Death Trap

by Sue Henry

  Almost immediately one of them reported that one of the ticket sellers had earlier seen a man with a dog pass. But even as the report was being made, the person she had seen turned out to be a blind man with a German shepherd guide dog, not an Alaskan husky.

  “Whoever took him might still be here on the grounds somewhere. You don’t know exactly when the dog disappeared, do you?” Lomax asked Jessie as, at his suggestion, they began a search of the fair on foot.

  “He was last seen by Joanne Potts at the Iditarod booth less than an hour ago,” she told him. “I came back to the booth about ten minutes later, so he’s been gone well over half an hour.”

  He frowned in thought as they walked on after fruitlessly questioning the guard who was checking identification at The Sluice Box and several surrounding vendors.

  “Plenty of time to leave the grounds, if he went straight from the booth to the gate. Whoever took Tank would have to be stupid to stay around, knowing a prizewinning sled dog would be missed in a hurry. And from what you’ve told me, someone must have taken him. You’re sure he wouldn’t have wandered away, and I think you’re right. A pet? Maybe. Not a well-trained lead dog.”

  Ten minutes later they were passing the barn on their way to the equestrian center when Lomax’s radio crackled to life with another reported dog sighting. They doubled back to a booth near the central plaza and spoke to a food vendor, who had noticed a husky on a leash with a man in jeans, a blue shirt, floppy hat, and dark glasses. “He went between the booths over there,” he told them, pointing south. “I was busy with a customer, so I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “Would you recognize this man if you saw him again?” Lomax asked.

  “Probably not. Half the crowd is in jeans—lots of blue shirts. The hat and glasses hid most of his face.”

  The heart-stopping part of his description of the canine with this man, however, was that it had been wearing an orange bandana. Jessie’s heart sank. If Tank had been taken off the grounds already, how would she ever find him? Her anxiety increased, making her feel a little sick to her stomach.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, feeling frustrated and stymied. “I think maybe it’s time to involve the police in this.”

  “Don’t you think we should keep on looking for a while longer?” Lomax asked when they had gone between the booths the vendor had indicated but found nothing but an access road next to the employee parking lot. They turned back toward the security office, and Jessie wondered a little at his hesitation about involving official law enforcement but put it down to a disinclination to entertain the idea that he couldn’t solve her problem. It wasn’t the first time she had become aware of territorial tension between the security and the police.

  “By now, my guess is that we’re trying to close the barn door after the horse—well, you know,” Jessie told him. “The police can put out a bulletin so their patrols can be looking on the roads for someone with a husky in their vehicle.”

  Lomax nodded a bit reluctantly without answering, and they headed for the security office.

  Approaching it, they passed a trailer that housed the Alaska State Troopers fair exhibit, and Jessie was surprised to see her friend trooper Phil Becker there. In full dress uniform, which required the absence of his favorite western hat, he was answering questions from the people who flowed past the exhibit. It was a part of community relations that she knew he enjoyed less than his usual job as a homicide detective, but he was very good with people and was often called upon to help out. Here was someone she knew would help and who also knew her dog. Without hesitation she made a quick right turn away from Dave Lomax and hurried to where Becker was standing next to a parked patrol car on which the roof lights flashed to attract the attention of fair goers.

  “Phil,” she told him simply, “someone’s stolen Tank.”

  So that’s when you got involved, Phil. Commander Swift had pulled rank and made you get spiffed up to make nice with the folks.”

  “Yeah. But it didn’t last long after Jessie came and told me Tank was missing. I reassigned myself PDQ and got one of the new boys to take over the duty.”

  “But you didn’t find Tank.”

  “Not because we didn’t look. We had an army of people looking for him—all the security staff on the grounds, several PPD and AST officers on site. Anyone on patrol outside the fair got the word by radio. All we found at that time was a blue shirt that had been wadded up and tossed on the ground beside a station wagon in the employees parking lot. We tracked down the guy who owned the wagon, but he’d driven in just a little while before without seeing anything and obliterated the tire tracks of whoever had left the space empty. I thought then, and was proved right later, that the guy who took Tank went directly to his vehicle, drove off the grounds, and was gone. No one checks vehicles leaving the grounds, especially those with employee passes on their windshields. They just wave them through to keep traffic moving. Hundreds of workers come and go from that lot all day long. So we had no way of knowing what kind of vehicle we were looking for or what direction he might have taken.”

  “What did you do, Jessie?”

  She shrugged and shook her head, as if feeling the frustration and dread that had accompanied her everywhere that horrible afternoon.

  “I kept walking around, asking anyone I saw and hoping to get a clue from someone. I stayed all afternoon, until I couldn’t think of anywhere I hadn’t looked several times over. At about seven I finally went home, and that was even worse—awful. Except for a night or two when Tank stayed over at the vet for some reason, I’ve hardly ever been at home without him. I worried about him all the way out Knik Road.

  “Then, when I pulled into my driveway, Maxie McNabb’s motor home was parked by the house. I was so glad to see her I almost cried.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “It was so good to have someone there,” Jessie went on. “The idea of being in my empty house and yard didn’t seen right at all, but there was really no use in staying at the fair. I decided to go home and try to figure out something else to do. If he’d been taken off the grounds, there had to be somewhere else to look for Tank.”

  When Jessie’s pickup pulled into the driveway, Maxie McNabb was rocking comfortably in a chair on the porch of her friend’s new log house. Her reddish-brown toy dachshund, Stretch, had been snoozing at her feet, but at the sound of the vehicle he scrambled to the top of the steps and began to bark at whoever was coming in his direction. Several of the few sled dogs left in Jessie’s yard also turned their attention to the arrival of their mistress. Only one met the stranger’s frenetic challenge with a halfhearted woof or two in lower tones. The rest raised their heads, recognized the truck, and cast disdainful glances at this small foreign bundle of energy’s demented behavior.

  Maxie stood up and came down the steps and toward the truck with a welcoming smile and wave.

  “Hush up, you silly galah,” she told the dachshund. “It’s Jessie come home finally, and nothing you need to make such a fuss about.”

  Stretch, quiet for the moment, trotted along at her side, his short legs a blur of motion.

  Jessie shut off the engine of the pickup and leaned for a moment on the steering wheel as a rush of thankfulness swept over her for the answer to a prayer that she hadn’t realized she’d made until she saw her friend.

  The sixty-two-year-old woman had become special to Jessie on a trip up the Alaska Highway earlier that year. They had driven separate motor homes up the long road north but camped together a number of times and enjoyed each other’s company. Inadvertently they had been drawn into a lengthy and dangerous chase involving a teenage boy from Montana who had become the target of a murderer who considered him a threat. Through it all they had found they had much to share, including their independence and positive outlooks, and knew they would continue to keep in touch.

  Upon reaching Alaska, Maxie had gone on to Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula, where home meant a house on solid ground in a plac
e where the Kenai Mountains rose in a vision of glaciers and peaks south of the wide waters of Kachemak Bay. This inherited structure had been built by her father and was where she had been born and raised. There she had outlived two husbands: Joe Flanagan, her high school sweetheart, who had drowned in the storm that sank his commercial fishing boat; and Daniel McNabb, Australian expatriate, from whom Maxie had picked up the bits of Aussie slanguage that frequently enlivened her speech.

  Three years earlier, reaching the end of her fifties, she had decided to see some of the rest of the world, bought a thirty-two-foot Jayco motor home she called her “gypsy wagon,” and taken off to wherever appealed to her wanderlust and could be reached by road. For almost two years she had spent little time in Alaska, so after a winter in the high desert of New Mexico, she had been glad to have several months to renew old friendships and see to her neglected garden.

  She had assured Jessie she would stop to visit on her way back down the highway to the Lower Forty-eight, and here she was, keeping that promise.

  As Jessie climbed out of the truck, she was pleased to see that Maxie looked rested and fit from her summer of relaxation and gardening. She wore her preferred traveling costume of denim skirt with large patch pockets and an oversized blue shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. The brown moccasins on her bare feet almost matched the color of her dog, and her own hair, a salt-and-pepper blend, was pulled back into its usual heavy braid, more dark brown than gray. Her eyes sparkled with good humor and pleasure in anticipation of Jessie’s company.

  “Hello,” she called in the low and vibrant voice that always reminded Jessie of a cello’s rich tones. “It’s about time you showed up. I was about to break out the Jameson’s without you.”

  Recognizing a previous acquaintance, Stretch, wriggling all over, tail wagging furiously, dashed ahead to reach Jessie first. Rewarding him with a quick pat, she then enfolded Maxie in a huge hug.

  “Oh,” she said as the face of her friend swam through her tears, “you have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

  Taking a step backward, Maxie held the younger woman at arm’s length to make an assessment of the distress that showed clearly on her face, and her welcoming smile turned quickly to an expression of concern.

  “My dear. Whatever is wrong?”

  As Jessie swallowed hard and swiped at her cheeks with the backs of her hands, Maxie took her firmly by the elbow and marched her toward the steps of the house. “Never mind for now. There’s no need to stand yabbering in the yard when we can settle comfortably with a soothing shot of plonk. Once we’re in, you will tell me all about it. Yes?”

  Jessie nodded, relieved to have someone else take charge for a change, especially Maxie, whose practical judgment she had learned to trust, for good reason.

  “Good. Come along then.”

  Up the steps they went. Jessie unlocked the door and they went inside, bringing Stretch along. While Jessie started a small fire in her cast-iron stove, he pattered around in a detailed exploration of this new space. Maxie located glasses in the kitchen and poured them both a generous portion of the Jameson’s she had retrieved from her motor home.

  “Now,” she said, handing Jessie a glass and seating herself on one end of the huge sofa near the stove, yanking a green and blue pillow behind her for better support, “I’m guessing this has something to do with Tank, as he isn’t in the yard and didn’t come home with you.”

  “Yes,” Jessie agreed. “He’s gone, Maxie. Someone took him from the Iditarod booth at the fair, and he’s disappeared completely. We have no idea who or why—or where he might have gone, for that matter. It all seems to be a dead end.”

  Maxie listened intently as Jessie described the events of her terrible afternoon and its lack of results, her words pouring out in a flood of anxiety and frustration that told the older woman the pain of the situation, though knowing how close Jessie was to her lead dog, she was already taking it very seriously. After asking the obvious questions about the search and who was involved, she heard about the shirt found in the employees’ parking lot and Becker’s speculations concerning it.

  “No wonder you’re upset,” Maxie said when Jessie finished talking. She sat silently for a minute, frowning in thought. “If whoever it was drove away from the fairground, it can’t have been the boy you mentioned, who’s too young to drive. Are there any other suspects at all?”

  “Not really, and I’ve been racking my brain all afternoon. People in the racing world are more familiar with the worth of a good lead dog, but offhand I can think of very few mushers I could suspect of stealing one.”

  “Hm-m.” Maxie weighed the answer. “How about someone peripherally connected—someone who’s dropped out of racing, or would like to get into it; a handler, a race volunteer? A lot of volunteers come from out of state for the Iditarod—even from out of the country.”

  Jessie sighed in frustration. “Not at this time of year. Besides, there would be hundreds on that list. I’m more inclined to think it’s someone local.”

  “Have you considered that it might not be connected to mushing at all?”

  “Yes—the ROW, as a pilot friend calls it—the rest of the world. And that leaves even more possibilities.”

  “But few would have a reason to snatch a dog. Maybe we should be thinking of reasons, not suspects.”

  They sat without speaking for a moment or two, both thinking hard. Then Maxie sat up and started to say something, hesitated, and fell silent, frowning.

  “What?” Jessie asked, alert and wary. “What are you thinking? Say it.”

  “You’re absolutely sure it couldn’t be the boy?”

  “Danny? I really don’t think so. He just didn’t strike me as that kind of kid, but he did say he had a friend.”

  “A friend you didn’t see, right? Would Tank have gone off with the boy?”

  Jessie considered, not liking to admit that it was possible. “Yes. I let Danny pet and feed him, which usually means—to almost any of my dogs—that I trust that person, so they would, too. He probably would have gone with Danny.”

  “Perhaps you should—”

  What Maxie had been about to say was interrupted by the phone ringing behind them on a table against the wall. She waited while Jessie hurried to answer it, obviously hoping it was some word about her lead dog.

  “Arnold Kennels, Jessie speaking.”

  For long seconds there was the empty sound of an open line, then a gruff voice that she didn’t recognize growled alarming words into her ear.

  “You want your dog back? Then listen up.”

  “Who is this?” Jessie demanded.

  “Negative. I said listen! You got that?”

  She took a deep breath and gave Maxie, who had stood up at the bewilderment in her friend’s voice, a startled and frightened look. “Yes, I’ve got it. What—?”

  “Just shut it,” he snarled in her ear. “You want your dog, then find that kid and get a red camera bag from him. I get the bag—you get your dog. Now—”

  “What bag?” Jessie asked. “I don’t know anything about a red bag. What boy?”

  “Then you’d better find out, hadn’t you? You know which kid. He was there this morning, came out of the booth with a plastic sack in one hand. That kid stole the bag, so he’ll know where it is, and you’re gonna get it back for me. If you don’t, that’s it for the mutt.”

  “But—”

  “No funny business. No cops. I’ll be watching and listening, and I’ll call you tomorrow night. Got it?”

  “They’re already looking for—”

  But he had hung up abruptly and was gone.

  For a silent moment, Jessie stared at the receiver in her hand, then dropped it in its cradle and came back to collapse onto the sofa, pale-faced and speechless.

  “What?” Maxie questioned. “Who was that?”

  Jessie ran her fingers through the blond waves of her hair, leaving it in disarray, and held her head between both hands in confusion and
concern.

  “I don’t know who it was, but whoever it is, he’s got my dog. It has something to do with Danny and a red camera bag.”

  Maxie listened as she poured out the gist of the phone conversation and her reactions to it, liberally mixed with four-letter words of frustration and anger. When she fell silent and sat pounding one knee with her fist, the older woman took a long look at her, then stood up, ready for action.

  “All right. Now you call your trooper friend—Becker, is that it?”

  “No!” Jessie responded sharply. “He said, ‘No cops.’ He also said he’d not only be watching, but listening. I think that might mean I’d better not use the phone, don’t you?”

  “Then use this.” Reaching into one ample pocket, Maxie took out her cell phone and handed it over. “But he’s not got your phone tapped, Jessie. That would be far too much trouble for a thing like this—planning ahead of time. If you were called at the last moment to work at the fair, he couldn’t have known you’d be there—or that you’d have Tank with you. To me it seems more like someone taking advantage of a convenient opportunity.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Jessie, reluctant still, took the cell phone and, with Maxie nodding encouragement, punched in the number of the state troopers’ office in Palmer.

  CHAPTER 13

  “It was a good thing you came to the phone,” Jessie told Phil Becker with a smile. “I had very mixed feelings about telling you anything after the warning in that call. If you hadn’t been right there, I might have changed my mind.”

  “I’d gone back to my office when I saw there wasn’t much more to be done at the fair,” he explained. “It was obvious that Tank had been taken off the grounds. We had put out an APB and interviewed every fair worker we could think of who might have seen anyone leaving with a sled dog.” He turned to Danny’s parents, who sat across the room. “That was when I met Mr. and Mrs. Tabor, who had come in to report that their son hadn’t been home since the previous afternoon.”