Books by Sue Henry

by Henry, Sue

  All the picnic tables were empty, so Becker led them to the one nearest the bar.

  Eric almost immediately came out of the cooler, saw them and came around to greet them with a grin. “Great. Glad you came back. Looks like you’ve picked up a midget along the way,” he said, referring to Danny, who looked up and frowned.

  “I’m not a midget,” he declared indignantly.

  “You must be,” Eric told him. “We can’t serve kids, so you have to be a midget for a little while. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Danny agreed, to accompanying smiles. “I’ll be a midget—but only for as long as it takes to drink one root beer.”

  “Root beer—coming right up. What can I get for the rest of you nonmidgets?”

  They ordered a mix of soft drinks and beer, Jessie choosing a Killian’s Red. “I dreamed of one for two whole days. I don’t care if it’s too early in the morning—I’m having it.”

  “Be right back,” Eric told them.

  “I’ll come and help,” Becker offered, and they went to fill the order.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. The only thing to be heard was the sound of bottles being opened, beer being poured, and the woman’s slightly irritated voice from the other end of the bar.

  “Give it up. I told you, I’ve got a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, come on, darlin’. Your secret’s safe with me,” the man’s voice answered.

  At Jensen’s side, Jessie suddenly grew rigid as she straightened in incredulity and shock.

  Thinking he had accidentally bumped her injured knee, Jensen turned to apologize, only to see that all the color had drained from her distracted face and she looked ready to faint.

  “Jessie?” he asked, lifting an arm to support her. “Jessie?”

  “That’s him,” she whispered through stiff lips. “That’s the voice of the man in the cabin. I knew I’d heard it somewhere before. Who is that?”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Oh, hell. You’re no fun. I’ve gotta get back to work anyway,” the man at the bar said to the blond, turned, and started in their direction.

  At the sight of him, Danny seemed to shrink. Sliding lower and lower on the attached bench of the table, he disappeared under it with a gasp. “That’s the guy from the truck.”

  “Hey, Dave. I just talked to your—”

  The tray of full plastic cups Becker was carrying went flying as Dave Lomax knocked it from his hands in a dash for the door.

  CHAPTER 29

  L omax had purposely stayed away from the staff meeting, knowing Danny could identify him,” Becker told the assembled group in Jessie’s living room. “He figured that since The Sluice Box was closed, it would be a perfect place to avoid being seen.”

  “That would have worked, too, if we hadn’t just happened to go in,” Jessie added. “I was stunned to hear that voice again.”

  Each of those listening knew parts of Lomax’s capture, but few knew it all, so a barrage of questions resulted from the disclosure of his attempt to escape.

  “So he killed Wease?”

  “Who else was involved?”

  “What about the man with the rainbow hair?”

  “Who killed the man in the pond?”

  The sound woke Danny, who sat up blinking sleepily at the confusion of voices. Tank rolled over to sit up beside him.

  Becker threw up his hands defensively. “Whoa! Let us tell you the rest—then we’ll answer questions, okay? Alex, you helped get him, so you go first.”

  Jensen puffed thoughtfully at his pipe and smiled. “Eric was the one who brought him down,” he said. “Set what he was carrying on the bar without spilling a drop of Danny’s root beer and tackled Lomax in a flying leap that flattened him on the sawdust floor. But he put up a struggle, so I helped. Then we arrested him and took him in for questioning.”

  “Which he refused to have any part of,” Becker interjected. “Lawyered up immediately.”

  “So how did you formulate conclusions concerning his culpability?” Frank Monroe asked quietly.

  “Well, for a start, you identified his truck. There is evidence that I can’t talk about now but that will come out at his trial. But I can tell you that it’s admissible and he’s charged with kidnapping, murder, and conspiracy to commit robbery. Once Jessie and Danny had officially identified him, we knew what to look for, and where. Some of it took lab work, right, John?” he said to Timmons.

  Timmons agreed with a nod. “We’re still at it, but we’ve verified a lot. There was one significant fingerprint in Wease’s kitchen, for instance.”

  “You arrested another man, didn’t you?” asked Doug Tabor.

  “The owner of the dog yard where Jessie was hit. He’s evidently a buddy of Lomax’s who was in on the plan. We think they intended to hide the money in his yard once it was stolen. Then Lomax could have played innocent and helped with the investigation that followed. We searched that yard—a nasty job if ever I had one—and found some yellow cord that matched what they used around Tank’s neck in that old cabin where they stashed him—and Jessie. They both had a hand in that—using the four-wheeler and moving your truck, Jess. Where you left it was too close to the dog yard. But it was Lomax who whispered to you in that cabin.”

  “But why would he need me? Did he plan it all along—and if so, why?”

  “We don’t think so. I think it was having you show up at that dog yard that did it—an opportunity he couldn’t afford to miss. He tied you and Tank up with whatever was handy. The chain and rope both came from that yard, which was a poor choice and indicates no prior planning. Also, it happened after Wease killed Belmont, so Lomax may have figured you’d be good insurance in case Wease was caught and implicated his cohorts to save his hide. Lomax probably killed Wease for the same reason—so he couldn’t talk.”

  Jessie nodded. “So I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “I think so, but he’s not talking, so it’s speculation. His dog-yard buddy, on the other hand, is scared enough to make a deal, so I’ll let you know.”

  “But couldn’t Lomax have killed both Wease and Belmont?”

  Becker took up the story as Jensen paused to light the pipe that had gone out as he talked. “We think Wease killed Belmont. They obviously had some kind of disagreement. Maybe Belmont wanted out. But there’s no evidence to connect Lomax with that one.”

  “What about the man with the rainbow hair?” Danny spoke up. “I saw him talking to the man who chased me first.”

  Becker smiled. “Actually, he had nothing to do with any of it,” he assured the boy. “Just talking to a bad guy doesn’t make him one, too. He told us Wease just asked him if he had seen you.”

  “Good. I liked his hair.”

  “Oh, dear,” his mother said, casting a mock long-suffering look at the ceiling. “Here we go again.”

  “I think it’s time we took this young man home and put him to bed,” her husband said, sliding forward on the sofa. “He needs to make an early start on those chores tomorrow.”

  “Aw,” said Danny, but he smiled as he threw an arm around Tank to give him a hug good-bye.

  Tank licked his ear affectionately in return, making Jessie smile as well.

  As the rest of the company began to rise and agree that it was getting late, Monroe asked Jensen a final question. “Did Ron Wease steal the dog from the Iditarod booth?”

  “We think it had to be Wease. That may also be part of why Lomax killed him. Wease probably panicked, knowing what might be figured out from the pictures if they were developed, and hoped he could scare Jessie into getting them back from Danny. When you were hiding under the table, you heard him tell someone on the phone—probably Lomax—that he’d take care of some problem with ‘Curt.’ If he killed Belmont to take care of that problem, whatever it was, Lomax may have decided that he was too large a threat—that he was doing things on his own personal agenda and could blow the whole plan.”

  Monroe rose f
rom his comfortable chair, dropped his pipe into a pocket, and stepped to offer a hand to Jensen. “It’s been good to meet you,” he said quietly. “Take care of our girl.”

  “I’ll try, if she’ll let me.”

  “Oh, I have high hopes for that.” And with a conspiratorial twinkle in the glance he tossed in her direction, Monroe strolled off to collect his hat and cane.

  Slowly those who had gathered to share their perspectives on the preceding few days said their good-byes and departed in their waiting vehicles. Frank Monroe rode with the Tabors, who had practically adopted him—though it might have been the other way around. Jensen and Becker carried John Timmons, wheelchair and all, down the front steps, then found further assistance unnecessary as he skillfully settled himself for the drive back to Anchorage in his specially equipped station wagon. They climbed back up to where Jessie and Tank stood waiting on the porch and waved him off.

  “I’m off, too,” Becker said. “It’s good to know you’re home safe, Jessie. And your new house is great—much better than the one that burned.”

  “I think so, too,” she told him. “Thanks, Phil, for everything. What would I do without you?”

  She gave him a hug and he started down the steps again. “You’d do fine,” he tossed back over a shoulder. “You’ve got Jensen to keep you from straying into harm’s way.”

  “As if!”

  “Oh, yes.” His voice came back from where he had parked his truck. “I doubt we’ve seen the last of your independent adventures.”

  Before she could answer, they heard the sound of the truck door closing.

  Jensen chuckled. “You can’t always have the last word, Jess. He’s getting wise to you. Come on, I’ll help you clean up the remains of the party.”

  Half an hour later the job was done, Tank had been returned to his place in the dog yard, and they had settled on the sofa with cups of tea. The fire crackled cheerfully in the cast-iron stove, and the dragon-shaped humidifier atop it puffed steam into the room through its nostrils.

  “Do you have all the answers now, Jess?” Alex asked. “Anything you still have questions about?”

  She was silent for a moment, staring into what she could see of the flames, then turned to face him. “Only one,” she said. “Why did you come back?”

  It was his turn to gather thoughts before answering. “Not just because you were missing,” he said finally. “That was part of my coming back so quickly, but I was on my way already—had already talked to Commander Swift and hired back on. I came because everything I want is here, and”—a smile hovered on his lips—“because my mother told me to.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes. She told me—with some exasperation—that I’d better go north because I was just existing in Idaho and doing myself no good.”

  “Sounds like her. Do you always do what she tells you, then?”

  “Only when she’s right. And I knew she was.”

  He hesitated, then went on. “It’s really very simple, Jess. I missed you. I love you. Do you still love me?”

  “You know I do. You don’t just stop loving someone when they’re not around. But we’re different people now.”

  “Are we?”

  “Yes. We’ll have to figure everything out again.”

  “Will we?”

  There was a long pause as they said things to each other without words.

  “No,” Jessie said at length. “We won’t. They’re just details that will figure us out, won’t they?”

  Then, for a time, there were no more questions—just answers.

  “I noticed,” Alex said, holding her close and feeling more himself than he had in a long time, “that you have a new brass bed and managed somehow to rescue your favorite northern lights quilt from the fire.”

  “Hm-m-m,” said Jessie in his ear. “You noticed that, did you?”