sturdy Sitka spruce, and ended over a thousand feet away. It crossed t
hrough a treetop canopy, above a small, subalpine meadow and a white-water stream that fed the river before bringing the rider back down to earth about fifty feet from the river itself. He had promised it would be exhilarating but not exhausting, and assured them that they could control their own speed using thick gloves that would protect their hands from burns and slow them when necessary.

  "You feel really free when riding it," Spike had said before they'd set out. "Anyone who wants to do it in Ginger's honor today, that's fine. If not--no problem."

  No problem--that was a good one, Lisa thought. She'd had nothing but problems since she'd arrived at the lodge, yet she understood that Spike was trying to be certain no one would be accident-prone today.

  Christine walked at Spike's side, silent but supportive. Ellie and Graham came next, as the path was only wide enough for two, then Vanessa and Jonas--who forgot to limp at times, Lisa noted. She walked next to Mitch.

  "I see the steel cable overhead," she told him, looking up. "The last one of those I rode didn't just cross a stream but the river."

  "And you handled that really well. But, as Spike said, don't zipline if you don't want to. I came over early today to check it out--rode it myself--but don't do it if you have the slightest qualm. And Jonas, with your strained back and neck, don't you dare try it."

  Lisa saw Mitch's firm mouth quirk up in the corner. He was subtly goading Jonas. So did Mitch believe his former protege wasn't really hurt either? And if Jonas had lied about that, what else was he covering up?

  They stood in a circle under the elevated platform for a moment of silence, then the usually reticent Spike spoke about his sister's life and loves--her home, her baking, ziplining, her dreams about buying "pretty things." He also spoke about how sure-footed she was, though he admitted, with a glance at Christine, that everyone, sooner or later, slipped up in life one way or another.

  Christine talked about Ginger's strength. "To be maimed for life as a child, but to still remain one of the most independent women I ever knew."

  Mitch explained how he had to practically force Ginger to accept a salary for tending the zipline and for helping him with guests riding it, because "she considered the fun and freedom of riding it payment enough."

  Vanessa recounted how proud Ginger was of her cabin and kitchen.

  Lisa, with tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice, took her turn. "As terrible as it was to find her in the water, she seemed at peace. She was calmly rocking in the lake she must have loved, somehow at one with nature."

  "Exactly," Ellie added. "Although I did not see her in the water, from all of your descriptions, that's the way I pictured her--eternally at peace, rocked to sleep in the beautiful setting she loved."

  "I'm real grateful to you," Spike said, turning to Ellie. "For giving her the extra money and saying there would even be more. I don't mind telling everyone what the Bonners suggested I keep secret. They asked to pay for her funeral and burial, now that her body's being released. I'm going to pick out a real nice wood coffin for her."

  That generosity hardly surprised those who worked for the Bonners. Graham nodded, and Ellie, with tears in her eyes, went on. "I must share with everyone that I have a favorite painting, but I hesitated to bring the copy of it I ran off yesterday on Mitch's printer. The original is hanging at the Tate Museum in London, a serene, lovely painting called Ophelia. In case you don't know, she was a character who drowned in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, but let me describe the painting. She lies so calmly, cradled by the water, looking up, surrounded by tree limbs and boughs hanging over her. Flowers float in the water. I think it would be lovely if we cast some flowers in the lake in Ginger's honor. Well, I didn't mean to get carried away, but I will think of her that way, at rest, in peace."

  Lisa had never seen that painting, but she could grasp how it could be both lovely and horrible with a compelling yet monstrous beauty, death almost defied. She'd seen such visions in her head for years.

  "You sure you're all right with this?" Mitch said to Lisa after he sent Spike down the gravity-driven zipline to await everyone's arrival at the other end.

  "You said it's safe, and it obviously is. Yes, let the others go first, but I'd like to do it, too. I could use a dose of Ginger's gumption to really enjoy it."

  One by one, everyone took a turn on the steel cable challenge course except for Jonas, who had no choice but to walk to the zipline terminal. Finally, only Mitch and Lisa stood on the platform, high in the big tree, with blowing limbs and leaves around them.

  "Have you thought any more about pitting Vanessa and Jonas against each other?" he asked as he helped her into one of the harnesses.

  "I think one or both would run to Graham, but I've been considering something else. I still say that Ginger could have been hit on the head and held down under the water. But what I've really been agonizing over is Graham. Mitch, speaking of Hamlet--"

  "Were we?"

  "Ellie was--that painting. Graham doth protest too much, methinks."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "About the casino case. His pulling us off the case because it got so dangerous, then our breakup and your leaving kept us from talking about that again, but he keeps trying to find out if we've reminisced about it since we've been back together. He recorded my interview today and told me he'd done that with the others, but I heard Jonas tell Vanessa that Graham took notes during his. So I'll bet he wasn't recording them. Does any of that make sense?"

  "The fact we had our phones bugged and got some threatening phone calls to cease and desist--it's not enough to make the link, but let's consider that. I had the strangest feeling from the first that an attack on you here could be an attack on me somehow, only you were more vulnerable. Look, we can't take all day, or they'll think we're making love in the treetops--which does seem like a good idea," he added with a quick caress of her cheek followed by a pat on her bottom.

  Even in the cool breeze, he saw her face flame. He wanted to seize her, make love to her right there on the hard wood of the platform.

  "But, no, it doesn't make sense," he went on, his voice husky. It was difficult to reason right now, but she was probably on to something he'd subconsciously tried to ignore, because of all he owed Graham. "Graham does seem hung up on that case," he admitted. "Maybe he feels guilty he copped out in the face of opposition, reined us in too fast. The leads should have been followed to expose whoever was behind all that money laundering and why. Maybe we'd better get our heads together fast about what we do recall besides being threatened during that trial preparation. Meet me in the wine cellar before predinner-drink time, if you can manage it," he said, snapping her harness onto the pulley and helping her pull on the pair of thick gloves. "You set to go, sweetheart?"

  "So have you ever made love in the treetops?" she asked with a smile that tilted up the edges of her green eyes.

  "There's always a first time, but not with everyone waiting for us."

  With both hands under her bottom, he lifted her so her legs straddled his waist. The front of the helmet she wore clunked him in the forehead but he kissed her anyway, while she wrapped her legs tight around his waist and linked her gloved hands behind his neck to kiss him back. He felt a surge of desire for her that almost shot him off the platform. His tongue invaded, and hers danced with his. The harness she was in came across her breasts and between her legs like a barrier.

  When they came up for air, he whispered, "You ready?"

  "Getting closer every day," she said so breathily he almost had to read her lips.

  Reluctantly, but with another pat on her bottom, he turned her outward and let her go.

  It was almost like flying, as if she were a bird, maybe a ptarmigan with feathered feet as well as wings. Ellie and Vanessa had let out thrilled screams at the beginning of their flights, but Lisa took it all in silently. After what she'd been through these last few days--and after all that from Mitch just now--this seemed wonderful but tame, sensational but not scary.
/>   Trusting her harness, she spun and swayed, descending from the trees and sailing over the blowing meadow splashed with many-hued wildflowers. She had no desire to slow her speed, which Mitch had said would be around thirty miles per hour. Down, faster, past the silver ribbon of water threading from the Talkeetnas to feed the Wild River. Wind, wild wind in her hair, caressing her cheeks still burnished from Mitch's touch.

  But then, ahead, the river itself loomed, like a huge, writhing white snake, magnificent but monstrous. Even when she saw the others at the bottom of the cable waiting for her, the river seemed a threat, as if it could suck her into churning, whiteout oblivion again. But she'd come a long way in determination and courage since she'd ridden a cable car over the river that had almost devoured her.

  The slope of the cable leveled out, and she slowed her descent before Spike stopped her. "Took you a little while to decide to do it, right?" he asked, making her wonder just how long she and Mitch had been kissing. With him, kisses and caresses seemed to fly by and yet be in her brain and blood forever.

  "I'm fine," she said. "I wanted to do it in honor of Ginger. I see now why she loved it. If I were going to be here longer, I'd take over this job for her--and baking, too, though I'd never come up to her standards."

  As soon as Spike unhooked her from the line, Graham took her elbow and pulled her out of the way while they waited for Mitch to come careening after her. Looking around, Graham said in a loud voice, "Lisa, Vanessa and Jonas, too--you just worry about staying up with Carlisle, Bonner's standards. Soon we'll be heading home, and I'll make the senior partner decision just before we leave. I've told Mitch we'll go river rafting this afternoon--upriver, where its relatively calm--and then for the competition, you're finished."

  You're finished, Lisa thought. Why did everything Graham said lately sound so ominous?