Sundown on Top of the World: A Hunter Rayne Highway Mystery (29 page)

“And if he did kill Charles Collins?”

Orville sighed. “That’s where the difficulty comes in. If he did kill Collins, it wouldn’t be good to let him get off scot-free. It wouldn’t be good for him, it wouldn’t please his mother – may she rest in peace – and it certainly wouldn’t be good for me if I do end up being convicted of murder. You see my dilemma?”

“I do.” Hunter shrugged. “But it’s a decision you’ll have to make on your own.”

Orville looked puzzled. “Aren’t you going to pressure me to reveal his name? Isn’t that what you people do?”

“Not me,” said Hunter. “Not anymore.”

“Where are my clothes? Let me out of this thing.” Betty pulled and pushed at the bars on either side of the bed, but they wouldn’t go down. Being confined to a bed was starting to annoy her. The nurse laughed, which irritated her even more.

“Just a minute. I’ll send your daughter in to help you get dressed.”

“I don’t need help to get dressed. I just need my clothes.”

The nurse, a rosy cheeked young woman who smelled of baby powder, winked at her as she walked out the door.

“Besides, she’s not my daughter.” Betty dropped her voice. “She’s not even my real granddaughter.” She immediately regretted saying it aloud, even though there was no one in the room to hear. She eased herself back down onto the pillow. She wished Goldie would hurry back. Or having Orville there again would be fine, too.

The sheets were so stiff and the mattress so firm, it made her feel as if she were lying on crusty snow, without the cold. Alone. Being alone wasn’t the same here as it was in the bush, she thought. Alone would be okay back home at the cabin, but here – She sensed a movement to her right, and two big paws dented the edge of the mattress, then a black nose was thrust between the bars to touch her hand.

“Hootie. Good boy.” Betty, reached over the bars to lay her hand on her dog’s broad head, just as the door opened and Goldie walked in. She came up to the bed and grabbed the bedrail with both hands, but didn’t speak.

“You’re crying, child. Why?”

The girl took a deep breath before she spoke. “I have something to tell you, Gran.” She threw her head back and closed her eyes, in obvious distress. “I wish–. If only–. Oh, Gran, the timing is so wrong.” She looked away and paused so long that Betty’s mind had time to imagine half a dozen scenarios. The nurse had told Goldie that her grandmother was dying, or that she wouldn’t be able to leave the clinic. Or maybe the cabin had burned down. Orville had suffered a fatal heart attack in the waiting room. Goldie herself was dying, or perhaps the child was pregnant.

“My mother is here.”

It took a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in. “Your mother? April? April is here?”

The girl nodded.

“Here, in Dawson? Now?”

“I’m sorry, Gran. I know you’re not feeling very strong right now after your ordeal, and you’re in a hurry to get back to the Eagle. And that’s what I expected to do, take you back home and look after you until you’re feeling better. But now that my mother’s here–” Her voice trailed off, and another tear coursed down her cheek.

Betty reached up and wiped it away with her thumb. She was still trying to work out the significance of Goldie’s news. Had her mother come to take her away? If so, would Goldie agree to go? What were the chances her mother would just come to Eagle for a visit and then go away?

Hootie had gone over to Goldie as soon as she entered and now sat beside her, looking up expectantly at her face, his tail thumping softly against the floor. Betty knew he wanted to go outside, or perhaps, just like Betty, he was anxious to get back home. What did Goldie expect her to do? Lie in this damned bed for days?

“Get me out of here.” Betty rattled the bedrails again. “Hootie needs to get out of here and so do I.”

“And then what, Gran?”

“Take me home. You and your young friend came to take me back to Eagle, didn’t you?”

“You don’t understand, do you?” There were no tears now. Goldie spoke to her as if she were a moron or a whining child. “My mother is here. I need to spend some time with her. I can’t just rush back to Eagle with you now.”

Betty set her jaw. She did understand. She understood, but she more than wanted to go home, she needed to get out of Dawson, back to the solitude of her cabin, back to the routine of life at her little homestead outside of Eagle Village. “You can’t just leave me here. Where’s Orville?”

“Gone. They’ve taken him back to Whitehorse.”

“Then
you
have to take me home. I can’t stand to be here a minute longer.”

“You did this to yourself, Gran. You’re the one who left on that – that crazy stupid journey down the Yukon River. You’re the one who kept my mother a secret from me almost all my life. You’re the one who – oh, never mind.” With that, the girl threw up her hands and whirled around, almost running to the door and jerking it open so hard that it hit Hootie, who had scampered along beside her.

Betty and her dog watched the door close, then looked at each other, both powerless to escape from the room, let alone from Dawson City, without her help.

Once outside in the hallway, Goldie paused. She didn’t want to go back and face Gran, nor did she want to explain things to the woman who claimed to be her mother. Goldie wished she could just run away from the whole situation. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair to make her choose between her mother and Gran, especially to make the choice here and now. Her first impulse was to sneak out the back door and climb into the truck with Mark, slam the door and tell him to drive, just drive. Drive south, out of the Yukon, away from Alaska, out on the open road.

That line from the poetry book left behind by her mother – the mother of her imagination, not the woman in the waiting room – came back to her.
Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Gran had wronged her, but so had her mother. Her mother had left her as an infant, and never come back for her until today. Now they both expected her to love them. They both felt they had some kind of claim on her.

Her situation reminded her of that bible story she’d learned in school, the story of the judgment of King Solomon, when two women were fighting over a baby and the king picked up a sword and said he would divide the baby in two. One woman said she would rather give the baby away than see it killed, and the king thought this was the real mother. But what did ‘
real mother’
mean to King Solomon? Was it the
biological
mother, or instead, the woman who was the most concerned for the baby’s welfare, or the
best
mother. So far, had either of the mother figures in her life acted in her best interests, rather than their own? She thought not.

I can’t
, she decided.
I can’t just run away.
There was no King Solomon to make a judgment for her, so she would have to do it herself. She squared her shoulders, turned around and walked back into her grandmother’s room.

– – – – – SEVENTEEN

While Boudreau piloted the RCMP Suburban down the Klondike Highway to Whitehorse, Hunter waited for Orville to resume their earlier conversation, but aside from the occasional comment on something outside the windows of the Suburban – a moose and her calf trotting down the shoulder, a broken-down semi in the northbound lane, or a convoy of identical RVs from California – Orville pretty much kept his thoughts to himself. As did Hunter.

His brief interview with April had him re-examining the entire bloody cabin case from day one, as near as he could remember it. He reviewed all the possible suspects and tried to determine which of them could be unequivocally eliminated. Until April’s eyewitness account had confirmed Blake’s death at another man’s hands, one of the prime suspects had always been a grizzly. Hunter was now certain that the grizzly had just been an opportunistic scavenger who was attracted by the smell of blood and dragged a dead or dying Blake out of the cabin. The man who had called the RCMP to investigate the abandoned cabin, Fred Klimmer, couldn’t be entirely ruled out, since there was no way to get a good alibi for a trapper living alone in the bush, but other than the fact that he’d made the initial call, there was no reason to consider him a suspect.

April hadn’t come back for her baby. Was that because she was afraid of being arrested for the murder, whether self-defense or not? He knew he carried a bias toward her innocence, and had since the beginning. If she hadn’t planned on coming back to the Yukon, why had she left her baby behind? Could it have something to do with the baby’s father? Was he involved? If April was lying about what happened in the cabin, what could compel her to tell the truth?

With the identification of Martin Blake as Grant Sanford, a new possibility arose. Was it possible that Sanford had been tracked down by relatives of his wife and her brother – the two people he’d murdered in Louisiana – and they had come seeking revenge? Or was it someone obsessed with punishing the men who had deserted their fellow soldiers in Vietnam? If a customs officer at the Yukon-Alaska border still had strong feelings against draft dodgers now, in 1997, how had recently returned Vietnam veterans felt in 1972?

Maybe April had been the intended target that day. Blake could have walked in on a man who had nothing against him, but had come to sexually assault the attractive young woman. Could it have been a man who had first seen her at The Sluice Box? Hunter was sure he wasn’t the only one who wanted to get to know her better that summer. Maybe the carefree hippie chick had laughed off the man’s advances and he’d been enraged by the rejection and jealous of Blake?

It was also possible that Blake had been in a dispute with another trapper in the area. Hunter tried to recall other instances of territorial disputes between trappers or prospectors. He was convinced that in some cases, these disputes had never come to light. Men in those dangerous, solitary occupations in remote wilderness areas might disappear for any number of reasons and not be missed for months or years, if ever. Bodies in the river, or scavenged and scattered by animals, buried in snow or decaying in a remote part of the wilderness, never seen again. How many missing people in Alaska and the Canadian north had been searched for and never found, and how many more had never even been reported missing? He guessed there had been many.

“Orville?” The old man’s eyes were closed, but his features were not relaxed enough to suggest he was asleep, although his head swayed slightly with the movement of the vehicle. “You awake?”

One eye opened and the beard bobbed in a nod. “I am.”

“Did you ever get into a territory dispute with another trapper?”

The old man’s whiskers spread in a smile and he shook his head. “Come now, officer. Your cover was blown, or have you forgotten?”

“It’s not what you think. I’ve given up on getting a confession out of you.” Hunter returned the smile. “Here’s what I’m after. A man disappeared from his cabin back in 1972. Looked like his body had been dragged out of the cabin by a grizzly, but indications are that he was either gravely injured or already dead before the grizzly showed up. We never found a body so we have no way of knowing what the cause of death might have been, but we have reason to believe that he was killed by another man. Why would another man have come to a trapper’s base camp inside his concession with intent to harm?”

Orville nodded three or four times, slowly. “I see.”

“One of the possible theories is that a trap line dispute ended in murder. Based on your experience as a trapper, does that sound plausible to you?”

“Most men in the north abide by an unwritten code of ethics, so to speak. But there are thieves and scoundrels in every line of work, I expect, and you’ve probably seen your share.”

Hunter nodded.

“If it were me, and I found another man’s traps in my concession, I’d spring the trap and hang it on a nearby tree. If he’s put the trap there by mistake – as you can imagine, it’s easy to get confused about concession boundaries, especially when you’re new to the area – then he’d just pack up his trap and move it back to where it belongs. If he figured he was in the right, he’d reset his trap and we’d have to have a discussion at some point. Now, if some crook were actually stealing fur out of my traps, that would be a different matter entirely. That’s like taking cash out of my pocket, and I’d track the fellow down and make him give me my fur back or else, if you’ll pardon the pun, fur would fly.”

“You’d report him?”

“Some men might go that route.” From the wrinkles in the corners of Orville’s eyes, Hunter assumed a sly smile hid behind the beard. “I prefer a little backwoods diplomacy.”

“So it’s possible such a dispute might escalate to murder.”

“You’re the policeman. You tell me.”

When Hunter didn’t respond immediately, the old man said, “Well?”

“Depends entirely on the men involved, doesn’t it?”

Orville nodded. Again that sly smile. “Would you, sir, if you were a trapper instead of a Mountie?”

“Would I what?”

“Murder someone over money, or its equivalent?”

Hunter didn’t have to think about it. It was a topic that he had discussed with fellow Mounties many times in the past over a beer or two or three. “No.”

“You sound pretty sure of that. When would you? Murder someone, I mean?”

“I don’t think murder is the right word. I would kill someone if it was necessary in order to keep him from taking someone else’s life. If someone dear to me was in immediate danger –” He imagined one of his daughters, Janice or Lesley, being threatened or attacked and his muscles tensed at the mere thought. “– I wouldn’t hesitate to kill.” He took a deep breath and tried to relax. It took him a few seconds to ask, “How about you?”

“We’re much the same, you and I. But I think your question really should be, if someone did come to the trapper’s cabin with intent to harm, as you put it, was there something more at stake than a few furs on a trap line?”

“Could be.” Hunter nodded his head thoughtfully. Something more at stake. Funny how he used to tell himself that April’s welfare was what caused the mystery of the bloody cabin to gnaw at him over the years. Here she was, alive and well, and he still hadn’t lost his obsession to solve the case.

Betty was a little unsteady on her feet, but she figured it was from being confined in bed, not to mention lack of decent food since she left Eagle. She shook off Goldie’s arm as soon as she got her balance. “I’m not crippled,” she said, and added,”–just hungry. I could use a mug of tea and a good breakfast.”

Goldie stood in front of the door, blocking her way out of the room. Betty and Hootie both stood facing her, itching to get out. “I have to tell you something, Gran.”

“Well, what is it? I don’t want to hang around here any longer than I have to.”

The girl jerked her head in the direction of the outer door. “My mother is out there. I need you to sit down with her – with us – and I want you and her to answer my questions. You both owe it to me, and whichever one of you refuses to give me the answers I’m entitled to –.” She chewed on her lip before continuing. “Well, let’s just say I’ll know which one of you cares about me and which one just cares about herself.”

Betty felt her anger rising and was on the verge of saying, ‘After all I’ve done for you,’ but thought better of it. Her mouth went dry. Whatever was meant to happen would happen. The child deserved to know.

“Step away, child.” As Betty pushed past Goldie, she motioned toward Hootie. “Take him out the back door so he can do what he needs. Maybe your young friend can look after him. They don’t want dogs in here.”

When Goldie didn’t move right away, she added, “Go. Go on. Take the dog out the back.” She watched the girl grab the dog’s ruff and lead him toward the back exit, then she turned and, steadying herself on the wall, walked out to the waiting room.

“April,” she said.

The woman stood up as Betty entered the room. Her immediate appearance was quite unlike the way she’d looked last time Betty saw her, as if April had returned disguised as an older woman, but there was no mistaking that face and its similarity to her daughter’s.

“So, how are you now?” Betty asked.

“I’m well, Betty. How are you?”

“No. I said, how are you
now
? What kind of mother are you? Last time we met, you were not a good mother.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve always been a good mother. I have three other children besides Goldie. I’ve raised them well and we’re a very close family.”

“Maybe now you are a good mother. You weren’t for Goldie. Not then.”

April’s face clouded. “That’s not how I remember it. You’re trying to excuse what you did. Why didn’t you answer my letters?”

Betty softened her voice and stepped closer to the woman, looking deep into her eyes. Her eyes were troubled, not just angry. Betty reached for April’s cheek as if to lay her hand against it, but slowly drew it away again. “I’m not putting blame on you. You weren’t fit for life in the north. You weren’t strong enough. You never got over being beaten, and you didn’t like the hard work it takes to survive in the bush.” She shook her head. “You were a flower child, not a bush woman.”

“I should have taken her with me.”

Betty shook her head again. “I made it hard for you. No. I made it
easy
for you
not
to take her. You were glad when I said I’d keep her.”

“Glad for her sake, maybe. I didn’t know if my car would still be where I left it, or how hard the trip would be on her, or even for sure where I was going.”

“That’s what you want to believe. The truth is that your nerves were bad and you had no patience with her.”

There was a sudden hard edge to April’s voice. “I know very well what the truth is. You wanted a baby of your own so you kept her. You’ve had her to yourself for almost twenty-four years and I will not – I will
not
– discourage her from coming home to Oregon with me.”

Betty glanced at the front door. “She’ll be here soon.” She took a deep breath and stood as tall as her aching body would allow. “I will not fight you for her. She is a grown woman now and she can choose what to do with her life. Just promise me you will make this day easy for her, whatever she chooses.”

The door opened, and they both turned to see Goldie enter the room. Goldie’s worried eyes moved from Betty to her mother and back again, but no one spoke. They heard voices from outside, then behind Goldie a young couple with two small children entered the clinic. All three women stayed silent as they watched the young mother settle her children on either side of her chair while the young father rang the bell at the reception desk.

Goldie directed a small, uncertain smile at April, then at Betty, and said, “We better go find someplace else to talk.”

“Call me Al, Danny.”

Big Al was Sorry’s new boss. He was a beefy, clean-looking dude with round pink cheeks and an early Beatles hair style. Using the name Danny was, in Sorry’s opinion, the first strike against him. Other than that, so far Dan Sorenson liked his new boss, but it was only his first day on the job. It was easy to like a guy who seemed to like you back, he thought.
I guess I haven’t fucked up yet.

Sorry made the effort to arrive on time. Mo had barely said a word, but she was watching him closely as he got ready to leave, even made him scrambled eggs and toast and handed him a bag lunch. When he got to the warehouse in Newton, the boss invited him into his office and offered him a fresh coffee. The guy had made him fill out some paperwork, just so it was official that Sorry was on the payroll and could drive the company truck, then Al had quickly gone over what he expected from his driver. Stuff like he should dress professionally – Sorry’s clean jeans and new blue tee shirt seemed to meet the criteria – be on time for work, be polite to the customers, obey traffic regulations. All the usual bullshit.

The preliminaries were over quickly because there was work to be done, deliveries to make. Sorry’s new employer was a plumbing, heating and electrical supplies wholesaler that distributed wholesale orders to contractors and retailers all around the Lower Mainland of Vancouver.