Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  “Anyone leave angry?”

  “No, and I think I’d know.”

  “Anyone got a mad on in your direction?”

  Oscar shook his head slowly.

  To Jessie it was clear that he was having trouble taking it all in—the fire, the death. She empathized with his obvious feeling of unreality. His attention kept wandering away from Becker’s questions and toward the charred, smoking ruin of the Other Place, his face a moving record of his loss, anger, and concern.

  “You got insurance, Oscar?” Hank asked.

  “Sure—sure.” He waved a dismissive hand. “But I can’t think who’d want to do this to me—and to have somebody die—that’s just…” He swallowed hard and stopped. “I locked up like always. How’d someone get back in?”

  “You’re sure it was empty?”

  “I check to be sure—the johns, the back room. I don’t see how—unless…”

  “The investigator may be able to tell you how, Mr. Lee,” Becker told him, “but not until he finishes his job; and that’s going to take till sometime tomorrow, I think. Why don’t you wait and talk to him when he gets here, then you might as well go on home. There’s nothing you can do here tonight. He’ll want to talk to you again in the morning—and the rest of this crowd.”

  He raised his voice to speak to the spectators. “Will you all please leave your names and where to get in touch with you? Thanks.”

  Turning back to Jessie, Hank, and Oscar, his next words did not carry so far. “We’ll need to know who was here tonight before the bar closed. You three were here. Can you work that out?”

  Oscar frowned and shifted uneasily. Jessie stared at Becker, dismay rising.

  “You really think someone who was here did this, Phil? One of our regulars?”

  “I didn’t say that, Jessie. It could be anybody—someone with a grudge, a disguised robbery. We just need all the names we can get.”

  “But why would someone…?”

  “No way to know yet. If you can think of anything—any hint—put that on the list, too.”

  Hank was shaking his head, and Jessie shared his repugnance at naming friends and acquaintances.

  Suddenly, she felt exhausted—rain soaked and cold. There was nothing she could do here. It was time to go home.

  3

  UP EARLY TO START FOR THE AIRPORT, JESSIE WAS DELIGHTED to see that four or five inches of new snow covered the ground. It lifted her spirits and helped her forget that her usual eight hours of rest had been reduced by half, though she was still discouraged and concerned about the fire at Oscar’s. The unexpected warm spell and ceaseless drizzle of the preceding two days had melted the icicles from the edges of the cabin roof and dissolved much of the packed snow from the ground, turning parts of her dog yard to a quagmire and her long driveway to muddy ponds. Now, the mud and standing water had frozen and been covered in the night, and her world was once again a bright clean white. She resented having to call Billy and postpone the training runs she had planned, feeling that she should be taking advantage of every opportunity. The early thaw had been a warning that winter would soon be over, and the new snow was merely a suspension of the fast-approaching spring.

  Breakup was her least favorite time of year and having it come early, when she wanted training time on snowy trails, made it worse. It seemed that all the grime that accumulated during the winter washed out and floated to the surface, leaving dirty ridges on the snow, creating gluey mud that clung to the knee-high rubber boots she wore into the yard to feed and care for her dogs. Even the mutts grew muddy. Handling them transferred the unpleasant muck to her raincoat, gloves, and jeans. The dogs slept away most of the rainy hours in their individual boxes, staying as dry and warm as possible, though the inactivity made them restless enough to exhibit their boredom in ill-tempered snaps and growls at each other.

  As Jessie looked out into the yard this morning, she could tell that their mood had also lifted with the return of snow. They were all out of their shelters and moving around energetically. Putting coffee on to brew, she went to shower and dress, so she could feed and water them before starting the long drive to Anchorage to pick up Anne Holman. She would much rather have gone back to bed or, better, out to slide quickly away into wilderness on a sled behind a dog team, leaving all the trouble behind. Maybe this afternoon, she had told Billy. Maybe…

  It was twenty-five after nine when she parked her pickup in the multilevel airport garage and hurried through the underground passage toward the terminal, a few minutes later than she had planned. The strong coffee in her thermos hadn’t been a complete cure for too little sleep and had done nothing to diminish her continuing anger and regret over the destruction of the Other Place or her discomfort over having to make a list of all the pub’s customers. She felt slightly out of sync with everything around her as she stepped off an escalator and headed toward the security checkpoint for Concourse B, wishing she felt more capable of handling whatever new trouble the arrival of Anne Holman was about to add to her growing list.

  The plane had evidently already arrived. Passengers were streaming down the hallway toward her from the Alaska Airlines gates, crowding one another, glad to have escaped their three-hour Seattle-to-Anchorage confinement.

  Might as well wait where I am, she decided, skip the security hassle and catch Anne as she comes along. Leaning against a pillar, she yawned and watched people go by.

  Two gray-flannel-suited men with briefcases strode purposefully, one already muttering into a cell phone, “No, the senator wants…” Scowling, a young mother with a fretful two-year-old halted abruptly to unfold the stroller she was carrying, blocking the flow of passengers and prompting an impatient young man in wire-rimmed glasses to make an abrupt detour in his rush to embrace a girl who flew into his arms with a welcoming, “Tim!” Jessie’s attention was caught by a cautiously moving fellow in a neck brace as he stumbled against a wheeled carry-on towed by an anxious-looking middle-aged woman and was deftly rebalanced by a flight attendant. A father herding twin boys in matching jackets and Seattle Mariners caps was followed by a grossly obese woman anxiously searching the concourse for someone she clearly expected to meet.

  Anne? Could she have changed so much? No—too tall. But the one just behind her…?

  “Jessie?”

  The middle-aged woman with the carry-on had stopped beside her and half raised a hand. Probably a fan who had recognized Jessie from media photos. Be nice, she told her tired, less-than-usually-tolerant self, and forced a pleasant, if somewhat distant, smile.

  The woman’s expression was slightly asymmetrical, the right side of her face not quite moving with the left, pulling her hesitant half smile a little crooked. Jessie looked back toward the gate, afraid she would miss Anne as she responded to this unfamiliar person.

  “Yes.”

  At Jessie’s lack of complete attention, the woman’s brows drew together. She glanced down and released the handle of the carry-on. When she looked back her smile had vanished. Startled, Jessie suddenly recognized the shape of her brows and the soft gray-green of her eyes, a tiny spot of darker color near the iris in the left.

  “Anne?”

  “Yeah. Look, I—ah—know I’ve changed, but…”

  Except for her familiar eyes, she was so different that Jessie could only stare, speechless and unable to mask surprise. She had not known—would never have known this woman as her friend from a decade earlier.

  Back then, Anne had been a bright bird, with a lively face and agile body. Though her delicate features and slim stature had invited the assumption of fragility, she had actually been a tough bundle of muscle with the energy and graceful strength of an athlete.

  Jessie saw little of this now. Anne was so thin she looked anorexic, the jeans and sweater she wore hanging on her like clothes she had borrowed from someone several sizes larger. The luxuriant, dark hair that Jessie remembered escaping in wisps and tendrils from Anne’s heavy braid now hung limp and lifeless, cut severe
ly straight at the level of her jaw, and it could have used a wash as well as a good combing. But most of Jessie’s dismay resulted from the odd appearance of the face turned questioningly toward her with a guarded look. The once attractive features were slightly blunted and coarsened—nose a touch off center, lips uneven, jawline a little blurred. The dark circles beneath the eyes were not smudged makeup, and the pale line of an old scar caused the left lid to droop just a little.

  Anne had entered the terminal with none of the animation and easy, eager stride Jessie had expected. She had looked like an older person and moved with instinctive caution, shoulders slumped, chin down, arms defensively close to her body.

  How could I have known her? Jessie wondered, appalled and embarrassed at the transparency of her own reaction.

  “You haven’t changed much,” she prevaricated. “I’m just not tracking too well—didn’t get enough sleep last night—there was a—”

  “Don’t, Jessie,” Anne interrupted sharply with a hint of exasperation. “I look in the mirror every morning. Pretending just makes it worse.”

  “Okay.” Jessie gave in. “What happened to you?”

  Tears welled and ran down the coarsened cheeks and mouth that was now twisted with resentment.

  “Greg happened,” Anne said, bitterness spilling over with her tears. “My husband—may he fry in the flames of hell—is what happened to me. Can we just get out of here?”

  When the two women reached the baggage pick-up area on the lower level of the airport, the carousel was crowded with people waiting to claim their luggage. But it was another ten minutes before suitcases and bags began to make their appearance through an opening in the wall. One after another they moved on an endless track that snaked through the large room in two large loops. People began to grab their luggage from the moving display and Jessie noticed that, as usual, no airline official was bothering to check claim tickets. Many of the cases were very similar in size and color, which led to a few inevitable confusions. Across the room she saw a large man shake his head and set a suitcase that apparently belonged to someone else back on the track.

  Anne, now full of nervous energy, barely stood still, moving close to see what was coming next, pushing people until Jessie finally stopped apologizing for her and took firm hold of her arm.

  “You won’t make it show up any faster by climbing on the carousel. What does it look like?”

  “It looks like—that.” She shoved between a young couple, who gave her disgusted looks, and leaned to reach a large suitcase that matched her carry-on bag. As she yanked it off and swung it around, directly into the shins of another passenger, Jessie once again caught sight of the large man who had returned a suitcase to the track. He was moving quickly away through the crowd, but as she thought for an instant that she recognized him she was distracted by a cry for help from Anne and the grumbling of a man who was rubbing his shin.

  “Watch it,” he growled. “What’s the big rush?”

  Anne ignored him. “Let’s go,” she demanded, practically running for an elevator.

  When Jessie glanced over her shoulder to look for the man she had seen, he had disappeared.

  All the way to Jessie’s truck, Anne cast nervous glances behind her and suspiciously examined everyone they passed.

  “You expecting somebody else?”

  “I hope not. I’ll tell you later.”

  When they were finally on the Glenn Highway, leaving Anchorage, she leaned back against the seat, took several deep breaths, and seemed to relax a little. But even then, she wouldn’t explain why she had come or what she was afraid of but insisted on waiting till they got home. For most of the hour’s drive she kept up a stream of bright, artificial chatter about the winter they had spent as neighbors. “Remember that time we took your dogs and camped overnight in the snow? That was great, wasn’t it? And all those silver origami birds we made for our Christmas trees out of candy wrappers? Did you ever get another dog as good as Pete? You still have him? Great! I want to see him. Do you remember…”

  Jessie drove and listened, feeling more than a little overwhelmed and confused.

  Reaching home, Jessie made a fresh pot of coffee and puttered in the kitchen for a few minutes, trying to let go of the tension that was beginning to give her a headache and allowing her unexpected guest to wander around and become familiar with the cabin.

  “Nice place,” Anne commented, returning from the bedroom, where she had put her luggage. She had a bottle of Jessie’s favorite Crabtree & Evelyn freesia body lotion in her hand. “Mind if I use some of this? I’d forgotten how dry it is up here in the cold—turns my skin to flakes.”

  Jessie nodded. “Sure, but there’s some Vaseline Intensive Care that works better, if you want it.”

  “Naw, this’ll do fine. You built this cabin yourself? I’m impressed.” She rubbed lotion into her hands and left the bottle on the desk Jessie used to keep records for her kennel.

  “Well, I had a lot of help.”

  Jessie frowned. Anne, in constant motion, was beginning to get on her nerves, restlessly moving through the rooms, picking things up, putting them down, examining everything that attracted her attention as if it wasn’t real to her until she laid hands on it.

  “I really like your chairs,” she said, running her fingers over the back of one of the mismatched dining chairs Jessie had picked up one by one at yard sales and painted assorted bright colors.

  “Thanks, I…”

  But Anne was already across the room, pressing the buttons on the CD player. Finally she settled on the sofa near the stove and Jessie, relieved, handed her a large, steaming mug and curled up against the pillows on the other end with one of her own.

  “Now,” she demanded, “what’s the problem?”

  Anne sipped, took a deep breath and sighed, looked up, cocked a dramatic eyebrow as if deciding where to start, and then words flooded out so fast she stammered.

  “Well—you’ve guessed from what I said that I’ve—ah—left Greg? Right? And you’ve probably figured—correctly, by the way—that he’s responsible for the ugly way I look—the changes.”

  Jessie nodded and waited for Anne to continue her account any way she liked. “Okay. And…?” she said, to prime the pump.

  Anne clearly took the okay as acceptance and agreement, for she sat up straighter.

  “So—I’m really—ah—terrified that he’ll come after me—that he’ll do what he said—find out where I am and…” She hesitated, glancing up through her eyelashes to watch closely for a reaction, “And hurt, or…kill me.”

  She paused, waiting.

  Jessie scowled and shook her head at this exaggerated bit of drama. “Greg? Oh, Anne—really? That doesn’t sound like…” She looked up to see that her friend was clenching her teeth so tightly that a muscle worked in her jaw below the ear. “You aren’t really serious?”

  “He swore—lots of times—that if I ever left he’d find me no matter where I went.”

  “But why?”

  It was unbelievable. Dumbfounded and incredulous, Jessie had trouble accepting the idea, particularly since Anne’s presentation seemed overstated. The woman she remembered had not been above spicing up a narrative with a few histrionics. This went beyond exaggeration for effect, but there was still something theatrical about it.

  “It’s a long, depressing story,” Anne said, shrugging off the question. “Nothing much different than lots of others. But I desperately need your help, Jessie. I’ve got to do something I can’t do alone.”

  “What?”

  “Go back out to the cabin where we lived that year. And I need you to go with me—to take me out there. Will you?”

  Not without knowing one hell of a lot more, Jessie thought to herself.

  “Why do you need to go?” she questioned.

  “To dig up something I left. It’s important.”

  “What?”

  “Ah…money—some money that I…buried and couldn’t get back then. Now I
’ve got to have it.”

  “It’s a long way out there, Anne—a major trip. The ground’s still frozen and there’s deep snow—more new snow, now. We’d have to shovel down, then thaw the dirt before you could dig anything up. It may be almost breakup here, but out there it’ll be at least another month.”

  “But we could do that—right? Thaw it, I mean.”

  “Well—yeah, we could, but it’d be a lot of work.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll do it—all of it—if you’ll just take me.”

  Jessie sat staring at her without speaking for a long minute, trying to get her thoughts together.

  “Look,” she said finally, getting up from the sofa, “I’ve got to take care of my mutts. There’s soup and stuff for sandwiches in the kitchen. Why don’t you make us some lunch while I do it? Then we’ll talk some more.”

  “Okay. But can we go really soon—like today or tomorrow?”

  Doesn’t she realize that I have a life with other plans? Jessie wondered. Where does she get off, assuming I sit around waiting to be asked for stuff like this—that I can just drop everything and take off? A working kennel is not easy to leave on a whim.

  “Anne,” she snapped impatiently, hopping by the door with one boot half on. “I have a training schedule that has already been interrupted by two days of rain. This time before breakup is really busy. I can’t just take off at a moment’s notice, and this doesn’t sound so immediately important or necessary to me.”

  “Oh, Jessie. I’m sorry to get in the way. But it is—it really is. Honest. I’ve got to get out there—just got to. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.”

  So rent a snowmachine, Jessie thought angrily, and leave me alone.

  “We’ll talk when I come back,” she told Anne shortly and went out. She shut the door behind her and leaned against it for a few seconds in relief at having escaped from the woman’s demanding presence. Her own cabin had almost seemed to close in claustrophobically.

  As she went to get water that her dogs didn’t really need this time of day, she tried to assess the situation and decide what to do. The whole thing seemed unreal. But I’m tired, she reminded herself, and not thinking straight.