Deadfall

by Sue Henry

  “How could anyone have come into the lot without the dogs barking?” Jessie asked from her end of the sofa, looking up from an attempt to concentrate on the funnies in the Sunday paper. Without discussing it, they were attempting to fill the long morning, as usual, with breakfast, coffee, and newsprint.

  “Wondered about that myself,” Alex said, swinging his stockinged feet off the other end and opening the door to the potbellied stove to add another chunk of firewood. “I hate to suggest it, but there are a few people they wouldn’t bark at. Could it have been someone you, or we—and they—know?”

  “You know, someone might get past a person, but I don’t think they could fool a dog that didn’t know them,” she agreed. “I can’t think of anyone specific—anyone I’d want to accuse. There are a few people—mostly guys—who would rather women didn’t run the Iditarod, but why pick on me? Besides, that kind of thing’s sort of old news to come up this suddenly and viciously, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking, and it seems to me there could be two other possibilities for how the traps were set—either it was done when neither of us was here or when the pups would naturally be making a racket about something else, using that as a cover.”

  “Okay, but we were here the whole evening before Nicky stepped in that first trap.”

  “Was there anytime during that evening when they barked or made a fuss? I’m so used to the sounds of the dogs that I might not have noticed something that might have caught your attention.”

  “It seems like there was something—just before we went to bed Friday night. Didn’t someone stop by…or was it the night before that Fortis stopped in?”

  “Night before.” She shook her head, trying to recall. “But there were some lights that shone on the house from the road. A turnaround in the driveway. We thought someone was coming, but they just pulled in, backed out, and left. Remember?”

  “You’re right. And the dogs barked—they did.”

  “Yeah, and for longer than they normally would for that kind of thing. Remember? I was just about to go out and put a stop to it when they finally settled down and shut up.”

  “I’ll bet anything that’s when those traps were brought in. It would only take a few minutes to park on the shoulder of the road—or pull off where that trail of yours goes into the trees beyond the yard—slip into the back of the lot, and set them in two boxes. Has to be.”

  It gave them a possible answer for when, but told them nothing more about who. The rest of the day seemed endlessly full of frustration and raw nerves.

  They went out together and spent only the time necessary to feed and water the dogs. Jensen not only took the shotgun, but wore his off-duty Colt .45 semiautomatic, as well. There was nothing untoward, no hint of disturbance or further harassment.

  “But it’s not over, is it?” Jessie said quietly.

  “No. If that first note came as long ago as August, there have been long spaces between incidents, so one day is nothing. The difference is that now we’re aware of it. This person knows it and is just letting us stew and the tension build for something else, I think. These things usually escalate. Jess, are you sure about Idaho? This could—probably will— get worse.”

  She stood up from pouring water into a metal dish for a dog named Shorty, and gave him a long searching look. “Yes. Quite sure…for now. It would feel like quitting—like letting this S.O.B. win—and you know how I feel about quitting.”

  He looked down and scuffed the heel of one boot in a clump of dry brown grass.

  “This is different from finishing a murderous race, you know. You don’t have to prove anything here.”

  “I know. And I don’t intend to be stupid about it. I promise that if I reach a point where I feel that I should or need to get out, I’ll say so. Honest.”

  “All right. But you aren’t used to having to gauge this kind of thing. So if I reach a place where I think you definitely should go—and I warn you, I’m close—I’ll do the same. Fair?”

  “More than fair. I’d trust your judgment.”

  “One other thing…for me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want you to be alone out here. Will you agree to have someone here with you when I have to be somewhere else—at work?”

  “Yes. I’ve been considering that, and I think it’d be a good idea. Not just as discouragement, but as a witness, too. Linda said if I wanted someone, she’d come.”

  “I meant…”

  “No. No cops. That would make me crazy.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Linda will be fine. She’s smart, and quick, and can handle the shotgun as well as I can.”

  “Yeah, I know. Cas wouldn’t have one in the house unless she learned to use it. All right. I’ll have someone patrol out here during the day, and call you often to check. Keep the cell phone in your pocket, okay? And stay out of the lot as much as possible.”

  They spent another semi-wakeful night. Once, in the dark, Alex woke to find Jessie sleeping with her head on his arm, her back close against his side, as if seeking reassurance. He did not mention it when they got up, but, trying not to make her aware, he watched her carefully as she went through her usual morning routine. It was almost, but not quite, ordinary. Most people would have been fooled, but he noticed when she fumbled the toothpaste, informed her that she had put her sweatshirt on backward, and ate slightly scorched toast without comment.

  Jessie said little, but was relieved, if not glad, to have him leave for the troopers’ office in Palmer as soon as Linda Caswell pulled up at the cabin in her Blazer. Though she could tell he was trying hard to be unobtrusive, his constant, unspoken attention made her feel he could see the pressure she was feeling, even added to it. It made her feel clumsy, forced concentration on what were normally unconscious actions, and created awkwardness in their execution—water was spilled, silverware wound up on the floor, she bruised her shoulder on the bedroom doorframe. She found herself doing—and redoing—chores to keep her hands busy, so he wouldn’t worry about her tendency to sit still, lost in thought.

  She knew she needed to think, was convinced that whoever was doing these horrid things had to be someone with whom she’d had some kind of contact. There was certainly a chance it was just some unbalanced fan she wouldn’t recognize face-to-face, but that chance, she thought, was small. It was much more likely that this fixation on her was the result of some encounter, however slight. To sort through her connections with other people, she needed time to sort through her experiences mushing and running public sled dog races. Before that, she would not have elicited this kind of focus, for who had known her then? If it didn’t have something to do with the Iditarod, why would this person include that particular race in his or her threats?

  But there were so many people over the last few years of racing and so much recognition of the state’s premiere sport. How could she hope to pick out one among hundreds?

  She waved good-bye to Alex and—glancing uneasily around at the trees and brush that could provide cover for many kinds of menace—forced a smile as she held the door open to welcome Linda into the snug log cabin. This evil had taken nothing of material value—except for injuring Nicky’s leg which eliminated her use as a sled dog—but, she realized, it was rapidly stealing intangibles from her that she found more valuable than any thing she owned. It was a theft of trust, confidence, assurance—things she had always taken for granted—certainty, safety. What next? What else would be demanded of her?

  She closed and carefully secured the deadlock on the door she usually left unbolted, and went to pour Linda a cup of coffee.

  “‘Happy birthday, Jessie. Did you find the presents I left your dogs? I hope you appreciate my thoughtfulness. We will run this race together, but this time I get to win.’ And you say this came inside the package, after you found these traps?”

  “Right. We found the dog caught in the first one and Jessie found the second the next morning. Almost got caught in it herself. Shook her. Seriously. And both tags said the sa
me thing: Happy Birthday Jessie.”

  “And the two other notes came in the mail in the last month.”

  “Yes. She didn’t think enough about them to mention them. Stuffed them away in a file until last night.”

  Jensen and John Timmons, the burly assistant coroner, sat at a table in a central room of the Anchorage crime lab, examining the notes Jensen had brought in for testing. The traps—their tags removed for testing—lay on the opposite end of the table, one still stained with Nicky’s blood. Timmons had rubbed at his fuzzy hair until it stood out from his head like a Brillo pad, and now he frowned down at the note in his hand.

  “Well, we already know there’s nothing here in terms of prints,” he reiterated, “and it was sealed with water, not saliva, which says the perp may be significantly aware of DNA identification. As you said, there’s a multitude of printers the notes could have been run out on. You’re going to need someone who’s more experienced than I am in the psychology of this kind of thing—Dave’ll be back after lunch—but I’d say there are a couple of things at work here that might give you a start on the bastard.”

  He rolled away from the table in his specially built wheelchair toward a file across the room.

  Paraplegic as the result of a skiing accident, John Timmons still managed to move faster than most people could on legs. His chair was equipped with a lift to raise him into a standing position. This, along with a set of braces he used while doing autopsies, or anything else that required him to be upright. The lift was unnecessary now, as he opened a lower drawer and took out a folder, which he brought back to the table. Though he was the assistant coroner, his interests reached beyond his job. The whole process of technical criminal investigation fascinated him, as it did Alex. Opening the folder, he laid out a list of soil types and where in the state they could be found.

  “The traps aren’t new—the first one even has some rust on it—but they’re both dirty as hell, especially around the hinges. Tests may help us get some idea of where they’ve been used besides the kennel. Not much of a chance for anything vital, but who knows?

  “The other thing you can do is start on the obvious Iditarod connection. The race people, or other mushers, might also have heard from this nut. You’ll want to have them check their files for similar threats.”

  As Jensen nodded thoughtfully, a door banged open and someone came quickly through from the front office.

  “Hey, there you are. They said you needed some help on some kind of harassment thing. Just finished the paperwork for the Coats trial. I’m all yours.”

  Jensen looked up to find Trooper Phil Becker striding toward him across the lab, an enthusiastic grin on his face.

  The mood at the table improved with his arrival, for both the older men liked the young trooper, who wasn’t long away from his rookie years on the force. He still reminded Alex of one of Jessie’s half-grown pups, though he was convinced that Becker would exhibit this attitude when the hair that was always falling in his eyes had turned white. In his early thirties, Becker had close to six years with the post and almost three with the homicide group, under Jensen’s direction. His interest in the detail involved in crime detection had initially brought him to Alex’s attention, after which he had gone out of his way to work with Phil when the opportunity presented itself. The young officer had rapidly developed into a proficient team member.

  Still, there were times when he had to tell Becker to put a cork in it, for the young trooper was inclined to think with his mouth. His main talent was his people skills: easy laughter, honest interest, and warmth. It was hard not to like Phil Becker. People instinctively trusted him, often enough to say more than they intended. Under his bright, greedy-for-facts exterior lay an increasingly efficient detection unit, capable of handling problem attitudes more easily than most, and defusing threatening situations with easygoing humor. Gulping information as fast as he could take it in, he could still be counted on not to let a crumb of it get away, and often made interesting connections between the bits and pieces he gleaned.

  “Pull up a chair,” Timmons invited. “We’ll fill you in on this batch of love notes Jessie Arnold’s been finding in her mailbox.”

  “Jessie? Damn, Alex. I thought you had her surrounded with our invisible shield that no one can get through.”

  “Not quite, I’m afraid,” Jensen said grimly, handing the notes across to Becker. “Someone seems to think she’s fair game for some rather nasty threats.”

  “Jeez, I’m sorry. She’s a nice lady—doesn’t need this kind of stuff.”

  “Well, who does?”

  Quiet long enough to examine the notes and hear about the traps, Becker looked up frowning.

  “Someone connected to the Iditarod in some way?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Could be just an observer, for or against it.”

  “Lot of anger. No misspellings or glaring grammatical errors. Must have at least an average education. ‘…this time I get to win.’ Could this mean there was a time when he, or she, didn’t get to win?”

  “Now, there’s an interesting angle,” Timmons commented. “Could it be a musher who came in behind her in some race?”

  Jensen and Becker gave each other a haven’t-we-been-here-before grin, remembering a case they had worked together.

  “That idea will have to be considered, I suppose,” Alex agreed. “But I think it’s unlikely. However, Cranshaw’s attitude was, too.”

  He referred, indirectly, to the Iditarod race where he had met Jessie, during the investigation of three murders that occurred early in its more than thousand-mile length. One of the suspects had been Bomber Cranshaw, a male musher who disapproved of women sled dog racers.

  “Still,” Becker said, considering, “it’s an odd phrase to use in a note to Jessie. She’s come close, but never won the race. What could ‘this time I get to win’ mean? It implies a sort of my turn—either to win, or to win this time. There’s a difference, but it’s subtle. Either suggests that this person has had prior contact, or thinks he or she has, right?”

  “Right,” Jensen nodded. “But where does that get us?”

  “Nowhere, now. But it may make more sense later.”

  Alex’s forehead wrinkled as he considered Becker’s idea.

  “It worries me. There’s no way of identifying someone who only thinks they have prior contact. It could be anyone. People who develop this kind of fixation can convince themselves that their object either already cares for them, or will, if they are made aware of the admirer.”

  “Kind of a Catch-22 for the victim,” Timmons said. “Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.”

  “Really.”

  Suddenly Jensen had had all the talk he could take for the moment. He wanted action, and there seemed little to be had.

  “Come on. Let’s make a run out to Iditarod headquarters,” he said to Becker, as he shoved back his chair and stretched his long legs. “John, let me know if you get anything…anything at all on any of this, will you?” He waved a hand vaguely at the notes and traps on the tabletop and turned toward the door.

  “Sure. We’ll get right on whatever we can do. Priority for our own, and Jessie’s one of them. She doing okay?”

  “Yeah, Caswell’s wife is with her. I’m checking in with her on a regular basis.” He headed for the door.

  Becker gave Timmons a nod as he shrugged into his coat and followed. “We’ll most likely be in the valley, from the sound of it.”

  “Take it easy.”

  6

  Headquarters of the Iditarod Trail Committee occupied a unique one-story log structure on Knik Road, closer to Wasilla than the cabin where Jessie and Alex lived together. Built of larger-than-usual logs, stained a warm reddish brown, it was impressive to visitors, including hundreds of tourists who came by the busload. It had been purposely situated near the route of the old historic Iditarod Trail that in the early 1900s had run from the docks in Seward, over a Chugach Mountain pass to the Matanuska Va
lley, where it joined the trail taken by the modern race north to the gold rush town of Iditarod. From there racers continued to Nome. During turn-of-the-century winters, heavy freight sleds had carried mail and supplies into gold camps of Interior Alaska and on to the coast, passing close to the present location of the current ITC headquarters.

  The grass of a wide, green lawn that separated the building from a parking lot was now turning brown from nightly frosts, and baskets of flowers had been removed from their hooks on the exposed ends of large log rafters, from which they had hung throughout the summer in colorful decoration. As they went up the walk, Jensen and Becker could see, through one of the front windows, someone moving inside. The fame and growth of the race had made its administration a full-time occupation for several people, who were kept busy not just the first two weeks of every March, but all year.

  The front door opened directly into a gift shop full of mugs, Tshirts, books, and dozens of other Iditarod items. High on the walls, and not for sale, was an assortment of memorabilia from past races, and Alex knew that in a special room to the left were trophies and other articles important to Iditarod history.

  A pleasant young woman greeted them from behind a cash register. “Can I help you with something?”

  Jensen introduced himself and asked for the ITC administrator, but she shook her head.

  “He’s at a meeting in Anchorage. Joanne’s here. Would you like to talk to her?”

  “Hi, Alex,” a voice called from within the offices to the right. “Come on in.”

  He grinned, more than happy to settle for a conversation with Joanne Potts, race director, who had worked for the ITC since before Alex moved to Alaska, long enough for most people to automatically link her name with that of the race. If there was anything going on that involved or affected the Iditarod, Joanne would know it.

  A short, cheerful, brown-haired woman wearing glasses, she rose from behind her desk as the troopers entered, offering them chairs and a smile.

  “Hey, Joanne. How’s it going?”