Cold Company

by Sue Henry

  “Yes.” Her response was almost a question, but her attention was now focused on him, intruder forgotten for the moment.

  “Well, does that mean…”

  She took a deep breath and interrupted, knowing what he was asking.

  “It means we’re no longer an item, Lynn. We decided to let it go.”

  It was the first time Jessie had said that out loud, defined what she knew for someone else. There was still pain involved, but less than she had expected. It must not have been such a big deal after all, she thought at first, but knew immediately that wasn’t true. For her, Alex Jensen had been a very big deal.

  “Do you mind if I ask why you let it go?”

  Why? She could tell him the basic reason.

  “He took a job in Idaho and I wasn’t willing to give up what I do here to go with him.”

  Lynn nodded slowly. “I see.”

  But she knew that wasn’t all. There were other things that had to do with her independence and compromises she was unwilling to make. It was too soon in what she thought might be some kind of relationship with Lynn Ehlers to try to define those things. If something developed, it would deserve that kind of honesty, but not yet.

  “It was complicated, Lynn. But it’s over.”

  He tilted his head and gave her a questioning look. “Sure?”

  “Yes.”

  A pleased grin spread across his face, emphasizing the smile lines around his mouth and eyes.

  “So—you want to get together again sometime soon?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “We’ll do it then.”

  She thought he would kiss her, but instead he laid an affectionate arm across her shoulders as she walked him to his truck. “If you hear or see anyone you don’t recognize in the yard, call me. No. Call the law, then call me. Do you have a handgun?”

  “Under my mattress.”

  “Good.”

  She smiled at him, realizing that they were matched in height and she didn’t have to look up. It was comfortable.

  “Thanks, Lynn. It was a lot of fun.”

  “Except for that idiot reporter and your winning both games of pool.”

  “Well, yes. But he’s not worth considering, and I got lucky.”

  “Sure you did.” He grinned. “I’ll call you.”

  Climbing into the pickup, he was gone with a wave.

  She considered Lynn Ehlers as she untethered Tank from his box and walked with him toward the Winnebago, wanting company for the night in lieu of the intruder she had seen. Most of the dogs had been awake during the search of the yard but had now quieted down again, though a couple of them raised their heads to see if anything interesting was happening. They relaxed and lay down again at the sound of her voice.

  “It’s okay. Go back to sleep, guys.”

  Lynn was an appealing person for several reasons besides his easygoing nature. He understood her love of sled dog racing because he was involved in the sport himself. He knew the dedication and hard work required to make it work, as well as the joy of running teams through wild country. There was nothing about him that made her feel pressured to be anything but herself. He seemed content to get to know her gradually, demanding little more than her company and attention.

  Besides, she thought with a smile, he shoots a wicked game of pool.

  Unlocking the door, she stepped in and closed it behind her. She made it to the galley before she was overwhelmed by her sense of smell. In the dark interior of the motor home, the scent of roses hung strongly in the air, filling the space as if there were dozens of them. But it was not quite right. It smelled sticky and sweet, like cheap perfume or soap, the kind of scent that clings to your hands and clothes, cloying, nauseating: headache country. Slowly, Jessie reached, found, and turned on the light over the stove and turned cautiously to face the table.

  In the pale beam of the galley light, the roses in their vases glowed a rich red against the dark shadows of the window behind them. Arranged with exact spacing between, they stood together in line: the petals of one about to fall, one fully open—and one a tight bud in a vase just like the others.

  There were now three roses—three! Jessie knew there had been only two when she left the motor home and locked the door.

  Three?

  Without moving a muscle, she glanced hurriedly around what she could see of the space in which she stood, then turned slowly to look behind her.

  There was no sound or hint of motion. But someone had obviously been inside the Winnebago while she was gone—and it couldn’t have been Lynn Ehlers, who had been with her all evening.

  What the hell was going on?

  Swiftly, she went through the motor home, turning on all the lights, searching for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. All the doors and windows were closed and locked, except for the one over her bed. It was open a crack, but could only be opened from the inside.

  Returning to the table, she stood looking down in disbelief at the roses that had so quickly assumed an entirely different significance. Instead of playful gifts from some anonymous well-wisher, they now represented some kind of threat. Their very beauty gave them the power to intimidate—reinforced by their terrible smell. Leaning forward, she sniffed at one of them and almost gagged. It was not the roses themselves, she realized. Someone had sprayed them all with artificial scent, practically drowned them in it, for drops of the pervasive stuff lay on the table beneath each one.

  Going quickly, Jessie took a soapy sponge to wipe the table, turned on all the vent fans, opened all the windows as wide as they would go, and found a can of neutral air spray, which she used heavily throughout the interior. She rinsed the spray from the flowers under cool water in the sink, and slowly the smell began to dissipate.

  Her immediate thought had been to toss them outside, but she thought better of it. Though she couldn’t stand to sleep in the same space with the smell, she would keep them to show to Becker tomorrow. Enough would remain to give him an idea of how the place had smelled—like a whorehouse, she thought—and probably for Timmons to test and find out what it was.

  Dropping to a seat on the sofa behind the driver’s seat, she sat waiting for the reek to be gone, angry and upset. It was one thing to have roses left on her doorstep, quite another to find someone had delivered one inside her living space, along with such a sensory menace.

  Who was responsible for these strange gifts? Why? And what, if anything, could she do about it?

  14

  EVERYONE ARRIVED ALMOST AT ONCE THE FOLLOWING morning. Vic Prentice and crew came early to bolt floor joists into the notches provided for them in the tops of the concrete basement walls and to lay down a wood floor. They were hard at it when Hank Peterson rolled in a few minutes later. He was soon skillfully wheeling his Bobcat around the yard, hauling dirt to backfill against the concrete walls. Before any of them had been busy for more than half an hour, John Timmons showed up, with Phil Becker and the crime lab assistants in tow.

  “Gotta finish what we started the other day,” Timmons growled. “Phil and I need to talk to you, Jessie.” He rolled off in his wheelchair to get his technicians started at their work, instructing them to stay out of the way of the construction crew as much as possible.

  Jessie, with visions of anthills, stood for a moment, watching ten people, all occupied in what was usually an empty yard, except for her dogs. At the far end of the basement, Dell and Stevie were working on opposite ends of a joist they had just set into place. At the other, Bill and J.B. were engaged in a similar activity. As she watched, J.B. called a question to Vic, who was counting the joists that were left to make sure they had the required number. He answered and J.B. went back to work, but, beyond him, Jessie saw that Dell had hesitated in what he was doing to watch and listen to the exchange. He was staring fixedly at J.B., an odd frown of assessment on his face. When he noticed Jessie was watching, his scowl instantly vanished. He directed a single nod of recognition in her direction and turn
ed his attention to the work he was supposed to be doing. But there had been something in his fleeting expression that made Jessie wonder what his attentive consideration of J.B. was all about.

  Dell was a quiet man, slow to speak and react, though he seemed to listen a lot, she realized. If anyone knew the details of what went on within the work crew, it was probably Dell. She liked him, but she knew less about him than about the others who were working in her yard. On a lunch break he was most often to be found resting full length on a pile of lumber, billed cap pulled low to shade his eyes, with every appearance of napping. But she had noticed that from beneath that concealing brim he watched and was aware of everything that went on around him, and this was not the first time she had seen his attention focused on J.B.

  Dell glanced up again and found her still watching him, which made her feel a little embarrassed. She hoped he wouldn’t mistake her attention for personal interest, like his working partner.

  Turning away quickly, she scooted into the motor home to make a third pot of coffee that somebody was sure to want, intending to go help with the construction of the floor as soon as she finished and forgetting about Dell for the moment.

  Becker, parking his patrol car just outside, where it was out of the drive, walked around the Winnebago and rapped on the screen door.

  “Come on in, Phil,” Jessie called, in answer to his knock.

  As he stepped in, she glanced out the window to see a huge truck pull into the yard with the first load of logs and Vic Prentice trot over to meet it.

  “That’s not supposed to be here till later this afternoon.”

  Giving Becker a distracted grin, she shoved the pot she had just rinsed back in place to catch the coffee that was beginning to drain through a filter.

  “Everyone else is here. You might as well be, too.”

  He stood by the table, looking down at the three roses that Jessie had put back where she had found them the night before.

  “These what you called me about this morning?”

  Leaving the coffee to brew itself, she slid onto one of the benches at the table and looked up at him with an anxious frown.

  “Yes. Somebody put the third one there last night and the smell was not to be believed.”

  “You mean it was delivered last night?”

  “No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I mean it was right there on the table with the other two. The door was locked, but someone got in, left it there like you see it, sprayed all three with some horrible rose perfume, and went out, locking the door again. I walked in late and almost threw up.” She shivered, recalling the smell.

  Becker frowned. “Who has keys to this place?”

  “Vic Prentice has the only other key. But I asked him this morning and he showed it to me, on his key ring. I had mine with me. So how the hell could anyone get in?”

  While he thought about that, Becker removed his western hat, leaned forward, and smelled the flowers Jessie had rinsed off the night before. He made a face and stepped back, rubbing the mark his hatband had made on his forehead.

  “Nasty. Anything else different or missing?”

  “No,” she assured him. “And I looked through everything.”

  “You’re sure you locked up?”

  “Yes, because I tried the door just after we came back and it was locked.”

  Becker’s head came up like a hound on a scent. “We?”

  “A friend, okay? A musher I ran the Quest with last February. Lynn Ehlers.”

  And why, Jessie suddenly wondered, did she feel defensive about telling Phil Becker she’d been out with someone besides his friend Jensen? Considering the circumstances, it was ridiculous, but she felt it.

  “I can’t get in there, so you’ll have to come out here,” Timmons’s gravelly voice announced from the other side of the screen door, where he was peering at the roses on the table beyond Becker. “And bring me a mug of that coffee I smell, please, Jessie.”

  Pulling a bench she kept near the door to a position near his wheelchair, Jessie sat down and repeated what she had told Becker, who had gone to examine the doors on the cab of the motor home and consider how someone could get into the locked vehicle.

  “I think the passenger door was jimmied,” he said, coming back to stand next to Timmons. “There’s some fresh scratches on it. Probably never even touched this one, just locked the cab door before shutting it again on the way out.”

  “That simple?” Jessie said, disgust in her tone.

  “’Fraid so. Car thieves do it all the time in a few seconds.”

  “And he wanted me to know he could get in,” she added. “The other roses were left outside.”

  “How do you know it was a he?” Timmons asked.

  “I guess I really don’t,” she said. “But I saw someone who moved like a man leaving the yard as we drove up.” She indicated the place in the trees where the dark figure had disappeared at the back of the yard the night before. “That must have been whoever left the rose.”

  “Tell us about the roses,” Becker requested, an odd, intent expression on his face.

  Jessie complied, telling both of them everything she remembered, beginning with the first to arrive. “You remember, Phil. You were here when I found it.” She reiterated her confrontation with the stubborn woman at the shop and her refusal to reveal the sender of the flowers, and then finding the second rose on her doorstep when she returned from driving Bonnie Russell to Palmer.

  “Now this one. I was a little uneasy after the second one showed up, but I thought it was just someone being nice in an odd way. Now I’m worried, Phil. More than that—I’m scared. This is too similar to last year’s stalker for my taste. It isn’t the least bit appealing or friendly anymore. There was something threatening about that appalling smell. Who the hell is sending these things—and why?”

  Becker and Timmons exchanged a concerned and knowing glance, which did not go unnoticed by Jessie.

  “You know something,” she said. “What’s going on? Tell me.”

  “Bear with me for a minute,” Timmons suggested, leaning forward in his chair. “You must have wondered who sent the first two. Who did you put on your mental list?”

  “Well—” Jessie hesitated, once again feeling defensive and reluctant. “Of course I thought of Alex, but that doesn’t really work. I haven’t heard from him since he left, but that’s the way we left it. I wondered about Lynn Ehlers, but I was with him last night. It could be a shy racing fan. There’s a whole list of people I know who could have sent flowers, I guess, but none of them leap off my mental list as having any kind of a reason I can think of. I figured I’d just wait and see, until this third one showed up. Things have a way of solving themselves, if you give them time. I just don’t know, really.”

  “The solutions aren’t always pleasant,” Timmons said, running a hand through his fuzzy hair in an aggravated gesture that made it stand out from the top of his head. “On the surface this seems like a harmless, thoughtful thing to do—send you flowers. Only to some sick son of a bitch, it could be just the opposite, as you well know from last year—and last night. Right?”

  She nodded, concern widening her eyes.

  “What is it?” she asked again, hands held palm up toward him in pleading frustration. “Tell me what’s going on, dammit.”

  “Okay. Okay. Take it easy. Becker?”

  The trooper hunkered down in front of Jessie and pushed the brim of his hat back so he could more closely watch her reaction to what he was about to tell her.

  “Look,” he said. “This may have nothing at all to do with you, but the bodies of two women have been found in or near the Knik River in the last couple of days. Some kids and a fisherman found one three days ago under the bridge. It had floated down from somewhere upriver and we sent a team to try to find out where it came from, but that spot must be under water now, because they haven’t found anything. Then, yesterday afternoon late, Bonnie Russell stumbled across another body.”


  “But what…”

  “Let me finish.”

  At Becker’s interruption, Jessie swallowed what she had been about to ask.

  “We know who the first woman is: Kay Kendal, an exotic dancer who’s been on a missing persons list for three weeks. She left a club in Anchorage one night after work and disappeared. Her roommate reported her missing a week later.

  “We don’t know the identity of the woman Bonnie Russell found yesterday, but from the way she was dressed, we think she was another working girl. The Anchorage police are on it—checking all the clubs, especially one called Bottoms Up, where the first woman worked. There are a couple of others who went missing early this spring. From the way they’ve disappeared, and where these two have been found, we think it might be…”

  “Hansen!” Jessie breathed, recognizing the pattern Becker was describing as that of Alaska’s most notorious serial killer.

  “No! Not Hansen.” Timmons was emphatic. “Robert Hansen is still safely and soundly incarcerated in Seward at Spring Creek and will never get out. He tried to escape once in Juneau, so now they keep a close watch on him. It’s not Hansen, Jessie.”

  “Then…”

  “A copycat.” Becker picked up the story. “Someone making it look like Hansen’s work. But two things stand out in all this. One thing is that not all these women are prostitutes. The first of last spring’s missing women was a secretary at an insurance company. The second was a divorced woman with two kids.”

  “But what can all this have to do with me and whoever broke into the Winnebago last night?” Jessie asked in frustration.

  He grimaced at the tight, controlled tone of her voice and hesitated a moment to glance again at Timmons before answering.

  “The other thing—the thing that ties them all together—is this: Except for the woman Bonnie Russell found on the riverbank yesterday afternoon—and we won’t know about her until we find out who she is—the others were all sent flowers by some anonymous person before they disappeared.”

  “Oh, God!” Jessie breathed. “Roses?”