Under a Black Sky (Part of the Daniel Trokics Series)

by Inger Wolf

  "My records say she was here four times. I only remember her because she didn't look like she was local. This woman was…chic. Beautiful, fashion clothing. The dog was a big white poodle. About like the one outside. It was ancient, sort of weak. I can't imagine it lived very much longer. I cut it and trimmed its nails. It's important that you—"

  "Just tell us about Debbie," Trokic said. He wasn't interested in the poodle world.

  "Yes, sir," she said, her eyebrow raised in indignation. "Let's see. She had an accent I couldn't place. It was for sure she wasn't from here, though. I think she was from Oklahoma. But she was sort of the nervous type. I like to talk, but I had to squeeze every word out of her."

  Trokic felt the tension in the air. This might really be her, maybe they could find out who bought the dollhouse from her. If her husband wasn't a psychopathic serial killer. But then they would surely find him. "Do you have her address?"

  She shook her head. "Only her phone number."

  She handed them a slip of paper. "I wrote it down for you, but it so happens I tried to call the number before you got here, and it looks like it's not working. Maybe you can get something out of it anyway."

  "We'll check it," Angie said, though she sounded doubtful. "You remember anything else?"

  She chewed on that for a moment. "I remember the last time she was here. Only because it was the last time, and later I wondered if she didn't like how I did her dog. Believe me, you can cut poodles for twenty years and still be nervous about it."

  Twenty years was a hell of a long time, Trokic wanted to say. But he held back.

  "In fact," she said, "I called several other poodle salons to hear if she'd switched, but no one else knew her. So, I assumed she'd moved on."

  She lit a cigarette and opened a window. Freezing air and snowflakes blew in, but it didn't help the smell of the place.

  "So, what did you talk about that last time?" Angie said.

  "She said she wanted to go on a hike with the kids. She didn't mention a man, so I figured she was alone with them."

  Maybe no serial killer husband after all, Trokic thought. He glanced over at Angie, who was biting a nail and following the conversation closely. "Kids? So she had more than one?"

  "Yeah. As I understood it, she had one studying in Oklahoma, or wherever it was, and two younger ones. A boy and a girl. And, oh, yeah, she asked about how it was in Soldotna. I couldn't tell her, I've never been there."

  Angie perked up. "Soldotna. Down on the Kenai Peninsula?"

  "I guess so. I don't know any other Soldotnas."

  "And you're sure about that? It's been ten years."

  She nodded eagerly, happy to be able to remember a detail from so long ago. "Oh, yeah. I remember because, later on, I thought she might have moved down there. Since she didn't come by anymore. Not that I was desperate to know or anything, not that I called any dog salons in Soldotna. I don't even know if there are any."

  Chapter Fifty

  "CHRIST, IT STUNK," Angie mumbled. They were out on the street again. "Glad I don't have a poor mutt that has to be trimmed there. What do we do now? I'm at a loss here."

  "Where's Soldotna?" Trokic said.

  She flipped her arm out in the general direction of south and wriggled her hands up inside her coat sleeves. Her eyes were blank. He wished he'd met her under different circumstances. Where there was time to get to know her somewhere other than in a police car.

  "A few hours from here,” she said, “if I remember right. Like you heard, it's down on the Kenai Peninsula. We can check for dog salons, but I think only about four thousand people live there, so maybe it's best to search for names. Debbie, Debra, Deborah, something like that. If she moved down there, and if she hasn't moved again. Dammit, though, it was ten years ago. Sometimes I really feel we're clutching at straws on this one."

  She pulled out her phone and punched numbers with her stiff fingers. "I'll have someone dig up phone numbers for us, so we'll have them when we get in."

  Trokic gazed up at the sky. It looked like it was about to fall on them. Angie followed his eyes. "Yeah, looks like snow. A lot more snow."

  "We've already had a lot of snow," Trokic said.

  "You ain't seen nothing yet. Not even close."

  THE MOOD WAS gloomy when they got back to the station. Despite the redoubled efforts of state troopers and local police in the area, there was no sign whatsoever of Marie. Someone higher up was talking about cutting back on the search. A big snow was on the way, which was going to create lots of traffic problems. They couldn't let people stranded in ditches die while every law officer was out tromping around the same places, over and over. They would have to help out on the roads.

  Smith hissed at someone on the phone. There wasn't a smile in the entire station, and the dark sky outside made the open office landscape look dreary.

  Angie sat at her desk and pushed a chair over to Trokic with her foot. She looked as discouraged as everyone else. "Every day, it gets more depressing. Especially since the media keeps things stirred up. Maybe she's been dead a long time."

  "And Adam Connolly is still under surveillance?"

  "Yeah. I don't trust his boss, this Slawomir. Not a hundred percent. I think he might have the dates wrong. But since Redoubt is showing signs of waking up, they seem to need Connolly. How much that plays into it, I don't know."

  "I know what you mean," Trokic said. "National security, all that."

  "Exactly. Presumably, he's been at the observatory quite a while. Anyway, now he's back at the lodge. He's been seen carrying things out to his car, so we're guessing he's coming back to town to be closer to the observatory, now that something is happening. But we've got nothing on him, and he's not behaving suspiciously. If he's behind this, he doesn't have Marie anymore. Or else she's locked away somewhere."

  She picked up a sheet of paper. "Okay. Lab results on Marie's vomit. They haven't found anything. But that proves nothing. Maybe he chloroformed her with a rag over her mouth. Or shot her up. If this Debbie lead is a dead end, we're back to square one on the technical evidence."

  She pulled out a few sheets of paper from the stack on her desk. "We got this data from the phone carrier, the fastest way to find the telephone numbers. The number the poodle woman gave us for Debbie is disconnected. They said it never was used, it was just a wrong number. Shit."

  She glanced down the list and sighed heavily. "I hate telephone lists, but okay, it could be worse. About sixty-four people here. I don't know how big an area this covers geographically, but let's get started. I'll get a copy for you."

  Two minutes later, she was back. She drew a line across the middle. Her hand brushed against his, and she glanced up and smiled at him. "I'll take half, you take half."

  Trokic nodded. He was getting hungry; all they'd eaten since that morning was a bag of peanuts, two apples, and a bar of chocolate Angie bought at a gas station. But food would have to wait. "So, how do we do this?"

  "Say that you're calling from here, you're looking for a Debbie or Deborah. We're assuming from the kids' age and the witness descriptions of her, she was somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five at the time. Ask them how old they are, and if they're not between forty-five and fifty-five, it's thank you and goodbye and cross them off the list. If they are, ask if they bought a dollhouse in Talkeetna ten years ago. There's no reason to beat around the bush. They'll know which case it's about, but there's nothing to do about that."

  "No, there's no reason to not mention the dollhouse; everyone knows anyway."

  "Yeah. You can borrow Jeffrey's desk and phone. He's in bed at home with pneumonia, poor guy." She smiled. "Good luck."

  IT WAS ALMOST eight that evening when they took a break to see where they were at. They'd been on the phone constantly, and Trokic's enthusiasm had fallen with every call. He was totally discouraged and his head buzzed from talking to so many strangers. Several of them had accents so thick that everything had to be repeated. He was beginning to doubt the
re were any Debbies in the area who knew anything. Even worse: what if Harrison was wrong or was lying, and there was no Debbie? If so, they were wasting enormous resources. On the other hand, they had nothing better to do.

  "I've talked to twenty-three of my thirty-two Debbies," Angie said. "No luck. I had to call several times to get hold of several of them."

  "Same here," Trokic said. "I've contacted twenty-one of my thirty-two. People are curious. Several of them started talking about other dollhouses, or they wanted to hear more."

  "Yeah, they smell a rat. I can see the news tomorrow—Anchorage police searching for a Debbie with a dollhouse."

  "That's not so bad, is it? Maybe someone knows something. Or remembers her."

  "Yeah, it's possible," she said, without a hint of a smile. "I've also called two dog salons on the Kenai Peninsula. She might have driven that far to have her poodle trimmed. No luck there either. One of them had a Debbie in their records, but it was a girl in her mid-twenties. Our Debbie has to look older than that."

  They stared into space a few moments. Angie took a sip of her cold tea and grimaced.

  "What do we do now?" Trokic said.

  "How about if we drive down there tomorrow, and on the way, we try to get hold of the last ones on the list? If we don't get anything out of the calls, we can check hotels down there, things like that. Maybe she was just driving around the area. And maybe someone can remember. Not that I'm optimistic. There's also the Soldotna police, we can get them to help us."

  He looked out the window. It was almost dark, but he could see the snow falling again. Small flakes slammed furiously against the window.

  "We'll just have to hope we can get there," she sighed. She swiveled in her chair and opened a browser on her computer. "I'll reserve a hotel room for us."

  "And then what?"

  She glanced over at him. "Then we'll go home, to my place. Get something to eat."

  She leaned down and pulled a box out of her bag. A lunchbox, maybe. She opened it and handed it to him; two pieces of half-thawed meat stared up at him. "Not that we have anything to celebrate. But it's a consolation prize."

  He smiled. "Is this what I think it is?"

  "Yup. Genuine moose, Daniel. And it cost me one hour of cleaning house for Tim over there in the corner, so you had better like it."

  Chapter Fifty-One

  TROKIC WOKE UP WITH A START. He was bathed in sweat. He'd been dreaming of a blonde girl in a large lake, whose head was being held underwater by a gigantic, wild-haired man in overalls. She screamed, and he could hear her lungs gurgling, filling with water. Snow-clad trees whistled unnaturally loudly, and the man laughed.

  He lay in bed, breathing deeply, and thinking about his last case in Denmark involving drowned children and insane people. Outside, far from the trailer, he heard engines running, children and grown-ups on their way to school and work.

  He turned in bed and studied Angie, who was still asleep. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow under her head and her mouth was closed around one of her knuckles. He noticed traces of her lipstick; he recalled how it had tasted last night. The raven around her neck nestled in between her breasts.

  Even though he'd slept for seven hours, mentally he felt exhausted. His thoughts were jumbled, his head cluttered with information. What if he was ordered back home? He hadn't heard much so far, but sooner or later a murder case would come up that required his attention. He hoped that Jasper Taurup had enough on the ball to take care of everything.

  She was awake now, smiling, her eyes warm. "Admit it, that moose yesterday was great."

  He laughed. "I do, it was."

  They both began thinking silently about the upcoming day. Then she shoved her comforter aside and sat up. "We've got a long day ahead of us." She stared straight ahead.

  "We should get going," he said. "It's not snowing now. The sooner we leave, the better."

  "Is it okay for me to shower first?" she said.

  He held his hand out; the shower was all hers.

  She hurried over to the bathroom, and for a few seconds, he had the pleasure of watching her slim, naked body in movement. He sighed and leaned back against the bed, found the remote, and turned on the TV.

  The media had found something new to sink their teeth into. Trokic straightened up immediately at the sight of Slawomir Den in the studio. He didn't look happy; in fact, he looked angry, unusual for someone on TV, local or not.

  "We don't know how bad it is," he said, scowling at the female TV anchor. "It might simply fizzle out."

  The doubt on his face was obvious to anyone.

  "But isn't it true that a pilot saw the smoke?" she said.

  "That doesn't necessarily mean the volcano will erupt," Den said. "But everyone in the area can be sure that we're monitoring the situation closely twenty-four hours a day. We're prepared to alert the airport if it becomes necessary. Flights will be redirected to other airports, for example."

  "But exactly how probable is it?" She slipped a strand of black hair behind her ear. "You've written on your website this morning that there have been several earthquakes; the probability must be high."

  Den looked pale. "I simply can't tell you that."

  Several photos from earlier Redoubt eruptions appeared. A lahar rolling down the mountain, a gigantic cloud rising into the atmosphere. This worried Trokic; he imagined the volcano erupting for months, closing down the airport so he couldn't get home. But was that bad? He wasn't so sure.

  "What are you watching?" Angie said while drying her long hair.

  "Your volcano is acting up. Our friend at the Volcano Observatory, Slawomir Den, is trying to reassure everybody, but he's not very convincing. Asger would have done better."

  She ignored the news about the volcano and tossed him a clean towel from a dresser in the corner. She checked her phone. "The media is probably stirring everyone up again. It's still early." She smiled. "So, if you hurry up in the bathroom, we can even grab some breakfast before we start hunting for Debbie."

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  CELLPHONE COVERAGE TURNED spotty not far outside of Anchorage, and he only managed to speak to a few more Debbies. None of them knew anything about a dollhouse from Talkeetna, but they wanted to hear more about it. Trokic had a feeling that all the Debbies around Soldotna were now talking about dollhouses over coffee, in church, in the post office. He tossed his phone aside in frustration and looked out the window. Angie had looked skeptical when he handed her a new CD from Soundgarden. "Blood on the Valley Floor" simmered in the background. Now that Audioslave had broken up, it was nice to know Chris Cornell was back in Soundgarden where he belonged. Trokic was happy to see Angie's long, slender hands tapping the wheel in time. The road followed the fjord, Cook Inlet; snow dive-bombed the water. Small chunks of broken-off ice floated around. His thoughts floated with them, and for a moment there was nothing but beauty and the humming of the black Ford.

  Suddenly, Angie slowed and turned into a parking area by the road. She turned down the music. "I think this is where she lost her mitten. There, by the trash. But there's something else, I'm thinking. Something about this place."

  They got out of the car, and Trokic fought off the snow and finally got a cigarette lit. He inhaled and blew the smoke out. He felt himself calming down.

  "And here's where she threw up," he said.

  A guard rail screened off the cliffs spreading down toward the foaming, blue-gray water. A railroad line below looked abandoned. He could barely see the surrounding mountains through the snow and low clouds; he felt as if he were inside a natural tunnel between the mountains.

  Angie glanced around. "Just think, she was right here. Alive, with the killer, in the middle of the night. Carsick, scared. Right here she was alive. What did he want with her, what was he feeling, here with a frightened child, maybe even crying and begging for her mother? How does anyone justify doing what he was doing?"

  They thought that over a while. Trokic's calm suddenly turned i
nto hopelessness. Snow quickly capped his hair. The harsh nature and weather were closing in around them. How could they ever find anything in this white madness, an investigator's hell? He wanted to go back to the car, to Soundgarden. And leave.

  "It's only going to get worse," Angie said, taking his hand. Hers was warm and damp. "More snow. They'll have a tough time clearing the roads. You can already see, there's not much traffic. This side of the Chugach Mountains gets more snow than anywhere in the world. It's not exactly a great thing for us."

  She sighed and pulled her hood up, framing her face with the fur collar. Some of her braid was sticking out. He reached over and fingered it. They were alive, he thought. While a lot of other people had died in the blink of an eye. She looked into the distance, lost in her own thoughts.

  "Sometimes when I stand in a place like this, surrounded by nature, I think of how my grandparents and great-grandparents lived here, without all the necessities we have at hand."

  "Did they come here from the mountains?"

  She shook her head. "From farther south, another direction. When the clan saw the mountains for the first time, a hunter yelled 'chuga, chuga,' which means 'hurry up, hurry up.' That's why these mountains are called the Chugachs. Right now, I wish they didn't even exist. If she's in those mountains, we'll never find her."

  "I hope the roads here get salted."

  "Nope. Not here. It attracts animals, and that's dangerous, both for them and for humans. We use gravel or sand. But don't worry; I know what I'm doing."

  "There's already more snow here," Trokic said. "Like there's more coming all the time."

  "The mountains shield Anchorage a little bit from the snow. We don't have that luxury here. Normally, you can see the mountains on the other side of the water."

  She kicked some snow off her boots before turning to him. "Now I've got it. I've driven down here a lot, and in clear weather, you can see Redoubt in the distance. And now that I think about it, you can see it a lot closer from down on the Kenai Peninsula. From across the fjord, like from the other side."