Down River (13 page)

“Primitive beliefs are always interesting,” Vanessa said, trailing a hand in the water, “but both Christine and Mitch kind of overdid it with the dramatics—him comparing the lights to guilty people hiding something and her with that death-in-the-sky stuff. You’d think we were all sitting around some campfire telling chainsaw-murder or ghost stories. By the way,
good old Gus sharpens chainsaws for a living—did you know that? Keep an eye on him if there’s some massacre up here.”

Lisa narrowed her eyes and pulled harder on the oars. Once again, was Vanessa just mouthing off because of her disdain for this backwoods place, or was there something hidden in her language? Subtle threats? Freudian slips? Lisa hoped she wasn’t back to being just plain paranoid, slipping back into her old fears where her nightmares used to merge with reality.

She was rowing into small waves now, but at least it would be easier going home—back to the lodge, that is. They would volunteer to take Ginger’s breakfast goods back for her, if that would help. If she could get Vanessa to carry some things to this boat, she’d have a moment alone with Ginger.

“So,” Lisa said to try another topic, “what did you find interesting about Ginger when you visited her earlier?”

“Ellie came back all enamored of how quaint her place was, but it’s a log cabin, for heaven’s sake. Young Abe Lincoln would have been happy there.”

“And you’ve never seen someone living in such primitive conditions?”

“Is that a comment about my past?”

“Vanessa, get over it. I am not attacking you, just defending Ginger.”

“These people are all eccentrics here. It wouldn’t hurt them to be a little more…more…”

“Modern?”

“Mainstream. Talk about Clint Eastwood’s old westerns. Ginger and probably others are living it. Sourdough bread starter rising in big bowls, not only a Ben Franklin potbellied stove, but a wood-burning cookstove. See that smoke coming out of the chimney there?”

Lisa turned around and looked in the direction they were going. Yes, a plume of smoke rose from a line of tall Sitka spruce where Vanessa pointed. And aloft, far above that, where she’d love to see the aurora lights, at least three huge raptors soared on the thermals. She turned around and pulled harder against the rising wind and waves now showing wisps of whitecaps.

They could see Ginger’s motorboat bobbing, tied to the short dock, one that could be rolled out of the water when the lake iced up. Spike’s plane was tied up at the very end of that dock. Ginger wasn’t in sight unless the plane hid her. Lisa put their boat in on the other side of the dock, across from the empty motorboat. Vanessa finally did something helpful by getting out and tying the rope from the prow around a metal post.

Lisa climbed out, and they both looked down into Ginger’s boat. They must have caught her in the middle of loading. Two plastic-covered trays of baked goods were in the bottom of the boat, with probably more to come.

“She’s obviously just running late,” Vanessa said,
starting up the dock, with Lisa behind her, “but what does it matter since it’s light so late? She could bring that breakfast stuff over in a couple of hours with no problem. Oh, yeah, you asked what I found most interesting about Ginger Jackson? She’s living in the past except for one thing. She’s got mail-order catalogs all over the place, I kid you not.”

“I doubt if she shops online, unless she uses the Internet at the lodge, but maybe she shops by mail.”

“The point is they are luxe catalogs, Lisa. Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, Dean and Deluca—I don’t know what else, but there’s not one thing in sight to say she ever buys from them.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hey, Ginger! Ginger! Christine sent us over to see if you need any help with the bakery things for breakfast.”

Lisa saw the cabin was shaped similar to Spike’s but was a bit smaller. Spike had all the modern conveniences, but this definitely seemed more primitive. A small shed, also of logs, was just beyond the back corner. “She doesn’t use an outhouse, does she?” Lisa whispered as they went up onto the porch.

“Thank heavens, it’s not that bad. Ellie said she has a composting toilet just like the ones at the lodge. Leave it to Ellie to have to use the ladies’ room while she was here. I’m pretty sure she ordered a lot of stuff from Ginger. I saw she took a couple of hundred dollars with her, no less, but maybe some of it was charity. You know bleeding-heart Ellie—excuse me, I mean philanthropist and humanitarian.”

“Ginger!” Lisa called out, choosing to ignore Vanessa’s subtle dig at Ellie. Vanessa sounded bitter about everything lately. So was that a mere step away from actually doing something rash?

They peeked in the two windows fronting the lake. The cabin itself couldn’t be seen from the lodge, but it wasn’t set too far back in the trees. Lisa realized she’d feel a whole lot better knowing Mitch could see them, even at a distance.

No sound. No Ginger. This would alarm everyone at the lodge. They’d have to go back, then send Spike or Mitch over. A winding road made a long drive from the lodge, but at least it was accessible. Vanessa had said Ginger didn’t drive and relied on Spike’s plane to land on the river or ice to keep her supplied in the winter. Lisa shuddered as if a cold breeze had hit her. The trees were shifting.

The door wasn’t locked so they went in. “Ginger?” Lisa called. The main room smelled wonderfully of baked goods, yeasty and rich. Lisa recalled coming home from school, when Grandma always had milk and some treat waiting for her. They saw many items—even loaves of bread—laid out on the table, nicely wrapped in colored cellophane and labeled.

“This can’t all be for the lodge breakfast,” Vanessa said.

“Mitch told me she’s been baking for that Mountain Mother Festival we’re going to in Talkeetna—to sell things there.”

“See what I mean about the catalogs?” Vanessa
asked, pointing to one open on the end of the table as if Ginger had just left the room for a moment. “Look, she’s even circled some things in red pen—luxury linen sheets and down pillows at…two hundred bucks a crack, no less. Talk about fantasy island!”

They looked in the bedroom, even under the bed and in the closet, then in the bathroom. “So, where’s the phone?” Lisa asked. “Maybe we should call the lodge.”

“No phone. I’m telling you, we’re back to pioneer days here. She has what she calls a root garden in a clearing she insisted on showing me. I’ll just look to be sure she’s not there. You check the shed, and I’ll meet you at the boat, pronto. Actually, with this wind kicking up, I’m not sure I tied our boat that tight and we don’t need Ginger’s pulling away from the dock.”

“All right,” Lisa said, then realized she’d broken her promise to Mitch not to be alone. She hurried to the shed, fully expecting it to be unlocked. It was. Holding her breath, standing back a ways, she pulled the door open. She saw a snowmobile that must get Ginger around in the winter. Also rakes, hoes, spades—and in plastic bins, stacks and stacks of more catalogs. Those reminded Lisa of the legal briefs piled up on her desk when she was a lowly associate.

Shaking her head, she closed the door and hurried down to the lake to check the boat lines and turn their prow outward. Yes, it was going to be much
easier rowing back with the wind. They had to hurry, get help to search for Ginger. Was this the way people had panicked when they realized she and Mitch were missing? So much for her big question for Ginger. She’d wanted to ask if she’d seen anything strange the day she was pushed, someone other than her or Mitch walking the ridge path.

Lisa knelt on the shifting dock to turn their rowboat prow out, then refastened its rope and moved across the dock to be sure Ginger’s motorboat was fastened securely. It had pulled away a bit. Should she take the baked goods out, in case it rained or water from the waves splashed in?

The motorboat bumped the dock, then shifted away from it. Lisa heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Vanessa come running toward the dock, yelling, “Didn’t see her!”

Lisa looked down to try to hold Ginger’s boat steady while she tightened its tie to the dock. She saw the anchor chain was over the side, so at least it wasn’t going to drift away even if the rope loosened.

And then, below the surface, she glimpsed what at first she thought was her own reflection, broken by the waves.

A scream shredded the air—her scream. Through the shifting, swirling water etched by foam, her mother’s face stared up at her, hair waving, hand bobbing and beckoning, green eyes wide, mouth moving to say, “Come to me, Lisa, come to me…”

L
isa’s long scream seemed to release her terror. This was not a nightmare, not her mother.
Dear God, help us, it’s Ginger!

“What is it?” Vanessa shouted as she ran down the dock. Wordlessly, Lisa pointed into the water. Vanessa bent down to look and gasped. “Should we pull her up?” she choked out as she fell to her knees beside Lisa.

“Accident? Crime scene? We can’t tamper…” Lisa muttered.

“Right. Maybe the authorities can glean something from this, but to leave her in the lake…I can’t believe I just saw her earlier today. Poor Spike. We have to get help. One of us has to stay here and the other get help even if Mitch said we should stick together.”

“I—I only screamed because it was such a shock.”

“Lisa, you were screaming for your mother!”

“I was not!” she insisted, but it was no time to argue. She dragged her gaze from Ginger’s face. “I
think I know a way we don’t have to leave her and can get them here.” At least she was thinking clearly now. Yes, she had a plan.

“Like what? Smoke signals from the chimney? We can’t just gesture from the end of the dock, because their view of us is blocked by the plane,” Vanessa pointed out.

“When we were in the wilds, Mitch told me the sign for getting help. I just need to get up on the plane.”

“On it? You might fall in, too. Ginger must have slipped and hit her head while she was loading her boat. But the way she’s still moving—eyes open—it’s horrible.”

Determined to make up for her initial reaction—had she screamed for her mother, because how could Vanessa have made that up?—Lisa stood on shaking legs and walked to the end of the dock. The plane was bobbing more than ever, but if she was careful, she could step onto a pontoon and get a handhold near the door and climb. Besides, she had to prove to herself she was not afraid of falling into water. After her nearly fatal river ride, it was like getting back on a horse. She’d swum in the ocean after her family died. She had to do this now.

She leaped onto the nearest pontoon of Spike’s plane and grabbed a door handle. It was already a rocky ride. She couldn’t believe this so-called bonding experience the Bonners had planned. First, someone pushed her in the river, then Jonas fell off the
sled, but this—this muted all that by comparison, though she herself could very well have been the corpse floating faceup in the water.

She began to tremble, but she started to climb. The wing was supported by a metal strut. She stepped onto that and grasped the edge of the wing. She shifted her weight and clung to the body of the plane. With one foot on the strut, she belly-crawled up onto the nose near the outside of the windshield, holding on by grabbing the ridge that held the recessed wipers. The plane’s metallic finish was sleek and cold. She slipped, hitting her chin so hard she bit her tongue and tasted bitter blood.

Blood, bruises, death by drowning. It would have been enough to make her flee this rugged land, but now something inside her had changed. The challenge of it spurred her on.

She felt almost nauseous—from the rocking or from her grim discovery in the lake—but she’d have to stand to be sure she was seen. What if they weren’t watching right now? She had to hold the position with both arms raised in a
V,
as Mitch had said. Two arms up means: need help. Like a baby raising its arms to its mother—pick me up and hold me. Mother, holding little Lani in her arms…No, don’t think of that again. One arm up meant no help needed, like a wave goodbye.

“Lisa, be careful!” Vanessa shouted, still kneeling on the dock above where Ginger had gone in. Fallen in? Pushed in? By whom? Maybe the same person who tried to kill her.

Lisa tried not to look down at the whitecapped waves. The water kept rolling under the plane as if it were going to take off. This was like walking the edge of a wave, as if the width of the shiny wing was a surf-board to ride the water. She could not fall, not go in again. No Mitch to save her this time. It wasn’t the Wild River, but she didn’t want to hit her head and become a second body in the lake.

Balancing, bending her knees to take the rocking, glad she wore her old pair of rubber-soled shoes, she held up both arms in a
V,
at first shakily, then strongly.
V
for victory, if they saw her. If not, should they move Ginger, haul her up?

Picturing one of those old wing walkers from the pioneering days of aviation, she held her stance as long as she could, then dropped to her knees and grabbed the edge of the wing again. But from here it might be worse to get down than it was to get up.

“Could you see anything from there?” Vanessa shouted. “Maybe we should row out in our boat a ways and do it from there. I think this anchor chain’s wrapped around her somehow. It seems taut, but when I try to move it, she floats up.”

With a shudder at that description, Lisa squinted down the lake to see if a boat was coming. Nothing. Nothing moving but the marching waves. Should she try to stand and make the
V
again?

As she pulled herself into a kneeling position to try once more, Vanessa shouted, “I just wish her eyes weren’t open, like she’s watching me!”

Lisa tried to shut out those words as she got up from her sore knees and signaled for help again.

Blessedly, within ten minutes after Lisa made it back to the dock, they heard the hum of a motor. Vanessa ran along the shore, waving her white jacket.

“They must have seen you!” she cried to Lisa, who refused to leave Ginger alone and sat on the dock with her hand steadying the anchor chain. “A boat with at least three people in it! I’m pretty sure one of them’s Spike—he’s tall! I think it’s Christine with Spike and Mitch!”

Lisa fought to stay calm though thoughts bombarded her. How she wished she’d had the chance to question Ginger about what she’d seen the day someone shoved her in the river. Poor Ginger with her rough life and posh dreams—all those magazines she, no doubt, could not afford one thing from, especially since she was saving to pay her brother back for the wood he’d cut for her over the years. All those baked goods sitting in the kitchen, as if she’d prepared them not for the lodge or the Mountain Woman Festival but for her own funeral.

The motorboat wheeled around the plane and came to the side of the dock where they’d put their rowboat. The two men had brought Christine with them. Poor Spike, poor Ginger. All hell was about to break loose.

Lisa glanced down one more time at Ginger in the water, rocked by the lake she must have loved, her
face partly obscured by darkening water and waves.
Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face-to-face,
their minister had read at Grandma’s funeral service. Now Lisa had to see through the facade someone had built to find and face down who had pushed her in the river—and, if this wasn’t an accident—who had done this.

As another Alaska twilight set in, Christine comforted Spike on the dock while Vanessa and Lisa sat on rocks on the shore. Mitch had taken the boat back to the lodge to call the sheriff in Talkeetna. Christine didn’t like Sheriff Moran coming, but she was heart-broken for Spike and would stick tight to do what she could. Ginger’s death would leave a big hole in his heart she would try to fill.

Spike was crying unashamedly, and she was scared he was going to haul Ginger’s body up despite Mitch telling him not to. The three lawyers had agreed they shouldn’t even go back into Ginger’s house. To determine if there had been foul play, they would need to give evidence, the cabin would have to be fingerprinted and, since Ginger had several visitors today, a lot of prints eliminated. Remembering the police investigation that had swallowed her up, Christine frowned as she rubbed her right hand hard against her denim skirt.

With her other, she held Spike’s. He stared down at his sister in the water. But, she thought, what if some of those prints in Ginger’s cabin shouldn’t be
eliminated? What if Gus had gone back to talk to her yet again, after the visit he’d mentioned to Mitch in Bear Bones, after Mrs. Bonner and Vanessa had been there? Ginger and Gus were like oil and water together, and Christine knew where that could lead.

“I can’t believe it,” Spike said, swiping at his face with his jacket sleeve. “I tried to take care of her, special care because of her bad hand. I’ll get whoever did this.”

“Spike, she was loading things in the boat. Maybe she fell—”

“Loading things like she’d done five hundred times before with no problems—in all sorts of weather? I don’t care if she was handicapped and the wind picked up, she was sure-footed. I promised my mother on her deathbed I’d take care of her.”

“You did. All that firewood, the supplies, the visits. She really appreciated it, loved you.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no one left who loves me anymore.”

“I know the feeling.”

He sniffed and nodded. He wasn’t staring down into the water now, but still had a hard hold of the anchor chain. Christine knew that Vanessa and Lisa had been holding it, too, so would all their fingerprints be on that, if it was a kind of murder weapon? Would Ginger’s be there, too, as she grabbed at it to stop herself from going in, or would the water have washed all that away? It had been raining the day she shot Clay. She’d thrown the gun out the back door into the mud, but it still had both their prints on it.

She had terrible memories of returning home after the trial and finding smears and smudges of that black graphite fingerprinting powder the police had used. For months after, she felt smeared and smudged with guilt, as if everyone could tell what she’d done.

But now, she only wanted to help Spike, so she told him, “Ginger was saving up money to help you buy fuel from whatever she made at the Mountain Mother Festival this weekend. See, she really appreciated you.”

He sniffed hard. “Saving money for me? She had so little, just dreams. She wouldn’t take more from me. She secretly lived on those fantasies about what she’d buy from those catalogs someday.” He shook his head and glanced up toward the cabin. “No one will want this remote place she loved. I’ll probably have to get a second loan on the plane or borrow from Mitch to even bury her.”

When they let you have the body back, Christine thought, but didn’t say so. Autopsies could take a while and death rulings even longer, at least in Fairbanks. “I’ve got some money squirreled away I’ll give you,” she said.

Spike turned his ravaged face to her and looked deep into her eyes for the first time since he was hitching his dogs to the sleds. “I need your strength,” he said. “I know you’ve been through bad times, Christine. I need your strength.”

She nodded. She would have put her arms around him, but Vanessa shouted from the shore, “Mitch and the sheriff are coming!”

The sheriff had insisted Mitch bring him over by boat. The coroner and two police officers were driving the long way around with an ambulance. Though Mitch had had few dealings with Sheriff Mace Moran, he liked the man, a Gulf War army veteran and native Alaskan. He was a sturdy, compactly built man, still in excellent shape at around age fifty, with silvering hair and a wind-weathered face that made him look older. He was a no-nonsense kind of guy. He wore his uniform, his utility belt and sidearm, but never seemed to flaunt his power.

The small police force of Talkeetna worked their tails off in the summer when the place was filled with tourists—and the town was the jumping-off point for those planning to climb Denali—but in the winter, they dealt mostly with drunks and domestic disturbances. With the Mountain Mother Festival hoopla starting tomorrow, Mitch knew this was not a good time for the sheriff to have to investigate a backwoods drowning.

“So, could she swim?” Moran had been peppering him with questions clear across the lake.

“Never saw her do it. You’ll have to ask Spike. She had one bad hand, but handled her boat really well.”

“You say she had a lot of visitors today—one at a time—some of your people. I’ll need to speak with them, maybe even tonight. Got to get a handle on this fast and be in Talkeetna tomorrow with the crowds. You know what they say about death and taxes, only
you know when taxes are going to hit, but with death…”

Mitch cut the motor to swing around the dock. He was going to just run the prow up on shore this time to keep the dock free for the authorities. He saw Christine and Spike still huddled by Ginger’s boat. At least she’d managed to keep Spike from pulling Ginger out.

“You’ve sure had a lot going on with Lisa Vaughn falling in the river,” the sheriff was saying. “She’s one of the women who found the body, you said. No offense, Mitch, but I’m not real thrilled about having to deal with a pack of lawyers.”

“I’m sure they’ll be savvy and helpful,” Mitch assured him, but he hardly assured himself. He wouldn’t complicate things right now—yet—by telling the sheriff that he and Lisa were covertly investigating her near drowning and hypothermia as attempted murder. If the sheriff knew, he could blow things wide open, and whoever had pushed her would go to ground, even more than he or she already had. If Ginger’s death wasn’t an accident, the person they were looking for could have succeeded with a drowning this time.