And you need to know, I’m still hoping. But I’ve got Jeff Bauer, Marcus Wheaton, and that cretin Marcella Hoffman reminding me that Claire Logan lives. In one way or another. She lives. My mother won’t die. Like Sissy Spacek’s hand out of the grave grabbing at us all at the end of
She was crying now.
He tried to comfort her, but she seemed resistant to his touch. “You need to rest,” he told her.
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes, rest would help. But I can’t sleep, because I keep thinking of her.”
Ethan pulled her into bed and turned off the light. He held Hannah and felt ripples of grief pass through her body. She was a wreck.
“I love you, baby,” he said.
“Love you.”
In a half hour Ethan allowed himself to drift off. Hannah’s eyes were wide open, staring at the clock as the digital numbers rolled from 2 to 3, then on to 4 a.m. Each hour now meant something. Each hour, each tumble of the lighted drums emblazoned with boldface numbers, meant Hannah Logan Griffin was that much closer to resolution. Closer to truth. She tossed and turned for another hour, battering her pillow and twisting the coverlet. Strangely, when she finally fell asleep that night, it was moonflowers she thought about. The creamy white, swirling blossoms, twisted open in the magic of an early evening. She and her mother sat on the log and watched while her brothers played inside the big yellow house. In her sleep, Hannah smiled.
Chapter Twenty-nine
It would take some time. Computers could only do so much. In the decades-old case of Claire Logan, computers were useful only for eliminating potential suspects. All Bauer knew—and that was if Wheaton was telling the truth—was that Logan ran a fishing resort on Kodiak Island in Alaska. There were no Logans listed, of course. But there were dozens of resorts of the type that Marcus Wheaton had described.
“Close enough to whatever roads they have up there, because she didn’t want to bother with seaplanes bringing guests in,” Wheaton had said, huffing and puffing in the penitentiary’s visiting cell. “She researched it. She did. Nice enough place that she’d be comfortable. Room for a dozen fishermen at any given time, because she wanted to make money.”
The last remark almost brought a grin to Bauer’s handsome face. Characteristic restraint, however, kept him from saying anything snide. But how did she plan on making her income? Fishing fees or murdering her guests?
Out of what turned out to be a hundred and fifty names, two-thirds were discounted right away because their lodges, resorts, and gear shops had been in operation far longer than twenty years. A cross-check of Alaska game and fishing licenses indicated as much— though Bauer knew that record keeping in Juneau, while improved since the advent of computers, wasn’t the most reliable system.
That left around forty-five possible havens for Logan. Another series of checks indicated that about twenty of those could be discounted for reasons ranging from ethnicity and gender.
That left just twenty-five possibles, a more manageable but large number nonetheless. The FBI had gone through more possible Claire Logan expeditions than the higher-ups wanted to admit, so they’d send Bauer a backup only if an arrest appeared imminent. Bauer requested Bonnie Ingersol, the agent with whom he shared some of the first days of the investigation when they worked together in Portland in the late ’70s. They had been quite close back then; even dated a few times, though nothing came of it. Neither one had the time for romance.
In the meantime, Bauer would have to pursue Claire Logan alone. He’d employ some old-fashioned nosing around, hopefully asking the right questions, as he trimmed the fat from the list. After four hours of phone calls, only one name remained on the list:
Louise Wallace lived in one of the prettiest houses on the island. It was a Victorian more suited to New England than Alaska, with twin turrets and a widow’s walk that crossed the entire front side. Louise called it the front of the house, because it faced the choppy waters of Port Lion. The back side, as she termed it, faced the gravel road that ran up past the fishing cabins to the parking area adjacent to an enormous gazebo and fenced vegetable garden. The three-story house was painted seven colors, though the dominant hue was a creamy yellow that Louise called “shortbread.” The main floor was an open plan with gorgeous wood floors and a two-story river- rock fireplace, the only concession Louise made to her late husband’s desire for an Alaskan-style abode of rock, antlers, and peeled timbers. The furnishings were quite lovely. The majority were antiques the Wallaces had gathered throughout Alaska, though mostly from a trusted dealer on the outskirts of Anchorage.
An oak box lined with slippers of varying sizes sat next to the door and admonished visitors to take off their shoes before coming inside. WE WOOD APPRECIATE IT, read a little hand-lettered index card affixed to the box. The O’s had been embellished into happy faces.
Bauer pulled his rental car to a shady spot near a rustic gazebo framed with silvery driftwood logs, choked with trumpet vines. The setting was gorgeous. Alaska’s short growing season was short only in the number of days. In reality, the season was longer than points much further south, like Seattle or Portland. Eighteen hours of sunlight a day gave plants an extraordinary boost. Years ago, Bauer had been to the state fair in Palmer, not far from Anchorage, where “monster” vegetables vie for attention in one of the more popular gee-whiz exhibits. Three-foot zucchinis and cabbages with the astonishing girth of beach balls draw tourists from across the state to gawk in amazement. Bauer noticed that someone had been working in the Wallace garden that day. Sprinklers had been set to water the fluffy rows of vegetables and flowers that included everything from larkspur to delphinium to foxglove.
He heard sandpipers and gulls squawk from the surf below the house. The bell of a distant buoy clanged.
“Mrs. Wallace?” he called out as he knocked on the open door. No one responded. He called again and studied the splendor of leaded glass windows with maritime images inset into several panes.
“Yes? Can I help you?” The sweet face of an old woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall, somewhat thin, and had ashy blond hair streaked with gray. Gold-framed glasses didn’t hide the fact that her blue eyes were the color of the cornflowers that stood high in the back of her garden border. Her lipstick was dark, a winy red that looked almost brown.
“Louise Wallace?” Bauer asked.
“Do I know you?” she said, brushing a wisp of silvery hair from her eyes. “Been out in the yard all morning. Must look like a fright.”
“No ma’am. You don’t know me. But I know you.”
“You do? That’s surprising to me, because I’m pretty good with faces. Names, not so much, but faces I never forget.”
“We’ve never actually met,” he said. “I know everything about you. I know your name is Claire Berrenger Logan and, more importantly, I know what you did in Spruce County twenty years ago.”
It was a bluff and Bauer felt relief that he’d pulled it off, because he really wasn’t that sure. She could be Claire Logan, but she didn’t look exactly like the computer-aged model photo. Her chin was more angular, her nose a bit more pointed. He kept his face from betraying any emotion, though his chest pounded beneath his jacket. This was the bluff. The
“I’m sorry,” Wallace said, peering over her glasses. “You must have me confused with someone else. My name is Louise.
