by Sue Henry
Hearing it coming, seconds too late, he leaped to his feet, turning to see what was happening behind him, bringing the rifle to his shoulder as he swung around. There was no time for a shot. The log caught him, on a bounce, directly across the thighs and knocked him flat, rifle disappearing into the brush. It continued to roll over his body, mashing him into the ground, and came to rest beyond his still form against a tree. The thrashing and thumping stopped, the forest was still, and for a moment nothing moved.
Gill was in motion first, hobbling down to make sure Wynne was as unconscious as he appeared. Jessie followed swiftly after him, calling out to the troopers below, concerned they would mistake him for their stalker target.
“Alex. It’s me—it’s Jessie. It’s okay—we got him with a log. Are you okay?”
With an excited woof, Tank went bounding on beyond her, eager to greet his friend.
As she passed Gill, with a grin for their success, she heard Alex’s answering shout, “Jessie. Thank God,” and the sound of him crashing through the brush, coming fast up the hill toward her.
32
Though it was late afternoon, Alex was breaking eggs to scramble and the smell of frying sausage filled the large room of Millie’s beach house. Caswell and Gill sat near the large windows, mugs of black coffee steaming in their hands, enjoying each other’s company. Jessie was slicing bread for toast at the table by the front door and keeping an eye on the two jays that had flown in, always hopeful of leftovers.
The cove was warm and sun sparkled from its waters. She noticed a sea otter making itself at home in a gently rocking clump of floating bull kelp that had been pulled loose by the storm, hammering the shell of some creature from the deep on a stone brought up from the bottom. Everything outside looked clean and new. Even the mountains that rose beyond Tutka Bay lifted their snowy peaks in sharp contrast against the blue sky like a postcard scene.
Laying slices of bread in a flat pan, she carried it across and slid it under the broiler of the gas stove. Wiping her hands on the clean pair of jeans she had put on after bathing in the creek behind the house, she turned to Alex and slipped under his arm to give him a hug as he broke the last egg.
“Watch it, woman.” He grinned, hugging her back and planting a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re disrupting my abilities as a chef.”
“Tough.”
She stepped away and, fending him off with a whisk, checked to make sure the toast wasn’t burning.
“Now, please. I want to know who this guy Wynne is and how you figured it out.”
“Just good police work, ma’am.”
“Not true,” Cas called from across the room. “It was nothing but a lucky break—an accident of being in the right place at the right time—concerning a computer. We were still muddling around over two other suspects, when we stumbled over—”
“And I thought you’d come because you hadn’t heard from me and were worried.”
“Well…that, yes. I told and told Alex that I was so very awfully, terribly worried about you…but he, of course, was only interested in the case—ulp.”
A damp kitchen towel caught him in the mouth, skillfully wadded and thrown by Jensen, his relief at the successful outcome of their pursuit of Wynne apparent in his good humor.
“Who steals my purse steals trash…” he quoted, threatening Cas with another towel, “but he that filches from me my good name—”
“Uncle. Uncle,” Cas capitulated, both hands protecting his head. “He was beside himself with worry, Jessie. I promise.”
She laughed at their antics as she turned over the bread to toast the other side.
“How’s your foot?” Alex asked, noticing a grimace as Gill settled it more comfortably on the pillowed stool on which it was propped.
Millie’s storage had provided first-aid supplies for Gill’s mangled foot and some pain pills that helped the agony of removing the boot, duct tape, and bloody sock. With it cleaned and newly dressed, he would be okay until they got him to a doctor on the mainland.
“It’s all right. Believe me, it’s so much better than it was while I was gimping around that hillside, there’s no comparison. My backbone’s rubbing a hole in my stomach, though.”
“That we can fix almost immediately.” Alex filched a sausage from the pan, let it cool a bit, and tossed it across to Gill, who competently fielded it with one hand.
While they ate their late breakfast, Jessie told her side of what had happened on the island.
“You said Tank was nervous on Saturday night—woke you up several times wandering through the house?” Gill asked, grinning, when she finished.
“Yes, why?”
“Well, it was cold and wet out there in the rain. I rolled under the house and slept part of the night. He probably heard me.”
“Sure he did, but you must have been really quiet. I didn’t hear anything.”
“You’re not supposed to; it’s what I’m trained to do.”
The troopers then explained to Jessie and Gill about Wynne’s obsession with Moule, the reasons for it, and how they had happened on the message he had left for Peters that allowed them to break the case.
“Poor man,” Jessie commented, when they had finished the tale. “What a horrible thing to have happen to your child. I don’t like him and I hate what he did, but I can understand his anger, and I think I’d like Moule even less.”
“Moule is a real slime.” Cas frowned. “Shouldn’t be allowed to associate with anyone—even in prison.”
“So Moule is the ‘one person’ Ross Wynne meant that he wanted to see die. I thought he was talking about you.” She laid a hand on Alex’s arm. “It scared me, badly—especially when I couldn’t do a thing to warn you.”
“Well, he almost got me with that deadfall—just missed. He may have what seems like an understandable hatred for Moule, but that doesn’t excuse his harassment of you, Jess, or his disregard for and injury of other people.”
“He was the reason for Rudy’s death,” she said sadly. “I really feel bad about that.”
There was a moment of silence as they all thought of Rudy, to whom Jessie had led them after the battle at the deadfall.
“Hey, here’s the Coast Guard.” Gill spotted the distinctive white vessel that had turned into the cove from Tutka Bay and was headed for the beach.
“You sure you don’t want to come back to Homer with us?” Cas questioned Alex. “I could fly two trips today, easy, and get you home by dark.”
Jensen shook his head. “No, we’ll stay here and get Millie’s place put back in good order. You go ahead with these guys.” He waved a hand at the Coast Guardsmen, lowering a ramp to the beach. “Jessie and I’ll be ready for you to pick us up about noon tomorrow.”
The tide was coming in, so it was a shorter walk over the rocks. Caswell doubled as a crutch for Gill, who gave Jessie a hug and a smile before limping up the ramp, and made it onto the deck of the boat without getting the dressings on his foot wet.
“You’re one strong lady, Jessie Arnold. Hang in there.”
“Not so bad yourself, Gill. Take good care. We’ll see you soon?”
“Sure. According to Chinese lifesaving tradition, we’re sort of responsible for each other now. We got each other loose from all that duct tape before Wynne came back, right?”
Cas stopped for a last word with Alex.
“We’ve got Moule cold, but you got anything particular in mind for Falconer, Jones, and Collins?”
“Falconer and Jones—when we locate him—are tied in with those stolen motorcycles. He took the parts that Falconer removed from the bikes and I’ll bet he’s gone outside to sell them—probably Seattle. We’ll have enough to convict, I think, considering Falconer’s probably scared silly enough to give us Jones in exchange for a lesser sentence.
“Collins? Well—like it, or not, there’s not much to hold her on. Tell them to kick her loose, but we’ll keep a close eye on her.”
They turned to watch as
two Coast Guard officers carried Wynne on a stretcher down the beach and up the ramp onto the boat. After the log-rolling, they had put him in one of the bunks in the back of the beach house, knowing he could make no escape attempts. One leg was broken, plus several ribs, and he had a concussion that made Jessie’s bump on the head from the wreck seem almost insignificant. Alex wondered about Wynne’s wife, Judy, and the fresh suffering that was about to be visited upon her. He hoped she was strong enough to care for Michael alone.
As Caswell boarded the boat, Alex stood with an arm around Jessie’s shoulders to see the ramp lifted. They watched the vessel grow smaller and vanish around the rocks at the end of the cove. It would stop again at the other beach to take Rudy Nunamaker’s body aboard before heading to Homer. Cas would fly Gill from there to an Anchorage hospital for treatment. When the boat had gone, they turned and walked together up the beach and onto the deck of Millie’s house.
The jays had cleaned up the scraps of food Jessie had put out for them and flown away, but the raven, late as always, was back and strutting up and down the wooden bench, seemingly disgruntled at the emptiness of the pan. She grinned at its comical attitude.
“Hey, you’re too late, Joker. You gotta get here on time, buddy. Nobody’s gonna save your share till you get around to it. Jay One and Jay Two are quick.”
The bird cocked its head as if to give her stern disapproval from one eye, black and shiny as a glass bead, then took wing and sailed off over the house.
Tank watched it go, then flopped down on the deck in the sun.
Alex knelt beside him and painstakingly worked loose the piece of duct tape that still clung to the hair on the dog’s chin. The piece on his leg had disappeared sometime during the capture of Wynne, perhaps when he had run joyfully down the hill to meet his favorite trooper.
When Alex stood up and went to sit on the bench, Tank jumped up, followed, and lay down, resting his muzzle comfortably on the man’s thigh. Alex pulled his pipe from his shirt pocket and spoke to Jessie as he lit it with a kitchen match.
“The vet says Nicky is going to be fine. She’ll be a bit too lame to pull a sled, but fine otherwise.”
“You know, I think I’ll give her to Billy Steward. He could breed good racers with her and that big male he’s got—Totem.”
“Good idea. Billy’s doing fine, too, by the way. And, speaking of injuries, how’s your hand?”
“Fine, I think. But I want the doc to take a look at it when I get back to town.”
She told him about dislocating a finger in her escape from the stalker, and how she put it back in place.
“Jesus, Jessie. That must have been unpleasant, to say the least.”
“Hurt like hell. I’m just glad it worked.”
She paused, thinking about her escape in the forest and everything that had happened after it.
“How did he find me, Alex?”
He told her about Caswell’s flight plan and went on to fill her in on some of the details—Wynne wearing Moule’s too-small boots to make the tracks, the photos of her and Linda in the dog lot, the confusion about Collins and her friend Spike.
“It took us longer than it should have. I’m sorry about that, but I should have made…well…you really should have gone to Idaho.”
She looked up at him questioningly, with a slight frown.
He reached out to brush one of her earlobes with a forefinger and changed the subject.
“Did you know you’ve lost one of your earrings?”
She nodded. “I think it happened when I was climbing the cliff, and I’ll never find it in the rock fall.”
“Don’t worry, it’s replaceable. You’ve more than earned one earring.”
He hesitated thoughtfully and turned his head slightly to look down at Tank, now sound asleep in the sun. Glancing back, he studied Jessie for a few seconds before he spoke again.
“In fact—speaking of diamonds—I’ve been thinking…”
Her gentle fingers on his lips stopped him before he could finish what he had been about to say, surprising them both. She shook her head.
“Don’t, Alex.”
Dropping her hand to her knee, she closed her eyes for a moment and drew a breath as she attempted to analyze a flood of conflicting feelings.
“Please, don’t. Not right now.”
There was a deep silence, through which he looked at her with concern and confusion.
“Ah…you want to talk about it?”
Reluctantly, “I think I’d better try.”
“Go.”
She hesitated, deliberating.
“I want to say this right. It’s important.”
“Yeah, it is—very,” he said through stiff lips.
There was a vulnerable constraint in his stillness, a wariness around the eyes.
Why, she wondered, do I want to apologize—to give in and let him ask? Why do I always want to make it comfortable? Refusing to let these questions distract her, she sat up straight and concentrated on clarifyinging her thoughts.
“Okay. You know we can’t just go back to what we were before all this happened. There’s a lot of fear and frustration, and doing things separately—differently—in between then and now. For instance, while you were focused on solving the problem—the case—there were times when I was focused on some other kinds of things that are very important to me.”
“You mean about being safe?”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “No one’s ever really safe. We could do better, but it’s not that. I haven’t had time to work it all out yet, but it’s made me wonder about the way I’ve arranged things in my life. I’m not sure they’re the way I’d like to have them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well…a minute ago you almost said that you should have made me go to Idaho, didn’t you?”
He nodded apologetically, embarrassed at being caught out.
“Yeah, I know how you feel about taking care of yourself, but sometimes I feel…”
“And I let you—sometimes. But this time, when I thought I was making a choice, I really wasn’t. It didn’t matter where I went—it mattered that I went when you told me.”
“But we agreed it was the smartest thing to do.”
“Yes, we did, and it was the right thing to do. But I’m talking about the way I felt about it later. The way I feel about it now.
“It’s subtle and insidious, almost automatic, the way women allow themselves to give up a lot of responsibility to their men and at the same time pick up too much of the responsibility of trying to make sure that a relationship runs smoothly—become too accommodating, try to make it right—do it right, whatever it is. As a single person, an equation of one, I can stand on my own two feet, be accountable for my own feelings and actions. I don’t know if I can do that in an equation of two—with forever-afters.”
He laid a hand over hers on her knee and gave her a puzzled frown.
“But we share now. How would a diamond on your finger change that any more than diamonds on your ears?”
“It’s hard to explain. Almost as if I would be agreeing to a contract that says everything we are now is okay and I accept it like it is. But there are still things we need to work out—things I need to work out. I’m always a little on guard against taking the easy way and letting you be responsible for me in ways that aren’t fair to either of us.”
“We wouldn’t be carving anything in granite, Jess. We change all the time—learn new things about each other. I don’t see that suddenly coming to some kind of halt if we formalize it.”
For a second or two she was silent, considering, before shaking her head.
“I keep remembering a thing I learned a long time ago. If some part of a relationship doesn’t quite work right, either I’m taking too much responsibility for someone else or I’m letting someone else take too much for me. I’d like to have a better moment-to-moment balance, not just hindsight. I’m not there yet.”
He turned h
is head to look out at the waters of the cove, absent-mindedly rubbed Tank’s ears, and puffed a cloud of fragrant smoke toward the nearest island. She watched his expressions shift as he thought over what she had said: puzzlement, disappointment, concern, mild amusement, and several that she couldn’t identify. Eventually he nodded as if affirming something for himself, turned back to her, and smiled a little anxiously.
“But you’re going to stick around and explore these ideas?”
“Of course. I love you, Alex, but I need unlimited time without pressure.”
“Okay.” He grinned. “Time we’ve got lots of…but the earring gets replaced.”
Jessie laughed.
“I don’t think you can buy just one earring.”
“Watch me. Besides, I still owe you a birthday dinner.”
“That’s right, you do. And don’t kid yourself—I intend to collect.”
She stood up. “Come on. Let’s go clean up Millie’s kitchen.”
He gave Tank a last pat and Jessie a mischievous grin.
“Naw. Later. Let’s make the bed first.”
“Hmmm.”
Acknowledgments
As always, many thanks are due:
To my family and friends for their enthusiasm and support, without which being a writer would be a lonely occupation, indeed. Particularly to the Abbott clan for their trust and affection. To Pat and Ray Agen, and the mechanics at the Agen Automotive, for keeping my research vehicles running and for providing information on how to successfully damage a brake line. To Michael W. Eaton, M.D., magical orthopedic surgeon, for keeping this researcher running (well, at least moving) and able to sit at my computer without pain. To his office staff: Debra Ford, Linda Casey, and, especially, Barry McQuade for information on -dislocations and their treatment.
About the Author
SUE HENRY, whose award-winning Alaska mysteries have received the highest praise from readers and critics alike, has lived in Alaska for over a quarter of a century, and brings history, Alaskan lore, and the majestic beauty of the vast landscape to her mysteries. Based in Anchorage, where she teaches writing at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, she is currently at work on the next book in this series.