IT WAS THE ARTICLE in Forbes magazine that gave Libby
Wilson the sudden impetus to throw all caution to the wind
and do what she'd been waiting to do for the past twelve
years. She read that article and realized that she had to
go back home and make things right. Not five years from
now as originally planned, when her bank account would be
healthy enough to finance what was certain to be an
expensive undertaking. She had to go now. The truth had
remained buried for far too long. She knew her mother
would object, but her mother could no longer tell her that
the past didn't matter, because it did.
Libby knew exactly how much it mattered. She'd grown up in
the same village that her mother had. She'd lived in the
same little government-issue house, been shipped out to
the same boarding school in Anchorage to attend high
school; she'd worn the same clothes, eaten the same foods
and felt the same bleak desolation when one of the village
kids sniffed too much gasoline and was buried beneath the
permafrost. The only difference between the poverty her
mother suffered and her own fate had been the color of
Libby's eyes.
The teacher in Anchorage had commented about her eyes. Ms.
DeFranco had been young and earnest and from a well-to-do
family in New England that believed in helping less
fortunate cultures. She had made Libby's future her
personal crusade, which was the only reason Libby ended up
going to college back East, being accepted to Tufts
medical school and graduating top of her class. Proof
positive that sometimes a little bit of racism could work
to a minority's benefit. Her internship was in forensic
pathology and her ticket to success had been a reasonably
sharp intellect and a pair of the prettiest blue eyes that
ever came out of an Athapaskan villa-ger...compliments of
a Russian fur trader two generations removed on her
mother's side, and a father she'd never known.
Libby's internship at Massachusetts General had just
recently ended and two months ago she'd been offered a
residency, an impressive nod to her potential from such a
fine hospital. She might have accepted it and spent the
next five years bolstering her bank account and carefully
plotting her return to Evening Lake, but that very week
Forbes magazine hit the newsstands and a copy ended up on
the table in the doctors' lounge. Idly thumbing through
the pages in one of those rare quiet moments that
sometimes occur in the middle of an endless shift, Libby
had stumbled over that fateful article with all those
glossy color pictures and a lengthy feature profiling one
of Alaska's wealthiest and most eccentric residents: the
silver-haired and distinguished-looking Daniel Frey.
Libby had taken the magazine back to her apartment and
read the article again, and yet again after that, studying
the pictures of the massive log lodge, the lake and the
man; all the while her blood pressure nudged toward the
boiling point. Daniel Frey. Even the man's name sickened
her. She should write a letter to the editors of fancy
Forbes magazine about the eccentric billionaire Daniel
Frey and tell them the stories her mother had told her.
She'd tell them what it had been like to work for the rich
white man who hated Indians. What it had been like to be
treated with contempt, to be unfairly compensated for long
hours worked, to be housed in crowded conditions and
poorly fed. What it had been like for her mother to fall
in love with Connor Libby, Frey's godson, only to lose her
beloved on her wedding day in a suspicious plane crash. A
crash her mother believed Frey had rigged both to keep
Connor from bringing an Athapaskan bride back to the lodge
and to claim the entire Libby fortune as his own.
She'd tell them what it had been like for her mother to go
to Frey after learning she was pregnant with Connor's
child, only to be driven from the property.
"I know how you squaws sleep around," Frey had said.
"That baby could be anyone's."
Connor Libby had been mentioned only briefly in the
article. Two sentences made reference to the fact that Ben
Libby's only son had been killed in a plane crash shortly
after returning from Vietnam...and that Connor's will had
specified that if he died without heirs, Frey would
inherit his share of the Libby fortune.
What Libby had to prove was that Connor in fact had had an
heir, and she was determined to do just that. She
remembered vividly that fateful day in high school biology
class when she'd first learned about DNA, and how it could
be used to prove a person's paternity. That knowledge had
changed her entire life's focus, and had even steered her
medical studies toward specializing in forensic pathology.
Libby had long been planning to return to Evening Lake,
where her father's plane had crashed, and salvage the
wreckage. The only thing that had stopped her from doing
it years ago was the large amount of money it would take
to find and recover the plane. She'd made inquiries to
salvage operators while she was in college, but none of
them could be specific as to the costs because each
salvage operation was unique. All they could tell her was
that it would be expensive.
As a medical student, Libby had worked part-time during
the school year and full-time in the summers to help cover
the cost of her books and tuition. Scholarships and
student loans had covered the rest, but saving any amount
of money had been impossible. As an intern, she'd
struggled to make ends meet and pay off her school debts.
Logically, she should have accepted the residency that had
been offered to her and worked until her finances
improved, but none of that would matter if she could find
just one of Connor Libby's bones and prove she was his
daughter.
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."