Cold Case Affair

by Loreth Anne White

  Chapter 12

  As they drove to the airstrip, Muirinn asked suddenly, “How come you were the one to get custody of Troy, Jett?”

  His heart skipped a beat, but he kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. “Kim was okay with it.”

  Muirinn waited, but he volunteered nothing more. She turned in the car seat, back to him, staring out the window, and he sensed the shift in her mood. They’d just shared a deeply personal experience, and here he was holding back. Again. His hands tensed on the wheel.

  As they neared the turnoff she spoke again, not looking at him. “What actually happened between you and Kim? Why didn’t things work out?”

  “You happened.”

  She shot him a glance. “I don’t understand.”

  He heaved out a sigh. “Kim knew that I’d never gotten over you, Muirinn. She knew she’d always walk in your shadow, and she just got so darn tired of trying to be you, to take your place in my heart.”

  And she knows you’ll always be my son’s mother. Your eyes look back at her every time she looks into Troy’s.

  “Separating was for the best.”

  Silence filled the cab of the truck.

  “Did she love you, Jett?”

  Guilt gnawed at him. He’d tried so hard to trick himself into forgetting about Muirinn, to love Kim fully. He moistened his lips, nodded. “Yes, very much. She’s a good person, Muirinn. A good…mother. And I loved her back, in my way. But Kim’s happier now. She has a new man. It was the right thing to let her go.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Nurse.”

  “Like your mom?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. She gets on real well with my mom, and my dad, too.”

  Her hands fidgeted in her lap, restless. He neared the gates to the airstrip.

  “Do you ever think that some secrets really are better left buried?” she asked softly as they drove through the gates.

  That subtle sense of foreboding rippled through him again. “Why?” He pulled up alongside one of the hangars, where his plane was parked.

  “Because maybe the truth is worse.”

  “What makes you say that?” He removed his shotgun and ammunition from the gun box, then opened the passenger door, holding his hand out to her.

  She didn’t take it right away. Instead, she looked directly up into his eyes. “What if we know the killer, Jett?”

  He studied her for a moment, conscious of the growing sound of a single-engine prop coming in for a landing. The airstrip wind sock was stiff, pollen blowing on dry, warm wind.

  “I’m sure we will know him, Muirinn,” he said, frowning. “It’s a small town, and someone’s been living here among us, keeping this old secret for a long time.”

  She clasped his hand, and he helped her out. She stilled in his arms for a moment, and Jett’s chest ached. Damn, he loved her. Even more, if that was possible. Yet, oddly, he could feel her slipping from his grasp even as he held on. “Muirinn, what’s worrying you?”

  She inhaled deeply, a strange emotion crossing her features. She pulled away and rubbed her face, suddenly angry, conflicted by something. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  That icicle of unease that had crystallized inside him earlier burrowed a little deeper. He handed her the shotgun. “That’s my plane over there,” he nodded toward a stubby de Havilland Beaver parked in the hangar. “I’ll be right back—just going to check in with the guys, tell them where we’re headed.”

  She took the gun from him, unable to meet his gaze. Jett was really worried now. She was hiding something from him, and it was eating at her. Anxiety snaked through him. If she suddenly confessed to him that she’d given up his son for adoption, he was going to have to explain what he’d done—how he’d gone after Troy behind her back, how he’d raised her boy without ever telling her.

  It wasn’t going to be pretty. She was going to be hurt, furious. She might never forgive him.

  He stalked over to the Safe Harbor Air offices, a sense of things closing in and pressing down on him with the low pressure cell and changing weather.

  Muirinn slowly turned around inside the hangar, taking it all in.

  A dusty tarp covered something large in the far corner.

  She walked over to it, her eyes adjusting to the light. Propping the shotgun against the wall, she lifted up a corner of the tarpaulin. Underneath was the fuselage of a small plane, partially built, without wings. Curious, she peeled the cover back some more. Dust motes floated up into the dim shafts of light.

  She recognized the shape of the fuselage from the little models her father used to have hanging from the ceiling of his old workshop—the planes he used to dream of flying up in the sky as he went down into the earth each day to toil in the blackness of the mine. A lump formed in her throat at the irony, and Jett’s words filtered into her mind.

  “If Troy hadn’t introduced me to model airplanes, to the idea of flying, I might have become a miner, not a pilot. He was the one who told me, when I was ten years old, that I could do something better with my life than go down that mine.”

  At least her dad had passed on his love of planes to Jett and, in doing so, something of him still lived on. But whoever had been building this plane seemed have stopped some time ago. The fuselage was thick with dust. Muirinn yanked the tarp back fully, coughing as she did. She froze as saw the name that had been tentatively stenciled on the side.

  Muirinn of the Wind.

  Her heart caught in her throat. With trembling fingers, she reached up, smoothed off the thick layer of dust.

  As she did, a shadow behind her blocked the light.

  She swung around, heart thumping. She’d clean forgotten the gun, everything.

  Jett stood silhouetted in the entrance, posture rigid. “What are you doing?”

  He came up to her, reached for the tarp and jerked it back across the fuselage, covering the name, as if to hide a corpse, something offensive that shouldn’t be exposed to the light of day, to human eyes.

  “It’s a Tiger Moth, isn’t it?” she said softly. “Like the models my dad had, like the ones in Gus’s photos from the war.” A sudden rush of memories squeezed to her chest as she spoke.

  Muirinn could almost smell her mother’s baking again, hear the sound of teaspoons chinking against china, the patter of rain against the window. She could see Jett—her young neighbor on whom she had the biggest crush—building model airplanes with her dad as her mom served tea and cookies.

  “De Havilland Tiger Moth, a replica,” he said, watching her eyes. “I was building it when you left. It was going to be a surprise.”

  “You never finished her. Why?”

  His eyes darkened. “Because you left.”

  She swallowed hard.

  “We should go, Muirinn. This weather will bring rain by tomorrow, if not sooner.”

  “You named her for me,” she whispered. “Muirinn of the Wind.”

  He said nothing.

  She reached up, touched his face, her heart aching. “I love you, Jett,” she whispered. “God, I love you.”

  He took her in his arms suddenly—hard, fierce—and he kissed her mouth. She melted into him, kissing him back, her world swirling away in a blur of time.

  Someone coughed loudly. “Hey, you two lovebirds!”

  Jett stiffened, and shock rippled through Muirinn. She pulled back. Adam Rutledge stood at the entrance to the hangar, hands stuffed into pockets of his coveralls as he grinned broadly.

  “Adam!”

  “Dad?” Jett said. “I didn’t know you’d be here today.”

  Adam came forward, his smile broadening in his tanned, lined face as he held his hands out to Muirinn. “I heard you were back. Welcome home, Muirinn!” He clasped her shoulders firmly. “You’re looking fine, girl. Wow, all these years. It’s real good to see you.” He shot his son a quick glance, not managing to hide a flicker of concern.

  Jett scowled subtly, warning his dad to shut up, not to mention the kiss. Or
the pregnancy.

  He didn’t. Instead, Adam stepped back, slapped his son affectionately on his shoulder. “The guys in the office told me you were here. I came to see where you were headed.”

  “I’m taking Muirinn up for a spin before that weather over the ridge rolls in.”

  He nodded, eyes thoughtful as Jett declined to elaborate. Adam stuffed his hands back into his coverall pockets, turned to Muirinn and smiled warmly. “Well, I hope Jett’s going to bring you around for Sunday lunch tomorrow, Muirinn. The missus likes to cook up something special for the weekends.” He cast another quick look at his son. “Too bad Troy won’t be here.”

  Jett smiled, but the light didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes.”

  “So, you coming tomorrow?”

  “Wouldn’t want to miss Mom’s cooking.”

  “See you both Sunday, then.” Adam hesitated, something unreadable creeping into his eyes, a worry, perhaps, that his son was going to get hurt again by this woman. “Fly safe,” was all he said.

  Jett nodded.

  Muirinn watched as Adam hobbled toward the hangar entrance. His injuries and arthritis had worsened over the years, and he was dragging his left leg with each awkward swing of his gait. While still strong and solid, mining had clearly taken its toll on Adam Rutledge’s body, thought Muirinn. She wondered if he was in constant pain. Jett followed her eyes, a frown crossing his features. “Come,” he took her elbow, turning her away from watching his dad. “Time to fly. You got those photos with you?”

  She nodded, looking back over her shoulder, eyes still trained on Adam as he crossed the grass outside the hangar.

  “Muirinn?”

  She shook herself. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I just can’t help wondering what it might be like to have my parents around, too.” Her eyes were soft. Sad.

  “Hey,” he tilted her chin up. “We’re going to do right by your parents, Muirinn. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, and we’re going to find justice. Someone will pay.”

  She bit her lip and nodded.

  Before flying out to Trapper Joe’s, Jett flew northeast of town, guiding his barrel-chested plane between the avalanche-scoured peaks that surged up either side of the Tolkin Valley. The plane’s characteristic growling made headsets necessary to talk without yelling.

  Through the blur of the spinning prop, Muirinn recognized the old headframes of Tolkin Mine coming into view ahead. She shuddered involuntarily at the memory of being under fire in that dank shed.

  Jett dropped altitude, banking his craft tightly along the flank of the mountain, then suddenly he pointed. “Down there!” The mouthpiece gave his voice a tinny quality. “See them? ATV tracks, along that dry portion of narrow mountain trail.” He dipped his wings sharply, and followed the tracks, the de Havilland’s belly almost skimming the tips of the trees. The trail below them crossed a dry creek bed, then disappeared into forest. Lifting the nose sharply into the blue sky, he banked and flew low over the tracks again.

  “Are you sure those are the sniper’s tracks?”

  “I saw dust kick up when the shooter fled. The only thing you can drive up those trails is either a four-wheeler or a dirt bike. And look, the tire marks lead straight from his hide above the Tolkin Mine site to the trail there.”

  Anxiety unfurled inside Muirinn. “And where does the trail itself lead?”

  “Up through the saddle in the mountains over there—” he pointed. “And then back down into the drainage on the other side of this ridge. You can go all the way along that eastern river drainage back to Safe Harbor, approaching the town from the other side.”

  “So the shooter could have come from town?”

  “Or from one of a handful of remote hunting or logging camps up the next valley.”

  Jett pointed the nose of his craft northward and, as the foothills faded behind them, the horizon grew flat and endless. Below them a herd of caribou fanned out in a thunderous race across the plain, spooked by the buzz from his prop.

  “Down there,” Jett said suddenly as he buzzed low over the forest again, just skimming the treetops.

  Below them, miles of aquamarine lake shimmered between white shores and dense forest. He pointed to a small log cabin in a clearing cut along the north end of the lake. “That’s what I’ve been working on. A high-end, rustic fishing lodge that will attract clients from places like New York and Texas. There’s also a big market for this kind of thing in Germany and the Scandinavian countries.”

  He dipped his wing sharply left, swooping over the clearing. “The main lodge will go over there.” He pointed. “With satellite cabins along the shore there.” He pulled up the nose of the Beaver and flew west, the rugged craft rattling and growling. “You can see how that tributary from the Tuklit River feeds in at the head of the lake over there. Perfect for salmon fishing.”

  Muirinn peered down through the side window as Jett banked the plane for her. A massive grizzly appeared, lumbering along the shallows of a pebbled spit.

  He grinned as he caught sight of it. “Brown bear, wolves, caribou, moose—it’s God’s country, Muirinn.”

  She turned to look at him. “Those blueprints in your house—they were for this place?”

  He grinned again, a wicked slash of white against tanned skin, his mirrored glasses glinting under his helmet. She’d never seen him like this, in his plane, in his element. Pure, happy, all-male.

  And Muirinn realized with a start that they had always, at the core, been exactly the same.

  While she’d seen those granite peaks as a rock prison, so had he. Only he’d been able to escape, up here, with wings. And because of it, he’d found freedom. To leave and return whenever he wanted, on his own terms.

  While she’d left and hurt the people she’d loved the most.

  Jett tilted the de Havilland’s nose upwards, and they climbed again before leveling out over a wide valley of muskeg. A male moose with full set of antlers jerked his head up at the sound of the plane, and took flight through tussock as they buzzed over him.

  Muirinn felt her heart soar as the vista took hold of her soul. Almost subconsciously, she placed her hand on Jett’s thigh. “This is gorgeous,” she whispered.

  “I wish I could have brought you up eleven years ago, Muirinn.”

  She glanced at him, unable to read his eyes behind the mirrored shades, but she knew what he was saying. Maybe if she’d found this freedom with him, instead of looking for it away from him, they’d still be together.

  A family.

  Because if she’d stayed, she’d have kept their son.

  Muirinn’s mood shifted as her thoughts turned to the adoption. How would you feel about me if I told you about our baby?

  He shot her a concerned glance. “What’s up?

  “Nothing.” She forced a smile. “I was just thinking how good it is to see you happy, Jett.”

  And how I’d hate to do anything to destroy that.

  They flew farther north in silence, the vast beauty brooking no conversation. Or perhaps it was a looming sense of foreboding as the sky grew darker, more oppressive.

  Jett took the plane down alongside a sullen river. He landed on a gravel bar, wheels bumping wildly over the spit next to the wide and silent body of water. His prop slowed as they came to a halt near a crude wooden rack hung with strips of drying salmon flesh.

  A deathly silence seemed to descend over the plane, broken only by the pop of hot engine metal, and the sharp krak of a raven perched high on a dead snag.

  A cloud of midges hovered over discarded salmon guts at the water’s edge. Two scarred dogs were eating the scraps. They growled, heads low, then scuttled into the brush as Jett climbed down from the pilot’s seat.

  The air felt sticky, close.

  He helped Muirinn down from the plane, suddenly keenly aware of his hunting knife at his hip. And as they crunched over a small stone beach, Trapper Joe appeared, his grizzled form silently separating from the dense shadows of the trees, shotgun
in his hand. He watched them approach, lowering his weapon only when he recognized Jett. He pushed his cap back on his head, nodded his greeting.

  A silent man.

  A secretive man.

  A man like so many before him who had fled north, escaping something—perhaps the law, or a dark secret—hoping to hide from the past in this vast and isolated wilderness, under the cover of the long, dark winters. It was out here that men like Joe hoped to start another life. But invariably that didn’t happen. Because the problems came with them. And Trapper Joe’s problems, his secrets from south of the 49th parallel, were hidden behind bloodshot eyes, too much whiskey, sun-baked and wind-worn skin. And silence.

  He was a man of indeterminate age who lived completely off grid. A survivalist, with only his dogs for company.

  No one knew his story, where exactly he came from. Local lore pinned him as an escaped con from Down South. The kids Muirinn grew up with used to say he had murdered a man. Adults, however, pegged him for an ex-cop. One who’d gotten on the wrong side of his badge. They cited Trapper Joe’s almost paranoid avoidance of local law enforcement as proof.

  But regardless of Trapper Joe’s secret, those who knew of his ability to track found his art almost mystical.

  “Joe—” Jett nodded, showing the old trapper the bottle of whiskey he’d brought with him, not wasting words on a man who didn’t like to use them. “We were hoping to show you something, ask your opinion.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes onto Muirinn.

  “This is Muirinn O’Donnell, Gus O’Donnell’s granddaughter.”

  Trapper Joe said nothing, just turned and led Muirinn and Jett through the trees to the clearing where his camp had been set up.

  Mosquitoes buzzed in a small cloud. Two Husky-Malamute crosses got up, growled. Joe waved them away, and they retreated a few feet to lie silently, watching, like barely tamed wolves. Again, Jett reminded himself that his knife was handy. Joe ducked under a tarpaulin that served as a deck cover and led them into the log cabin, motioning to a camp chair and sawed-off log for seats. Jett placed the bottle of whiskey on the Formica table.