Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  “Like I said about the greeting…”

  “Yeah, I know. Feed myself.”

  Dinner over, they sat, companionably sipping at large mugs of coffee, at opposite ends of the enormous, overstuffed couch Jessie had once rescued from a garage sale. Layered with quilts, afghans, and fluffy pillows in a variety of sizes, it was wide enough for them both and expansive enough for Alex’s long legs, a favorite place to relax, read, or talk.

  After a few minutes of quiet, while they listened to the fire crackle and the soothing sounds of KLEF’s FM classical music in the background, Jessie wrinkled her nose and brow in an unspoken concern that prompted Alex to give her a questioning look.

  “Before dinner you said, ‘It makes me wonder,’ in relation to Chelle being at the plane today. What’d you mean?”

  Thoughtfully, he stared at the red glow of the stove and drew on his pipe until he had it going well.

  Jessie smiled. “You’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “That smoke screen thing. I remember you doing it when I first met you, during the Iditarod. When you wanted to think something out before committing yourself, or didn’t really want to answer, you put out a smoke screen I could’ve cut with a knife.”

  He had to laugh, because she was right. Admitting it with a nod, he recalled their first conversation at the top of Rainy Pass, during that most famous of sled dog races. Looking at her now, familiar and very dear to him, he could also remember just how appealing she had been in the dark of that cold March night, with firelight reflections dancing in her eyes, hair tousled around her face.

  Three mushers had died and the continuation of the race from Anchorage to Nome had been at stake. But Jessie had set herself in his path, a strong, self-assured, independent woman, intent on doing well in a sport at which she excelled, but also in helping to identify a killer if she could.

  He had fallen for her immediately and completely, and it seemed, the response was mutual, for, one way or another, they had been together ever since. While she healed from a gunshot wound in the shoulder, he had helped care for her kennel of close to forty dogs, a not unwelcome chore in that it let them get to know each other.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” She was even more attractive and fascinating to him now, he thought, appreciating the openness of her expression.

  “What don’t you want to talk about?”

  “Oh. That,” he said, his attention returning to Rochelle and the afternoon’s investigation. “Well. There was something about the way she reacted to the woman in the plane. It could have been just that the body’s condition was worse than she expected, but it played off an idea I haven’t quite been able to get rid of from the first.”

  “Since Lewis disappeared, you mean?”

  “Yeah. I’ve had this idea that it might not have been an accident. That he could have just meant us to think it was—or, at least, not something he had control of.”

  “You mean he could have crashed the plane on purpose and walked away from it, going somewhere else? Meant to disappear?”

  “Sort of, except, without the plane, I kept wondering if he might have flown out—maybe to the lower forty-eight. Finding it complicates things. Who’s the woman? If he took off on purpose, did he have something to do with her death? Where the hell is he? Could somebody else have picked him up?”

  “You don’t really think he’s dead,” Jessie stated.

  Jensen once again stopped to think before he answered, and the screen of smoke thickened. “I…don’t know,” he said carefully. “I haven’t gone into it the way I would if I really thought he’d skipped out. Just wondered now and then. Haven’t looked very hard for a motive. It’s been a kind of nagging, back-of-the-mind sort of thing that floated in and out once in a while. Without the plane it was possible. With the plane, but without his body, it makes other alternatives possible.”

  They looked at each other; he waiting for her reaction, she thinking hard. He noted the series of expressions—confusion, concern, assessment—that flitted across her face as she came to some conclusions, generated some questions.

  Then, when she was ready, “You think Chelle knows something?”

  He pursed his lips. “That’s what I was wondering about her reaction today. Actually…well…no, I guess I don’t really think so. I think she feels guilty about his disappearance, and I don’t understand quite why. But I think she’s sincere and really torn up over the whole thing. Either that, or she’s a great actress. But I think something’s bothering her that she’s not saying.”

  Jessie got up to refill their coffee cups and didn’t say anything until she had settled back in her place on the huge couch.

  “I think that’s pretty natural, don’t you? Especially when there’s no explanation for it? We all get the guilties now and then. Maybe, when…if…she finds that he’s really dead, it’ll ease that for her. But she’s always going to wonder if it could have been her fault somehow. You know, the if-I-had-only stuff?” She paused, then went on in a gentler voice. “You still do it yourself…sometimes. Over Sally.”

  He sighed in discouragement. “Sorry. I…”

  “It’s okay, Alex. Just an observation. Really. I don’t want you to worry about or hide what you feel. Just make sure you know what it is—not your fault—and keep it straight. I think you do.”

  He nodded, remembering the fiancée who had died years before he and Jessie met. It had taken him a long time to know that though he could get over it, along with a certain amount of unreasonable guilt, he wouldn’t forget…didn’t want to.

  “You know?” Jessie went back to the subject of Chelle Lewis. “I wonder if she isn’t really afraid Norm is alive. That he may have left her because of something she did…or didn’t do. That he may not have loved her enough to stay, and that must be her fault. It wouldn’t have to be reasonable. That could account for her sort of off-beat reactions, couldn’t it? That brother of hers doesn’t make things easier, either.”

  Jensen nodded slowly. “Yeah, and what if he did stage all of it and leave? He might have let her know. Still might. There could be insurance involved, but…without a body…” He gestured toward the file he had dropped into the rocking chair. “That’s why I brought the paperwork home. Thought I’d go through copies of the file one more time. See if there’s anything that doesn’t fit—now that I’ve got some distance on it—in light of today’s discoveries.

  “The other thing’s the plane being shot down. That’s almost impossible to do—from the ground or otherwise. Whoever did it would have to have been one hell of a marksman with a large-caliber rifle. Somebody who had what he felt was a really important reason to even try.”

  Jessie held up an index finger to interrupt, and from her intense look, something new had occurred to her.

  “Have you thought…I mean could it possibly be that…Do you think it might have been the woman they were after? Not Lewis? He could have just been in the way.”

  “Hm-m. Yeah, that’s possible. I think I’ve got a lot of digging to do.” He reached across the gap to the rocking chair and picked up his file. “Maybe this will tell me something to get me going.”

  With one hand, she searched through the pillows at her end of the couch, looking in vain for the paperback mystery she had currently been reading and retrieved a book on sports medicine instead.

  “Well, good luck. I’d rather have this, thanks.”

  They settled into reading, but before he was half through his file, she had climbed, yawning, to her feet, kissed him lopsidedly, and shuffled off to the bedroom, mumbling, “G’night, trooper.”

  Temporarily distracted, Alex watched her go, suddenly aware of his physical and emotional satisfaction in this small, somewhat crowded house, and how much it was inspired by the woman with whom he lived. It was good to have a cave of one’s own, in which to be one’s own bear. It was more than good to have someone like Jessie to value and share it. At this particular moment in time,
he realized, he was surrounded with just about everything that gave him comfort, peace, and pleasure. What a contrast with the distasteful duties of the afternoon.

  It was the reality of the woman in the plane that had tired him more than usual. That much he knew. Jensen hated floaters. Though there weren’t too many ways of dying that he hadn’t seen, bodies that had passed long periods of time in water were the kind he detested most. In training, he had been told that he would become inured to all kinds of death, come to see only the details that forwarded his investigation, solved the puzzle. But from experience, he now knew it wasn’t completely true and never would be for him. Some officers seemed to become used to the husks left by the grim reaper, however violent—even joked about them. He had never been able to reach their level of immunity. Floaters were the worst. The smell was always bad, but there was something about the unnaturally clean quality of the skin that set his teeth on edge, made his stomach roil. A shudder hunched his shoulders and he forced himself back to his reading in escape.

  He studied his paperwork for another hour and, when he turned out the light, was thoughtfully contemplating a new idea he meant to check in the morning—one that had resulted as much from Jessie’s comment as from the information in the file.

  I N HIS DEN, DEEP INSIDE THE CAVE INTO WHICH HE had retreated the fall before, Aklak slowly roused to the first sounds of melting snow, spring once again softening the wilderness. For several days he remained lethargic, alternately dozing and waking as his metabolism increased, raising his temperature and the rate of his breathing, making him less and less sleepy. He uncurled himself, rolled over, stretched his legs and back, and reversed his position so that his head faced the entrance to the cave. Fresh air blew in where the deep snow had melted enough to uncover a space at the top of the opening, waking Aklak further. He sat up and yawned several times, then began to lick and groom himself, and scratch his belly furiously with one paw. Leaning back, he rubbed his back up and down against the rough edges of a granite boulder.

  Awareness returned as appetite. During hibernation he had lost three hundred and twenty-five of the thirteen hundred pounds he had weighed in the fall, one fourth of his earlier body weight. His first concern was food. The need for it finally drove him staggering to his feet and to the entrance tunnel, where he easily dug away the icy barrier with claws that had grown sharp and long from lack of use during the winter. The thick callused parts of the pads of his paws had sloughed off during hibernation, and what was left was now soft and tender, highly sensitive to irregularities under his feet, and made walking initially difficult.

  The first time he pushed his way through into the outside world, a cold wind was blowing a thin, late snow through the air, and he retreated into the den. Two days later, when he came out, the sun was shining and this time he stayed, though he wobbled slightly on his unexercised legs until he had walked far enough to strengthen them. Thirsty, ravenous, and ill-tempered, he headed downhill in the direction of the gurgling sound of a creek.

  Drinking his fill of the ice-cold flow, Aklak turned to a south-facing slope, where a few blades of new grass were just above the surface of the damp ground. These he dug up and swallowed roots and all—only a mouthful. Food would be scarce for the next few weeks as it grew steadily warmer and more plants began to grow. For a hungry bear it was slim pickings and kept him on the move, searching hungrily.

  A ground squirrel, also just up from a winter nap, exploded from its hole, practically under his feet. Still groggy, he pounced, but missed, and it vanished between two rocks. Soon he would easily be able to catch or dig out almost every one he saw.

  Aklak wandered on, over a rise and down the other side, single-minded in his hunt for something to fill his empty belly. Soon, hungry or not, he would grow tired and crawling into brush still bare of leaves, he would sleep a few hours until his appetite woke and drove him again.

  Miles away, in another den, dug into another north-facing slope, under a five-thousand-foot peak of the Alaska Range, Aklak’s female sibling still hibernated with her two new cubs. They would sleep for perhaps another month before emerging, when the grass was already long enough to eat and other food easily found.

  Aklak would neither have recognized, nor had an interest in, his sister grizzly, for it had been almost ten years since they were two of three cubs following their mother through a first summer in the world. Should they ever meet, she would see him only as an adversary, one of the most dangerous threats to her new cubs, for he would view them as food. If she could not avoid him, she would fight to the death to defend them, with no hesitation or knowledge that he had once been her brother and playmate.

  Soon this mother bear would wake to an even more important hunger than his. She would have to feed not only herself, but the cubs that had begun to nurse when they were born in the den and would depend on her milk at least four times a day through the next six to eight months of Alaskan summer, until they were well established on other foods. Her milk, rich in fat, protein, and carbohydrates, would provide them with all the nourishment they needed when they emerged from the den.

  For now, she still slept on her side, deep in the den, her two cubs humming and trilling softly as they fed. In a few short weeks, they would be scrambling along in her wake, yawning and stumbling, as they struggled to keep up through the last grainy heaps of sublimating ice and snow.

  6

  ROCHELLE LEWIS SLEPT THE EVENING AWAY AND woke up just before eleven o’clock with an aching head, so hungry she felt sick. Lunch had been as nonexistent for her as for Jensen, and it was long past dinnertime. Refusing to think of anything but food, she threw back the comforter and staggered toward the kitchen, stiff from hours in one position.

  Once there, she reached blindly into the refrigerator for a half-gallon container of milk. Groping unsuccessfully, she finally leaned in to look and found it in a spot a shelf lower than it usually occupied. Careless, she thought. I just don’t pay attention anymore. Thirstily she drank a large gulp from it without bothering to find a glass.

  From the sparsely filled shelves, she rounded up a scrap of slightly green cheese, two eggs, a few pieces of a pound of bacon, and an onion. Pulling two slices for the toaster from a half loaf of stale bread, and ignoring a questionable collection of salad dressings and condiments, she tossed the bacon in a skillet to fry, followed by half the onion, chopped. While they sautéed, she salvaged the cheese by paring off the mold, then grated it. In the freezer compartment, she located a package of hash brown potatoes. In a few minutes, leaning over the sink, she was wolfing bites of a farmer’s omelet and toast, washing it down with more milk from the carton.

  Haven’t been eating right, she thought, stabbing at a scrap of bacon with the fork. It’s why I’m so tired all the time…why I’m not thinking straight.

  She had hardly noticed as the winter passed that what she brought home from the grocery—when she remembered to stop—had grown monotonously similar: bread, eggs, milk, cheese, cans of soup, chili, and tuna, once in a while a pound of ground beef, or a chop. When she had felt hungry, she had eaten…something…whatever she came upon first.

  I’ve been living out of cans and frying pans.

  Filling a mug with cold water, she added a tea bag and thrust it into the microwave. As she watched it go around hypnotically, she continued her contemplation of food. If what she had eaten at home was inadequate, so was the other half of her winter’s diet of fast food: hamburgers, sandwiches, French fries, cups of coffee from cafés she hardly remembered.

  It’s a wonder I don’t resemble a baby whale, she scowled, pinching at least an inch at her waist. Going to have to get some fresh vegetables and exercise…if I’m going to find Norm.

  As she flinched from the thought, the bell on the microwave dinged. Lifting out the cup of hot tea, she discarded the limp bag, dumped in some milk, skipped the usual sugar, and headed back to the bedroom.

  Leaving the adjoining bathroom clouding with steam from the hot wat
er filling the deep tub, she stripped off the clothes she had worn flying earlier in the day, and tossed them toward a pile of others to be washed. In a drawer she found a pair of flannel pajamas, then retrieved a terry cloth robe, creased from weeks on a hook in the closet.

  How long has it been since I did more than keep moving till I was exhausted, drop whatever I was wearing on the floor, crawl into bed and collapse, she wondered, pouring lavender bath salts into the tub, shutting off the water, and climbing in. It was enormous, large enough so she and Norm had been able to soak in it together.

  Norm.

  Once again her thoughts went skittering off, frantically scrambling for another subject. This time, however, she determinedly drew them back and purposely let ideas about her missing husband fill her mind as she slid down till the warm suds came up under her chin. Closing her eyes, she lay back and let her body go limp, luxuriating in the heat and sensation of floating that always reminded her of flying. But her mind continued to whirl, sorting through the day’s revelations.

  She realized that she was feeling awake and clearheaded for the first time in months of existing half-asleep—half-alive. With winter’s arrival, charter flying ended since the planes she and Norm flew remained on floats year-round and were pulled out of the water before the lake froze over. She had retreated into her house, read dozens of books, watched one videotaped movie after another—anything to keep from thinking—going out only when necessary, mainly when she ran out of food or to eat something she didn’t have to cook for herself.

  Now she knew that during her last unconscious hours in the bed, something had changed. What? Why? The only difference was that they had finally found the plane…with its repulsive passenger. Who was that woman?

  Frowning, she let herself slide down even more to submerge her face, tipped her head back and lifted it, hair streaming water, back into the cooler air. The feeling was faintly familiar, and after a minute, she recalled slowly waking that morning and the tangent smoothness of the sheets in the warmth of the bed. The memory fled as she continued to assess her feelings.