by Jerold Last
But appearances could deceive as we’d learned the last time we met the Kaufman sisters. Based on how far she’d advanced at the FBI, Gretchen had to be over 30, which would make Barbara at least 28 or 29. I’d spent a couple of hours in Mexico on a small sailboat with Gretchen, who was wearing only a skimpy bikini at the time, so I could vouch for the fact that she had the toned body of a serious athlete and really did look a lot younger than she was.
“Why don’t you join us? There’s still plenty of empty space at the back of the bus and we can get some privacy there.” I grabbed our stored gear as we all walked back to the emptiest part of the bus. The extra wide seat at the very back would allow us to sit together and talk without having to raise our voices to be heard across the aisle.
“We thought it might be a good idea to sit together some place we could talk as soon as we saw you coming,” invited Suzanne as she took the window seat on the right.
“Thank you,” replied Barbara as she climbed over to sit in the other window seat. Gretchen nodded a greeting as she took the seat next to me on my left. “This is a pleasant surprise. What are you two doing here?” she asked.
“Combining business and pleasure,” I replied. “How about you two?”
The sisters looked at each other and some unspoken message was exchanged. Gretchen answered me, “The same as you, maybe literally as well as figuratively. We were sent here to investigate a suspicious accident that may have been a double homicide. Denali is a National Park, which makes murder or suspected murder on federal property our jurisdiction. Does your business here have anything to do with a couple dying in the park last week?”
We’d first met Gretchen and Barbara Kaufman in Ecuador a few months ago. They were FBI agents who seemed to get around a lot, probably because they were very good at their job. I trusted them and couldn’t think of any good reason not to tell them the truth.
“Vincent Romero is my partner in our detective agency in Los Angeles. You’ve seen his name before. His best friends for most of his adult life were Roberta and Francis Roberts, who he met in Iquique, Chile. When he heard about their so-called accident here in Denali he asked Suzanne and me to come up to the park and investigate. We met Roberta and Francis in Chile a year or two ago and liked them, so we said yes. There were several reasons he doubted the official story.”
“Excuse me for a second,” interrupted Gretchen. “Did you know the Roberts well enough to tell me why we came up completely blank when we ran a background check on both of them? They didn’t have any history on the Homeland Security computers for the last 25 or 30 years.”
I still couldn’t think of any good reason not to tell her the truth, which she’d find out eventually anyway. “Yes, I think I can. For one thing they were in Northern Chile all that time teaching at an obscure branch campus of the National University there in Iquique. For another, they were both CIA agents in deep cover while they were in Chile. That’s part of what’s bothering Vincent about their deaths. Both of the Roberts were far too well trained to have been taken by surprise by a bear in the woods, and both were far too accomplished at hand-to-hand combat not to have fought back and done a lot of damage to the bear.”
Gretchen thought about what I’d told her for a bit, nodded her head, and replied, “That explains why finding out anything about the Roberts’ past has been so difficult. It also raises the obvious question. Do you think they were killed because of their former activities as spies, or maybe even things they were still doing now?”
The bus closed its front door and started to move toward the official park entrance. The driver’s voice came over an audio system inside the bus. “I want to welcome all of our National Park visitors today. We have a long ride ahead of us, so I’d like all of you to relax and enjoy the spectacular views through the windows on both sides of the bus. I’ll point out any animals or geologic formations I think you might be interested in as we pass by them. If any of you want to see more of anything, just give me a yell and we’ll stop and take a longer look. Our schedule is arranged so we have time to see and do whatever we want to along the way. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to concentrate on my driving for the next few minutes.”
We had just transitioned from smooth paved highway to a well-graded dirt and gravel track, which was probably why the driver wanted to give the road his full attention. Gretchen picked up our conversation where she’d left off. “What do you think, Roger? Do we need to track down the spying angle? As you probably know, the CIA isn’t supposed to be doing any spying in the United States itself, and last time I looked Alaska is part of the USA.”
We passed a couple of buses coming back to the park entrance on the narrow road, and started climbing a steep hill. I was kind of glad the driver was concentrating fully on his tasks for this stretch of road. “I don’t know, Gretchen. My gut says they were really and truly retired. Vincent would have told me if he knew anything about what they were up to here in Alaska, and as far as he’s concerned they were here on vacation.”
Gretchen paused a beat before continuing. “Does that mean your partner Vincent is ex-CIA too?”
I smiled at her. “I think this is where I’m supposed to say you don’t need to know that, Gretchen. But in a word, the answer is yes. And, before you ask, I know he’s really retired and not doing any Agency work on the side.”
Gretchen paused for another beat while she digested and processed my answer. “You have some very interesting associates, Roger. A partner who’s ex-CIA. Robert’s Nanny, who’s an ex-Navy Seal. Plus you have friends in Paraguay and Ecuador who are super cops and army generals. Is there some more I should know about you and Suzanne?”
We reached the top of the hill, the driver downshifting into a lower gear as we came to a very curvy stretch of downhill road with several steep switchbacks. “I’m sure you’ve checked both of us out pretty thoroughly, Gretchen. This is the third time you’ve been involved with us in a murder case. What you see is what we are. Suzanne and I are normal civilians, not spies. We just seem to have a knack for getting involved in complicated murder cases, and a strong sense of responsibility to help the authorities when that happens.”
The driver’s voice came over the amplifiers again. “The road’s going to straighten out in a mile or two and I’ll be able to talk to you while we drive along. Let me start by introducing myself. I’m a trained biologist with a master’s degree in wildlife biology named Steve. My full-time job for nine months of the year is teaching biology as a professor at a small liberal arts college in New England. I’ve been coming to Alaska every summer for a dozen years working for the concession company that provides the tourist busses to the National Park Service.
“The park receives 400,000 visitors annually, so we get a full bus every day. It’s a great job. I get paid to play in the wilderness several days a week, hiking, camping, fishing, and backpacking. When we include the tips, they pay me about as much for three months of work here as I earn for nine months at the college. And I love Alaska and the laid back lifestyle here.”
Gretchen turned back to me as Steve finished his introductory comments. “What are your plans to investigate the so-called accident?”
I smiled back at her. “They changed when we met you this morning. I don’t know now. We signed up for the bus ride just to get a sense of where the killings happened and what the National Park is like. About all we know about Denali Park is that it’s huge and has a lot of wild animals in it. There’s obviously something suspicious about the deaths or you wouldn’t be here. I’ve been absolutely open with you, telling you everything you wanted to know even when I didn’t have to, just like in Mexico the last time we met. Maybe you’d like to thank me by saving us a lot of time and telling me whatever you can about the local investigation and any theories the FBI might have.”
Gretchen exchanged a look with Barbara and appeared to make a decision. “There are limits to what I can tell you, but I’ll share what I can. The local law enforcement agencies wit
h jurisdiction here in Denali, the Park Rangers and FBI agents from Anchorage, totally botched this investigation by assuming it was an attack by a bear and not a crime scene. I’m afraid our agent-in-charge in Anchorage may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier. The autopsy was a joke and the scene was contaminated by anyone who wanted to come out and take a look.
“To make a long story short, we think the murder weapon could have been one or more bear claws wielded by a “bear” with an opposable thumb. The pattern of the wounds was too selective to be a normal random bear attack, and looked more like each blow was delivered where it would do the most damage. Too many people had trampled through the murder scene to make footprints or fingerprints of any probative value as evidence, so we have no clues, no theories, and nothing to go forward with. Barbara and I are here to look into possible motives and known associates.”
“Where exactly did the killing take place?” I asked.
Gretchen made a face. “Way out in the middle of nowhere, in a heavily forested part of the park a couple of miles from the Kantishna Lodge, usually only accessible to backpackers and mountain bikers. We were planning to get there by ATVs from the lodge when we stop for lunch on this tour. Would you and Suzanne like to tag along and get a first-hand look? Maybe a fresh set of eyes will see something the Park Rangers and local FBI agents missed, but I truly doubt it.”
I thought about pragmatic reasons why this might not be a good idea. There was only one. “How do we get back to our hotel if we leave the bus?”
Gretchen smiled. “That’s easy. The same way we will. Rank has its perks. We’ll have a chopper to fly us out when we’re ready to go back. We took the bus going in to get a sense of how easy or hard it would be to jump off the bus en route and hike into the wilderness to kill a couple of tourists, and to just get a sense of what the big picture out here looks like, just like you’re doing.”
I turned to Suzanne. “What do you say? Would you be OK with just half a bus tour today? It’s still about six or seven hours of seeing the park from the bus, as well as seeing it from a helicopter in the air on the way back.”
“That works for me,” she replied.
Gretchen lowered her head and leaned close to me to ensure that nobody else heard what she was saying. “As long as we’re working together now I’ll share some more information with you. The local police in Denali found a couple of badly injured drunks in an alley alongside a bar in town last night. It looked like the sort of carnage that seems to follow you around, Roger. I thought you might want to know both of the men are in the hospital and will recover, but not for quite a while. Neither of the two had anything to say about how they were hurt. The police are calling it a bar fight where the participants did all of the damage to each other. There won’t be any further investigation. If it was you, I assume you had your reasons for what looks like gross overkill, but it’s a local matter and none of my business.”
We were interrupted once again by the guide’s voice coming over the speakers. “If you look out the windows on the right side of the bus or the front windshield you’ll see a she-wolf trotting alongside the road about 50 yards ahead of our bus. I’ll pass her then stop at a wide place on the road a few hundred yards ahead. You all will have to stay in the bus for safety reasons, but keep your cameras ready. There should be plenty of chances to get some really close-up photos of a wild wolf to take back with you. She’ll be passing on our left, so all of you in the left seats please share the windows on that side with the passengers sitting on your right.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Suzanne a moment or two later as the wolf walked alongside the bus, “we’re less than 4 feet away from a wild wolf.” The wolf obviously was neither afraid of the bus nor the people in it as she inelegantly stopped to heed a call of nature beside the left front tire of the vehicle.
Steve’s voice added, “We don’t normally see wolves like this one on the road and we don’t see them all alone rather than in a pack. Look how skinny she is. She probably hasn’t eaten a real meal in a long time. It’s illegal to hunt wolves in the National Park, but a lot of them are shot or poisoned by ranchers and bounty hunters, who blame the wolves for killing their livestock, poaching the wolves just outside of the park when they wander away from the protected area. Wolves hunt in packs. They aren’t fast enough to run down healthy animals on their own, especially if they are weak and hungry like this one. When you see a starving loner like this one, she’s probably either been cast off by her pack for some reason, or the rest of her pack has been killed by poachers and she escaped to take refuge here.
“She’s probably getting too weak to kill game now. Will she survive on her own? I doubt it. Sadly, there’s nothing we can do about it. These are wild animals in a natural wilderness here. We’re not allowed to intervene in Nature’s way, even if that seems harsh.”
As we drove deeper and deeper into the National Park we stopped several more times to get a closer look at what for most of us had previously only been pictures in books or caged specimens in zoos. Each time our driver’s voice came over the P.A. system telling us what we should be looking for and a little bit about each animal as we watched them through the windows of the bus. We were able to get within a hundred yards or so of all four of the major herd animals, grazing peacefully in the green meadows alongside the road. The large animals were obviously used to the buses and not at all afraid of us.
The moose and the caribou were much larger than I expected, but moved smoothly and gracefully as we watched. At this time of year their antlers were well developed, with trophy sized racks on the larger animals. The deer looked a lot like their cousins I’d seen (and hunted) in the high Sierras of Eastern California. The elk also looked like their counterparts in the Western US, but were also a good deal larger here.
We also saw several bald eagles perched in trees or soaring through the air. And, for those with binoculars, there were Grizzly Bears on all fours or standing erect in the distance. Everyone with binoculars shared them freely, so we all got a good look at the bears, which were a dull orange color, easily spotted against the green or dark backgrounds in the distance.
Chapter6. Denali National Park
After a long stretch of driving, mostly uphill, the guide’s voice sounded over the speakers. “The Eielson Visitor Center is just up ahead. It’s the 4-hour mark for our trip today, and our first real break. All of the facilities are available, as well as a very special view of Denali. The ranger there will explain what you’re seeing. I’ll meet you all back at the bus in an hour. Please make sure you’re here at the right time. We have to stay on schedule here at the Center since there’ll be two more buses coming in just about when we’re leaving.”
Our scheduled stop at the Park headquarters, a modern two-story building with several fascinating pieces of sculpture in front staffed by the Park Rangers, was a welcome break from the long bus ride. The day was bright and sunny, a rarity in this area far to the north in Alaska. We could clearly see the twin peaks of Denali Mountain in the distance. The Park Services Visitor Center provided an opportunity to stretch our legs and to learn more about the National Park and the mountain, take a bathroom break, and actually see the highest mountain peak in North America.
Called Mount McKinley by the US Federal Government and Denali by everybody else, the summit is at an elevation of 20,237 feet (almost 6,200 meters) above sea level. The highest peak is the South Summit, with a twin North Summit at 19,470 feet. On clear days, both snow-capped peaks can be seen from the Visitor Center. Denali, the indigenous Athabascan name for the mountain, means “the high one”, and it certainly deserves the name.
The Park Ranger explaining things told us there were usually only a few days a year clear enough to allow both peaks to be visible, so we were having a special experience.
We heard a lot about the geology and the history of the park. According to our host, Ranger Ed Farrell as we could see by the name tag he wore on his uniform jacket, “Denali National Park is si
x million acres maintained in the wild state, with just the one road we were traveling on as an accommodation to tourists and other users of the park. The mountain used to be called Mount McKinley, in honor of our 25th President, William McKinley, but the State of Alaska eventually voted to return to the indigenous name, Denali.”
Ed Farrell pointed out the huge glaciers between and below Denali’s peaks, stark rocky outcroppings, and snow at the higher elevations.
After the presentation Suzanne and I chatted with the Ranger as the rest of the crowd moved on to the next exhibit. He explained some of the subtleties of the great mountain in front of us, pointing at the glacier coming toward the Visitor Station, a huge mass of snow and ice.
“It’s like a living thing,” he exclaimed, “moving up and down the mountain valley with the seasons. There are occasional avalanches where you can see it move. Otherwise it’s only a few inches a day so nothing seems to be happening. Then, suddenly, you can notice it’s closer to us or further away than it was a few weeks ago.”
Another gentleman and a woman in Park Ranger uniforms joined our little group. Their badges introduced them as Chief Ranger Manfred Fleming and Ranger Ingrid Ravenswood. We learned these three rangers were more than half of the total of five National Park Service Rangers in the Park. The rest of the Park workers were temporary employees who worked here during the summer season, hired by the concessionaires who owned and operated the buses or leased the campgrounds and other tourist amenities within the park. Many of the seasonal employees in the hotels and restaurants in the city of Denali were foreign students earning what was for them a lot of money while spending their summer in an exciting place. Here in the Park, the concessions were required by the Park Service to hire only US citizens or permanent residents for seasonal jobs.