by Henry, Sue
Consciously putting the two deaths from his mind, he made himself think of his canoe, anticipating the repairs he would attempt as soon as he could get it into his basement workshop at home. It would never be as smooth and unblemished as it had once been, but he thought he knew how it could be mended. That was where he would like to be, in Denver, starting the work.
Wind whistled down the river, reddening his nose and stiffening his fingers. Tucking his hands into his armpits, he hunched over and allowed himself a couple of minutes of perfect misery. If they arrested him, what the hell would he say to Judy? What would his father think?
His head hurt again in the cold. Closing his eyes, he tried not to think, but the events of the last night intruded, though he found only half-remembered sounds, motion…vague anger…all things he wanted to let go.
A shuffle of footsteps roused him. The four law enforcement officers were bringing Will’s body down to the boat. He stood and watched them approach like people he’d never met and didn’t trust, and felt a strange and unreasonable combination of shame, anger, and guilt slip in along with his despair.
Chapter Nine
AS THEY CAME THROUGH THE DOOR OF THE small RCMP office in Dawson, the ears of the three men were assaulted by an angry, whining voice, raised in outrage.
“Couldn’t you have at least waited till I got here? It would have been decent, damn it, to let me see him at least once before your legal butchers got hold of him. What was the incredible…”
“Ah-h…” The response of Clair McSpadden, trying to break in.
“…rush to send his body to Whitehorse? He wasn’t under arrest…wasn’t going anywhere. My God, he was dead. Right?”
“Please, Mr. Russell. You’ll have to…”
“Why wasn’t someone sent to find me? You left a message with a friend in Eagle, hoping I’d come in sometime in the next month? Don’t you…”
“How could we know…”
“…have to have some kind of release to slice him up? You didn’t get one from me. And…”
“Listen, Mr. Russell. You’ll have to talk to Inspector Delafosse, but I assure you…” From the sound of it, she was about to lose some of her patient politeness, suggesting she didn’t have red hair for nothing.
“Sean, Russell’s only son,” Delafosse said in a low voice, stepping forward quickly into the room to rescue Clair.
“No, Mr. Russell. Actually, we don’t need your permission when the death is clearly a case of homicide. The body remains in police custody until the inquest or until we have completed our examination and investigation of it.”
The scowling man who was leaning over Clair’s desk to bring his florid face and jabbing forefinger closer to her stormy gray-green eyes swung around to confront the inspector, redirecting his litany of complaint as well.
Except for the flush of anger, he was one of the most colorless people Alex could remember seeing. Not that he was an albino, or particularly pale. His skin evidenced time spent in the outdoors. It might have been a better description to say that he was more or less of one color…beige. Eyes, hair, skin, well-trimmed beard, shirt and pants, boots and jacket were all light tan, though his hair and beard held a hint of red…well, pink. Nothing about him seemed to contrast. Undercoat, Alex thought. He looked undercoated and still waiting for finishing color and definition. For all of that, he was not bad-looking.
“So. I have no say in what happens to my own father’s body?”
“Not yet. No,” Delafosse snapped. “We’ll let you know when it’s released. You can claim it in Whitehorse, sometime next week, I expect.”
“Damned if I will. You can bring it back here to Dawson. I had nothing to do with it leaving here, so why should I pay for bringing it back?”
“Sean. You must realize…”
“Realize? Realize? Goddammit. I realize all right. I realize my father’s dead. And from what I understand, murdered by some bastard tourist that you haven’t even bothered to arrest.”
Delafosse’s voice was professionally clipped and full of authority as he answered. “Now, wait just a minute, Mr. Russell. We will arrest whoever is responsible when we have finished investigating and accumulated evidence to secure a conviction. Until then, we have only suspects, no perpetrator. There is no obvious case against the gentleman to whom you are recklessly referring.”
“And pigs fly. You are full of it, Delafosse. Meanwhile, this guy goes free as a bird. What’s to prevent him from taking off back where he came from? Or killing someone else?” Sean Russell was practically shouting in frustration now.
“That’s our responsibility. Not yours.”
“Well, all I can say is, you’d better watch him like a hawk, or I’ll have your tail in court…or get him myself.”
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you, Mr. Russell…Sean. There’s no proof Mr. Hampton had anything to do with either death.”
“Either? You mean there’s another one? Who? What the hell’s happening? What have you found out so far? I have a right to know.”
Damn, thought Jensen, doubting that Del had intended the slip. He glanced around. Hampton had prudently stepped back into the hallway, out of sight…perhaps out of the building, if he was smart. Clair McSpadden sat still in the chair behind her desk, watching every move either of the men made, eyes wide and angry. Evidently, activating her temper also exaggerated her Celtic heritage, for a light dusting of freckles showed clearly over the pale skin of her cheeks, and her bright hair, loose in shoulder-length waves and curls, seemed to crackle with static electricity. Her hand rested on a square stone penholder, as if she didn’t mean to go down without a fight.
Delafosse ignored the question. “No, you don’t have a right to know. Not yet. Let it go, Sean. Have you ever known me to be less than thorough, or unfair? No. We’ll check every detail, get it right. Don’t worry. Calm down now and give us time to do our jobs and credit for doing the best we can. Your father deserves it. Will you do that? I promise I won’t keep you hanging for any longer than is necessary.”
The younger man stood still, frowning at the inspector for a minute, then nodded slightly. As Delafosse laid a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door, Jensen noticed for the first time that his face was covered with tears. Whether of grief, anger, or frustration, it was impossible to tell, and probably all three had their part in his current feelings.
Russell mopped awkwardly at his cheeks with the sleeve of his tan jacket and went where the inspector led him, out the door, toward the parking lot.
Clair heaved a great sigh of relief, let go of the heavy penholder, and leaned back in her chair. She smiled a little shakily at Alex. “Isn’t he great?” she asked, obviously not referring to Russell. “I’m sure glad he turned up. I thought for a minute that Sean might smack me.”
“And you’d’ve hated to have to flatten him,” Jensen suggested, shattering her illusion of helplessness.
The accuracy of his comment drew her laughter, and she was smiling when Delafosse came back into the room without Sean Russell. Admiration for him still glowed in her eyes and Jensen could tell from the way Del shifted his shoulders slightly that he was not unpleasantly aware of it and her exceptional good looks. His ears seemed to have more of a rosy glow than a trip to the cold outside would normally elicit.
“Seem a little defensive?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t think so. Just his usual leap first, look later. He’s okay, just a pretty impatient sort when something gets in his way. Probably a lot of transference of the anger he couldn’t get rid of toward his father. He’s upset and, I think, feeling a lot of guilt. Said he and Russell had another go-round last week over the subsistence issue, when the old man stopped in Chicken on his way here. What’s mainly on his mind is that the last words he had with his father were angry ones.”
“Finally had enough, do you think?”
“Angry enough to kill Russell, you mean?”
“Possible? Seemed like he was trying to find ou
t everything he could, see what you knew. Lot of demanding going on there. Did you find out where he was when Russell died? Wilson?”
“Says he was downriver working on a village site. He’s an excellent photographer and dedicated anthropologist. For the last few years he’s been working hard at recording and preserving as much as he can of the old Han culture and traditions before they disappear. The village was abandoned long ago, but it seems to be one of the oldest in the area. He says he was there working and has at least one native helper as a witness. I think that’s pretty straight, but we’ll check it out.
“He and his father have fought over everything you can imagine for as long as anyone can remember. Russell thought Sean was wasting his time ‘picking over old bones,’ as he called it. Has no use for creative, artistic endeavor, either, so he hates…hated the photography. He wanted his only child to be an attorney and follow him into a political dynasty. Sean refused…years ago. Why would he kill the old man now, over the same things? Doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Something new, maybe? Well, you know him better than I do, but to me it felt a little histrionic. He was gauging your reaction all the time, seeing what he could get. Hiding something.”
Delafosse frowned, considering. After a minute, he nodded. “You could be more objective than I am. I’ll send someone down to Eagle to verify his statement. Can’t hurt.”
“What about his mother?”
“She’s been dead a long time.”
“So, Sean inherits?”
“Ah, I see where you’re headed. Don’t think so. Russell wasn’t reticent about letting it be known that he’d willed a lot of his money—and there’s evidently a fair amount of it—to support the subsistence battle, not Sean. Unless he complied with his father’s dictates the will evidently cut him off with very little. Better check that out too, I guess. It could have been just talk. Should let Hampton know to keep clear of Sean Russell. Where is he?”
Jensen grinned. “I imagine he already knows…caught that loud and clear when he heard the unarrested bastard tourist part of the conversation. I bet he headed back to the hotel and didn’t dawdle on the way. He’s no coward, but no dummy either, Del. Not the type to go looking for unnecessary trouble, I think.”
Delafosse turned with a hand on the telephone, to give Jensen a questioning and speculative look. “You really don’t think he had a hand in these deaths, then?”
“I’d be surprised.”
“Why?”
“Well…call it intuition…partly his personality, I guess…but also a lot of little things that don’t add up. Mostly because I can’t find any kind of a motive in the tangle. Somebody else must have cut the wood for that campfire, for one thing.”
“Suppose he did do that himself and tossed the ax in the river?”
“Why?”
The inspector had to admit he couldn’t come up with a reason, but wasn’t completely satisfied with Hampton’s innocence, not yet. “I think he’s got something he’s not telling us. He thinks a lot…and watches.” Abruptly, he changed the subject.
“Listen, I’m going to call Whitehorse, then fly down with Wilson’s body and stay for the autopsy, if they’ll agree to do it today. I also want to see what I can get out of the coroner about Russell. You mind staying here? I’ll be back in the morning and I’d appreciate your keeping an eye on Hampton.”
“No problem,” Jensen nodded. “I’d like to do some checking on the coincidence of the Wilson name. Clair can help me with that, I bet.” She smiled at him and nodded. “Anything else?”
“A couple of small things. Before I leave, while they get the plane loaded and ready, we’ll take a quick run upriver to notify Will’s grandfather. But while I call, will you touch base with Hampton, just to make sure he understands about Sean Russell?. You could grab us something to eat, too, and meet me at the boat.”
“Sure. You make your calls. I’ll head back to the hotel. I want to put on another pair of wool socks before we go boating again anyway. See you there in”—he glanced at his watch—“half an hour?”
He left Delafosse dialing, but wished momentarily that he could be a mouse in the corner, to see if his friend would get around his own inhibitions and make a date with Clair.
Back at the hotel, he changed socks and knocked on the door next to his own, which was almost immediately opened by Hampton, obviously settled in for an afternoon of journal reading. The appealing scent of a half-eaten hamburger and fries, next to a milkshake and two apples on the table, made Jensen’s stomach rumble.
“Where’d you find that?” he asked. “I’m hungry enough to eat a wolf raw.”
“Little place called the Ninety-eight Drive Inn, two blocks up on Front Street,” Hampton told him. “And there’s a grocery store almost next door. Want a fry or two?”
“No, thanks. Think I’ll hike up there. Listen, you heard the mood Sean Russell was in, but I think you disappeared before he threatened to take care of you himself. I’d stay out of his way, if I were you.”
“Intend to. He’s hot. I’ll be right here, warm and indoors while I read some more of this journal. Can’t let you get any farther ahead of me.”
“Good. I’m going with Delafosse to carry the bad news to Wilson’s grandfather, old man by the name of Duck Wilson—and wouldn’t I love to know the story behind that handle. I’ll check with you when we get back. Okay?”
At Hampton’s nod, he closed the door and headed down the stairs with the 98 Drive Inn in mind, intending to take the most direct route he could to get his mustache over a bacon cheeseburger.
Chapter Ten
ALEX JENSEN’S MUSTACHE WAS SINGULARLY impressive. As full as regulations would allow, it glorified his upper lip with a thick, red-blond reminder of Vikings, old-time baseball players, and early American mountain men. The ends he allowed not handlebars but only a suggestive half curl. Men envied its flourish, women speculated about being kissed beneath it, little children automatically reached curious fingers to verify its awesome reality.
Though he was not inclined to clutter his life with excess material baggage, two shelves of a bookcase in his home displayed a fine collection of mustache cups given to him over the years by family and friends. Several were ornate antique examples of the china of the previous century, when hirsute lip decoration had reached epic proportions along with its shaving paraphernalia. Contained within these was an assortment of appropriately shaped combs, a variety of waxes, several trimmers, and other mustache maintenance oddments that he almost never used but kept in amused recognition of his own conspicuous vanity.
The mustache had become so much a part of his look and personality that he had almost forgotten the shape of his face without it. Lately, he was not unhappy to find a thread or two of silver among the gold, for, in the back of his mind, he carried an image of himself as an old man, well turned out with a pure-white “soup strainer.”
Jim Hampton watched the door close behind the tall trooper, thinking how much he resembled pictures of some of the Klondike stampeders he had seen in a book of photographs in Whitehorse, particularly one of a mounted policeman on the shores of Lake Bennett. Many Klondikers had grown beards that covered their chins as well, but it seemed clean-shaven had been regulation for the Canadian law enforcement officers, except for their upper lips, for many had sported full mustaches above their distinctive red coats.
Hampton liked Jensen more the longer he knew him and wondered idly if he was making a mistake in that confidence. He was glad to have someone with whom to share the journal. Jensen was clearly as interested in the history of the gold rush as he was and seemed to know quite a bit about it. He wished they could have met each other some other way, but was still pleased to know him.
As he finished his hamburger and fries, he speculated about Jensen’s background. Knowing he was from Idaho gave his western hat and the extent of his mustache more credence. He reminded Hampton a little of his two brothers. Jensen was taller, broader in the shoulder
s, and lighter in coloring, but the confident, watchful eyes, slim-hipped economy of movement, and self-contained demeanor were similar. It seemed he didn’t miss much and kept a lot to himself.
Finished with his lunch, Jim tossed the containers and scraps in the wastebasket, plumped the pillows against the headboard of his bed, and made himself comfortable to read Riser’s journal. In a little while he reached the entry where Alex had quit reading the night before. There he paused and absentmindedly picked up an apple to munch as he considered the information about Oswald and the Swede’s watch. It was obvious Oswald had stolen the timepiece. How unfortunate that Riser and McNeal could not have simply left the other two. But sharing a boat meant that they all had to stick together at least until they reached Dawson. He hoped things would change when they did.
On Saturday, October 9, the party of stampeders were on the river above Carmacks Trading Post, in miserable rainy weather that soaked them through and chilled them to the bone. It was a relief to reach the trading post, where they stopped for the night. Riser described their appreciation of the shelter.
Having had enough of the rain, we pulled in and spent the night in one of…three small log cabins. For the first time in weeks we slept inside four walls, with a roaring fire in the stove to dry out our clothes and gear, and cook a meal on the rarity of a flat surface. What a luxury. I had almost forgotten what it is to be completely warm. We heated water and washed ourselves, then trimmed each other’s hair and beards: Soon we will be among civilized people again and it seemed right to improve our appearance as much as possible…. Snug in our wooden tent, we slept warm and well.
When we awoke this morning the temperature had dropped and the landscape was a sheet of ice. Freezing as it fell, the rain had covered everything in sight with a crystal coating that gleamed in the early sunlight like Polly’s cut-glass bowl on the windowsill. Each tiny branch of the bushes and trees was encased in ice. Walking was treacherous, as at every step your feet threatened to fly out from under and hurl you to the ground without warning. We moved like decrepit old men, ferrying our belongings from cabin to boat half a load at a time.