Beneath the Ashes

by Sue Henry

  72

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  73

  As Anne came out the cabin door to put the lunch she had been making in the truck’s cab, Jessie was selecting dogs for a team of eleven, including three of her most reliable young ones, Lucky, Cola, and Elmer.

  Skittish Smut would definitely stay at home, but dependable Pete had already been put into a compartment beside the Darryls, One and Two, who would run in their usual wheel position nearest the sled. Tank would lead, of course, and stood near the truck like a supervisor, watching as, two at a time, Billy brought the chosen dogs and helped Jessie lift them into their individual compartments. Already loaded, to fill out the team, were Mitts, Sunny, and Wart, all experienced distance-racing dogs that had gone to Canada with Jessie to run the International Yukon Quest from Whitehorse to Fairbanks a month before.

  Billy was crossing the dog lot with the last dog, Bliss, in tow, when the rest of the kennel began to bark.

  Jessie saw Mike Tatum turn his car into her long driveway. He pulled up behind her truck, effectively blocking it, before getting out.

  “Oh, shit,” said Anne, realizing who it was and disappearing rapidly up the steps and into the cabin.

  “Hey,” Tatum yelled after her. “Come back here.

  I’ve got some questions for you.”

  The door slammed shut, and Jessie, distinctly hearing the deadlock thump into place, knew it was up to her to face his angry scowl.

  “Goddammit. Get her back out here,” he demanded.

  Billy reached the pickup and stopped, holding Bliss by the collar and staring in mute disapproval at Tatum.

  Jessie turned away, reached for the dog, then

  74

  SUE HENRY

  changed her mind and nodded to the compartment in which Bliss would ride. Ignoring the investigator, she watched Billy lift the dog into the space and close the door. The hole in it was immediately filled with a curious canine muzzle.

  “Did you hear me? I want to talk to Marty Gifford.”

  “Well,” Jessie told him, calmly moving to Tank, the only dog not yet loaded and giving Tatum a scornful glance, “that’s your problem, isn’t it? I’m not Anne Holman’s keeper.”

  With a furious clenched-fist gesture, he started past her toward the cabin.

  “You were not invited onto my property, Tatum,”

  Jessie, with no inclination to call him “just Mike,” informed him and stepped into his path. “Definitely not into my house.”

  “Get out of my way. You’re obstructing an officer in—” he began, but she cut him off sharply.

  “You have a warrant?”

  “You got something to hide?”

  They glared at each other, practically nose to nose, Tatum clearly expecting her to back away. She moved an inch closer and folded her arms. “I guess that means you haven’t.”

  Billy came to stand beside her and help to present a silent, united front.

  “Look,” Tatum all but shouted, “I’m investigating a fire here.”

  Tank, standing next to Jessie, gave a low warning growl and showed his teeth.

  “Restrain that dog, or . . .” The investigator took a step backward.

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  75

  She laid a hand on Tank’s head.

  “There hasn’t been a fire here, ” she said, deliber-ately misinterpreting his statement. “If it’s about Oscar’s, I’ve already told you what I know.”

  “Not that fire. There was another one set last night and I’m going to talk to—”

  “Where?”

  “None of your—”

  “Make it my business.”

  For a long moment, it was a standoff. Then Tatum huffed in annoyed frustration.

  “Ms. Arnold—” he started, jabbing a finger toward her that elicited another rumble from Tank.

  “Don’t threaten me,” she warned, narrowing stormy gray eyes and moving her hand to Tank’s collar. “I don’t care for that kind of thing—and neither does my dog, if you noticed.”

  The finger was reluctantly lowered and Tatum took another backward step.

  “Look—you don’t know who you’re harboring.”

  “I’m not harboring anyone. Anne Holman is my guest.”

  “What she is, is a liar, arsonist, and probably a murderer. Where was she yesterday and last night?”

  “I told you, I’m not her keeper.”

  “Dammit—” He hesitated, for the first time realizing that they had been loading dogs into a truck they intended to take somewhere. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Now that’s really none of your business. But, since you asked so very nicely, I’m taking some of my dogs out for a training run.”

  76

  SUE HENRY

  “Where?”

  “Off the Glenn Highway.”

  “Looks like more than that to me.”

  “I don’t care what it looks like to you.”

  “If you leave town, I’ll assume that—”

  “You can assume anything you damn well please,”

  Jessie told him, finally loosing the leash on her temper.

  “If you think you can arrest me—or Anne—then do it.

  Otherwise, get off my property— now.”

  “I’m not arresting you, but I can take you both in for questioning.”

  “Try it. I don’t have to talk to you, Tatum.”

  “Resisting arrest—”

  “If you’re not arresting me, how can I be resisting?”

  He was so angry his face was white and, for a second or two, when she knew he wanted to hit her, a swift image of Greg Holman flashed into her mind. Then, without another word, Tatum spun abruptly and stalked back to his car. Throwing himself into the driver’s seat, he furiously overcranked the engine, then backed the length of the drive at top speed, whipping the car into a turn at the end that bounced the vehicle back on the paved road in a spray of snow and gravel, and headed toward town. No one moved until he had disappeared from sight and the whine of his engine faded.

  Jessie took a deep breath, let it out, and turned to Billy.

  “Whew. Thanks for the backup,” she told him, then dropped to her knees in the snow to smile at Tank and give him lots of petting. “You, too, buddy.”

  “Who the hell was that?”

  “An arson investigator with a personal problem.”

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  77

  “Jeez. Hope he doesn’t come back while you’re

  gone.”

  She stood up and shook her head. “I doubt it. But if he does, you call the troopers and ask for Phil Becker.

  You know Phil. He understands Tatum’s attitude—he won’t let him bully you. The number’s on the list over my desk.”

  Still concerned, she frowned thoughtfully. “Do you think it would be okay with your folks if you stayed here while I’m gone? I wouldn’t mind someone keeping an eye on things.”

  “Sure—I can do that. Make it easier to feed and run the mutts, anyway, if I don’t have to go back and forth.”

  Twenty minutes later, the dogs riding comfortably in back, Jessie slowed the pickup to cross the railroad tracks as they approached Wasilla. Beside her in the passenger seat, Anne looked back one more time in the side mirror, convinced that Tatum would be following them.

  “But I heard you tell him that we were going out the Glenn Highway. That’s not the way to the cabin.”

  “So we changed our minds. You want him to know where we’re going? I don’t.”

  She made a left turn and headed northwest through town on the Parks Highway, away from the area she had mentioned to Tatum.

  “Oh. Okay.” Anne fell silent, noticing how the small town had changed and grown in her ten-year absence.

  Jessie was not unhappy to have her constant chatter and questions cease for a few minutes. She had not been happy to have Anne insist on taking along a day

  78

  SUE
HENRY

  pack stuffed with things she swore she could not leave behind, but had ignored it in order to get going without further argument. The sled, with a passenger, would be heavily loaded and Jessie privately hoped to leave most of whatever the day pack contained locked securely in the back of the truck when they took off on the wilderness trail that would require some hard work at sled handling. One of the reasons she had left the area ten years before was the lack of enough good training trails for her dogs. It was much better to live in an area where many mushers shared trails and kept them well groomed. She did not intend to be overloaded now.

  As they neared the edge of Wasilla, where Jessie planned to stop for gas, someone behind them began to honk.

  “Oh, God. It’s Tatum again, isn’t it?” Anne shrieked, trying unsuccessfully to get a look at the driver in the rearview mirror.

  Jessie was pulling into a service station on the right.

  “Oh—no. Don’t stop,” Anne wailed. “Oh, Jessie,

  please don’t stop.”

  “Oh, cut it out, Anne. It’s just Hank Peterson. I’ve got to get gas, and I want to ask him about that fire last night. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  She got out and shut the door on Anne. Peterson, who had pulled in behind them, walked forward to where Jessie waited at the pumps, opening the cap on her tank.

  “Hey, Jessie. Where you off to?”

  “Overnight training run west of Trapper Creek off the Petersville Road. You know anything about another fire last night?”

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  79

  She inserted the gas hose nozzle and watched the numbers begin to roll over on the pump as the tank filled.

  “Not much. Hear it gutted a double-wide out near Big Lake.”

  The mention of Big Lake caught Jessie’s attention.

  “Was it set?”

  “That’s what they said on the news this morning.”

  “Whose place? Anybody we know?”

  “I didn’t. Guy named Mulligan got toasted—

  couldn’t get out.”

  “Cal Mulligan? You sure?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right. You know him?”

  “No—just about him. Two of his kids died in a fire ten years ago.”

  “Sweet Jesus. Bad luck. Did you hear that investigator called Oscar in for more questions?”

  “Why? He didn’t burn his place.”

  “Well . . .” Hank kicked at a pebble that skittered away under Jessie’s truck, and didn’t look up at her. “It looks like he was having money troubles. Rumor is that he’s behind on his payments, and the bank’s been threatening to shut down one or the other of his bars.

  Nobody saw him in town when the Other Place

  burned, Jessie.”

  “Dammit, Hank. He shouldn’t have to prove it. We know Oscar.”

  “Yeah? Well—could be we don’t. You can’t always

  tell, I guess. Maybe—maybe not.”

  The gas pump shut off with a snap, and Jessie returned the nozzle to its holder with a sinking feeling, wondering how and why Hank should so easily doubt Oscar’s word and actions.

  80

  SUE HENRY

  *

  *

  *

  The idea that Oscar might commit arson to avoid

  foreclosure on his pub continued to bother Jessie as she drove the seventy miles to the turnoff at Trapper Creek. She couldn’t make herself accept it. He had once told her that if he ever had to choose between his two places, he’d take the Other Place—that it was his favorite partly because he’d built it from the ground up and partly because he liked the customers who collected there. If that was true, and if he had been tempted beyond reason by a need for cash—which she didn’t believe—then wouldn’t it make more sense for him to burn the bar in Wasilla that he liked less? Or would being twelve miles out of town be a deciding factor, if he were faced with a choice?

  Dammit, I’m beginning to think like Hank, she told herself, refused to examine the idea further, and turned her thoughts to another concern—the fire at Big Lake.

  Anne had not asked what Hank wanted, when Jessie climbed back into the pickup and, not wanting to get into another interminable and unconvincing discussion, she hadn’t mentioned Cal Mulligan’s death in the fire. Tatum’s determination this morning to interrogate her friend now made more sense. The two fires involv-ing the same man—ten years apart or not—would obviously seem connected. If nothing else, at least in his obsessed mind, this new fire would link Anne to the old one for the simple reason that she had returned before it occurred and she had known Mulligan.

  But Anne couldn’t have had the time to go to Big Lake, find out where Mulligan was now living, and set fire to his double-wide trailer—could she? Jessie

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  81

  glanced down at the odometer of her truck. Had there been any unexplained miles added since she’d driven it to the airport to pick up Anne? Impossible to tell, because she hadn’t checked it then. Had there been less gas in the tank today? Who knew? She hadn’t paid attention or looked at the gauge before filling up today.

  You were gone for hours yesterday afternoon.

  Anne couldn’t know how long I’d be gone. I could have come back anytime.

  But how long would it take for her to drive?

  Well—twenty miles from Wasilla to Big Lake, a

  generous thirty—thirty-five from my place. Forty-five minutes? Maybe two hours total turn-around time at the most.

  Plenty to have borrowed your truck, gone out there, and been back long before you came home.

  Not possible. The fire was last night. She was at my place all evening.

  And there are no ways for fires to start long after the person who sets them is gone?

  That’s crazy.

  Okay. If you say so. Still . . .

  She glanced at Anne, who was quietly watching the wilderness rush past on her side of the highway, seemingly in a world of her own, and let it go. The only response Jessie knew she would get from questions was a resentful and defensive argument. There was no way to prove anything at this point. Hank’s information might easily be all rumor. She decided to pretend she hadn’t even heard about the Big Lake fire till they had finished this crazy trip Anne was so set on making and were home again.

  82

  SUE HENRY

  Ahead, she caught sight of the sign that indicated a turnoff for Talkeetna to the right and Trapper Creek to the left. Very soon she could be back on the runners of a sled in the wilderness world she loved best. Might as well enjoy it and forget the rest for the time being. No one’s going to die if I forget about it all for now, she thought, and bit her tongue.

  7

  Q

  THOUGH SHE WAS TEMPTED TO TURN RIGHT AT THE

  -

  HIGH

  way junction and make a visit to the Talkeetna Roadhouse for a cup of coffee, Jessie turned left off the Parks Highway, away from the road that led to the well-known community fourteen miles to the east at the confluence of the Susitna, Talkeetna, and Chulitna rivers.

  Talkeetna had long been a famous name in moun-

  tain-climbing circles as the jumping-off point for expeditions to Mount McKinley, or Denali, as most

  Alaskans called it. Most climbers used the West But-tress route, which originated at about seven thousand feet on the Kahitna Glacier, and were flown there in ski-wheel–equipped aircraft by several air services that specialized in the glacier landings necessary to ferry them and their gear to and from the mountain and also provided flight-seeing for tourists. During the summer months the rivers were alive with fish, fishermen, and tourists.

  The dry goods and grocery stores, service station, 83

  84

  SUE HENRY

  gift shop, restaurants, bars, hotels, and bed and breakfasts of Talkeetna lined old-fashioned Main Street, the only paved road in the small, thriving, and notably independent community of log cab
ins and clapboard

  houses, which dead-ended on the Susitna riverbank. Its residents had a reputation for resisting all outside efforts to infringe upon or change anything about their chosen lifestyle.

  Jessie had always enjoyed stopping there, where

  people were friendly and laid-back, and took care of their own. Even after she had moved closer to Wasilla, almost every year she drove back up the highway to camp at Talkeetna, where hundreds gathered once a summer to indulge in a long weekend of fiddle-fingering, banjo-plucking, foot-tapping bluegrass music. But on this trip, abandoning her thought of coffee and a quick hello, she turned the other way instead, past the big two-story Trapper Creek Inn and General Store, the Trading Post, library, museum, gift shop, and RV

  park near the junction—most still closed for the season—and drove west on the Petersville Road.

  Anne had uncharacteristically said little on the drive north, commenting infrequently on landmarks she recognized. She sat up attentively, however, when they went around a bend in the road and the lower part of Mount McKinley began to flash into view between the trees that lined the highway. The top of the tallest mountain in North America was, as usual, hidden in clouds; but its visible ridges gleamed in sunlight pouring in from the south, each fold a contrast of deep bluish-purple shadows. The color was unique to the northern latitudes, as was the glowing winter light, cre-

  BENEATH THE ASHES

  85

  ated by the low angle of the sun reflected from hundreds of miles of snow-covered wilderness. It made the very air seem almost tangible.

  The Petersville Road, which soon turned to unpaved snow-covered gravel, ran west and a little north from the junction for fourteen miles to Kroto Creek, beyond which the road was not maintained during the winter.

  They passed a subdivision or two that had not existed when Jessie had lived in the area and a few tourist cabins, some open for the benefit of cross-country skiers and snowmachiners who drove from Anchorage and

  the MatSu Valley communities for weekend fun far from town.

  As she parked among several trucks with snowma-

  chine trailers by Kroto Creek, Jessie could see a number of tracks that continued west on the unplowed section of the road, and she reminded herself that she would have to be alert. Snowmachines made so much noise that their drivers couldn’t hear mushers coming toward them on a trail until it was sometimes too late to avoid them. Unexpected meetings between snowmachines and dog sleds on narrow tracks periodically resulted in disastrous accidents that killed or injured dogs.