by Sue Henry
Alex turned his head in that direction and found himself meeting the direct, unsmiling stare of the big musher, who sat with three other men around a tiny table filled with beer mugs. After a minute he nodded, but received no recognition from Martinson. The man looked down at the glass in his hand, raised and drained it, thumped it back on the table, and stood up to pull on his parka. Ignoring the trooper, he turned and headed for the door.
“There he goes,” observed the man who had remarked on Pollitt. “Schuller better hustle.”
“Better let Gail know,” said a woman near him, heading for the door. “Don’t eighty-six my beer. I’ll be back.”
Holman turned to Jensen. “Martinson may beat both Harvey and Ellis out of town, and they’re already packing up.”
“Time to apply that pressure you mentioned, Cas,” Jensen said. “There’s no reason to watch Harvey and Ellis. You get Schuller. Phil, you know where to find Murray. Matt and I’ll double the watch on Martinson. Let’s do it.”
Within an hour all four of the male racers had checked out of McGrath: Harvey, Ellis, Schuller, and Martinson, in that order. Across the airstrip, near the river, Jensen, Holman, and Caswell found Becker watching Gail Murray complete her packing, having put booties on all fourteen of her dogs. Having the three troopers join the group gathered around her didn’t seem to bother her. When she was ready to start, she smiled and waved in their direction, pulled the snow hook, and went down the bank and onto the ice of the Kuskokwim.
Not one of the three they watched had supplied any clue to the puzzle. Martinson had glowered in Jensen’s direction, but had said nothing. Schuller had gone about his business as if Caswell were not there.
Alex turned to Holman and yawned a yawn that popped his ears.
“Now,” he started, when he could speak.
Becker interrupted. “Hey,” he said with a wicked grin, “let’s go back to McGuire’s. It can’t be more than eight hours or so till the sun comes up.”
Jensen stuck out a foot and tripped him neatly into the nearest snowbank.
18
Date: Thursday, March 7
Race Day: Six
Place: McGrath checkpoint
Weather: Severe clear, light to no wind
Temperature: High –2°F, low –14°F
Time: Early morning
“Anything on Pollitt?”
Breakfast was over and Caswell had gone to service the plane. Becker left, stuffing a last strip of bacon in his mouth, to check out the arrivals at the café. Alex and Emma were finishing their coffee when Matt, out well before daylight, showed up to join them.
“Out of surgery, doing okay. Won’t be running dogs for a while, but the doc said it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.”
“Solomon got out last night?”
“Nope. Stayed over. Came in to see the vet just as I left to come up here. Arnold, Cranshaw, and Ryan’re in,” Holman told him. “Saw Jess at the checkpoint an hour ago. She asked where you were.”
“They okay?”
“She looked pretty whipped and worried, but everybody does when they get here. She and Ryan went to bed down the dogs.”
“Damn.” Alex set down his coffee. “I think I’ll go find out.”
As he stood up, he heard someone knock on the door.
Jessie Arnold stood there, her face pale under windburn.
“Hi,” she said to them in an exhausted voice. To Alex, “I have to talk to you.”
“Coffee?” said Emma as she went to get it.
Alex helped Jessie with her parka and boots before he brought her across the room to the table.
“Sit,” he said. “Thanks, Emma. Get some of that hot stuff into you, Jess. Whatever it is, it’ll wait five minutes.”
He could see how tired she was by the way she dropped into the chair. Something was wrong. He exchanged looks with Holman, who said nothing. They waited while she sipped the steaming coffee.
Emma came out of the bathroom with a towel, a facecloth freshly wrung out in hot water, and some medicated cream. She held them out. “Here, Jess. Wash your face and hands. You’ll feel better.”
Alex saw Jessie’s eyes fill with tears at the kindness, but her voice was level when she spoke her thanks. She held the cloth to her face and sighed, then wrapped both her hands in its heat.
“Oh God, that feels good,” she said.
As she rubbed cream onto her face and hands, she turned to look at Alex and took a deep breath.
“My gun is gone,” she said. “There was a moose in the trail just outside of town. It was easy to go around, but when I reached into the bag to check my gun, it wasn’t there. Bomber fired a couple of shots with his to scare her off. After we got here, I went through my sled while the pups ate. It’s not anywhere in my gear.”
Jensen was suddenly all trooper.
“What kind of a gun?”
“A Smith and Wesson .44.”
“Koptak had one.”
“Yeah. He told me what to get when I bought mine.”
“When did you see it last?”
“During my twenty-four in Rohn. I checked and cleaned it. Made sure I could get at it in a hurry.” She held her mug for Emma to refill.
“Exactly when did you clean it?”
“Soon as I got in, while I waited for the dog food to cook. I wanted to get done before it got too dark.”
“So it could have disappeared during your twenty-four in Rohn or anywhere from there to where you saw the moose. Was anyone besides Cranshaw and Ryan in your camp while you were cleaning it who could have seen you put it away?”
“I’ve been thinking ever since I realized it was missing. Schuller stopped to see Ryan. Martinson brought back a piece of Bomber’s harness that got mixed with his in Finger Lake. Gail Murray came to talk to me. They didn’t stay long because they were about to go out. Next day, practically everybody taking twenty-fours was there sometime. Almost all of us who don’t wear our guns carry them in the bag below the handlebar. It’s the first place to look.”
“Have you said anything to Ryan or Cranshaw?”
“No. Jim asked me if something was wrong, but I told him I was just tired. Alex, I’m scared. I didn’t lose it.”
“You have a right to be scared. On the burn, was anyone in your gear?”
“Both Jim and Bomber, with my permission. But I was there and I think I would have seen. There were several stops, twice with other people. I can’t watch everything every minute. In Nikolai we all went inside for a while, but our teams were out where everyone could see them.”
“And get at them. Including Ryan and Cranshaw, who, I’ll bet, both went in and out.”
“Yes.”
Jensen walked across the room thinking hard. From the front window he could see a plane taxi across the end of the street.
He turned back and looked at Holman who was watching him, listening silently. “Matt?”
“Yeah?”
“You have a gun Jessie can borrow? If she buys one in town, whoever’s got hers will know it.”
Holman got up and vanished into the back of the house. He returned with a shotgun and a handgun in a holster. “Take your pick, Jess. You can have both if you want.”
She shook her head at the shotgun. “If I shoot that from the sled I risk hitting my dogs. If I step off, they could take off on me when I fire. I’ll take this one. Thanks, Matt. I’ll get it back to you.”
“In Nome. You going on with those two?”
“Yes, I’m going on. With them?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it depends.”
“Well, if you are, I guess we’d better have a look at their gear first. Right, Jensen?”
“Afraid so.”
Jessie sat up straight in her chair. “But should they know my gun’s missing? Should anyone know?”
/>
“If we do it at the checkpoint as they leave, and check ‘em all, it’ll seem less suspicious,” Holman suggested. “Don’t have to say what we’re looking for. That way we catch everyone who was with you in Rohn and the burn.”
“Good idea,” Alex agreed. “How long till you go, Jessie?”
She looked at the clock on Holman’s wall. “A little over three hours.”
“You better get some rest. Emma, do you mind if she stays here?”
“Of course not. Come on, Jess. You want a shower?”
“Oh, yeah, but I’d better sleep first and use it to wake up. All my clean clothes are on the sled.”
“I’ll get them,” Alex told her. “Where is it and what do you want?”
She described the sled’s location. “There’s a small red duffel in the back of my sled bag. My friend, Jan Thompson, is watching my sled, and I told her to scream her head off if anyone touched anything. You better show her your badge or something.”
“How long do you want to sleep?”
“Hour and a half. No more.”
“I’ll have it here by then, Jess.”
“Thanks, Alex.” She gave him a look like the hug she had given him in Rohn and followed Emma to the bedroom.
As he turned to the door, Holman stood up too. “I’ll go along.”
They booted up and threw on parkas. Hurrying down the street, Holman said, “Jess, huh? You could do a lot worse than that, Jensen.” Then, before Alex could answer, “I’ll go talk to the checker.”
Alex returned in two hours to find Jessie sitting by the stove in one of Emma’s bathrobes, running her fingers through her hair to dry it. She looked scrubbed, tired, . . . and wonderful.
“I shouldn’t have done the shower,” she said. “It’ll be harder to go back out, but it feels so good to get clean.”
He set her duffel on the floor beside her chair and looked down at the back of her neck, exposed as she leaned toward the heat. It was all he could do to keep from reaching out to lay his hand on the damp curls of her hair.
“Where’s Emma?”
“To the store for a box of shells. Didn’t want me to go.”
He stood looking down at her, saying nothing, wanting to hold her, wanting tell her . . . he wanted her? That he didn’t want her out there with some maniac? That it scared the hell out of him? What?
Suddenly he was angry with himself for not knowing what to say or do with his feelings. She had given him encouragement with her hug. What was wrong with him?
Aware of his silence, she stopped drying her hair and looked up. “Alex?”
He started to turn away, but then let her see his confusion.
For a long minute she looked at him. Then, with one easy motion, she stood up into his arms. She lifted her face, he reached for her mouth with his, and his fear, anger, and want got all mixed up with the taste of toothpaste. She was warm, smelled of soap and shampoo, and she kissed him back, thoroughly.
Then she buried her face in his shoulder and laughed. “Well, now I know,” she said.
“Know what?”
“About your mustache. It’s nice, but it tickles.”
“I’ll shave it off.” Smiling.
“Don’t. I like it.”
“Really?”
She kissed him again.
When it was over, he looked down at her and frowned.
“I’ve been thinking. We’ve got to talk.”
“Oh, Alex, I can’t. I’ve got to get dressed and back down to the team. There’s a lot to do before we leave.”
“But that’s the point. I don’t want you back in it.”
“Alex!” She stepped back from him, shaking her head, astonished. “You don’t . . . Now, wait a minute.”
“Stop and think, Jess. This isn’t spur-of-the-moment stuff. It’s calculated and deadly, and whoever did it is still out there. We’re getting closer. He’s made a mistake or two. But we don’t have him yet.
“Stealing your gun says he may be aimed at you now. If you’re out of the race you won’t be a target. Please, Jess.”
She glared at him. “In a minute you’re going to say ‘Trust me.’ Damn it, Alex. A couple of kisses and you’re in charge of me? Wrong! Nobody’s going to dictate my race for me. That’s it.”
“That’s not it. Something could go wrong out there, and I’m scared to death I can’t protect you. Goddamn it yourself. I care about you. Isn’t that obvious? It’s only a race.”
Her voice was terribly quiet. “Give . . . me . . . a break.”
She had looked straight at him while he talked, her face pale, lips stiff. Now she didn’t say anything, just stared at the floor.
“Jessie?”
When she still did not respond, he walked over and stood at the window, staring out at an empty lot next to the house, frustrated, helpless, and angry. What was wrong with this woman that she wouldn’t be reasonable? What made her feel she had to finish a race when her life was on the line? All of this was happening too close around her. The odds were terrible.
He remembered the limp feel of Ginny’s body in Happy Valley, the carnage of Steve’s death in Rainy Pass, and George’s face. All the blood and death in the snow could have been hers.
So far he had cleaned his hands of the blood of three people and some dogs he didn’t bother to count. He turned them up and looked down at them as if he could still see it there. A thing he hadn’t recalled in a long while crossed his mind, an image of Sally in the hospital in Idaho, not long before she died.
They had been trying to put a needle into her arm, but there was hardly a place left that hadn’t been used repeatedly. Dazed with pain, she had still been aware and fought against it. She had hated needles. It had been all he could stand to watch the nurse try until her hands were shaking and she had to let another make the attempt.
When they finally got the needle into a vein, it spurted a few drops of Sally’s blood on his shirt sleeve as he held her hand. With relief, he had blinked back his tears of frustration and love as she relaxed her grip. His fingers had been numb, and when he looked down, he saw that she had held on so tightly that three of her nails had broken the skin, each cutting a near half-moon in the back of his hand.
He turned his hands over. Only one of the small scars was still visible, fading. She hadn’t been able to hold on tight enough.
The memory carried a tired surge of sadness. He didn’t want anyone to hold on, to depend on him like that again and then die. The thought of it made his stomach turn over, and for a moment he wished intensely he’d never met Jessie. But it was stupid to pretend that he had a choice in that now, wasn’t it?
“Alex?”
Her voice jerked him back. When he turned, her expression had altered. She was back in the chair, looking up in appeal.
“Sit down. Please. I need to try to explain something to you.”
He came back then, slowly, and sat.
After a minute, she took a deep breath.
“I know how it looks, but really, Alex, I’m not trying to be stubborn. It scares me—bad. But I can’t just drop out because I’m scared. I’m not the only one in the race or any more at risk than the others, am I?”
“I don’t know Jess. I wouldn’t think so except for your gun. We don’t know why it was stolen.”
“But I think the odds can’t be all bad or it would have been me instead of Ginny. Anyway, that’s not what I’m trying to say.
“I told you this is my fifth Iditarod. I don’t think you understand what that means. It means I’ve been breeding dogs, raising them, working with them all these years to prepare for this race. Every race is this race. As soon as I got home from my first race I started putting together the best team I could train. Every year I do that.
“I’ve bought dogs, traded them, tried them out, found out what kind
of pups turn into good racers, sold and gotten rid of as many as I kept. With a lot of hard work, I’ve built a racing machine. I know which dogs will go in any kind of cold, which run best in the wind, and which can take the weather without dehydrating. We understand each other. Tank knows, almost before I do, what I want and what to do about it. He’s a great leader. And the rest know me, trust me and what I ask them to do. They love it, the running, as much as I do. I love it, Alex, or I wouldn’t do it.
“Every year, as soon as the race is over, we rest and get back in shape. Through the spring and summer I train all the dogs. In the fall we start training runs with the ones I may want for the race, hundreds of miles of runs. By February we’re in top form and ready to go again.
“I had a good team last year, but the team I’m driving now is the best I’ve ever had. I can’t stand to waste that, Alex. The focus of my life for the last five years has been this year’s race. I can’t throw that away. I just can’t.”
She paused, stood up, and paced for a minute back and forth across the room, thinking. He could see she wasn’t finished and waited. Finally she came back and, sitting down, reached out for his hands.
“You want to catch whoever is responsible for George and Ginny and Steve, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“What would you do if someone asked you to give it up because you might get hurt?”
“They wouldn’t. It’s my job.”
“But if they did?” She pushed. “If I did?”
“I’d have to ignore it and go ahead,” he said slowly. “The risk goes with the job. I knew that when I took it.”
“Do you like what you do?”
“Yes. Usually I like it a lot. There are things about it I don’t enjoy. People getting killed out here, for instance, and the sort of person who killed them. But I value the process of solving the cases, the skills I have and using them.”
“So do I,” she told him. “I mean I love what I do, and I do it well. It takes skills, too. I don’t like getting so tired I can hardly function, or freezing half to death once in a while. But all the rest makes it worth it, just as your job does.