Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  She drove ninety-eight miles to Haines Junction on the shoulder of a broad valley that spread east and west. For the next sixty-seven miles the world she passed through was framed with the almost unbroken chain of the Kluane Range, which ran into the Saint Elias Mountains, highest in Canada with Mount Logan’s 19,850 feet, Mount Saint Elias’s 18,008, and others that commanded the western horizon. Though she couldn’t identify, or even see them all, she knew that Mount Lucania, King Peak, Mounts Wood, Vancouver, and Hubbard, even Mount Steele (named for the same Superintendent Samuel Steele of the North West Mounted Police that she remembered from Fort Steele), were all there in their regal snow-covered splendor.

  It was still early when she reached Kluane Lake, but she stopped for the night at Congdon Creek government campground and found a space for the Winnebago near the shore. In the shadow of tall mountains the sun set early, so she built a small blaze in the fire pit and sat outside with Tank to watch the rosy alpine glow fade slowly on the Ruby Range to the east and the moon rise to cast a shining path across the wide water.

  The breeze died and it was very quiet. Jessie toasted a few of the marshmallows she had found in the Whitehorse grocery and began to review everything that had happened in the last week. As she remembered how pleasantly the trip had started out so many days ago, she suddenly decided to let it all go. From here to Knik was time to take peacefully for herself and reset her internal sense of balance. So she simply enjoyed her surroundings and went to sleep with an appreciation of her own solitude and the moonlight that fell through the window onto her bed in a pale square.

  She was on the road at seven o’clock the next morning and crossing the border between Canada and the United States, with its flutter of flags, at ten. For the second time on the trip she crossed a time zone and moved her watch back an hour. Thanking the woman who had welcomed her with a smile, she drove away from the border and was back in Alaska at nine.

  Stopping briefly in Tok for lunch and fuel, she turned off the Alaska Highway and headed directly south on the long straight first section of the Tok Cutoff that would take her to the Glenn Highway and the last leg of the trip. The cutoff ran between the Alaska Range and the Mentasta Mountains, eventually opening up above the wide valley of the Copper River, with Mount Sanford rising alone at the northwest forefront of the Wrangells to dominate the skyline. Seldom so gloriously displayed, often cloud-covered at 16,237 feet, pure white with snow and glacier ice and with deep blue shadows, it drew her attention like a magnet as she drove a long southwest curve around it and finally reached the Glenn Highway intersection just before Glennallen.

  A last stop for gas, and she knew she was only 150 miles from home. Home! It struck a cord that continued to reverberate in her mind in eager anticipation. Home! The rest of the drive was all so familiar that it seemed to belong to her—the Chugach Mountains to the south with their collection of glaciers flowing from deep valleys, the Matanuska River from high on the hill above. Then she was driving through Palmer, turning off at Wasilla onto Knik Road, passing Iditarod Headquarters on the right, and finally—Tank sitting up attentively, catching her impatient expectation—turning into the driveway of her own place.

  Her mutts in the kennel set up a welcoming racket and her handler, Billy Steward, stepped out of the storage shed, saw her coming, and trotted toward the Winnebago with a huge grin. Parking the rig beside the tent she had been temporarily living in, she shut off the engine and climbed out with Tank, who went immediately to investigate his box.

  Hank Peterson’s backhoe was parked in the middle of the space where her new cabin would soon rise, ready to dig the hole for the basement so Vic Prentice could start raising logs.

  Jessie stood surveying the one place in the world that belonged to her, with pure and simple pleasure.

  Home!

  28

  THE OLD MAN WOKE IN THE GRAY EARLY MORNING light, rolled over in his bed, and swung his legs over the edge. Joints aching, he trudged to the bathroom and shoved up the window to see what kind of a day it was going to be. The sky was almost clear, and the single fluffy cloud he could see through the narrow opening was faintly touched with coral from the sun that was about to slide above the horizon.

  Somewhere a meadowlark sent out its distinctive call. A robin hopped into sight and tilted its head, listening for worms in the dewy grass of his lawn. The lawn needed mowing again, and he wondered how he could go about finding some young person to hire for the regular mowing of it. The boy next door had not returned, and it didn’t seem to the old man that he was going to—that he would want to live in a place with so many ugly memories. It made him sad, for he missed the boy and their talks at the kitchen table. It seemed no one wanted to waste time in conversation with old people these days. Everyone was so busy and in such a hurry, they never seemed to stop long enough to take a leisurely look at the world around them. Or perhaps they were just afraid to look at what they would become someday themselves.

  He supposed that sooner or later a For Sale sign would go up in front of the house next door, now that McMurdock was dead—drowned in a lake somewhere in Canada, according to the article in the newspaper. The boy, it had said, was staying with friends in Fairbanks, Alaska, for the time being. So that was where he had gone, and he had made it. It was nice to know he was safe—and that he had been cleared of all suspicion in the death of his mother.

  If they sold the house next door, he guessed that the money would probably go to Patrick. Maybe a family would buy it—and maybe they would have a boy of an age and inclination to mow lawns. He could always hope.

  Closing the window to its usual crack, he washed his face and brushed what few teeth he had left, then went back to the bedroom to put on his clothes, propping his left heel on a stool so he could reach down far enough to pull on his socks and shoes.

  In the kitchen he spooned coffee into a filter in the coffee maker, poured water in the tank, and turned it on. While he waited for it to brew, he ate a bowl of raisin bran with milk and a little honey. If he didn’t eat something first, the coffee he loved didn’t always agree with him these days—even decaf. Pouring himself a cup of the fresh coffee, he stirred in sugar and low-fat milk and sat back down at the table to enjoy it in small sips and watch the sky brighten into blue through the window that opened onto the backyard.

  Though he needed to take his cart and go to the grocery store three blocks away, he decided to wait until tomorrow. Today was a day to work in his garden. It was divided up into sections, which he cared for on a rotating basis. He couldn’t do all the work on his knees in one day, only a part of it, or he would pay for it in aches and pains later. So though he would do the weeding around the beds of spinach and lettuce today, the carrots and radishes would have to wait till Wednesday, the zucchini and cucumbers would claim most of Friday morning, and the tomatoes and green onions would have to be fitted in over the weekend, one at a time, when he felt like it. If he worked at it consistently, he could just keep ahead of the weeds. The beans he had planted by the shed also needed weeding, but he could do it standing, with a long-handled tool, loosening the soil around them as he liked to do before adding plant food.

  Every year his garden seemed to be growing smaller to accommodate his diminishing ability to care for it. Once it had fed a family of four. Now, alone, he periodically bought vegetables at the store to augment his homegrown supply. He was philosophical about it, but it saddened him nonetheless.

  Draining the last swallow of coffee from the cup, he got up and rinsed his dishes in the sink, then put on a floppy-brimmed hat and made for the back door. Before he started on the weeding chores he would water everything in the garden and set a sprinkler going on the front lawn. It was best to water while it was still cool outdoors, before the heat of the sun evaporated half of it and raised his water bill beyond what he could afford on his limited income.

  He went from the kitchen to the porch and paused for a moment on the steps that went down into the backyard, looking at th
e house next door. The yellow tape and other evidence of the police investigation was gone now, and the house had taken on an empty, abandoned air. The blinds had been drawn over the windows, as if the place had closed its eyes in shame. One of the blinds was crookedly caught on something and pulled to one side, making it seem to peer from under an eyelid.

  Keeping an eye out, the old man thought, not for the first time. Someone should have kept an eye out for the people who had lived in it, as well. But that was all over now.

  He went on down the steps and into the yard, where he unrolled the hose that hung over the faucet on the side of his house and set about watering the garden.

  An hour later, he looked up from his position halfway down the lettuce bed to see a familiar figure coming along the side of his house, carefully avoiding the sprinkler that was soaking half the front lawn. Sitting back on his heels, knees on the piece of old carpet he had tossed down to keep his pants clean, he waited, watching his visitor approach.

  “Ah,” he said finally, “the salesman again.”

  Daniel Loomis stopped at the edge of the lettuce bed, nodded, and grinned. “Yup, the salesman.”

  “Watcha want this time?”

  Loomis pulled off his baseball cap and scratched his head.

  “Got any more coffee?”

  “Might.”

  “Well, Mr. Dalton—I’ve got a question and some information for you if you do,” he said in his slow way of speaking, and waited for a response.

  When the old man began to make getting-up signs, the detective stepped forward and reached out. “Give you a hand?”

  “I’m not quite crippled yet.”

  Reaching for the hoe he kept handy, the old man used it as a prop to heave himself to his feet, knowing there would be hell to pay in getting back down again but determined that he would, to finish today’s job when this man had gone. Without a word, holding himself carefully so as not to limp, he led the way to the kitchen, where they settled, as they had before, with coffee, Loomis’s cap on the edge of the table.

  “Information first,” Dalton demanded. “How’s the boy?”

  “Fine. He’s fine,” Loomis told him. “He’s in Fairbanks and seems to want to stay there. He asked me to tell you hello—to say that he’s sorry he won’t be here to mow your lawn.”

  “Can mow my own lawn if I have to. What about the house?”

  “It’ll be sold.”

  “Can you tell me now just what went on over there?”

  Loomis pursed his lips thoughtfully and nodded.

  “It was pretty simple really. McMurdock hit his wife and she fell against the corner of a bedside table—hit her head. Patrick had come up from his room in the basement and saw what happened. He smacked his stepfather from behind with the baseball bat, dropped it, and took off. McMurdock came to after he left and, finding his wife was dead, evidently put on some gloves so he wouldn’t leave prints and used the bat to beat her head in, hoping he could blame it on the boy, especially since the kid had disappeared. He went after Patrick to make sure he didn’t talk his way out of it—couldn’t if he was never found, which was what McMurdock intended.”

  He stopped and there was a silence, as the old man considered what he had heard.

  “Well—he won’t be around to hurt anybody again, will he?”

  “No,” Loomis agreed slowly, finishing his coffee. “He went down in the lake where he was going to drown the boy. They may never recover the body.”

  “Harumph.” The old man scornfully cleared his throat, then curled his lip in a sneer. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” he said, rocking his whole upper body in an emphatic nod. His face was a study in satisfaction.

  Loomis waited until he stopped rocking and looked up.

  “Mr. Dalton, you probably can’t help, but I thought I’d just ask. We’ve searched the whole house for McMurdock’s notebooks—you know, the records of his cases that every policeman keeps—but haven’t found them. You wouldn’t have any clue where they might be, would you?”

  A frown of puzzlement creased the old man’s forehead. Why was this supposedly smart detective asking him? He shook his head. “Nope. He wouldn’t have given me the time of day. So why would he have given me anything else?”

  “Well, I didn’t really think so, but—ah—you know. I thought I’d better ask.”

  He pushed back his chair and got to his feet, holding out a hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Dalton, and—thanks.”

  The old man hesitated, something in him not wanting to shake this man’s hand. Reluctantly, he got up and shook it anyway. No reason to insult the fellow, who had been his one thin link to the boy.

  “If you should speak again to Patrick, tell him that I miss—aw-w—well—just tell him my lawn’ll be okay, and I hope he is, too.”

  “I’ll do that, sir.”

  From the porch, the old man watched the detective disappear around the corner of the house. When he was sure he was alone, he allowed himself to limp back to his piece of carpet and finish weeding the lettuce, his back aching by the time it was done.

  Taking the hoe, he walked around the house and moved the sprinkler to the other side of the front yard, left it splashing a few inches of the front walk as well as the lawn, and returned to the garden. Going into the shed, he retrieved the plant food and traded the hoe for a long-handled claw with three spikes. It would be easier to use in loosening the soil and breaking up any clumps of dirt.

  Leaning close, he examined the beans that were climbing the strings he had tied up on nails. They were doing well, would soon bloom and begin to make baby beans. He loved fresh beans of all kinds, even raw and straight off the vine, sun-warmed and crunchy. He could almost taste them already.

  Cautiously, he began using the claw to turn over the topsoil around the bean plants, careful not to catch one of the vines in its spikes. He had done half the narrow patch and was getting tired from the up-and-down motion of his arms, his back aching again, when he dug in the claw a little deeper than he intended and it hung up on something. Jerking at it impatiently, he tried to pull it loose, but one spike was caught on something that refused to let go.

  Using the handle again as a prop, he lowered himself to his protesting knees and dug his fingers into the dirt, feeling for the obstruction, expecting a root of some kind. What he felt was soft and pliable. Digging with both hands, he removed a small pile of soil, exposing what appeared to be a piece of plastic, wrapped firmly around the spike. Removing more, he clutched the thing in his fingers and hauled at it. How had some plastic bag gotten into his bean patch?

  The plastic came loose suddenly and flew through the air into his lap, liberally sprinkling his pants with dirt. It was a plastic bag, from some grocery produce department, with a knot holding it closed over something inside. The spike had pierced it and made a rather large hole. He tore it open all the way across and was astonished when five fat bunches of bills held together with rubber bands tumbled out, along with a small black notebook.

  Dalton sat staring at what lay on the ground in front of him until he realized how painful his position was becoming. Then he pulled himself up again, leaned the tool against the shed, gathered the plastic bag and its contents, and took it all into his kitchen, where he spread it out on the table.

  Picking up one of the bundles of bills, he licked his thumb to wet it and flipped them over one by one—fifties and twenties mostly, with a few fives and tens scattered between—hundreds of dollars worth. When he had finished a rough count of all five bundles, he figured there was ten thousand to each one—fifty thousand dollars! Whe-ew!

  He got up and poured himself the last half-cup of coffee, added sugar and milk, and sat back down at the table to stare at the money and think about it. There was only one place it could have come from—the house next door. And he didn’t imagine that McMurdock had buried it in the bean patch. His wife would have been terrified to touch what didn’t belong to her, and the cop had kept her on a tight leash—no possibility that sh
e could have collected this much cash. The only alternative was—Patrick.

  The old man thought back to how he had prepared the bean patch just before the night of the murder—loosened the soil, ready to stick seeds in the ground. The boy could have brought this across and buried it the night he ran away, when he knew he wouldn’t be around for his stepfather to punish when he discovered it missing—for it must have belonged to McMurdock.

  Or…? Maybe it wasn’t really his. This was not the kind of money an honest cop would keep lying around in cash. But if it was dirty money, he wouldn’t have wanted to put it in a bank, now, would he?

  Dalton picked up the notebook and thumbed through it as well. The pages were filled with initials, dates that stretched back four or five years, and amounts that seemed to be divided in half, each with a letter after it, M and L. McMurdock…and…L?

  The old man was no dummy. His mind immediately drew the only possible conclusion. He sat staring at the initials on the page, then slowly closed the notebook and set it down with the bundles of money and the remains of the plastic bag.

  What to do? There was no one connected with the police department that he would trust to bring him a glass of water, let alone do what was right—what ought to be done with what he had found.

  This much would keep his lawn mowed for the rest of his life and then some. Or it would buy all the vegetables he could ever eat, wouldn’t it?

  The word theft crossed his mind uncomfortably, upping his blood pressure slightly—and again, Patrick. Rightfully—whoever it had originally belonged to—this should now belong to the boy. But he had no idea how that could be accomplished, and there was no one he was willing to ask.