by Sue Henry
“Okay, maybe! But who was flying that plane, and if it was a serious attempt on us, how could he have known we’d be there?”
“I don’t know. If it was the same plane that’s been seen up there before, no one’s ever got the identification numbers.” Becker shook his head in frustration. “He flies up the east side of the valley, where people don’t live because there isn’t a road. He’s too far away for people to read the numbers from the west side, even with binoculars.
“As for how he knew you’d be flying there at that particular time, there are several possibilities. Caswell filed a flight plan that could have been seen by any number of people. Folks at the detachment knew we were going upriver, for all the good that does. They’re supposed to be close-mouthed about operations but…we talked about flying upriver at your place, so anyone there could have known.”
Jessie was quiet for a minute, thinking about what he had said.
“What about this Daryl Mitchell? Have you found out anything more about him?”
“Yes, a little. By tracking his social security number through his tax records, we know he moved to Oregon, where he worked construction and drove a truck for a couple of logging companies in Springfield. Credit card records indicate that he bought a truck and contracted with one logger to haul timber to the mill. That stopped a little over a month ago, when he sold the truck and bought a one-way plane ticket from Portland to Anchorage.”
“So he is in Alaska.”
“Looks that way—and we’re working on locating him.”
“Did any women disappear while he was in Oregon? Were any killed in similar circumstances? Be straight with me, Phil. Alex always told me what was going on when it concerned me. Can we…”
Suddenly, without warning, Becker was angry. Pulling the patrol car into the parking lot of a grocery store they were passing, he stomped on the brake, shoved the gearshift into park, and, with a scowl on his face, turned to address Jessie—not gently.
“Not we, Jessie. Alex may have shared some details of his cases, especially last year when that bastard stalker was after you. But I am not Alex, and you are not involved in this case.” He thumped the steering wheel for emphasis and continued. “If you are, it’s peripheral. Even if we find out that Mitchell is the guy who’s abducting these women, it does not concern you unless he’s threatening you directly. We don’t even know if your roses fit in with the others—though I personally think they might. But that’s all speculation. Aside from staying safe until we solve the case, you have nothing to do with it. You make assumptions, get mad and stubborn, and involve yourself in things that are none of your business—like that arsonist this spring, when you took off without telling us and came close to getting yourself killed. I’m tired of baby-sitting you. Finding the answers is not your job. Understand?”
Astounded at his outburst, Jessie stared at him, eyes wide, speechless. All she could do was nod, white-faced and chastened.
Phil Becker was suddenly someone she didn’t recognize. She had never seen him so irritated. As he pulled back onto the highway, however, she remembered how he had been when she first met him—a rookie Alex had taken under his wing, who had potential and a knack for working homicide cases. She realized she had still been thinking of him that way.
But he had changed—a lot. Now that Alex was gone and Becker was on his own, he was more confident and professional about his work. He was still friendly, easygoing, and enthusiastic, but except for the western hat, which he had copied from his mentor, hardly a trace of the rookie sidekick remained. Without Jensen overseeing his work, he was coming into his own, comfortable and secure in his abilities as an investigator. His observations, opinions, and ideas were solid and well thought out—not offered for approval.
Baby-sitting? It had not really occurred to her that by doing things her way and on her own she was actually adding to his problems—taking his attention away from the investigation rather than helping. Was this true for other people around her as well—Hank, Lynn, Timmons? Had it been true with Alex?
The idea startled her into a continued silence.
“Don’t sulk,” he told her, and managed the hint of a grin. “I’m over my mad now. But I meant every word.”
“Not sulking,” she responded quietly, if a little stiffly. “Just thinking I owe you an apology, Phil. You’re right. I do make assumptions. I am stubborn and want to do things myself. I’ve made it harder for you sometimes, haven’t I? I’ll try not to from now on.”
“Deal.” The grin was genuine. “And I’ll keep you up-to-date, as much as I can. Just don’t assume…”
“I won’t. I promise.”
The cabin’s walls were up, the crane and log crew gone, when they reached Jessie’s yard. Vic Prentice’s crew, including Hank Peterson, was hard at work putting a roof over the rafters and ridgepole. It would extend about a yard beyond the walls, covering and protecting the logs, especially from water, which could rot and eventually destroy them if they were unshielded. The slope of the roof would also extend to cover the front porch. That side already had two dormers in place, one for each of the second-story loft bedrooms.
As Becker pulled into the yard and Jessie got out of his car, the whole crew stopped what they were doing and came down to welcome her home.
“Hey, kid, how you doin’?” Prentice asked, reaching her first.
As he leaned to give her a hug, Jessie shrank from it, taking a step back.
“Oh, please, Vic. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt. Can I have a rain check?”
“Sorry, I forgot. You’re gonna be okay, though, right?”
“Yeah, the doc says I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Just a sorry excuse for a helper for a few days.”
“That’s okay. You take it easy. We’re doing good things here.”
“I can see that. It looks great.”
She fended off two more welcoming embraces with a palm raised toward Hank and Stevie, and greeted Bill, Dell, and J.B.
Bill, frowning as he saw the ugly bruises on the right hand and arm she had extended and the dressing over the stitches on her head, waved a hand at the bench beside the Winnebago. “Sit down, Jessie. You look whipped.”
“Well, whipped is exactly how I feel, but first I want to see what you’ve done since yesterday. Hank, would you let Tank off his tether?”
“Sure.”
He walked across to where her lead dog stood straining toward her and unfastened the restraint. Jessie watched closely as Tank came trotting to stand beside her, but he seemed healthy and uninjured, not even limping from the cut on his paw.
“I took him by the vet’s last night like you wanted,” Hank told her. “He checked out just fine. No apparent damage except for that cut on his foot and a bruise or two.”
“Thanks, Hank.”
She leaned to rub the dog’s ears and shoulders, then straightened with a wince.
“I’d better get going,” Becker told her. “I put your jacket and the other stuff inside. I’m sending out an officer to spend the night in his patrol car.” He held up a hand when she automatically started to protest. “No, don’t make it harder. You promised. Someone will be here about nine.”
“Okay.” Jessie gave in without an argument, which raised Peterson’s eyebrows, a reaction Jessie noted for later thought.
“I’ll check in periodically. Bye.” And Becker was gone.
“Now,” she said, starting slowly toward the new cabin. “I want a look at the inside before this pain pill wears off.”
When they all stood surrounded by log walls, in the center of the space that would become the living room, she couldn’t stop grinning, finally able to see exactly how much space there would be and how it would look. The log joists to support the loft, with an interior balcony that would connect the bedrooms, had gone in as the walls were raised, and a preassembled stairway had been moved into place by the crane. The loft still needed a floor, but the space was well defined and she could see that th
e dormers would allow afternoon sun into the two bedrooms, one of which she planned to use as an office that would double as space for guests.
“Oh, Vic, it’s wonderful.”
“It’s a long way from finished yet, Jessie. But it’s a good start. Now, let’s get back to work.”
The visit to the cabin was the best thing she could have done to raise her spirits. But as soon as the crew went back up their ladders to finish the day’s work on the tongue-and-groove decking they were nailing solidly to the rafters and ridgepole, she found she was more than ready to go back to the Winnebago. Peterson went along to make sure she was settled. He helped her make a cup of tea and piled up the pillows in her bed. As soon as he had gone, she changed clothes into a more comfortable set of sweats and warm socks and was amazed at the extent of the bruises that seemed to cover her body. She had taken more of a battering than she thought. No wonder I feel so beat up—I am, she thought, taking another pain pill, easing her aching body onto the bed, and trying to get comfortable enough to read. But even a Caribbean mystery could not distract her. Her mind kept turning back to what she could remember of the crash.
She had heard that people in accidents involving head injuries often lose memory of it. But though the doctor had decided she was lightly concussed, she thought she remembered most of it pretty well—from her glimpse of the plane that had forced them down to regaining consciousness in the upside-down plane and hearing Caswell call her name. Now she realized there was a gap in her recollection after the impact. She didn’t remember how she had managed to release her seat belt, or the resulting fall, and the rest was more than a little confused.
She definitely remembered finding Bonnie Russell’s still form hanging on the passenger side of the plane and the anguish of knowing there was nothing she could do to save her. And she recalled the effort of getting Caswell down and doing what she could for him. There was a huge amount of relief in knowing that he would be okay, but it was mixed with a sad resignation about Bonnie.
As she lay quietly considering, it occurred to her how strange it was that Bonnie had died so close to where she had long believed that her sister might have died as well. But if the remains Timmons had carried away from Jessie’s woods turned out to be Jo-Jo’s, Bonnie had been looking for years in the wrong place. Now she would never know. That’s the saddest of all, she thought.
The pain pill was gradually taking effect, and she suddenly discovered that she hadn’t thought about anything at all for…she didn’t know how long. She had simply been lying there, staring drowsily out the window at the green of the trees against the blue sky.
She woke three hours later, when Prentice and Peterson came in to check on her before leaving late that afternoon.
“I’d stay, but you’ve already got a nurse and cook,” Hank told her.
“Who?”
“Me,” said Lynn Ehlers, leaning around the door to the galley with a large spoon in one hand. Jessie suddenly realized that she’d vaguely been hearing food preparation noises. “That okay with you?”
“Oh, Lynn, you don’t need to…Ooh!” She started to sit up and found that most of her body protested painfully.
“I think maybe I do,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Phil Becker said it was a good idea, when I called him.”
“Uncle!” Jessie conceded. “I give. If I feel this bad, I can imagine how Cas must feel.”
“Thought you’d want to know how he’s doing, so I asked Becker. He said Caswell is resting comfortably and will be fine. He was asking about you. His wife said she’d be out to see you in a day or two.”
How like Linda Caswell to be so considerate, Jessie thought.
“We’re off,” Vic Prentice told her, heading for the door. “Rest and get better and don’t worry about the work. We’re saving lots for you to do, believe me.”
He vanished with Peterson, and the rest of the evening was a blend of taking naps and waking to talk to Lynn, who eventually went to bed on the sofa in a sleeping bag he’d brought along. From where she lay she could see him reading one of her new books on sports medicine.
“Call me if you need anything,” he told her. But she found she could let him sleep. She woke a couple of times—once to take another pain pill—but the night was easier than she had anticipated and it was comforting to know Lynn was within the sound of her voice, if she needed him.
24
THE CHEERFUL MUSIC OF A WARBLER SOMEWHERE IN THE nearby trees slowly woke Jessie from a sound sleep. Sweet, sweet, sweet, it called. Sitta, sitta—sweet, sweet, sweet. She opened her eyes and saw sunshine falling between the slats of the venetian blinds onto her bed. Without moving, she closed them again and listened drowsily. The covers, the mattress beneath her, and the pillow were all deliciously warm and snug, the same temperature as her body, discouraging any thought of moving, let alone leaving such a desirable cocoon.
Chip—chip—chip. Somewhere beyond the bird’s song, one squirrel scolded another. She could hear the tiny sound of their paws on the rough spruce bark as they chased each other up around the trunk. She imagined them leaping from tree to tree, seldom venturing to the dangerous ground in their never-ending search for food. New growth had extended the spruce branches with brilliant green tips, but it would be months before the cones grew fat and ripened and the squirrels began their race with early snow to stash them away for the winter.
The hum of tires on pavement told her a vehicle was passing, headed out Knik Road, perhaps to Oscar’s new place, where she suddenly remembered that a work party was scheduled. No, that was on Saturday, and today was…She couldn’t remember, but knew it was a weekday and the crew would soon be showing up to continue work on her cabin.
Ought to get up, she thought, and started to roll over. Coffee to make and…
“O-o-oh!” Sharp and immediate pain reminded her of the accident with a vengeance.
“Jessie?” Lynn Ehlers raised a head from his bed on the sofa, hair standing up comically on one side. “You okay?”
“No, dammit! I’m not,” she growled, slowly pushing herself to a sitting position on the bed. “I forgot and tried to move, and there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt.”
“Hold on. I’ll bring you another pill.”
“No, let me move a little and see exactly how bad this is. Those things make me fuzzy-headed, which I hate. Maybe if I take a hot shower I’ll feel better. Did the officer Becker threatened to send show up last night?”
“A couple of them did. They took turns, slept in the car—if they slept at all, which I doubt. They both checked in a couple of times and took off about five this morning.”
While Lynn made coffee and breakfast for them both, Jessie stood under the hot water of the shower until it ran out. She emerged feeling somewhat better, though still sore and lame. When she allowed him to replace the dressing over the stitches on her shoulder, she was unhappy to find a rainbow of bruises all the way to the elbow, which also hurt when she moved it.
“You hit something pretty hard with this arm. The seat in front of you?”
“I don’t know. There was a lot of noise, stuff breaking and falling. I remember getting thrown around as we went down and coming to on the floor—I mean, the ceiling that was the floor, because we were upside down. That’s all I know. The part in between is gone.”
“Makes sense. You hit your head a couple of times, from the look of it.”
“Rattled my brain loose. That’s why I can’t remember.”
“Well, sort of, yes,” Lynn joked.
She glanced up at him from where she was sitting at the table, dressed once again in sweats—the easiest thing to put on—and then looked back at the floor.
“I keep thinking that if I hadn’t been out for the count I might have done something for Bonnie Russell.” Her eyes flooded with tears.
“Jessie. Look at me.” He waited until she did.
“Becker said she died the instant her head hit the front of the plane—broke her neck.
You couldn’t have done a thing for her. And you saved Caswell’s life by somehow getting him out of his seat belt. If he’d stayed hanging there, in a short time he wouldn’t have been able to breathe at all.”
She thought about it as he brought her a plate of bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast to go with her coffee.
“Here. This’ll give you some energy. You want that pill now?”
“No, it’s better now. I think I’ll see if I can do without it—at least for a while. This looks great. I’m starving.”
“That’s good news.”
Glancing up, Jessie suddenly noticed an absence at the table. “The roses are gone.”
“Yeah. Becker took them.”
“Fine. They gave me the creeps.”
When the crew showed up to go back to work on the roof, Jessie went outside and walked slowly through the dog yard, having a look at her mutts, while her helper, Billy Steward, fed and watered them. She went across to meet Prentice, who grinned at finding her up and around.
“Aside from a black eye and the rest of you looking like you’d gone ten rounds with Muhammad Ali, you don’t seem half bad, Jessie. How do you feel?”
“Thanks so much, Vic. You really know how to flatter a girl! I feel—oh, not as bad as I did when I tried to get up this morning. Maybe I can work out a few of the kinks, if you find me something to do that doesn’t involve climbing ladders or swinging a hammer.”
“I don’t think so! Today you watch and rest. I’m not gonna be responsible for putting you back in the hospital.”
“Oh, well.” But she didn’t disagree and was soon sitting in the sunshine, letting it warm her battered bones.
After cleaning the galley, Ehlers took off to care for his own dogs but promised to be back that evening with dinner.
“Until they solve this thing, you’re putting up with me. Becker and I agreed, so don’t give me an argument.”