by Inger Wolf
She stared into his eyes. "I imagine it's one of the best places to see the volcano, seeing that there are no roads going there from the other side of Anchorage."
"I'm not following you on the geography," Trokic said. "To me, it's all mountains or plains. And then the North Pole."
"Of course. How could you know? I have a map in the car, I'll show you."
Back inside the warm car, she pulled a map out of the glove compartment and folded it out between them. "Okay, Cook Inlet here is like a long, thin fjord at the bottom of Alaska, and Anchorage lies at the end of it."
She pointed. "Redoubt is on the northern side of the fjord, about a hundred miles west of Anchorage."
He followed her finger. "That little dot is Redoubt. But if you drive down to Kenai like we're doing now, you drive on the southern side of the fjord. And you see the volcano across the water. It's a lot shorter as the crow flies from Soldotna than from Anchorage."
She folded the map and stuck it back in the glove compartment. "Soldotna and the surrounding area is maybe the best place for people without a plane or a helicopter to see Redoubt. There must have been a lot of ash the last time, too."
She shivered, even though it was warmer in the car. "What if the ash from the crime scene came from down here? Someone scooped it up back then. Held it in their hand, felt these weird grainy particles and thought…yeah, what? That Asger should die? Did he already have it planned back then? Christ, it's creepy to think about that."
Neither of them had any answers.
"It's strange,” she said. “We've worked on this case for days, and we know a lot about the Vad family, their lives, about the crime scene and the dollhouse and so much else. And anyway, it's like I don't understand a thing. It's just a bunch of pieces, and I have no idea what they're supposed to look like when you put them together. Nothing fits. The killer murdered Asger and his family. And the Griffins. But what is he doing with Marie? What does he want with her?"
Suddenly, Trokic remembered something. "There was something about that map the techs found under Griffin's bed. Some marks that were different, farther away, somewhere near the national park, isn't that right?"
She stared at him in surprise. Then she turned up the music again and put the car in gear. "You're right; I think we're on the right track. There's something here. I don't know what the hell it is, but let's go."
Chapter Fifty-Three
TWO HOURS LATER, they were in Soldotna. It had stopped snowing coming into town, and the sky was blue, the road was clear. Angie said it had taken longer than usual, though. They drove through a quiet neighborhood; the whole town was dead. They checked in at a small hotel downtown and walked up to their room. She kicked her boots off, tossed her bag on the bed, and looked out the window. She froze.
"Look, there's Redoubt. Fuck, they're right. See that wisp of smoke rising up over there?"
He stood beside her. The volcano across the water was covered with snow, but its conical form was still visible. Small clouds drifted by. Trokic put his arm around her and held her tightly. He stared at the craggy volcano, fascinated by the sight. He'd heard so much about it. "But the smoke isn't coming from the top."
"No, the vent is farther down the side. That's where the eruption came from last time."
"Incredible."
"It's beautiful," Angie said. "In a way, you can understand Asger Vad's fascination. The solitary beauty with the smoldering personality. It's almost sort of a love thing. The observatory told us he'd been out at Redoubt several times with technicians to install equipment. But I have this feeling he was here, too."
Trokic thought out loud. "I think you're right. Here in the area, with this incredible view of his love."
"But that doesn't mean the killer is here, or that Marie is close by and alive. The peninsula is really big; she could be so many places."
"It's also a long way from Anchorage. If Adam Connolly is behind all this, could he really have driven down here and back in time, to give the impression that everything was normal?"
Angie pulled her coat off, kissed him, and walked over to check her wound in the mirror. The stitches could be removed before long. "If he really wanted to, yeah. Of course, it's quite a drive, but on the other hand, he'd also have gotten Marie away from us, dead or alive."
"Or maybe the killer is someone from down here? Do any of the other volcano experts or friends live down here?"
"I don't think so," Angie said. "But that's an angle we haven't looked into, and we should. We need to contact the Volcano Observatory again. Find out if Asger or any of the others came here. Maybe one of their people came down to collect ash during the last eruption. Let's see if we can get ahold of the last Debbies."
She was about to call the first number when her phone rang.
"Yeah, sorry," she said into the phone. "We've been on the road, no coverage. But we're here now."
Pause. Her eyes locked onto Trokic. "Really? We have to talk to him, where is he?"
She hung up and stuck her phone into her bag. "Looks like we can put our search for Debbie on hold." She sounded excited. "That guy I just talked to is from the Soldotna police. There was something about a Debbie down here, one that disappeared. He didn't know so much himself, but the officer who does is retired. And we can talk to him, I got an address."
"Sounds interesting," Trokic said.
She looked at her watch. "I was told he's home and we're welcome to stop by. What do you say?"
Chapter Fifty-Four
THE MAUVE-COLORED wooden house looked warm and cozy in the snow. A path had been cleared to the house; the snow piled up on the sides formed two low walls. When the door opened, a black cat stuck its head out and looked around before ducking back inside. The man was also black. He was extremely tall, with a full gray beard and short gray hair. A pair of reading glasses hung from his neck. He held out his hand. "Ben Chadwick. Get inside here where it's warm."
They stomped the snow off their boots and stepped into the small hallway. Immediately, they smelled coffee, which Trokic suddenly wanted more than anything in the world—it was hot, and it represented normality to him.
"It's in the kitchen," Chadwick said, noticing Trokic's reaction. "Come on in. My wife died last year, but before she left she taught me how to brew the world's best coffee."
They sat down in a small, green kitchen. Everything looked a bit old. Their host rustled up three mugs and poured coffee.
"So. You want to hear about a Debbie who was here; you're looking for her but you can't find her."
"That's right," Angie said. She laid her hand on Trokic's leg under the table. "We know she came down here, but we don't know why. We think she had a couple of kids with her."
The black ex-policeman sipped at his coffee and stood up to find an ashtray. He dropped it on the table. A Budweiser ashtray. He smiled. "I'm one of the few people left who still smoke inside. You're welcome to do the same; the walls are yellow anyway."
Trokic pulled out his pack, which prompted a glance of disapproval from Angie, followed by a pinch underneath the table.
"I knew a Debbie for a very short time," Chadwick said. "Theoretically, it could be her. She came in on the bus one day with her two kids and a lot of luggage. I was on patrol back then, and she stood there on the edge of the street, looking sort of desperate. So, I asked her where she was headed. And she said she'd ended up in the wrong place. She'd meant to go camping in the national park. It was getting late, so I took her to the Best Western. I couldn't just leave her there with two kids."
"That's where we're staying," Trokic said.
"Then you know where it is. I told her I could help her find where she wanted to go, so she put the kids to bed and came out again. We sat in the lobby and talked for a half hour. Nice woman."
"Do you know where she came from?" Angie asked.
"Yeah, Oklahoma. I think she'd only been up here about a year."
"It has to be the Debbie we're looking for," Angie said, excited now.
"It has to be."
"At first, she didn't say much. I still remember her sitting there with her arms crossed, hugging her body. My impression was she normally kept people at arm's length. But I'm not a cop for nothing. I took it slow and easy, and she ended up telling me she was on the run with her two kids. She was actually pretty open and honest once she got going. Or maybe I just have that effect on people, they open up to me. Her ex was abusive, so she'd decided to go somewhere he wouldn't find her. She rented a place in Anchorage for a while. She also mentioned a dog they brought along, an old one they'd had to put down just before coming here. Her kids felt bad, and she wanted to cheer them up. And that's when she got a call from their father."
Trokic tapped the ashes off his cigarette. "How did he track her up here?"
"She didn't know, but she thought maybe one of the kids called him, and then he tracked her through the phone number."
"Gross," Angie said.
"Yeah. Anyway, she said he was on their heels, that's why she was on the run. She was scared shitless, I could tell that. And I think she had good reason. I've seen badly abused women before. It's like they're looking over their shoulder all the time, they jump at any little sound, and they're constantly on guard. And that's how she was. I felt sorry for her. So anyway, she was looking for a new place to live. Someplace far away from her ex."
"But all she brought with her was her luggage? Where were all her things?"
"She said she had everything stored in Anchorage someplace. She'd given up her apartment."
"She didn't happen to talk about a dollhouse, did she?" Trokic said.
"No, she didn't. But that's not the kind of thing we were talking about. So that's why she was in the area. I told her it was a bad idea to go out in the wilderness, a single mother with two kids. She thought it over, but I don't think she took my advice."
"And then what happened?" Angie said.
"We talked a little about living in Soldotna. I promised her I would check for something she could rent. She said she was going to have a look around with her kids. I gave her my phone number, but then I never heard from her again."
"It sounds like her," Trokic said, snuffing his cigarette out in the ashtray. "So maybe she just went on and found another place?"
"Maybe. But I'm not finished yet. Not so long after that, a few days later, a man showed up. It was pure coincidence that I noticed. They came walking down the street downtown. He had the boy with him; I recognized him right off the bat. The man was the aggressive type, that was easy to see, and the boy looked intimidated. I confronted the guy. Said I knew he was after his ex-wife."
"What did he say to that?" Trokic said.
Chadwick shrugged. "He laughed in my face. Said I was right. But she and her daughter had moved on, and the boy was staying with him. It was the boy who'd called his father, asked him to come get him. I had the feeling something was all wrong, and I had a word with some of the local wildlife troopers and park rangers, asked them if they'd seen anything suspicious. A local guide said he might have remembered her, though not for anything special. Hutchinson's his name. Apparently, he'd hit on her. And that was it. That's all I know."
Trokic took a sip of coffee, which really was fantastic. The black cat had hopped up on an upholstered chair to take a nap. "And what about her things in storage in Anchorage?"
"That I don't know about. Maybe she picked it all up, maybe she's out in the world somewhere. But it might also be her ex found the place with the boy's help and got his hands on it. They weren't married, but he probably could have pulled it off."
"And the dollhouse," Angie mumbled. "He could have found it there."
Chadwick looked a bit confused. He pulled at his gray beard. "You think maybe he had something to do with Asger Vad's murder?"
"I don't know. Who knows what Debbie was doing in Anchorage? Maybe she had an affair with Asger. Maybe jealousy had something to do with it. But what happened with the man?"
"I suppose they went back to Oklahoma, or wherever it was. He didn't say anything about his plans. As I understood from Debbie, they had an older son in school back there. I remember thinking later that her ex might have found her. Maybe he killed her and the daughter but kept the son. How could I prove that though, without a body? I had to let him go. But all this time, even now, I think about how I made a mistake."
They sat for a moment in silence.
"I think we need to take a closer look at Asger," Trokic said. "Maybe someone saw them together. Maybe they met down here while he was involved with Redoubt, and now all these years later the man takes his revenge."
"I hope you get this case solved, the whole state is riled up. And in the meantime, it looks like there's another eruption coming."
He sighed demonstratively. "At least we know what we'll be doing the next few months. Cleaning up after that fucking volcano."
Angie nodded and said to Trokic, "We have to contact the observatory again. If Asger was here officially for the observatory, there must be a record of it. He could have met Debbie at some point, had an affair with her. Maybe that's why the volcano meant so much to him. And maybe Mette learned about it and found someone else."
Trokic looked at Chadwick. "Do you remember the dates when Debbie was here?"
Chadwick rocked his head a bit. "Yes and no. I know the day I met her on the street because when I was in the lobby my wife called and reminded me it was our anniversary. I'd forgotten it."
He smiled a bit sheepishly. "That makes it the fifth of September. As far as her ex goes, it was about a week later."
"Good. So those are the dates we need to look at," Angie said.
They said goodbye to Chadwick and drove back to the hotel.
Chapter Fifty-Five
SLAWOMIR DEN DID NOT at all like the data coming in from Redoubt over the past twenty-four hours, and now that Adam Connolly had mysteriously become some sort of a suspect in the Asger Vad murder case—and why in hell was he? —the whole observatory was buzzing around him. As if he knew what that goddamn stratovolcano was up to. And all the time, a little voice inside him was screaming about retirement and wouldn't listen to anything else. He was about to take a bite out of his sandwich when the phone rang.
"Angie Johnson," the voice said.
Aha. The half-breed woman cop who had been at the observatory. Not bad to look at, but right now he didn't want to be confronted with anything, and he had the sinking feeling this was going to be about Redoubt. He felt a twinge of hysteria between his eyes. "How can I help you?" he sighed. It felt like his reddish gray hair was sticking straight out.
"Is it possible to check your records from ten years ago and see if there was any activity in the volcanoes back then?"
"I suppose so."
"You suppose so? Is that a yes?"
He resisted the temptation to throw his phone down on the floor. "We have data back to 2002 when the observatory was built." He tried not to snipe at her.
"Good. As I understand it, you have a web camera someplace on the Kenai Peninsula, focused on Redoubt, is that right?"
Just as he'd thought. "That's right. We replaced it last year."
"And do you remember when you installed the first one?"
"I'll have to check our computer records," he mumbled.
"I'll wait," she said.
Goddammit, Den thought. What did Redoubt have to do with this case? And Kenai? He laid his phone on the table so she couldn't hear him swearing, then he opened the browser on his computer and entered the observatory archives. He opened a report and skimmed it, then he picked up his phone. "What is it you want to know? Precisely?"
"When the camera was installed."
"September sixth."
"And who did the work?"
"Asger Vad."
Silence. Den thought she'd hung up, but then she said, "I see. Thank you for your help."
"Wait a minute," he almost yelled.
"Yes?"
"Are you finished bothering my people?"
"Your people?"
"I still need Adam Connolly here, and I won't tolerate any more harassment from the police. It's got to stop."
"We're simply doing our job."
The policewoman hung up, and he sat for a long time holding his phone, staring at nothing.
Chapter Fifty-Six
MARIE HUDDLED IN THE CORNER. He was mad. She could tell by the way he paced back and forth in the cabin. Charlie was very mad. And he was starting to look at her differently. As if she wasn't the same person. After they came back, he'd stopped calling her kiddo. Now she longed for the words that would show he wasn't angry anymore. He looked different, too. His hair was all tangled, and he had creases around his eyes. Several small red patches marked his face, and he bit his lower lip so much that it practically had no skin left.
He hadn't eaten, either. The refrigerator was empty. And he'd also begun painting the inside walls again. It looked like a mountain, and yet, wild blue and red stripes ran through the big triangle. He had also tried to paint a dog or wolf in neon green. He had nearly filled up an entire wall over the past twenty-four hours. The paintings forced themselves on her, entered her head, like something totally crazy. They seemed threatening, and it made her shudder.
At times, he screamed and threw his brush down. Other times, he played gloomy classical music over a ghetto blaster he brought in from the pickup. She'd never heard it before, but the violins cut right through her. And, once in a while, he mumbled something to himself she couldn't make out. Like now. A scary, tingling sound that made her hold her breath way too long. He changed from something resembling a human into a predator. Marie had heard about someone who had rabies and started frothing at the mouth, became a monster who bit everyone around him. They'd finally had to shoot him. She thought about that now, but there was no one to help her.