Beneath the Ashes

by Sue Henry

  mushers, personal friends, acquaintances, her insurance agent, Iditarod committee members, fans—people Jessie had never even met but who had followed her racing career. She soon lost track of how many. They came to express their support, bringing gifts of food, dishes, pots and pans, a card table and two chairs, a roll-away bed, towels, blankets, sheets and pillows, a small electric stove with an oven. The young son of a neighbor even insisted on loaning her his teddy bear.

  “You can keep Bumper till you get a new house.

  Okay?”

  Toni Dunbar and Carol Hooker, long-time friends

  and racing fans, came all the way from Anchorage with a car full of clothes they thought would fit her. “You made the Daily News this morning,” they said, when she asked how they knew about the fire, and handed her a copy. The picture on the front page showed Jessie working hard with a shovel, light reflected on her exhausted, sooty face from the fire in the background.

  She vaguely remembered a photographer in the confusion of the night before.

  Half the state trooper detachment from Palmer

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  found one reason or another to stop by with offers of off-duty help—friends and coworkers of Alex Jensen, who had grown to be her friends, too.

  Billy Steward’s father came with him to help feed and water her dogs, then he and Billy took out two of her teams for training runs. “You can come stay at our house,” Billy told her three times, but understood when she refused and thanked him for the invitation. “Anything you need, you just call,” his father added, waving as they drove the teams away and left her looking longingly after them from the yard, surrounded by well-wishers and unable to escape to the wilds.

  The promised tent was standing on its platform near the driveway before noon, raised with the help of so many hands that Jessie could only stand and watch, overwhelmed with the expression of so much caring, as others outfitted it for living and discussed among themselves what else she would need. It had been placed with the entrance facing away from Knik Road, half of it within the circle of the halogen yard lights, so that any motion in front would cause them to blink on.

  Someone went home and came back with an easy

  chair and a floor lamp that fit into one corner. “You’ve gotta have a comfortable place to sit down.” A small television appeared on an end table near it. “Bet you could even have cable if you wanted it.” Blocks-and-boards shelves were set up and filled with cooking equipment. A rug appeared on the wooden platform-floor with a washtub nearby. Clothing went into plastic baskets and onto hangers suspended from a wire.

  Some generous reader even toted in a box of assorted paperback thrillers and whodunits— Inferno promi-

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  nently displayed on top. “Hey, I couldn’t resist—but it has a happy ending.” The large tent began to look small with all it contained.

  Jake, the electrician, showed up, ran a line to the tent, and installed overhead lights he had brought with him, a space heater donated by someone else, and out-lets for other electrical appliances.

  “It’ll be safer than your woodstove,” he cautioned.

  “You’ve had enough fire, yes?”

  “You got that right.”

  “When you get ready to rebuild, let me know. I’ll be here.”

  Jessie was swiping at a few grateful tears when

  Hank Peterson put in an appearance with a half-dozen sacks of groceries and a couple of large ice chests.

  “Hey.” He grinned over her head, as he gave her another bear hug. “I’ve never seen you cry—over anything. Now twice in less than twenty-four hours?”

  Oscar Lee brought lunch for the whole crew: hot

  soup in a huge insulated container, several loaves of bread with ingredients for sandwiches, sacks full of apples and oranges, cases of soda and beer.

  “We burn-out casualties gotta stick together.” He grinned, organizing the food on a temporary table, quickly fashioned of Jessie’s sawhorses and a couple of planks brought from the shed. “I’m really sorry about your place, Jessie. But you could have just told us that you were so damned desperate for a party.”

  “Are you okay, Oscar—with the Other Place arson

  stuff, I mean?”

  “Yeah, it’s working itself out. There’s nothing for that investigator to find that could hurt me, because I

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  had nothing to do with it. So—I’ve just had a little bad luck, right? Nothing irreplaceable. He can go take a hike and find out who really burned my place—and maybe yours, too, huh?”

  By the time they’d all left, late in the afternoon, she was so full of the warmth of Alaskan goodwill that the sharp stab of grief had receded to something like a dull ache—a bruise rather than an open wound. The day had been a surprising and positive start to her personal recovery. Healing the ugly black scar where her cabin had stood could begin tomorrow—or the next day—

  when the investigation was finished. As Hank had said, it was really only walls and things, nothing to do with her most important resources—this generous crowd of friends and heroes.

  She was waving Hank on his way when arson in-

  vestigator MacDonald turned into the drive, alone this time in his own Jeep Cherokee.

  “Hey,” she greeted him as he stepped out and stood looking around in amazement, “I can offer you coffee this time—or beer, or soda—even a late lunch, if you’re hungry.”

  “My God,” he said. “Look at all this. Do you have a magic wand?”

  “No, just terrific, magic friends and neighbors. Can you believe it?”

  “Hardly. I’m impressed—with them, sure—but most-

  ly with you for inspiring all of this.”

  “Aw-w, not true, Mac. Alaskans are great people

  with huge hearts. We’re a pretty tight community out here in the sticks. They’d have done the same for anyone—have in the past.”

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  “Right. And if my grandmother had wheels . . .”

  He accepted a can of Pepsi and they sat together on a bench someone had set beside the tent’s door—an actual wooden, you-can-open-and-close-it, even-lock-it door. There was a mat that looked so odd in front of a tent that Jessie couldn’t help laughing. Green, it bore two skinny, black-and-white-striped legs and feet in red shoes. DING-DONG! it read, as if the rest of the witch had been flattened under the tent. Whoever brought it had wanted to give her a smile.

  “I’ve got some interesting but kind of unsettling news,” MacDonald said after a minute, “and a few more questions. We did some checking on your house-guest, Anne ‘Marty’ Gifford Holman. You said you picked her up three days ago at . . . ah—” he flipped through a loose-leaf pad to find his notes “—at nine-twenty in the morning on Alaska Airlines flight number eighty-one from Seattle?”

  “I don’t remember the number, but the rest sounds right.”

  “Did you actually see her get off the plane?”

  “I was going to the gate, but I was running late. Passengers were already coming down the hall, so I decided not to go through security and waited for her in the hallway. There was no other way out, so I knew I couldn’t miss her.”

  “But she came from the direction of that gate?”

  “Ye-e-s. Why?”

  He frowned and shook his head.

  “Flight eighty-one,” he said slowly, “was scheduled for arrival at eight-fifty-two, not nine-twenty, and it was on time. But your friend Anne didn’t come in on

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  it. There’s no record of her on that or any flight on any airline that arrived at Anchorage International that day—or on either the day before or the day before that.”

  Jessie stared at him in astonishment. “She wasn’t on a passenger list? Maybe she didn’t use—”

  “Holman? Nope. And we checked all the combina-


  tions of names we could think of. We even talked with the attendants that were on the flight that morning. No one remembers her at all and, from the way you described her, I don’t think she’d be hard to pick out in a crowd, do you?”

  “Probably not.” Jessie frowned, thinking hard. “She was pulling a dark, wheeled carry-on bag, and we picked up a larger bag that matched it from baggage.

  She was wearing a blue sweater and jeans that were way too big for her.”

  “Just the way we described her to anyone who might have remembered. No one did. She may have met you at the airport, Jessie, but I don’t think she came off a plane from Seattle. Any ideas?”

  “But she called me from Seattle the night before and specifically told me the flight and arrival time. She em-phasized nine-twenty. Said it more than once, so I’d have it right.”

  He looked at her without speaking, waiting for her to figure it out.

  “She could have called from anywhere. And she

  wanted to make sure there was a plane already in so it would look like she’d been on it?”

  “Right—probably. You don’t even know that call

  was long distance.”

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  “She could have already been in Alaska—gone to

  the airport from anywhere—sometime before she met me.”

  “Right again. You can’t prove she got off that plane.

  You didn’t see her get off and it looks like she didn’t want you to.”

  He hesitated for a second, then asked another question and watched closely for her answer.

  “Did you see anyone else you knew at the airport—

  anyone who’d remember you?”

  Jessie tried to think. “I was really tired. The Other Place burned the night before, and I barely got to bed before I had to get up again. No—I can’t remember recognizing anyone. Wait—there was . . . No, I didn’t see his face. I know I didn’t speak to anyone else.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessie, but I’ve got to say this. You can’t even prove you picked her up at the airport, can you?”

  “Why would I have to prove it?”

  “Unfortunately, Mike Tatum’s tossing around some pretty wild accusations—that you had it in for him—

  and her—or the two of you did. He’s intimating that you may have had something to do with her disappearance. He’s mentioned your name in connection with all three of the arsons that happened in the last week—including this one.”

  Jessie stared at him, speechless with shock that quickly turned to hot anger.

  “You don’t believe any of that, Mac. He doesn’t even know me. Why would he do that? Why would

  Anne lie to me about arriving that day?”

  He laid a restraining hand on her arm.

  “I don’t know. But belief has nothing to do with it. I

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  have to investigate every lead, however ridiculous.

  He’s also upset about my being called in, so he’s not being cooperative.”

  “But I—”

  The crunch of tires on gravel interrupted what she had been about to say and she turned to see Phil Becker climb out of his patrol car.

  “Hey,” he called, looking around at what had been accomplished by her visitors. “Somebody lo-oves you.

  This is great. You’ve got a new home already.”

  She got up to give him a hug.

  “It’s not quite home, but it’ll do for now.”

  Stepping away, he handed her what looked like a

  large cellular phone in a protective leather case. “I’m still not completely comfortable with you being out here alone. So here’s something I doubt anyone else could give you.”

  “Oh, Phil, thanks, but I’ve got one.” Jessie pulled her cell phone from a pocket.

  “You don’t have one of these,” he told her with a grin. “It’s an iridium phone—a satellite connection that works just about anywhere in the world. We’re trying these when we have to go places our radios and cell phones won’t reach. I’ll feel a lot better knowing you can call us from—anywhere. The dispatch number’s already programmed in, so all you have to do is push a couple of buttons. Commander Swift wants you to call him, so he knows it works and if there’s anything else you need.”

  “I’ll call to tell him thank you,” Jessie said. “These things cost the earth. What if I lose it or break it?

  Jeez!”

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  “So? It’s just a phone—insured. No worries.”

  “Thank you, Phil,” was followed by another hug that knocked his western hat askew, but pleased him into blushing like a teenager.

  “You’re more than welcome. Now—I guess Mac’s

  told you about the nasty nonsense Tatum’s busy

  spreading?”

  He upended a wooden box someone had left near

  the tent and, sitting on it, raised a questioning eyebrow at MacDonald.

  The interruption had given Jessie’s astonished anger a little time to cool. Now it surged back with controlled questions.

  “I get the general idea. How could he possibly think I burned down my own house—or anybody else’s—let alone helped Anne disappear? Why would I?”

  “He’s got just enough backing up his implications to force us to take another look—just to prove him

  wrong,” MacDonald told her. “And I’m sorry, Jessie, but he isn’t saying you helped her disappear. Just that she’s gone and you were the last one to see her.”

  “Not true. Billy was here and saw her . . . Oh—and Hank Peterson saw me at the gas station on our way out of town—so he saw her in my truck. At least I think he did.”

  “Tatum says that Anne may never have made it back here. He’s claiming that there may have been foul play on your trip with the sled.”

  “The bastard. Listen—there were two guys loading snowmachines at the Kroto Creek parking area when we came back. They helped me lift the sled onto the dog box.

  They’ll tell you she came back there and left with me.”

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  “Who were they?”

  “Ah, Mark—something, an architect, and a Gary—

  ah—Jeffers. I recognized him—had met him some-

  where else at a race, or something. They were both from Anchorage.”

  “Good. That’s something positive we can check.”

  He pulled a plastic evidence bag from his pocket and held it out to her. “Do you recognize this, Jessie?”

  Inside the bag was a blue knit hat.

  She stared down at it, frowning. “Can I take it out?”

  “Yes. It’s already been to the lab.”

  She took out the hat and turned it inside out. Catching her breath, she looked up and held it out to show.

  “It’s mine. See this piece of red yarn? I tied it in there, because I kept getting it mixed with other people’s. It’s been missing for a few days.”

  The bright red tail of yarn showed plainly from the inner side of the hat.

  “Where did you—”

  “Tatum says he picked it up behind the burned Mulligan trailer at Big Lake. Any ideas?”

  “I’ve never been there. Don’t even know where it is.”

  It was all coming at her with unbelievable swiftness, an ambush to ragged emotions already stretched to their limits. She knew Becker didn’t believe this, was on her side, and that MacDonald was asking his questions as considerately yet insightfully as possible. Still, the implication that she was somehow involved in arson and Anne’s disappearance rocked her off balance. Why would Tatum or anyone try to set her up?

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  “Where were you in the afternoon the day Anne supposedly arrived? Before Mulligan’s place burned?”

  “She did arrive—well, at least she was here,” Becker interjected before Jessie could answer. “I
saw her myself, remember—when Tatum and I came to interview Jessie about the Other Place fire.”

  MacDonald nodded and turned back to Jessie, waiting for her answer.

  “I was here with Anne, then out on a training run with Billy Steward. We each took out a team of the young dogs.”

  “Together all the time?”

  “No. About half the time we ran together, then he went back. His folks had something special planned for that evening, so he had to get home early. I stayed out for more than an hour more before I started home.”

  “Time enough to run your team to Big Lake, with no one to prove you didn’t.”

  Heartsick, angry, and confused, Jessie had to agree.

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  BECKER AND MACDONALD HAD

  ,

  GONE LEAVING JESSIE

  incensed and a little afraid because of Tatum’s attempt to make her a suspect and her inability to refute his insinuations. She thought there was more that MacDonald wasn’t telling her, but questioning him had brought her no further information. To shake off her worries, she determined to keep busy with some of the many things there were to do to keep the kennel running smoothly, despite the fire, starting with unpacking the sled, which she had not done last night. It was growing dark as she worked, and, as she took items from the sled bag, she couldn’t help wondering where Anne could have gone and why. How had she disappeared so fast and so completely without transportation? Had someone picked her up on Knik Road? Was there any way to find out who?

  After moving the leftover food from their trip to the tent, she sorted the other supplies and equipment.

  Extra harness went on hooks near the shed door, sleeping bags were spread out to air, dog food and water containers piled up to be washed.

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  She was almost finished and in the process of putting the first-aid kit on a shelf on the back wall of the shed, beyond the four-wheel ATV that she used for summer training runs, when she noticed an unfamiliar green gym bag sitting next to a cardboard box on one of the lower shelves. Frowning in an attempt to remember what it was and where it had come from, she pulled it out and unzipped it.

  At first she thought it might be some forgotten

  things of Jensen’s, but, as she assessed the contents, that idea grew less likely. What would he want with a digital timer, several batteries, some coils of electrical wire, a roll of black electrician’s tape, a plastic bottle of lighter fluid, a few other electrical items? Slowly, the use for these items sank in, and, stomach turning over, she realized that she was probably holding the components for a fire bomb. What could they be doing on a shelf in her shed?