Fortunately, the proprietor at The Shady Lady, a diminutive Eskimo named Margaret Seaver according to a placard at her elbow, told him she had an opening. Since it was the only motel in town and it was small—twelve tiny cabins strung loosely together—he hadn’t been confident he could even get a room. A large number of the other COs commuted, like he did. If they’d stopped for a drink at the Moosehead or lingered at the prison before heading home, as they sometimes did, they could also be stuck for the night.
Margaret ran his Visa card while he stood across the counter from her in the front office. “Can you believe this weather?” she said as they waited for credit approval.
Still filled with rage at the woman who’d discovered what he didn’t want found in the woodshed, he took several deep breaths as a way to absorb the impact of his intense emotions and make it easier to modulate his voice. He needed to come across as pleasant, not particularly upset. He didn’t want to say or do anything that would make Margaret remark on her encounter with him to someone else. He needed to hunker down until they opened the road, then get his ass home.
Problem was, that might not happen soon enough for him to drive home before he had to report back to work. Returning to Anchorage and disposing of two corpses would require several hours, and he couldn’t arrive at the prison late. He’d get written up, and since he was probably already going to get written up for destroying an inmate’s photograph of his grandmother, that would be twice in two days.
The way Margaret Seaver watched him suggested she was waiting for a response.
“It’s bad out there, all right.” He wasn’t interested in engaging someone who mattered so little to him. She wouldn’t even be a good candidate for a victim. She was too old, looked nothing like Evelyn. But he was good at playing his part. He’d learned how to act at a very young age; he’d known he was different almost from the start.
She printed out the slip for him to sign. “You work at the prison, huh?”
He was still wearing his uniform. He’d strangled the woman he’d found in the cabin, so he wasn’t worried she’d spot any blood on him. His latest victim had urinated just before she died, but he’d expected that and taken steps to avoid getting anything on him. “Yeah. Been there since last February,” he told Margaret. Actually, he’d stayed at this motel once before, two years ago, when he’d come to Alaska to check out Evelyn’s pet project. Margaret didn’t realize it, since her daughter or sister or someone else had been at the front desk when he checked in and out. Jasper had seen Margaret outside the motel once or twice, but only in passing. He spent quite a bit of his free time at the Moosehead. He was trying to become so familiar to the locals they wouldn’t find his coming and going any more remarkable than if he were one of them. And he liked watching Evelyn. She hung out there with Amarok a few nights a week, since Amarok had to be on hand to keep the peace.
“Where do you live? Anchorage?” Margaret asked.
Jasper scribbled what passed for his signature these days on the credit slip. “Yeah.”
“But you’re not a native.”
“No, I’m originally from Florida.” He’d never lived in Florida, but he lied smoothly, easily. That was one of the tools of his trade, so he took it seriously. Everything he was, everything he did, depended on his ability to deceive.
“Florida, huh? The cold up here must be quite a shock to you.”
“It is. Please tell me it isn’t always this bad in October.”
She frowned at the torrent coming down outside the window. “Not quite this early, no.”
She returned his Visa card, which read: “Andy Smith”—he’d been Andy for a number of years, had used other aliases before that—and he put it back in his wallet. “My luck, I guess.”
“Well, you’re not totally unlucky. At least you got a room. This is my last one, so if you’d come in any later, you might not have had anywhere to go.”
If not for the corpses in his truck, he could’ve returned to the prison. They had a small dorm for situations like this. But he couldn’t go through the checkpoint with two murdered women in the back of his truck.
He maintained a smile as she handed over an old-fashioned key, rather than one of the card keys used by more modern places.
“Need any food or water?” she asked. “I stocked up when I heard we had a storm coming.”
He hadn’t eaten since lunch; he was hungry. Both The Dinky Diner and the Moosehead—the two most common places to grab a bite to eat in this postage-stamp-sized town—would both be closed, since no one was going out in such ugly weather. “How much you charging?” he asked.
“I’m not charging anything,” she replied. “Just trying to be neighborly.”
“Nice of you.”
She winked at him. “We look out for each other here in Alaska.”
He hoped they didn’t look too closely, not at him. “That’s what I like about this place.”
She beamed at the compliment. “Well, I wouldn’t want any of my patrons to go hungry, especially one of our brave COs from Hanover House.”
She didn’t care how brave he was or that he was a CO. She was responding to the way he looked, and he knew it. She was too old for him, wasn’t actually flirting, but it was his handsome face—and his body, which he was careful to keep fit—that lent him credibility with women of all ages. He used his good looks as a lure, but if he wasn’t careful they could get him in trouble, too. Women paid attention to him and what he was doing. He wasn’t one of those nondescript killers who could come and go without anyone noticing; he was attractive enough to be memorable. That meant he had to be smarter than most other killers, more adept at fooling people.
“What do ya got?” he asked.
“A turkey or ham sandwich, some chips and a soda, or bottled water if you prefer. Cleaned out Quigley’s Quick Stop down the way.”
“I’ll take whatever you have the most of.”
She went in back and returned with a sack and a bottle of water. “Here you go.”
“Appreciate it,” he said, and gave her a grateful smile before bracing himself to go back out in the cold.
His room was at the far end, which suited him fine. He didn’t want to be too close to anyone. He moved his truck in front of it and checked on what he’d put in the bed. Both bodies were still wrapped up together, under the tarp, which was quickly being buried by snow.
Leaning into the wind, he used one hand to block the snowflakes stinging his face and turned in a slow circle.
No one seemed to be showing any interest in him or his vehicle. Everyone was too worried about the weather.
He was going to be fine—as long as he could get out of town before someone raised the alarm about the woman who’d gone missing from that cabin.
*
Evelyn couldn’t sleep. She’d tried, but not long after she climbed into bed the power went out, so she didn’t have phone service or electricity. She lay in the dark, feeling the house slowly cool, with no radio or television to distract her—only the shriek of the wind.
Just last summer, Amarok had installed a backup generator. Although the storm wouldn’t make it easy, she could take a flashlight, go outside and try to get it started; he’d shown her how.