Nadia Nichols - Everything To Prove

The magazine article had become the catalyst, and after Libby had finished reading it for the third time, she’d made her decision. Her mother had told her over and over again, throughout years of listening to Libby rail against the injustices of poverty, that there was no way to prove anything, and it no longer mattered. But it did. It mattered twenty-eight years ago, and it mattered just as much today. And her mother was wrong. There was a way to prove not only her paternity, but what kind of racist Frey really was.

Which was why she turned down the offer of a residency at one of the best hospitals on the Eastern seaboard and was now flying to Alaska. The flight was a long one and gave her time to think about her strategy. What she actually thought about was the fact that she didn’t have a strategy, and had no idea how to start the search for her father’s plane other than by confronting Daniel Frey in person, something she’d always wanted to do but never dared. This strategy was a poor one, given his attitude toward the native people. He’d certainly never admit to any wrongdoings, never admit that it was strange he hadn’t wanted to attend his own godson’s wedding, and equally strange he hadn’t been anywhere in the vicinity of the lodge when the plane crashed.

Her mother had mentioned a warden, Charlie Stuck, who had been kind to her after Connor’s death. He’d taken her in his plane while he searched for her missing fiancé. They’d searched for over a week before declaring him lost and presumed dead. No plane wreckage was ever found, just the two pontoons hung up in the rapids about a half mile down the Evening River, which led searchers to believe that the plane had gone down in the deep waters somewhere near the lake’s outlet. Charlie Stuck had been in his late fifties then, but with any luck he might still be alive. He might remember something helpful, and it was a starting place.

When her flight touched down in Anchorage it was 10:00 p.m. and still broad daylight. Libby rented a car and threw her bags in the backseat. She drove down Highway One to a right-hand fork that took her along Six Mile Creek to a place called Hope. An empty state campground, open for the season but devoid of tourists, offered her the choice of sites overlooking Turnagain Arm. She pitched her tiny tent, ate a can of cold beans sitting on the edge of the bluff then walked a short way in the violet dusk down Gull Rock Trail. She walked until the twilight thickened and jelled, then carefully retraced her way back to her tent site and climbed into her sleeping bag.

An hour later she heard a mysterious noise and crawled out of her tent to watch the ghostly movements of a pod of Beluga whales through the dark waters of Chickaloon Bay. Sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, she listened to them breathe as they surfaced and swam past, and she wondered why it had taken her so long to come back home.

Two hours later she was making coffee on her tiny camp stove, drinking it in the dawn while a cow moose browsed along the water’s edge. She cleaned up the site, packed her gear back into the rental car and returned to Anchorage. Once there, she headed for the regional office of the Department of Fish and Game and had to wait outside for an hour before the first employee showed up, still blinking sleep from his eyes. He introduced himself as Elmer Brown, and appeared surprised to find her waiting on the doorstep. He ushered her into the office and listened to her story while he made a pot of coffee. Libby told him about the plane crash, omitting any mention of her relationship to the pilot or any implications of foul play. She expressed her interest in locating the plane and speaking to the warden who had been involved in the search.

“So, you’re looking for this Charlie Stuck,” Brown concluded.

Libby nodded. “I’m hoping he’s still alive. He was in his fifties then, based out of Fairbanks.”

Brown reached for the phone book and placed a call to the Fairbanks office, briefly describing the circumstances and asking if they could look into their records, then hung up. “They said they’d call back. Coffee?”

“Love a cup, thanks,” Libby said, taking the offered mug. “Assuming the plane is still in the lake, how would one go about finding it?”

“Well, it’d be easier now than it would have been back then, but still, that’s a mighty big lake. Deep, too,” Brown said. “There’s a good salvage outfit not too far from here. They’re expensive, all those outfits are, but Alaska Salvage just about always get what they go after. They’ve hauled a lot of planes and boats out of a lot of deep water. The company is owned by a guy named Dodge. He spent eight years as a Navy special forces combat and demolition diver before starting Alaska Salvage maybe six, eight years ago. Loads of experience, but he nearly bought the farm in a freak diving accident while salvaging that commuter plane that went down in the inlet five weeks back. You probably saw that in the news.”

Libby shook her head. “No. I didn’t.”

Elmer seemed pleased to be able to enlighten her. “He had a new employee on board the salvage vessel, and the kid accidentally started the winch while Dodge was attaching the cable to a piece of wreckage a hundred feet below. He got tangled up in a big jagged piece of plane wreckage. His divers managed to free him and get him to the surface but he was more dead than alive when they brought him up. Spent over a month in the hospital getting put back together. Just got out. He’ll probably never dive again but he still ramrods the outfit and he’d be the one you’d want to talk to. His office isn’t far from here.”

“If he just got out of the hospital, I doubt he’ll be at work.”

“He’ll be at Alaska Salvage. He lives and breathes that place.” Brown wrote the name and phone number on a card, handing it to her just as the phone rang. He picked it up. “Oh?” he said after a long pause. “I see. Okay, I’ll pass that information along. Thanks, Dick.” He hung up and gave her an apologetic shrug. “Well, I’m afraid you’re out of luck when it comes to Charlie Stuck. He died last winter in the old folks’ home, but he had a son, Bob, who still lives in the Fairbanks area. Runs a garage out toward Moose Creek. Might be worth talking to him.”

He scrawled another name on another card, then went through the phone book and wrote the phone number down. “You might also check with the warden service based out of Fairbanks. They keep pretty good files on that stuff. They probably still have Charlie Stuck’s report on that particular search. Good luck.”

THE SUN WAS WELL UP when Libby pulled into the Alaska Salvage parking lot in Spenard. The building was a huge blue Quonset hut with a neatly lettered sign spanning the wide doors and three late-model pickup trucks blocking the entryway. The metallic sound of banging and clanging came from inside. She stepped between the trucks and into the dimness, startled to see several massive pieces of what appeared to have been a large commuter plane scattered all over the floor. Hoses snaked across the concrete, and in a separate alcove she caught the bright flash of welding light.

A side door opened into a small office, and when the man bent over a large nautical chart spread open on the desk glanced up and spied Libby he straightened, lifting his hands from both sides of the map, which immediately snapped back into a tight scroll. He was tall, broad-shouldered and clad in a pair of well-worn coveralls that could have used a good washing. His eyes were blue, his dark hair cropped short, his jaw shadowed with stubble. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties, long on experience but short on sleep. A jagged, raised welt slanted across his forehead and disappeared into his hairline, tracked with the marks of stitches that had been recently removed. Another shorter scar crossed the bridge of his nose, his left cheekbone was seriously abraded, and one hand was wrapped in a wad of bandages that allowed only the fingertips to show. Libby could only imagine what the rest of him looked like if his face had taken that much abuse.