by Sue Henry
Jessie will be delighted, I thought with a smile as I reached down to give Stretch a reassuring pat, for he had heard me rise and come to join me.
“Back to sleep, bitser,” I told him, going back to bed myself. “It’s not time to get up yet.”
Satisfied, he lay down again on the rug and soon I could hear him snoring contentedly.
For me, sleep didn’t come quite so fast or easily.
Thoughts of the woman I thought I had seen in the shop at Meta Rose Square kept me awake and wondering if it had been my imagination working overtime. But I didn’t really think so. It was simply too much of a coincidence to have come out of nowhere to startle and worry me. Why in the world would she be following me around? And who was she?
For a few minutes I questioned it, found no answers, then gave myself a mental shake and decided to think about the upcoming holidays that were approaching rapidly and would require some early planning.
There should be at least one evening gathering of people we know and love, so I had to remember to ask Joe who he would like added to that invitation list. Rather than a sit-down dinner that would limit the number of friends we could invite, I decided that it should be a drop-in evening and would have food and drinks available for folks to help themselves.
Joe had told me that he and Sharon had already made their reservations with Alaska Airlines and Grant Aviation to arrive two days before Christmas and stay until just before New Year’s for their trip back to Seattle. No, I remembered, they would be headed for Portland instead this time.
It would be fine to have them both for more than a weekend. I was pleased with Joe’s choice of a future wife, knowing Sharon fit in easily and well, and was a kind and generous person who approached the world realistically and with a great sense of humor that suited my son—and me.
I wanted to ask her if she had any wishes or ideas for the gathering I was planning, as well as things she would like to see and do in Homer. Perhaps her family, like ours, had had holiday traditions she would like to add. I had to get a stocking made with her name on it to hang with Joe’s on the mantel, for instance.
Besides Christmas, this visit would have wedding plans to be discussed and made. I would need to pursue the feasibility of having the ceremony on Niqa Island. How delightful, I thought, to anticipate a wedding for my son and his fine selection of spouse.
I don’t remember when I drifted off, but when I woke again it was just growing light outside, as usual in Alaska that time of year, when the window of daylight narrows considerably, doesn’t show up till midmorning, and is gone again in midafternoon.
The splash of the shower running in the bathroom between my room and Alex and Jessie’s told me it was time to get up. But, knowing that Stretch was probably more than ready to be taken outside for his morning constitutional, I put on my fleece robe and took him downstairs, where I slipped my bare feet into my boots and went out with him.
The snow had clearly continued to fall through the night and was still falling, so there was quite a bit on the ground. Each of the dog boxes in the yard had a five- or six-inch white addition crowning its roof and most of the dogs were content to stay dry and warmer inside those shelters.
A few, however, including Tank, were already up and out. Straining at the end of the tether that attached to his, he made it clear that he wanted to greet his small friend. Stretch, being much shorter legged, exhibited no desire to plow his way through the snow. So, while he piddled in the shelter of the stairs to the porch, I waded across to Tank and released him from the restraint that held him to his box.
As I followed him back, trying to walk in the prints I had made and failing, almost losing my balance once but somehow avoiding a fall into the deepening snow, the door opened and Jessie appeared on the porch.
“Good morning,” she called from the top step. “Are you sure you’ve chosen the proper attire for playing in the snow this early?”
“I’m growing more certain by the moment that I haven’t. But Stretch needed to go out and Tank wanted loose.”
“Well, I was thinking that after breakfast I’d hitch up a team and take you for a ride on the sled, if you’d like that.”
“I’d love it,” I told her. “I’ve never been on a dog sled ride and I’ve lived here all my life. Can you imagine that?”
“Time to cure that situation, I think.”
So after breakfast we dressed warmly and I watched while Jessie hitched ten of her dogs to one of her smaller sleds, into which she had put two pillows for me to sit on. She tucked me in with a wool blanket and we were soon heading down the driveway toward the road. With Tank in the lead the dogs pulled enthusiastically, clearly excited to be back in harness and going somewhere.
At the end of the drive we turned right onto a trail that paral leled and was a bit below the road. The track had been broken earlier by snow machines and other dog sleds, so we went swiftly and smoothly along.
In about a mile Jessie turned the team onto a trail that gradually rose up a hill to the ridgeline, where we soon met another that she told me had been made by local mushers and was used for training away from the automobile traffic below.
It was lovely to be gliding along with snow-covered spruce mixed among the bare white trunks of birch on either side, the only sounds being the susurrus of the sled runners and the soft footfalls of the dogs on the snowy trail to break the silence of the winter woods.
“Oh, Jessie, thank you. This is wonderful,” I told her over my shoulder to where she was riding the runners at the back of the sled. “No wonder you love it so much.”
“Well,” she said, “it’s not always so nice, but days like this with lots of new snow sure do make it worthwhile. You should be along sometime when I take the mutts out on a trail through country that’s really empty.
“Once, between here and Denali Park, we were traveling alone on a trail miles from any road. It was late and should have been dark, but the sky was bright with stars shining through an aurora display that spread green and red curtains across it like a net to hold their twinkling lights, and the light was refle cted off the snow. That was one of the best ever! Sometimes you get lucky.”
We soon came to a trail that led downhill and in minutes were coming back into Jessie’s yard past the kennel sheds and the house. She called the dogs to a halt in the spot from which we had started, accompanied by the welcoming barks and howls from those that had been left behind in the yard and were clearly anxious for a turn of their own.
“They really do love to run, don’t they,” I said, climbing out of the sled reluctantly.
Jessie grinned and nodded. “As much as I do,” she said. “Go ahead inside and warm up. I’m going to switch a couple of these guys and make another, longer run, but Alex will keep you provided with entertainment, I’m sure.”
By the time I reached the door she had quickly traded two of the dogs in harness for others and was already in motion toward the road. Watching her over my shoulder, my hand on the doorknob, I was startled when Alex opened the door.
“Come on in,” he invited, swinging it wide. “She’s in her element and off for a couple of hours’ run, I would guess. There’s a fresh pot of coffee ready.”
I removed my boots, coat, hat, and mittens, gave Stretch, who had come to greet me, a pat, and took Alex up on the coffee offer.
“I called again about those fingerprints,” he told me, when we were seated at the table. “They’ve found absolutely no match in the system anywhere. Sorry.”
“Well, it was worth a try. But isn’t it a bit unusual in this day and age not to have your fingerprints somewhere?”
“Yes, but not unheard of. He’s evidently never been arrested, applied for a government job, any other that required prints, or any one of a number of reasons he would have had them taken and, therefore, on file.”
“A dead end, then,” I said thoughtfully, and looked up to see a grin on his face as he shook his head. “No pun intended, I assure you.”
“I can imagine. I just keep wondering why and how he would come all the way to Alaska to commit suicide, and make sure that there was no way at all to establish his identity. Doesn’t everybody leave a trail somewhere?”
“It clearly can be done with minute attention to details,” Alex said, frowning. “I spoke to Alan Nelson in Anchor Point and they found nothing that would identify him as anything but the obviously false name he took.”
“Why?” I said finally in frustration. “What could make anyone want to die anonymously, far from where he came from—wherever that was—and all alone?”
Alex simply shrugged and shook his head sadly at the idea.
“It must have made sense to him, I guess. But I can’t fathom it.”
Neither could I.
THIRTEEN
JESSIE CAME BACK A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, traded most of her team for other dogs, took a sandwich and a thermos of hot coffee, and headed out again for another run. Late that afternoon she returned with a spring in her step and roses in her cheeks from the cold, a smile of satisfaction on her face as she came through the door after taking care of her dogs.
“What a great day,” she said, shedding elbow-length mitts, parka, and boots by the door and coming sock-footed across the room. “I went all the way out to the airstrip at the end of Knik Road. Ran into half the racing community there or on the way. Everyone’s taking advantage of the new snow.”
Sinking into a chair at the table, she reached across for the Jameson bottle Alex had brought from the kitchen along with three glasses. She poured for each of us and raised hers in a toast. “Here’s to winter showing up . . . finally. Now, what’s making that great food smell coming from the kitchen? I’m starved.”
“Onions, potatoes, and carrots, along with a small beef roast I dug out of the freezer this morning,” Alex told her with a grin. “I had a hunch you’d be pleased to have dinner almost ready.”
“You are a rare treasure of a man,” she told him. “I think I’ll keep you around a bit, if that suits you.”
“Better wait and see how the food turns out,” he teased.
We had a good dinner followed by a very casual, relaxed evening full of conversation and background music.
I took Stretch upstairs and went to bed just before eleven, knowing I should be up early for the next morning’s drive to the Anchorage airport in order to catch my flight. It would get me to Homer at just after one o’clock to pick up the car I had left at the airport and make a quick stop for a few things at the grocery store on the way home.
Alex and Jessie weren’t far behind me in retiring, for I heard them come up as I was drifting off and was thinking that running away from home had been a good thing to do, and that this place and these friends were just what I had needed.
We were all up fairly early that Sunday morning.
I packed up and brought my small bag downstairs and set it by the front door, ready to take to the car. My reservation with Grant Aviation was for just after noon, so I knew I had to leave Jessie’s by nine to have plenty of time at the airport in Anchorage to return the rental car and check in for the flight. Luckily the items I had picked up on my shopping spree, along with the books I had been unable to resist, all fit easily into the bag and I would have little to carry once there.
We had a quick breakfast, said our good-byes with hugs and promises to get together again soon, and I was on my way as planned, waving out the car window to Jessie, Alex, and Tank, who were still standing on the front porch of the house to see me off.
It had evidently snowed in Eagle River and Anchorage as well, but the plows had been out on the Glenn Highway, so the drive was easier than I had expected. Without his ride-along basket from which to watch the world go by out the window, Stretch lay on the seat and took a nap for most of the trip, but periodically stood up on his hind legs to look out and check the passing scenery.
In just over an hour we had driven through Anchorage and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. I turned in the rental car, took my baggage in a handy cart, and, with Stretch on his leash, made my way to the terminal to check in for the short flight home.
It’s interesting how your mind turns homeward at the end of a trip. While I waited for the time to board the small plane, I found myself thinking of what I would want or need to do when I arrived back in Homer. I retrieved a notepad from my purse and made a list of what I wanted to remember to pick up at the grocery on the way home and remembered that I should also stop at the post office to check for mail. Between items, I hoped my answering machine would not be as full of the voices of people with questions about John Walker as I was afraid might have been left while I was away. I made up my mind to either ignore the machine completely or simply check and erase them all without returning the calls unless it concerned something else.
One good thing that running away from home had done for me was to give me a better perspective on that situation. I hadn’t let Trooper Nelson know I was leaving, so I hoped there hadn’t been anything more he needed to talk with me about. Probably I should give him a call, I decided, but made up my mind to let it wait until the next day.
As I sat awaiting the boarding call, Stretch at my feet, I found myself looking around carefully to see if the woman who had been on the flight to Anchorage was anywhere to be seen. She was not. Very possibly, I decided, it had been my imagination and she hadn’t really been following me at all. That was certainly feasible, wasn’t it? Putting thoughts of her fir mly out of my mind, I considered instead just how nice it would be to be back in my own cozy house again and returned to the list I had been making.
In just a few minutes boarding was announced. I put Stretch in his carrier and walked across the tarmac to the plane, where I once again took a rear seat and settled in for the short flight.
The day was overcast, but we left most of the snow behind in crossing the Kenai Peninsula and I could see as we landed that there was very little in Homer, and what there was wouldn’t last long. Since our weather is almost always warmer than Anchorage’s, it didn’t surprise me, but I was glad that I wouldn’t have to scrape a lot of ice and snow from my car before driving it home. Patient as only a machine can be, it had waited for me where I had left it in the parking lot in front of the terminal in a sunny spot, so it was bare of snow.
With my luggage in the backseat and Stretch happily ensconced once again in his basket, I pulled out and headed for the grocery as planned, then aimed the car for home, back in my town and pleased to be so, ready for some quality time in my own place.
What I anticipated and what I got turned out to be completely different things!
I pulled into my driveway, parked, and lifted Stretch down so he could go off to take care of business while I pocketed the keys and retrieved my baggage from the backseat of the car. By the time I approached the door, he was waiting, having scampered up the steps. Before I could reach out with the keys I had pulled from my coat pocket, he nosed at the door and without further assistance it swung open, allowing him inside and surprising me into frowning astonishment. I knew I had locked that door securely, as always, before I left.
Setting my bag down on the step, I cautiously pushed the door open wider and looked in. It was fairly dark inside, as I had, as usual upon leaving for any length of time, pulled closed the drapes that cover the sliding doors to the deck on the opposite side of the dining area after carefully locking them. But I noticed that one side was pulled askew, as if someone had moved it to look out. So, before investigating further, I reached to the wall beside the door and switched on both the kitchen and hallway
lights.
What met my inspection was not what I had left at all.
After setting the grocery bag on the kitchen counter, I quickly went around turning on every electric light and pushed back the drapes. This let me see clearly that someone had spent time in my house.
While I am not the world’s most meticulous housekeeper, I do like to have things in their places as much as possible, keep the floors clean on an as-needed basis, wipe the dust off surfaces that collect it, and wash all the windows spring and fall.
As I toured the kitchen, dining, and conversation areas I could find nothing broken or removed, but a number of things had been noticeably moved from where I had left or kept them. The plant that lives on the dining table, for instance, was not in the middle as usual, but off center and closer to the far end. My canisters were no longer pushed back against the west wall on the kitchen counter under the cupboards, but were arranged neatly along the far end with their backs to the dining area. A large frying pan that I use so seldom I had almost forgotten I owned it and haven’t taken out in months was propped in the dish drainer beside the sink. A book I had been reading and left on the sofa now occupied a corner of the fireplace hearth, not turned over with pages spread to keep my place, but closed neatly. The television set was not in its place, angled toward where I usually sat to watch it from the sofa, but had been rolled back a bit and turned toward a chair several feet away.
There were other things that caught my attention as I made a more careful inventory of the place. Nothing seemed to be missing or broken, just out of order—moved to fit another person’s preferences.
Stretch, satisfie d to be home, had gone across the room and was lying on the rug next to that hearth, as always, and was watching me move about the room with interest, having no idea that anything was wrong. I left him there and made a determined examination of the rest of the house, upstairs and down.