Down River (17 page)

“Absolutely. At least I did better than when that moose rose from the lake. Mitch, I’m sure this is the place, right here, where I went in.”

“Yeah. I can tell from the smashed vegetation and scraped lichens where I shoved the kayak up and down. Did anything come to you?”

“Just the magnetism of the river. I really think, if someone stared into it long enough, it makes you feel you’re moving with it—or want to be.”

“Yes, I can see that. You can get almost dizzy. But
are you certain that’s not what happened to you? Stand right there a moment and remember once and for all,” he said, stepping behind her.

Reluctantly, she turned to look at the fabulous but fearsome river again. Although Mitch stood behind her, just like whoever had pushed her, with him here, she was not afraid.

“I couldn’t hear anyone because of the roar, because I was fascinated,” she said over her shoulder, raising her voice to be heard. “I was remembering when I lost Mother and Jani, but I did not leap toward it. If I wanted to jump in, I would have gone down this bank, gotten closer first. Mitch,” she said, turning to face him, “I have wavered on this, I know I have. You have, too, wondering what really happened. Like Ginger, I hit my head—the shock of the water…But I
was
pushed, and I’m going to find out who did it.”

“I’m with you. I always have been on this.”

“I need your help. Even if the sheriff says we have to stay here a few days longer until the autopsy results are finalized, we don’t have much time. I’ve got to do something to make someone come to the surface.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Maybe I could tell Vanessa I think Jonas pushed me in—divide and conquer, swear her to secrecy. Maybe tell him just the opposite. But then Vanessa and Jonas might both tell Graham I’m trying to play one against the other—which would be true. Let’s see what the coroner and sheriff say about Ginger. If it’s murder, we’ll tell him what happened to me and let
him take over, though that would be the end of me at the law firm. But this has become more important, when I never thought anything could be. Alaska and your love for it have helped me to put things in perspective.”

“It means everything to hear you say that. I’d like to think you could forgive me for leaving you the way I did. And remember about feathered feet—just don’t let them get wet.”

“I
finally got some sleep,” Lisa told Christine the next morning. She poured herself a glass of orange juice as Christine set the breakfast table. “I guess I was too wound up before, because I’ve been exhausted ever since I—I fell in the river.”

“
Iah,
emotional exhaustion’s awful. You’re so tired, but your mind keeps going. So, if you need a jolt of carbs, I bought some muffins and rolls while we were in Talkeetna,” she said, arranging some on a plate. “Still, nothing’s going to replace Ginger. One of a kind.”

“For sure. When my grandmother, who also made great baked goods, died, I couldn’t bear to bake for the longest time, though she’d taught me everything I know about that, and I loved to do it. As for Ginger being unique, it seems most things and people in Alaska are one of a kind.”

Christine nodded at that, her eyes sparkling with approval. “You’re still black and blue,” she observed. “You ought to use the sauna like Jonas has since he got hurt. Good for what ails you.”

“I’ve been meaning to. I’m sure it would help, but I’ve just been so busy and distracted. I will later today. I guess after the memorial service for Ginger, we’re all going ziplining. Have you done it? I never have.”

“Sure. Good for clearing out the cobwebs and lifting the soul. In Ginger’s honor, I’ll do it today if it’s okay with Mitch.”

“You two are a good team here at the lodge,” Lisa said.

“With Spike, a trio. Look, I got something to tell you, ’cause Mitch said I should.”

Lisa put her glass down. With her empty tray in front of her, Christine sat across the table, so Lisa sat, too. What was coming next? A confession about something? She sensed some sort of warning in the air.

“Don’t think I believe all this old lore,” Christine said, keeping her voice low, “but I got to tell you about a legend, the kind of story my people call
suktus.
A lot of the old tales have the same hero, but he’s really evil, a trickster, the raven, called
chulyen.
”

“An evil hero?”

Christine nodded. “Raven gets away with everything in the stories—lying, conning people, stealing, even murder. And the stories, to teach our children to beware of two-faced people, all end with something like, ‘the raven was very wise but very crooked.’”

“But I don’t see—”

“You and Mitch watch all the others. If I note it, someone else might, too. You’re studying their faces, how they act. You are both trying to see who did something very crooked, but remember, raven is also wise, so you must be careful.”

Lisa glanced around the room. No one else in sight yet. This woman was in earnest. She was warning her because she cared, maybe only for Mitch, but she cared. Christine wanted to help not harm; Lisa felt that to the very marrow of her bones. Mitch knew and trusted Christine, and he knew her much better than Lisa ever would.

Before she even realized just how much she’d come to trust Christine, she told her in a low, urgent voice, “I was pushed in the river. I didn’t just fall in.”

Christine’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “And maybe Ginger was pushed, too?” she whispered. “Spike still doesn’t believe she fell.”

“About Ginger—I don’t know. But I’m asking you to tell no one what I said right now—even Spike—but to keep your eyes open. I see you do that, too.”

“I can tell you one thing. I overheard Vanessa tell Mr. Bonner you screamed and screamed your dead mother’s name when you found Ginger’s body.”

“I knew it! I did not, but she—”

“Sorry to interrupt.” A man’s voice came from the kitchen as the door opened. Spike walked in. “Thought I’d find you in here, Christine. Hi, Lisa. Is everyone going with us for the memorial today?”

Christine stood, went over to Spike and took his
hand to tug him over to the table. “Yes, to the ziplining platform, like you suggested. They may all be gone when we have the funeral service in Bear Bones, and they want to pay their respects before they leave.”

“Good morning, everyone.” Ellie’s voice resounded as she came downstairs. “Oh, Spike, I didn’t know you were here yet. We are all so deeply sorry for your loss,” she added, looking as if she would cry.

“I know you understand, Mrs. Bonner,” Spike said as Christine put a cup of coffee into his hands and poured one for Ellie. “I remember on our flightseeing tour to Wasilla, you told me how proud you are of your brother, how you’d hate bad press like what happened to our governor. Christine, Mrs. Bonner’s younger brother’s big in Florida politics and is probably going to be a secretary of something or other in the new administration in Washington.”

“Yes, I’m so proud of Merritt,” Ellie said. “Who knows how high he can climb, and he began as a lawyer in our firm. And you are so right, Spike. My closeness to my ‘little’ brother, my only sibling, makes me sympathize with the loss of your sister. I think a memorial service she would have liked is a lovely idea, and Graham and I are honored to be a part of it.”

The others filtered downstairs: Jonas, still limping slightly; Vanessa, dressed all in black, even to her jewelry, as if she were in formal mourning; then
Graham and Mitch, who came downstairs together talking about something. Everyone took their places at the table.

Christine had just carried family-style plates of eggs benedict, sausage and bacon from the kitchen when there was a knock at the front door. Before anyone could answer, it opened, and silence fell in the room. As if he were a harbinger of doom, in full uniform with a paper in his hand, Sheriff Mace Moran walked in the doorway.

Mitch jumped up and went to greet the sheriff.

“Sorry my timing’s so lousy,” he told Mitch, shaking his hand and glancing over his shoulder in the expectant hush. “I asked Sam Collister to expedite the findings on Ginger Jackson, and he did. Got the results right here.”

“Would you like to go upstairs to use my office, just tell Spike first?” Mitch asked. Not a murmur or a clink of dishes came from the table behind them as everyone obviously strained to listen.

“It will soon be public knowledge anyway. The local paper’s already been asking, and a Fairbanks reporter in town to cover the festival wants the story. Mitch, when I hauled Gus Majors in again—”

“A second time? After yesterday?”

“Yeah, early this morning. Thought maybe he’d crack, but he didn’t. I swear he only told me you represented him after I had another go at him.”

Spike rose from the table and came over. “Is this
about my sister?” he asked the sheriff, pointing to the paper in his hand.

“Yes, Mr. Jackson, it is. The coroner’s report is inconclusive about whether or not it might have been foul play.”

“Foul play—a stupid way to put it,” Spike insisted, balling up his fists at his sides. “It sounds like a mistake in baseball, not a cold-blooded murder.”

At that, Graham and Jonas came over with Ellie and Lisa right behind, followed by Vanessa and Christine.

“Those are the findings, Mr. Jackson. It wasn’t a cold-blooded murder or any murder.”

“You want me or Spike to read the ruling, Sheriff? Or will you?” Mitch asked.

The sheriff cleared his throat, glanced down at the paper and said, “According to Dr. Samuel Collister, coroner, Ginger Jackson died of asphyxiation—lack of oxygen—not drowning per se.”

“But she was in the water!” Spike protested. “You don’t mean she was strangled?”

“No, not at all,” the sheriff said. “Actually, Doc Collister said it’s called a dry drowning. Her lungs were dry because she’d had a—” he glanced down at the paper again “—a laryngeal spasm, which kept water from entering. The doc says about fifteen percent of drownings are like that. It’s no doubt why she stayed so buoyant in the water—air in her lungs.”

Mitch shook his head, remembering how Ginger had looked below the surface, moving, shifting. No
wonder Lisa had nightmares about her own mother and sister’s deaths, because Ginger’s haunted him.

“She did have a head injury to the back of the skull,” the sheriff said, “but that’s consistent with her hitting her head on the dock or boat when she fell in. No doubt, it disoriented her, may have almost knocked her out.”

“But,” Lisa said, “no one saw any blood on the dock or boat, right? I didn’t, and I sat there a while.”

“Right,” the sheriff said, sounding annoyed and frowning at her. “But I figure, if she fell right in, she may not have bled right away, then the water washed away whatever there was on her skull. Obviously, the heart stops pumping at death, so bleeding stops, too. But hemorrhaging was found in the sinuses and airways,” the sheriff went on, then paused. “You sure you want this read aloud, Mr. Jackson?”

“Go ahead. Dry drownings don’t make sense to me, but we’re loaded with lawyers here.”

“The hemorrhaging means she was conscious when she entered the water and struggled to breathe,” the sheriff said, looking more nervous after the reference to a lot of lawyers. He spoke more deliberately and slowly, as if that would clarify his explanation. “She sucked in water and her larynx spasmed, so indirectly the water still caused her death. The blow to her head could have incapacitated her from getting back up for air. She had tiny plants and lake-bottom debris under her fingernails but nothing else—nothing to show she’d struggled with a person, that is.”

“But depending how long she was in the water, that trace evidence, like the blood, could have been washed away,” Lisa argued, despite the fact Ellie put a restraining hand on her arm. “Did the coroner calculate a time of death?”

“Only within a big time frame that takes in the hours she had all those visitors. He recorded the time he pronounced her as the time of death—perfectly legal. Lastly, I surmise that, as she tried to kick to get herself back up to the surface, she snagged her leg in the anchor chain, and that was the last—the last straw. I’m very sorry, Mr. Jackson, Mitch, everyone, but at least we can now close this inquiry as a freak accident and not something else that needs to be pursued. End of story.”

End of story for Ginger, Mitch thought, but what about for Lisa? If they had proof she had been pushed, they would lobby for Ginger’s case to be reopened. But now that everyone could still leave in forty-eight hours, was it end of story once again for him and Lisa? Worse, if someone had meant to kill her here in the Alaska wilds, away from the Fort Lauderdale police and gung ho Broward County prosecutors and D.A.s, the murderer’s time was also running out.

The mourners for Ginger’s memorial service walked along a cross-country ski path through a pine-scented forest, with Spike leading and Mitch bringing up the rear. Mitch had explained to everyone that the
steel cable zipline began at a high point from a tree platform, built in a sturdy Sitka spruce, and ended over a thousand feet away. It crossed through a treetop canopy, above a small, subalpine meadow and a white-water stream that fed the river before bringing the rider back down to earth about fifty feet from the river itself. He had promised it would be exhilarating but not exhausting, and assured them that they could control their own speed using thick gloves that would protect their hands from burns and slow them when necessary.

“You feel really free when riding it,” Spike had said before they’d set out. “Anyone who wants to do it in Ginger’s honor today, that’s fine. If not—no problem.”

No problem—that was a good one, Lisa thought. She’d had nothing but problems since she’d arrived at the lodge, yet she understood that Spike was trying to be certain no one would be accident-prone today.

Christine walked at Spike’s side, silent but supportive. Ellie and Graham came next, as the path was only wide enough for two, then Vanessa and Jonas—who forgot to limp at times, Lisa noted. She walked next to Mitch.

“I see the steel cable overhead,” she told him, looking up. “The last one of those I rode didn’t just cross a stream but the river.”

“And you handled that really well. But, as Spike said, don’t zipline if you don’t want to. I came over early today to check it out—rode it myself—but
don’t do it if you have the slightest qualm. And Jonas, with your strained back and neck, don’t you dare try it.”

Lisa saw Mitch’s firm mouth quirk up in the corner. He was subtly goading Jonas. So did Mitch believe his former protégé wasn’t really hurt either? And if Jonas had lied about that, what else was he covering up?

They stood in a circle under the elevated platform for a moment of silence, then the usually reticent Spike spoke about his sister’s life and loves—her home, her baking, ziplining, her dreams about buying “pretty things.” He also spoke about how sure-footed she was, though he admitted, with a glance at Christine, that everyone, sooner or later, slipped up in life one way or another.

Christine talked about Ginger’s strength. “To be maimed for life as a child, but to still remain one of the most independent women I ever knew.”

Mitch explained how he had to practically force Ginger to accept a salary for tending the zipline and for helping him with guests riding it, because “she considered the fun and freedom of riding it payment enough.”

Vanessa recounted how proud Ginger was of her cabin and kitchen.

Lisa, with tears in her eyes and a catch in her voice, took her turn. “As terrible as it was to find her in the water, she seemed at peace. She was calmly rocking in the lake she must have loved, somehow at one with nature.”

“Exactly,” Ellie added. “Although I did not see her in the water, from all of your descriptions, that’s the way I pictured her—eternally at peace, rocked to sleep in the beautiful setting she loved.”

“I’m real grateful to you,” Spike said, turning to Ellie. “For giving her the extra money and saying there would even be more. I don’t mind telling everyone what the Bonners suggested I keep secret. They asked to pay for her funeral and burial, now that her body’s being released. I’m going to pick out a real nice wood coffin for her.”

That generosity hardly surprised those who worked for the Bonners. Graham nodded, and Ellie, with tears in her eyes, went on. “I must share with everyone that I have a favorite painting, but I hesitated to bring the copy of it I ran off yesterday on Mitch’s printer. The original is hanging at the Tate Museum in London, a serene, lovely painting called
Ophelia.
In case you don’t know, she was a character who drowned in Shakespeare’s tragedy
Hamlet,
but let me describe the painting. She lies so calmly, cradled by the water, looking up, surrounded by tree limbs and boughs hanging over her. Flowers float in the water. I think it would be lovely if we cast some flowers in the lake in Ginger’s honor. Well, I didn’t mean to get carried away, but I will think of her that way, at rest, in peace.”