Deadfall (24 page)

Tank would also be hungry. She snatched three cans of beef stew and several envelopes of powdered milk.

The pain in her right hand had settled down to a dull ache and her head ached, too, from hunger. Turning to the medicine cabinet above a washbasin, she took Band-Aids, gauze, adhesive tape, a bottle of Tylenol—from which she shook three and gulped them down without water—alcohol swabs, and a wide elastic bandage, leaving behind scissors and a thermometer. Nearby was a towel that she grabbed, along with someone’s toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bar of soap. Thinking for a moment, she threw in the box of matches and three candles,
wrenched from their holders. She found a small flashlight with weak batteries, had no time to search for replacements, but took it anyway. From a kitchen drawer, she collected a can opener, a spoon, and a paring knife. She filled a plastic bottle with water at the kitchen sink.

The pillowcase was growing heavy. What else did she need? Going back into the other room, she glanced around quickly. The light of her candle caught the yellow color of a thick length of nylon cord, which she tossed in. Anything else? No. What she had collected would take care of most of her needs for the moment. It was time to get out.

As she blew out the small flame and swung around toward the door, a can in the pillowcase hit the cast-iron stove with a loud metallic clank. Damn, she thought. That could be heard even from outside, if there was anyone listening. She took one step and, as if she had created trouble with that thought, there was a thump from somewhere deep in the building. She froze, heart jumping in her chest.

Then she could hear someone moving—the footsteps of someone taking no time to be quiet, hurrying on a wooden floor, and knew instantly where the sound was coming from.

Oh, God, she thought, there’s someone in the sauna.

This time, she knew, it would not be Rudy.

“N
o, sir. He doesn’t look anything like the man who brought the flowers for Miss Arnold. That man was taller and had a thinner face. He wore dark glasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes. But he was polite—only stayed a minute. No, this isn’t him.”

The receptionist from the hospital shook her head decidedly as she refused to identify J. B. Moule as the person who had brought the lilies, pictures, and note after Jessie’s accident.

“Thanks, Mrs. Porter,” Jensen sighed, with a sinking feeling. “We appreciate your coming in so early this morning to take a look. Do you think you’d recognize the man you saw if we do find him?”

“Oh, yes, I know I would. I thought at the time that he looked very much like my nephew, Brian. You just call me when you catch him, young man. And I’m sorry this isn’t the one.”

She patted Alex’s hand in motherly apology and went purposefully out the door.

“Well, so much for that theory,” he told Caswell. “I guess I was running on overtime on Moule.”

“We still got him off the street,” Cas assured him. “Things aren’t all bad. Peters won’t be disappointed. I’d still like to ask him whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday, though. Making that sort of mistake bothers me.”

“We could stop by, since we should go into the lab anyway,” Jensen suggested. “There’s a lot we need to know. How did those negatives get into his closet? I don’t understand how he made those boot prints if he didn’t have something to do with this. Do you suppose he’s telling the truth and someone really did steal his boots and did the rest of this to set him up? I want to talk to Timmons. He’s almost never wrong. And we have no answer to how and where the computer-printed notes were done. The computer, at least, hasn’t showed up in Moule’s possession, but it has to be somewhere.”

“I know it doesn’t happen very often, but stranger things have happened than Timmons being wrong. Let’s go check out the time cards with Peters first, or it’s going to eat at me.”

A
t nine o’clock, they found Al Peters on the second story of his almost finished building, supervising the installation of windows—something besides concrete, for a change.

“You find Moule?” he asked, before they could tell him why they had come back.

“Yeah,” Jensen assured him. “You’ll be glad to know he won’t be back to work this season—maybe not for the next few, if you’re lucky.”

“Hey, nobody’s gonna complain, believe me.” Peters grinned at the carpenter with whom he was working. “Hear that, Bud? Moule finally got himself put away again.”

“Fuckin’
fine
” was the carpenter’s only comment, as he spit on the ground and walked away, but Jensen thought it
probably exemplified the feelings of most of Moule’s co-workers.

“Hey, so what can I do for you guys?” Peters asked. “You didn’t come all the way out here just to tell me you got enough to put him back inside, did you?”

“Nope. We need you to check again on that day you said he came to work late. Each of us wrote down a different day, and we need to check an alibi against one of them.” Caswell grinned at him, sheepishly ashamed of what he perceived as a senseless, unprofessional error.

“No problem. Let’s go down and I’ll make you a copy of his time card. Then you’ll have it…uh…like official.”

They left the building and crossed to the mobile home that Peters used as an office. Inside he quickly found the time card and made a copy.

“Wednesday,” Cas confirmed. “It
was
Wednesday. Sorry, Alex. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You should be more perfect than the rest of us?” Jensen kidded.

As he was about to thank the contractor for the extra trouble, the telephone rang and Peters picked it up.

“Oh, yeah, Judy. I’ve got the stuff ready. You coming in?…Oh, really…. Well, yeah. I guess I could drop it off…. No, that’d be okay…. Oh, he did? When was that?”

He frowned and scratched the back of his neck with his free hand.

“He say what Moule was doing? No…. Well, he won’t be back. Got himself arrested again…. Yeah. Okay, see you in a while.”

He hung up, grimacing.

“Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow. Damn, that man does get up my nose.”

“Moule? What’d he do now?” Jensen asked.

“That was Judy Wynne. You remember—she was here when you came in before. She and her husband, Ross, keep the books for us.”

Jensen nodded. “Thin-faced woman.”

“Yeah. Supposed to come in today to pick up the time cards for last week, but can’t leave home because Ross’s gone off someplace. They’ve got a crippled kid. You know…mental? One of them has to be there all the time with him.

“Anyway, Ross asked her to tell me that he doesn’t appreciate Moule coming into the office and using the computer when he’s here trying to work. Weird. Can’t think what Moule could have been up to.”

Caswell gave Jensen a wide-eyed look, in recognition of the warning bells that were suddenly ringing in both their minds, before he asked quietly, “What computer?”

Peters caught the tone of his voice and narrowed his eyes.

“Something else?”

“Maybe. What kind of computer?”

“Here.” He pulled the cover off a Macintosh that stood on the desk Judy Wynne had been using when they saw her at the office. Next to it stood a laser printer.

“And Moule printed something out on this?” Cas asked.

“That’s what Ross told Judy. Brought in a disk and didn’t even ask—just told Ross to move across the room, booted it up, and printed something out. Then he shut it down and left.”

“When was this?”

“A week ago Saturday, about nine in the morning, according to Judy. Ross said he was surprised that any of the workers were here, let alone Moule.”

Jensen had been doing some rapid calculations in his head.

“That was the day the note appeared in the birthday present. Have we missed something here, Cas?”

Caswell, on the other hand, was looking skeptical.

“Doesn’t make sense. Why would he make such an overt move? Almost as if he wanted a witness. Was anyone else here when Moule supposedly printed out that…whatever it was?”

“No, just Ross.”

“So there’s only his word it ever happened. There’s something really screwed up here, Alex.”

“Anything I can help with?” Peters offered.

“I’d like to talk with Mrs. Wynne,” Jensen told him. “Better yet, I’d like to talk to Ross Wynne. He’s the one who says he saw Moule use this computer.”

“Well, I gotta make a run out to take her the time cards. Why don’t you come along and I’ll introduce you. She said Ross wasn’t home, but at least you can talk to her and find out when he’ll be back.”

T
he Wynnes lived in a duplex several blocks south of International Airport Road and west of Arctic Boulevard, an area of older tract houses and multiple-family dwellings. It needed paint, as did the ten-year-old compact car in their driveway with a crack in the windshield that, encouraged by cold weather, had transected it from side to side, a condition with which many Alaskan residents were familiar. One small ding, the minute winter blew in, would immediately spread to the frame. Jensen sometimes thought the state’s vehicles were all held together with safety glass and duct tape, and was amused to notice a piece of that silvery tape holding a damaged taillight to the body of the car.

Judy Wynne was small, with dark hair and watchful eyes that seemed to fill the upper half of her face. She was so much thinner than she should have been that she reminded Alex of pictures he had seen of concentration camp victims. She looked worn and tired, and there was something in the resignation with which she answered their knock that made him feel that she had seen more than her share of pain and its results. But as she opened the door, her back was straight and she held her chin up, ready to confront whatever the world brought her. She was slightly confused that Peters had come with company, especially when he introduced them as troopers and asked if they could talk with her.

“What about?” she asked, an anxious look replacing the
polite smile with which she had greeted her boss. Then, before he could answer, she burst out, “He’s done something bad, hasn’t he?”

“Who?” Peters asked.

“Ross. Ross’s done something.”

“Ahhh…no, Judy. These men just wanted to ask you about…”

“Could we come in, Mrs. Wynne?” Jensen asked. “It would be better if we could sit down and explain.”

She gave him a long, insightful look that spoke volumes of how she was interpreting his request, then invited them in with a nod and led them into a small living room. Other than a battered sofa, two straight chairs, and an ancient coffee table, it was almost empty. A television set occupied one corner, tuned to a children’s show, the sound turned down to a barely audible murmur. In front of it, a young man in his early twenties sat in a wheelchair, staring slack-faced at the garish, colorful cartoons that were an ironic contrast to the stark room. He didn’t even glance up to see who had come in.

Jensen halted at the sight of him, causing the other three to turn questioning looks at him.

“Wynne,” he said. “I know that name from…John McIntire. And this…?” He directed his question to Judy and raised a hand toward the young man. “This would be…”

“This is Michael—my son.
Michael
,” she said quietly, as if emphasizing his name made him real.

Her eyes, holding Jensen’s, were as honest as clear water, the expression in them still.

“He was hurt,” she said, and the eternal grief of mothers who lose children rippled that still pool, though Alex could tell she had no tears left to shed for this particular agony—or none that she would let a stranger see. For a second or two, time stopped in that small house, for him and for her, as they looked at each other and spoke without words.

I have lost enough
, she told him.
Don’t make me lose any more
.

And he replied,
I wish I didn’t have to, but I have no choice
.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she turned, walked to one of the straight chairs, carefully, as if she might lose her balance, and sat with her hands in her lap, waiting.

Peters looked at Jensen. “You want me to make myself scarce?”

“No. If it’s all right with Mrs. Wynne, I’d like you to stay. We might need your help.”

She nodded. “It’s all right.”

Caswell walked across to a window and stood, his back to the room, looking out into the backyard. Jensen and Peters sat on the sofa. Michael had not moved or acknowledged their presence.

Alex took a deep breath and spoke gently.

“Your husband isn’t at home. Is that right, Mrs. Wynne?”

She nodded.

“When will he be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long has he been gone?”

She didn’t speak immediately, and Alex identified a wariness in the way her eyes narrowed, and she pinched her lips together as if she would rather not answer him.

“He left on Sunday afternoon…late.”

“And he didn’t say when he’d be back?”

“He said he had something to take care of, and that he’d be back as soon as he could.”

“Where was he going?”

She hesitated.

There was a lot he was asking her that had nothing to do with the formal questions, and they both knew it. It was clear that she wanted to answer what he asked her, no more. But there was more. He watched as she turned her head to look at the young man—the boy, really—in the wheelchair, and made the choice, because of him, to tell this trooper what she knew—or suspected. He didn’t imagine her husband had told her much.

“Mrs. Wynne?”

She looked back at him and, if possible, sat up even straighter in her chair as she spoke in a soft monotone.

“For the last two weeks he’s told me he was working on a special project in Palmer. He’s been gone out there a lot. He said it was just a one-time job that would be over soon and he wouldn’t have to go back. He said he was cleaning up someone else’s sloppy work and putting the books in order. When he left Sunday, he said he had to go down the Kenai Peninsula to finish up part of it and would be back sometime midweek.”

“Why did you wait till today to tell Mr. Peters what your husband told you to say about J. B. Moule using the computer at the job site?”

“It seemed an unnecessary complaint. We need this job. It’s the best one we have.”

“Do you know where and how to reach your husband? If there was an emergency…”

“No. He hasn’t called—didn’t leave me a number.”

Something shifted in her eyes and Alex could see that she was deeply concerned and vulnerable in her suspicions.

“Is that usual?”

“No. He always leaves me one, in case…” She glanced at her son in explanation. “I never know when…Michael…sometimes has seizures.”

As if this confession had shattered something essential, her expression slowly crumpled into an aspect of appalling anguish, but there were still no tears. She brought her hands up and for a long moment covered her face. When she took them away, she was once again in control, but there was no pride left in her posture. It was her responsibility to ransom what could be salvaged for her son, so she couldn’t afford pride—but there was an honorable kind of dignity on her face.

“Ross…isn’t really a vengeful man, Sergeant. He’s just a broken one. He loved…was so proud of Michael. We couldn’t have other children, so he invested everything—his whole life—in Michael. It cost him too much, when his
only…only son was…destroyed…this way. It might have been better if…” She stopped, couldn’t finish the thought—but he understood.

“And because Moule was the cause of that destruction and got away with it, your husband couldn’t let it go.”

“No. But he…couldn’t help it. It tore him apart.”

Alex nodded and for the moment didn’t ask her any more questions. It wasn’t necessary. The details could wait.

He knew that Ross Wynne had told his wife a lie about Moule’s use of the computer, why he had, and where they would find him. What he didn’t know was how Wynne had found out where Jessie was—and he could only pray they weren’t too late.