Dirk dunked several fries into a puddle of ketchup. “Then let’s solve this stupid case so we can get back home. I need to see a palm tree pretty quick before my nerves snap.”
“Okay,” Savannah said. “Here’s what’s bothering me about the case. First of all, where were Natasha and Colin for those two and a half hours when they were unaccounted for? They rented the Chevy from Larry just before nine o’clock and asked him how to get to the glacier. Then they’re found at the bottom of the hill around one-thirty p.m.”
“How long do the state troopers think the car had been burning when they arrived?” Richard asked.
“They didn’t know or even have a great guess,” Dirk told his dad. “But they said the fire was really roaring. They didn’t think it had been too long.”
Richard nodded. “I’ve seen car fires before. Even without an accelerant, they can go from a small flame to fully engulfed in no time.”
“Where were they?” Savannah asked again. “Where were they from nine o’clock until they were discovered? We should have asked about them, too, when we were at the Visitor Center.”
“John and I can grab a taxi and run up there,” Ryan said. “We’ll find out if they were ever actually there and, if so, when they left.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Dirk told him. “Appreciate it.”
Granny had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout lunch. But finally, she spoke up. “I’ve been thinking how it was done and I think I’ve got it.”
“Do tell,” Savannah said.
“They were dead when they were put into the car. Somebody drove the car up there to the top of that hill with their bodies for company. Then at the top of the hill, the murderer put them in their proper seats, put the car in Neutral, and let it roll to the bottom and crash.”
“Okay, that works so far. Go on.”
“Then the killer went to the crashed car, put the gear shift in Drive, doused poor Natasha and her unfaithful old man with gas, and set the whole thing on fire.”
One by one, the others sitting at the table nodded their heads in agreement.
“That would explain the gas and the syringe in Olive’s purse,” Savannah mused. “But how do you suppose she got that medication and the needle? The ship security never would have let her bring that aboard. They’re very thorough. Airline security either, and she had to fly to Seattle from Los Angeles.”
“She must have bought it here,” Tammy said. She had already taken her tablet from her purse and was searching Internet sites. “I’m just wondering what sort of establishment might be raising animals out there near the crash site.” She scrolled, typed, scrolled some more. “There’s a little farm out there, about two miles from the Tongass Glacier Visitor Center. Looks like they have a barn, so they might have livestock. Also there’s a . . . hmmm . . . What is this?” She glanced up from her screen, all smiles. “This is so cool. Half a mile before you get to the center, there’s a musher’s camp where they raise huskies and train them, and they give sled rides, too.”
Savannah looked at Dirk. “Now that’s interesting. Right location, and they might keep that pento-whatever it is around, in case a dog needs to be put down.”
“They might have sold that stuff to Olive,” he replied. “Wanna go out there and ask them about it?”
“Sure.” She looked around the table. “How about you, Dora? Will you and Richard be okay on your own this afternoon?”
Dora nodded enthusiastically. “I saw a thrift store down by that old church on the edge of town. I’ve never been to an Alaskan thrift store. They’re bound to have interesting treasures in there.”
Richard smiled, though it looked more like he was gritting his teeth. “That’s what we’ll be doing, all right. All afternoon.”
Waycross gathered up the table’s trash and threw it into a nearby garbage bin. He tossed a few leftover fries to some squawking seagulls. “If y’all don’t need us, we’ll be wanderin’ around this area here, soakin’ in the sights.”
“Be sure to call us if you need anything,” Tammy added. “Anything at all.”
“Okay.” Savannah picked up her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Let’s get crackin’. We’ve gotta get this case wrapped up. If I have to stay too many more nights at the Honey Bear Motel, I might just cut my strings and go straight up.”
Chapter 27
Savannah and Dirk had a bit of trouble finding the musher’s camp on Copper Creek Road near the glacier. They passed it twice, and it was only on the third time searching the area that they spotted the sign, mostly hidden among the brush on the side of the road.
“There it is!” Savannah exclaimed, pointing to the faded marker that was leaning so far to the side that it touched the ground. “It says Yager’s Champion Huskies. This has to be the place.”
As Dirk drove the Bronco off the pavement onto the dirt road, he said, “Yager must not be too interested in new business, or he’d spruce up that sign a bit and cut down the weeds around it.”
“Maybe Yager and his business have passed their prime. Look at the size of the potholes in this road. I can’t imagine anybody taking a ride through here, pulled by a husky team or not.”
Savannah heard them, even before she saw them. The high-pitched yipping and yapping of the huskies. It was a sound not that far removed from the wild howling of wolves she had heard the night before. It sent a chill through her, and yet thrilled her soul at the same time.
As they drove down the road, they could see ahead to their right several rows of small, blue doghouses. There was nothing charming or architecturally pleasing about the structures. They were strictly utilitarian with arched, roughly cut out doors and flat roofs. On top of more than half of those roofs were full-grown huskies in all of their glory. Some of the dogs were napping, while others sat and surveyed their surroundings attentively, their ears perked, noses sniffing the air.
All of the dogs were tethered with chains, but appeared to have space to move about and interact without becoming entangled with their neighbors.
Several yowled as the Bronco drove by. Savannah could see them watching the truck closely, with quizzical looks on their beautiful black and white faces.
“Wow, what gorgeous animals! I wish I had one,” she said. “Like a wolf, only much prettier.”
“One that, hopefully, wouldn’t eat you or the girls.”
As Savannah studied the faces of the dogs they were passing, she thought of how Diamante and Cleopatra had soundly defeated the Colonel. She had a feeling they might lose the battle with some of these canines, who appeared to be much closer to their wolf ancestors than the Colonel, by far.
“Maybe if the cats were introduced when the husky was still a pup,” she mused. “That way the girlies could smack him around if necessary and get their bluff in on him.”
“It worked with you and me.” He chuckled and drove on past the kennel and toward a house trailer parked deeper into the property.
Beside the trailer was an area, enclosed by a high hurricane fence. The ground inside was covered with straw, the occasional blanket, and three more doghouses. Lying on the bedding were three of the most beautiful animals Savannah had ever seen. A pure white husky with dark eyes, a large one with a full black mask and bright blue eyes, and a third dog with a red mask and pale blue eyes. Their coats were far more lush, their markings more distinct than the animals tethered in the kennel.
“Why do you suppose these three get the royal treatment?” Dirk asked as he parked the Bronco near the trailer.
“Call it a hunch,” Savannah replied, “but I suspect these might be Mr. Yager’s champions mentioned on the sign on the road. As in, his breeding stock.”
They got out of the Bronco and looked around for the owner. When they saw no one about, they headed for the trailer, intending to knock on the door.
Before they reached it, the door flew open and someone stepped out wearing tattered jeans and a red flannel shirt.
Savannah was about to say, “Hello. Are you M
r. Yager?” when she realized that, in spite of her extremely short red hair, the person was female.
Savannah quickly reevaluated her greeting. “Good afternoon. My name is Savannah Reid, and this is my husband, Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter. We were just enjoying your beautiful animals. You have so many of them.”
“I only have three,” the woman said. “These three.” She pointed to the ones in the fenced enclosure. Then she waved an arm in the direction of the kennel with its tiny houses and tethered dogs. “Those are sled dogs. I just watch them for their owners during off-season.”
“Then you breed huskies?”
“Used to. But my two dams are getting old now. I’ve decided they deserve to retire. Like me.”
“Some days that’s a tempting prospect,” Savannah said. She walked over to the woman and held out her hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Edith Yager.”
When they shook hands, Savannah was surprised to feel the roughness of her skin, the calluses that could only be created by hard manual labor.
Something about Edith Yager told Savannah that the woman hadn’t lived one soft day in her life.
“If you two came up here, hoping for a sled ride, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. We don’t do that around here anymore. We used to, years ago, when my daddy ran the place. After he died my sister and me tried to keep it going. But then she got sick and, well, everything’s been going downhill since then.”
“We didn’t come here for a sled ride,” Dirk said. He pulled his badge from his jacket and showed it to her briefly.
Savannah couldn’t help noticing how Edith’s friendly, open demeanor seemed to disappear in an instant. Suddenly, her face was guarded, hostile even, as she crossed her arms over her chest and backed away a few steps.
“I guess you know what happened down the road yesterday,” he said.
“I heard about it,” was the curt reply.
“We’re investigating that.”
“Why?” She looked genuinely frightened and confused. “I hear it was an accident.”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Savannah said softly, trying to regain some of their previous rapport. But it was not to be found.
Edith walked back to her trailer door. Savannah thought she was going to disappear inside, so she hurried after her.
Taking her phone from her purse, Savannah said, “I just want to ask you if you’ve seen the people in these pictures.”
Savannah quickly found the photo of Natasha and held it out for Edith to see. “This is the famous author Natasha Van Cleef. She was killed in that car crash. But we were wondering if maybe you saw her yesterday morning before the wreck.”
“No. No, I didn’t see anybody.”
“Would you please just look at the picture?”
Edith ventured a quick glance. “No, don’t know her. Never saw her. Never heard of her.”
“Okay.” Savannah located Colin’s picture and showed it to her, as well. “How about this gentleman? He was her husband, and he died in that crash yesterday, too.”
“No! Never saw him either. Never heard of him.”
Savannah didn’t believe her. On the job she had been lied to hourly, if not more frequently, so she was well acquainted with what liars looked like.
They looked like Edith Yager did right now: avoiding the other person’s eyes, shifting their feet, breathing irregularly, and looking like they’d rather be anywhere else on earth.
“Are you sure, Edith?” Savannah asked her gently. “They were driving a bright red Chevy HHR.”
“I didn’t see anybody yesterday. I was here all day, taking care of the dogs.”
“Can anybody verify that?” Dirk asked, less kindly than Savannah.
“Not unless you speak Husky,” was the equally abrupt reply.
Unable to think of anything else to say, Savannah was ready to end the conversation when, for the first time, she noticed that the place had a distinct smell about it. The predictable smell of a dog kennel.
Yager’s champions smelled like dogs. Dog fur. Dog urine. Dog waste. Dogs.
It smelled like Dr. Arthur Johnson’s veterinary clinic.
More importantly, it smelled the way Olive Kelly had smelled yesterday.
The realization hit Savannah hard.
She liked Edith Yager, tough gal that she was. She’d hate to think she was involved in anything she shouldn’t be.
Savannah searched her phone once more and brought up the picture of Olive. Holding it out to Edith, she said, “How about this young woman?” she asked. “Did you happen to see her yesterday, Ms. Yager?”
“No. I told you, I didn’t see anybody.”
“May I ask what sort of vehicle you drive, Ms. Yager?”
Edith ran her shaking hand over her short bristle of red hair. “I drive an old van. It was my dad’s.”
“What color?”
“White. Why?”
Quickly, before Edith had time to protest, Savannah held her camera up, pointed it at the woman, and snapped a photo of her.
“Hey, what did you do?” Edith went from wary to outraged in a heartbeat. “Did you just take my picture? Why did you do that?”
Savannah turned and said to Dirk, “I think we can go now. We’ve got what we need. For the time being anyway.”
As they walked back to the Bronco, they could hear Edith yelling, “You leave and don’t come back. I don’t want you on my property anymore. You come back here, I might just sic my dogs on you!”
On their way back to the road, when they passed the kennel, even the huskies seemed disenchanted with them. They raised their noses to the sky and howled an unsettling good-bye. . . or was it a warning?
Savannah couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 28
The moment Savannah and Dirk left Edith Yager’s property, they headed back to town, to the Honey Bear Motel.
“Let me talk to her,” Savannah told him as they crawled out of the Bronco and headed toward the far end of the building, where Olive Kelly was staying.
“I’ll call Dr. Johnson,” Dirk said, “and ask him if he was able to lift any prints off that syringe.”
“Gotcha. Meet me by the picnic area.”
“You don’t wanna go in our room? Maybe stretch out on the bed for a moment.”
She pinched his cheek. “Aren’t you just the funniest feller? A real knee-slapper, that’s you.”
He laughed, bent down, and gave her a peck on the lips. “Go talk to the ding-a-ling. I’ll call the doc.”
They parted ways, and Savannah headed for room number 12.
When she knocked on the door, it took so long for Olive to answer that Savannah was afraid she might have left. But eventually the door opened a crack and a badly bedraggled blonde stuck her nose out.
“What?” she said.
“You and I need to talk,” Savannah told her.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you. Thanks to you people, my life is ruined.”
“Come on now. It can’t be all that—”
“It is that bad! My bosses are dead. I don’t have a job anymore, and I can’t even leave this stupid little nothing town and go home because the cops won’t let me, and I wouldn’t have any money to get back home even if they did.”
“But surely you could—”
“No! I couldn’t! I’m never going to get out of this place, and who’s gonna give me a job? Do you think anybody around here needs a personal assistant? Of course not. I’ll probably wind up having to turn tricks down there by the pier and—”
“Just stop!” Savannah reached out and pushed the door wide open.
At first, she was sorry she had. She didn’t realize that Olive was in her underwear, “barely there” panties and a “hardly anything” bra that looked like they had been purchased in a porn shop.
“Put on some clothes, Olive,” she told the nearly hysterical blonde. “Get a hold of yourself. You’ll be able to go home again, one way or
the other. Stop with the drama crap. It only makes things worse.”
Olive shuffled over to the rumpled bed and picked an even more rumpled T-shirt. She slipped it on, then plopped herself onto the foot of the bed.
The shirt did precious little to cover her assets, but Savannah decided to let it go. In situations like this, you had to pick your battles.
“I have something to show you that might make your problems a bit better,” Savannah told her, taking her phone from her purse.
Olive brushed a handful of hair back from her forehead and out of her eyes. “What?”
Savannah searched for the picture of Edith and showed it to her. “Do you recognize this woman?”
Olive leaned forward and squinted at the screen. She lit up in an instant. “Sure! That’s the woman I told you about. The one who gave me a ride in her van.”
“The van that smelled like dogs?”
“It reeked! She had five dogs in the back and some of them were still wet from having a bath.” She shuddered. “I can still smell it. Yuck.”
Pausing, she reconsidered. “But it could have smelled ten times worse and I still would have taken that ride. My feet were killing me!”
Savannah couldn’t help smiling, in spite of Olive’s lament. She just loved it when a piece finally fit into a puzzle.
“Okay, good,” she said. “Now, I’m going to ask you something else and I want you to think really hard before you answer. All right?”
Olive screwed her face into a “thoughtful” expression. “Okay. What is it?”
“From the moment you got into that van, until the moment she dropped you off at the pier, did you get out of the vehicle for any reason?”
She thought hard, then her eyes lit up. “Yeah. We were going down the road and she said that she heard something bumping under the van, like maybe she’d run over a branch, and it got stuck or something. She pulled off the road and asked me if I’d get out and look.”
Savannah grinned. “You did.”
“I did, but I couldn’t see anything.”
“Now, one more question. When you got out to look under the van, where was your purse?”
“Why?”
Every Body on Deck Page 22