Talkeetna, page 13
"The others?"
He shrugged. "I've collected them for years now. They represent different artists and villages. Different needs. The knives of the Southeast with its lush forests are very different from those of the tundra. Fisher folk have theirs."
Candace studied them silently. "I learned to shoot," she said suddenly. "It surprised me. I liked it."
"It made you feel less powerless."
"Yes," she said, understanding that for the first time. "It did."
She examined his bookshelves with an intensity that amused him as he watched her. She pulled out his copy of Joe McGuinness's book about Alaska. "Can I borrow this one?"
Kitka laughed. "Sure, although I'm not sure it's the best book to give you a good impression of Alaska. It's not a popular book up here. All but banned."
She turned it over in her hands. "Really? Why?"
He laughed again. "Read it and see."
She nodded and then headed up to the loft bedroom. "I think I'll turn in."
Kitka nodded and watched her climb up the stairs. He pulled out a book intending to read himself, but instead he went back out to the porch. Watching the sky darken, he thought about the woman upstairs, the murder victim, and the growing mystery surrounding Stephen Whitaker. And finally, as the dusky peace seeped into his bones, he smiled and went upstairs to his own bed.
FROM THE DIARY
OF CANDACE MARSHALL
AUGUST 10 — Each morning I go over to the lodge and take a shower at the camping sites. It costs a dollar. I often stop in and have a cup of coffee as well. I like to look at the things the owner has on the walls of the log building. There are license plates, old mining equipment, and airplane paraphernalia. One wall has stuffed animals on it — a moose's head with an impressive rack of antlers, a beaver and a cougar. A black bear is stuffed and stands in a corner ready to leap out at an unsuspecting visitor. The owner is pleasant, but he leaves me alone.
Other hikers smile and say hello when our paths cross. One of them told me he'd seen bear tracks east of here, and I spent the day looking for them. But I returned to my camp without sighting anything. I want to see a bear — or at least sign of bear. I did see a wolf pad down to the lake for water one night. No fear there.
The pilots often dip a wing as they land or wave from the dock. I like to wave back, but I have no desire to spend time with other people. The lodge owner offered me a waitressing job today because his waitress hadn't shown up. But I have enough money for now, and I am not ready to return to civilization. If that is what it is.
The details of living absorb a lot of my time. I hunt berries, checking my field guides for other edible foods, and catch trout almost daily. A shower, or a cup of coffee, were a mile hike each way. The lodge owner found me a guide to mushrooms and volunteered to help me sort them to make sure what I pick is safe. He says if I pick more than I can use, he'll trade with me. For coffee, I suggest, and he laughs.
Each night I try to talk to my journal, but sometimes it is hard. I want to be honest. But I have learned well the defense of silence. It is only the security of knowing that no one but me will ever hear these words that allows me to speak at all.
Sometimes I read; it was a pleasure to read and savor what I read rather than...well, it was a pleasure to read. I pick up whatever is left at the campsite. There is an informal book exchange. People leave the books they've read and pick up new ones for the next part of their journey. I like the things about Alaska best. I read a book about one of the early pilots, and another about the state patrol in its early days. I grab the field guides when they show up too.
Sometimes I wonder what people think about me. The lodge owner never asks questions. The hikers assume I'm just like them. I feel as if I have become a part of this land. I sit at my rock and look across my water to my mountains. I am at peace now. I don't wake up crying. I sleep without nightmares. I can live with my sense of shame and guilt.
I am ashamed that I stayed so long with Stephen. I tried to leave him once. I called a crisis center, but they had no spots open. They were filled and overflowing and sounded so tired and overworked. I had no one to go to. Once when Stephen hit me so hard, he broke my arm, I went to the hospital. It should have been reported, but the doctor was a friend of Stephen's. Everyone knew him; admired him. Or feared him.
I feel guilty that I didn't do something. What? I don't know. I still don't know. But it shames me that my final response was to kill myself. It would have been better to dream of killing him.
I will not go back. I will not go back and be his servant, his punching bag, the vent for his frustrations. I... will... not... go back.
The land has healed me. The land is enduring — it changes, but with its own rhythms and reasons, none of which are affected by human personal problems. That tree with its roots reaching down toward moisture and limbs up toward the sky is not concerned with the problems of a person whose life span is short.
I sit and feast my eyes upon the hills. The curves, valleys and gullies, the rock outcroppings have become more familiar to me than the curves of my own body. I am not religious, but there is some Psalm that says, "I lift my eyes unto the hills from which cometh my strength." I am comforted by that. Strength. Those hills were strong enough to support my problems.
The earth strives toward life. It fights for it, seeks an abundance of life. I look around me at the profusion of trees and plants, of the animals that visit the water's edge, and I see the delight earth must take in the immense variety of life. Even in these circumstances where life isn't easy, where the climate is a constant foe, there is a delight in life.
I have been remembering my camping trips with my Dad. They were good times before his illness set in and things became so erratic. Over the years, I have forgotten that there were good times.
One trip we made was to central Oregon to the painted hills. I was a romantic 16-year-old who wrote poetry. Bad, excruciatingly bad, poetry. I went off to sit and watch the sunset over the painted hills. The hills are barren rock with gorgeous ripples of reds and greens, blues and browns. I was awestruck by their beauty.
This old grizzled-chin farmer in his baggy blue jeans found me staring off into the hills and he started a conversation.
"What do you see when you look out there?" he asked.
"Beauty," I replied simply.
He nodded thoughtfully. "You know what I see? I see pain, a wounded land struggling to heal itself. This was once rain forest, a bountiful land capable of supporting life. And then something happened. A volcano, a climate shift, something. And this land was left barren, dead. And now it struggles to heal itself."
He paused and we both stared out across the cone-shaped hills, the ragged jutting rocks. "The earth does that you know. It strives toward life. Even now, those rocks out there are crumbling, creating new soil. Plants struggle for a toehold in that harsh land. Animals creep in seeking forage.
"We get tourists out here who resent what us farmers do. They see our irrigation and our crops as intrusions into the stark beauty of the hills," he continued. "But I think we're helping mother earth along in what she wants — life. I think we're helping the wounds to heal, the scars to fade. And the earth will one day bloom again here."
We were silent again, an old man with poetry in his soul and a young girl whose eyes had been opened. I never saw that land in quite the same way again. It was as if I was admiring someone's scars thinking that it was beauty and never empathizing with the pain that created the scars.
Here too, I see earth's commitment to life. Not a life. Survival here can be rough and brutally short. But to on-going life, to cycles after cycles of living things. It is true that even here there is a fragileness, a delicate balance easily upset by man's incursions. I have brooded about the wilderness — the contradictions between its strength and endurance and its fragility where man encroached with his Winnebagos and beer cans and the need for paved picnic areas. But I have faith in the earth.
I have borrowed the strength of the hills to create my own commitment to life. I do not want to die. I want to live! To really live. On my own terms, in my own way. I don't want to live for someone else. No more conforming. Coming to Alaska was the first day of a new life and I will live it to the fullest, but I will live it for myself.
Chapter 12
Kitka woke up with the perfect plan of action in place. He leaned back and thought it through: First, he was sure Candace Marshall knew more than she said. Her very questions, her few comments, revealed much for him to work on. Like an old man teaching fables, he thought with amusement. You learn from them by listening in the silences.
What he needed to do was expose her to every step of the investigation. Her comments, her questions, her very gestures would be clues of the direction he needed to take.
And if she were the murderer, the trail would lead to her feet. If she wasn't, he'd pry out of her what she knew.
Besides, he felt like every time he let her out of his sight, someone tried to kill her. What did she know that she wasn't telling, he wondered again?
The morning started out painfully with more reports to fill out and a chewing out by the captain.
"You now have how many unsolved crimes in Talkeetna?" he said with real bite to his tone. "A murder. Two attempts on Candace Marshall, or one suicide attempt, one murder attempt. One assault on Bill Abbott Junior. An attempt now on another person, Elaine Grusendorf. Do you plan to solve any of these anytime soon? My God, it's beginning to sound like a war zone down there." Captain Wyckoff lived in Wasilla, drove up every day. He hated Talkeetna, rarely went into the small town. He brought his lunch, or occasionally had it at the lodge up the George Parks Highway.
"I know, sir," Kitka said. He didn't like what was happening after all, he thought irritably.
"I've been getting calls from the D.A.'s office wanting to know what the hell's going on out here. I get calls from the press. I get calls from the governor's office, for Pete's sake. And I want some answers to tell them," Captain Wyckoff said, ice cold. He didn't raise his voice; he just used words to put you in a deep-freeze until you did things right.
"Yes, sir." Kitka headed back to his desk before the captain could find anything else to say.
By the end of the workday, Kitka knew more than he wanted to about more people than he cared to. Betrayal, Candace's voice echoed through his mind. He still didn't have a clue who actually killed Stephen Whitaker.
He just had a long list of people who might have wanted to.
Candace Marshall patiently sat in a chair in the corner of the office, where he'd stashed her. She watched as he and Dixon tied up the computer and phone to trace the people who'd become involved in the investigation. It made him tense at first to have a suspect sitting there, watching, those eyes of hers following them without expression.
At the same time, he again had the sense that she knew more than she said, that inside her head were the answers. His intuition hadn't jelled yet even into the right questions. But it would, he was sure.
Finally, he sat back in his chair and looked at Dixon across the desk. "Let's go through this again," Kitka said.
"It isn't going to change anything, but here goes," Joe Bob Dixon said without rancor. "First. Dan Nash doesn't exist. Second. Bill Abbott was convicted and served time for felony assault in Illinois before he came to Alaska. Third, Lanky Purdue was arrested for assaulting a minor 40 years ago, which would have been about the right time for good ol' Stevie to be getting in trouble. That about sums it up."
"Dan Nash does exist," Kitka said, not for the first time. "He's probably down at the Inn right now."
"The man we know as Dan Nash came to Alaska at 21, but there is no existence for him before that. He listed Atlanta as his birthplace at the time, but Atlanta never heard of him. He applied for his social security card here. Twenty-one is pretty old for that."
"He's not the first man to disappear into Alaska and start a new life," Kitka said. "It may not be related at all."
"True. Then there's Bill Abbott, who served time for felonious assault for some bar brawl in Chicago. It wasn't the first time he'd been in trouble, small stuff, primarily. He has, at least he had, a hot temper. He served five years and then moved to Anchorage. He met Mary here and they were married. The rest you probably know."
"Lanky?"
"Not much more than that, seeing charges were dropped," Joe Bob said with a shrug. "I'll keep looking."
Kitka snorted. "Add the fact that Elaine Grusendorf canceled all her appointments in Portland on Monday and Tuesday. No one knows where she was."
"What does that mean?" Dace asked. Both men jumped, having grown used to her silent presence.
"Maybe nothing," Kitka said sourly.
Joe Bob grinned. "Paul Kitka's first rule of investigation," he said, stretching his arms above his head. Dace looked at him and he added, "Everybody lies."
"Cop truth," Kitka grunted, looking at the woman uncomfortably.
"Human truth," she said.
Dixon was looking at both of them with curiosity written all over his face when Kitka glanced back to his partner. Uncomfortable with Dixon's examination, Kitka turned back to Dace. "It seems ironic that you ended up in the center of such a large collection of your husband's enemies," he said. "It was a coincidence, wasn't it?"
Dace was silent. "Not entirely," she said in a low voice, only to fall silent again.
"So?" he prompted.
"I didn't intend to come here originally. I was just headed out, you know," she said, talking to the floor rather than to the men. "When Mickey mentioned Talkeetna, I was startled. I'd heard Stephen mention it only once, but it had stuck in my mind. I mean he didn't seem the type to come from Alaska. When I decided to... live, I came here. Partially because Mickey had said there'd be a job, and partially, well I guess I felt like any place Stephen Whitaker hated so much would be a place I'd like. And maybe he wouldn't think to look for me here."
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend?" Kitka suggested.
She nodded. "Something like that."
Kitka frowned, tapping his fingers on the corner of the desk. "Forty years ago, there was a nasty pre-teen boy living in Talkeetna who would go on to hate Alaska and be hated by the entire town. I was told, by Dan Nash, that it was Mary's story. Her father gets arrested for assaulting a minor during that time period."
"Have you asked Mary about it?" Joe Bob asked.
Kitka shook his head, at a loss to explain his reluctance.
"You're good friends with them, aren't you?" Joe Bob pursued.
"Yes," Kitka said shortly.
"Have you ever known Mary to leave Talkeetna?" Dace asked suddenly.
Kitka scowled. "What do you mean?"
"I mean does she go shopping in Anchorage? Ever fly to Seattle or Hawaii like most people here seem to do? Bill makes good money."
"I'm not sure what you're getting at."
"It's probably not important," Dace said, uncertainly. "But Mary and I have become acquainted over the last few weeks, and she..," her voice trailed off.
"She what?"
"She doesn't ever leave Talkeetna," Dace said in a rush. "I don't think she ever has."
Kitka was silent for a moment. "I know Mary Abbott is a real homebody, and everyone loves her for it. Are you saying it's not normal?"
"That phobia? What is it agoraphobia?" Dixon asked. "You think she can't leave?"
"Everyone's got secrets," Kitka said.
"And everybody lies," Dace said.
Kitka grunted at that and stretched his shoulders. "I guess it's about time we went and talked to some people. Joe Bob," and somehow the name was easier to say after watching him work a computer like nobody he'd ever seen, "we still don't know Stephen Whitaker's movements from the time he put up storm windows at his mother's place Saturday until he shows up in Talkeetna early Monday morning. See if you can make that thing tell you," he said, nodding to the computer.
"Sure, boss," Dixon said cheerfully. "But it isn't a glass ball."
"It tells you things it doesn't tell me," Kitka said. The two men looked at each other, and Dixon's shoulders straightened as he read the approval in the older cop's eyes.
"Are you going to talk to Mary?" Dixon asked. Kitka nodded. "You might take her along." He gestured with his head toward Dace.
"Why me?" Dace said.
"Because you're a woman and her friend," Dixon said. "She might need you."
Kitka was surprised at the sensitivity that showed. It wasn't a characteristic he'd seen demonstrated much.
"Not friends really," Dace said, demurring.
"She's stood by you, defended you," Kitka said. "Doesn't that count for something?"
Dace was silent for a moment, turning that over in her mind. Kitka waited for her conclusion, amused that he'd been put in the position of arguing a suspect into going with him to question people — something he hadn't particularly wanted her to do.
"I'll go," Dace said finally. "I'm curious, if nothing else."
Kitka walked up the steps to the Abbott's big white house with Dace trailing about a half pace behind. She hadn't said a word to him the entire trip into town. Instead she'd stared out the window, a slight frown on her face. Whatever preoccupied her hadn't been pleasant, he thought.
He knocked on the door, no answer. Opening the door, he called out "Anyone home?"
"Damn it what am I supposed to think?" Mary's voice wailed from the back of the house. Kitka raised his eyebrows at Dace and then walked into the house. She followed.
Bill Abbott was seated at the table with a pile of news clippings spilled out before him. Mary stood at the end of the table, a box in her hand. She was in tears; Bill was stone faced, looking at his hands.
"I called out, but obviously, you didn't hear me," Kitka said mildly from the doorway. "Want to tell me what this is all about?"
"It's none of your business, Kitka," Bill growled. "Go away and leave us alone."
Kitka picked up a clipping off the table. Mary bit her lip. "Don't," she said hoarsely.
