“Looks like someone tried to jimmy your lock.”
McGinty was silent for a minute and then said, “You get that girl out of there, then, Thor. You see that she’s safe. You tell her she’ll get all her money back from me. No, no, sir. No one has tried to break in on me. But, when I’m there, old Oslo is with me, and no one messes with my dog.”
That was true. Old Oslo was a “chusky”—a new designer mix of a chow and a husky. Oslo was huge; he wasn’t to be messed with.
“Do you need me to come there?” McGinty asked.
“No, sir. Thank you. If I do need you, I’ll call.”
“Don’t hesitate,” McGinty told him.
“I won’t,” Thor promised, and hit the end button.
Someone had been out here—someone might have been here even as they had come driving up to the place.
Just the same as at his family’s property, the backyard disappeared into a forest of trees that, especially during summer, seemed to have a life of their own, intruding on the lawn or yard. Thick and heavy—with a million places to disappear.
But how could someone have gotten out here? Where would they have left a car? There was no snow on the ground so a snowmobile or dogsled couldn’t be stashed anywhere. Some people did have wheeled sleds that they used in summer, keeping their dogs fit. But, if there were dogs, they would hear them. He’d sure as hell never heard a silent dog team.
Logical conclusion: someone had been here. Perhaps they had first tried to jimmy the lock. But that had proved to be unnecessary when Connie Shaw had left the door open.
How would they have known that Connie would be here?
It wasn’t privileged information, but it wasn’t advertised online, either.
When a criminal wanted information, they tended to be good at getting it.
Jackson came walking back from the tree line.
“Anything?” Thor called.
Jackson shook his head with disgust. “If someone was here, that someone heard us when we turned down the road to the house. You’ll know better than me if someone crashed through that pine forest. I went all the way back—there’s a dirt service road out there. I guess it’s used by police or rangers or the trash company? Nothing out there and it doesn’t seem to lead to anything, but there could be a small vehicle back there. I’d have heard a motorcycle, but if someone drifted out of there in Neutral before I was actually into the trees, I wouldn’t have been able to hear them.”
“So, she could be hysterical and nervous because of what she heard, or someone might have been back here,” Thor said, adding quietly, “Which would mean the murderer isn’t just after the women who had to do with the television crew.”
“She can’t stay here, that’s for certain,” Jackson said.
Thor told Jackson about the jimmied lock on the door and his conversation with McGinty.
“No, Connie Shaw can’t stay out here,” Thor agreed. “Not that I think she would now.”
“Let’s try talking to her again,” Jackson suggested.
Clara had gotten Connie Shaw to sit down in the living room. She looked up gratefully when Jackson and Thor arrived. Connie sprang off the couch and flew into Thor’s arms. He disentangled himself gently and sat her back down.
“We’re here. We’re not going to leave you. You’re all right. What I’d like for you to do is tell me when you got here and everything that happened after that,” he said.
“I came in this morning—snagged a ride in on another ship,” Connie said. She looked at Clara. “I should have stopped and met up with you all, but I figured that this might be like...well, you know, like my afternoon! I drove out here about an hour ago—I was in love with the place. It was just what I wanted. I turned the television on and heard what had happened...my mom says I should listen to news and not music all the time! But, I... I had on satellite radio, singing all the way! When I saw the television, I was horrified. My coffee was outside—I saw the deer. Then I thought about how what happened all had to do with Wickedly Weird Productions and I realized that people might be trying to get in touch with me. So I came back inside to get my phone...and that’s when I heard it!”
“Heard what, exactly?” Thor asked.
“The whisper. It sounded as if it was coming from the back windows. Someone was saying my name—saying it all softly and like, like...eerily! ‘Connie... Connnnniiiieee... Connie...Shaw.’ I heard it, I swear I heard it. I was in the bedroom, the back bedroom, where I was going to sleep. I wasn’t imagining it! Then, of course, I realized that the whisper was out there—and that I hadn’t locked the back door! I was flying out to the kitchen when I heard the rap on the door!” Connie said. She stared at them and added quickly, “I need a drink!”
“Did you bring anything?” Clara asked her.
“No!”
“Check the little cabinet above the refrigerator. McGinty usually keeps a bottle of Jack there,” Thor advised her.
“Yes, please, please, I can’t stop shaking!” Connie said.
“You really don’t want to be blitzed right now,” Thor advised.
“Yes, I do!” Connie said.
“No, but one shot...” Thor said, nodding at Clara.
Clara headed into the kitchen. Thor could hear her there, finding the bottle, opening it. Connie kept murmuring about the way the person had been saying her name. “It was creepy, so creepy!”
He heard the rattle of glass, the opening of old man McGinty’s foot-powered trash can.
Clara came back into the room.
She was the color of the snow on Black Bear Island.
But, she set the glass down in front of Connie Shaw and said, “Thor, can I see you in the kitchen for a minute? Just want to—check with you on the bottle. Connie, if you want to wait—”
Too late for that. Connie had swallowed the shot.
“Oh, God, no! You don’t think it was poisoned or anything, do you?” she asked, holding the glass away and staring at it. “They weren’t poisoned...they were strangled. The women from Wickedly Weird. And then cut up. But they weren’t poisoned.”
“No, no, Connie, I just want Thor to make sure I remember right what the label says—so that we can replace it,” Clara said. “Thor?”
He followed her into the kitchen. She was, to her credit, dead calm and not even shaking—despite the fact that she was white as snow—as she pointed to the trash can.
“I didn’t touch it,” she said softly.
He opened the trash can with his foot and looked down. There was only one item inside.
A book page offering a historic photo.
It was laid out at the bottom of the can, carefully placed on the white plastic liner.
It was a photo of an old crime scene.
A woman lay dead in it.
She was barely recognizable as a woman. Even in black and white, it was an image of unspeakable carnage.
Thor closed his eyes for a moment.
He knew the photo; he’d seen a copy in one of the Bureau’s criminology classes—seen it as a PowerPoint image on a large screen.
They’d been studying Jack the Ripper.
The photo laid out in the trash can was that of the body of Mary Kelly, the Ripper’s fifth and last victim, according to most criminologists and Ripperologists.
Mary Kelly had been killed indoors, where the killer had spent time tearing into her, enjoying himself at his leisure.
And the whole of the surface of her abdomen and thighs had been ripped away; her insides had been torn out; her breasts had been removed...
This was just an image, a page taken from a book, he thought. Not ripped out, but carefully cut out. Not crumpled, but smooth and clearly visible.
But someone had put the image in the trash. Someone had been in the house.
r />
Someone had intended, he was certain, for Connie Shaw to die...
And to take the form of Mary Kelly, infamous victim of Jack the Ripper.
Mutilated...
And about whom many a movie had been made.
9
Clara couldn’t help it; she engaged in a heated argument with Thor just beyond Connie Shaw’s realm of hearing—right after she learned that he was grouping her with Connie and the others, determined that she be apart from everything that happened from that point on.
Jackson had kept silent.
According to Thor, she should be on the ship. She should be on the Fate with Connie, and both women should be assigned full-time guards in addition to the ship’s security.
“That makes absolutely no sense!” Clara said. “After all, I’m the one with the connection—Amelia keeps coming to me. She’s looking for something that she never had in life.”
“And what’s that?” Thor demanded.
“Friendship. All she had was ambition. Now that life is gone...I think she knows what she missed. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have something going in the communication arena. You need me. I can help you! Hey! I’m the one who seems to have her finger on the pulse of what lies below the surface. You can’t just dismiss me!”
“I don’t want you to get yourself killed!” Thor exploded in turn. “We don’t need you enough to risk that. You know Jackson—you know about him. He’s frigging ghost central! We don’t want you to die—and become a ghost trying to communicate.”
Jackson listened to both sides, and then told Thor, “There’s no way out of it—she is in on this. And, in that vein, I prefer that Clara be with us—we can depend on one another and Mike as we can no one else. Not to mention that the island is also still crawling with police, should we choose to go out there again. In truth—I’m not so sure that Connie Shaw has been targeted. I think she was convenient. And I think the Mary Kelly image in the trash was a message to one of us. If we hadn’t come when we did, Connie might well have died. But I think she would have died as a matter of convenience. Because the killer found out about her—and that she intended to be alone out here.”
Thor lowered his head, shaking it slightly in hard anger. “You mean that Connie would have been ripped to shreds, and he would have left that picture for us to discover just in case we missed the connection? Because, otherwise, the killer had no idea we would look in the trash.”
“I do believe we interrupted him,” Jackson said. He smiled at Clara. “And that’s a good day,” he told her. He turned to Thor. “You called this in?”
Thor nodded. “Detective Brennan and a forensic crew are on the way out—they’ll look for anything they can find. But hell, this is Alaska. This guy is wearing gloves. And who notices anyone buying gloves in Alaska? If they were even purchased here.” He shook his head in frustration again. “There’s something out on that island—but whether it was actually now or sometime before, the killer was here.”
“We’re both thinking Tate Morley,” Jackson said.
“But how the hell the man could have spent years in prison, gotten here, killed here, gotten a boat and gotten out to the island, then back here...” Thor broke off, looking at Jackson.
“You’re thinking two again,” Jackson said.
“He had to have had a connection here,” Thor said.
“Someone he’s been communicating with while in prison,” Jackson said.
“We need to—”
“I’ll call Angela—my wife. As I’ve told you, one of the best people I know on any kind of research. Not to mention she can put other Krewe members on the case. Angela will dig until she finds out everything there is to know.”
Thor grunted his agreement.
“I still think there’s something out on that island. We found his cutting ground, at least. But I believe there’s more to find out there,” Thor said.
“But we know that someone was here,” Jackson reminded him. He was silent a minute and said, “There are good agents here, good police. Good police on the island, too. There’s no way to know the right move. Is someone in the near vicinity now—someone who left that picture in the trash? Probably. But he may not be here long. We’re not the only competent people working the case, but you have been given lead. So, it’s a matter of where you think it’s most important to be, Thor.”
Thor spoke slowly.
“You’re right. He was here—now he’s gone. Forensic teams will do what they can. Brennan will do everything he’s able to do. Enfield and a dozen other men with the Bureau are here. We need to get back to Black Bear Island.” Thor shook his head, as if he wasn’t sure himself why he was so convinced that they needed to be on the island—when the killer had more recently almost struck here.
Or—one of the killers.
“Take the car to your family’s place so you can pack up for the next few days. I’ll stay here with Miss Shaw and meet with Detective Brennan and the forensic unit,” Jackson said. “Brennan might have something more to give us. Get set, we’ll stop by the police station to see if there’s anything that resembles evidence or a clue, and we can see the security tape from the Nordic Lights Hotel. Then we’ll head back as planned and search the island again. We can let Mike come back to Seward and get some sleep.”
Thor nodded and headed for the car.
Clara raced after him. He stopped, swung around and looked at her. “Wait here. With Jackson and Connie Shaw.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me.”
“And, apparently, I’m not doing well at it.”
“May I at least talk to you while we head to your place?”
He didn’t say yes.
He didn’t say no.
He turned and kept going. Clara hurried after him and slid into the passenger’s side of the car.
She was going to talk him into keeping her close—and she wasn’t even sure what her own reasoning was.
She was crazy, ghost or no ghost; she needed to be in the safest place possible.
He drove in silence.
“You live out here?” she asked.
“I have an apartment in the city, too. But yes, I have a home out here. At this point, it’s easiest just to shower and change and pick up a bag out here.”
“Out here” wasn’t even half a mile from the road that stretched down to the McGinty house.
But, while they headed toward a place that was similar to the McGinty cottage, it was different in size and scope. It was a compound. There were a number of houses, stables, kennels and other outbuildings.
A stone fence encircled one house; steps of the same stone created a pathway that led to a porch and much larger log cabin. Beyond the fence, encircled by a ring, was a large stable and what looked like a kennel. Past those were more buildings.
“I thought you lived in the downtown area of Seward,” she said.
“I have an apartment downtown,” he told her.
“But you come out here, too?”
“Whenever I can.”
She looked at him as he drove. “This is all yours? You have stables of horses—and huskies?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s a family compound.”
“Your family is out here?”
He shook his head. “My sister runs everything out here—my dad is a cop and he and my mother live in Nome most of the time. They have a cabin here.” He pointed at a house far to the other side of the stables. “My sister’s place. She and her husband and kids care for the horses and huskies. They race. They’ve won all kinds of mushing awards. They are heavily involved with the Iditarod each year.”
“Are you a musher?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No, I don’t mush. But...”
“But?”
“I do have a couple of huskies,” he told her. For some reason, he then smiled and shrugged and decided to become more forthcoming. “Boris and Natasha,” he said. “You’ll meet them. I just hope you’re not against a lot of husky fur as an accessory.”
“I love dogs,” she told him. And she did. “My parents have always had dogs and cats, and growing up we had mice and all kinds of other creatures, as well. I’m fine with fur as an accessory.”
She was glad that she did love animals. She thought that he might be putting her to the test, because he didn’t speak a word to the big huskies when the door opened and Boris and Natasha immediately rose to greet them and be greeted in return.
They had evidently known that their master was home from the time that Thor had turned down the drive to the house. They jumped about like children, but woofing and howling, seeming almost to speak.
Clara greeted them cheerfully. She was thrilled at the way they behaved—like dogs, just eager for affection. Being there, with the two huskies all but crying with excitement, suddenly made the world seem good again.
“They’re not great as far as being watchdogs goes—they love everyone,” Thor said. “My grandfather started breeding them for special friends. Now the family is known to breed some of the finest huskies anywhere. And my sister...my sister has a contract with buyers to make sure that our dogs are never mistreated in any way. We take back any animal we’ve sold or given away if there’s any problem whatsoever. Astrid and Colin have a number of special charity situations in which we give dogs away. As far as my pets here, they kind of chose me. Boris is a little too big to be show quality—though he is a hell of a sled dog. Natasha is his sister. They were inseparable from the time they were puppies, so when I decided to take Boris, I took Natasha, as well. They’re my pets, and I don’t get to see them often enough, so they live here on the property. The stable manager and her husband live in a place just behind this one, and they look after Boris and Natasha and everything else around here.”
“They’re beautiful!” Clara said. “I love them!”