Chapter 4

(McGrath, Alaska Sunday evening, March 28)

Mike and Mary bundled up to go outside when the plane arrived. Mary dressed Karen in a sweat suit and some heavy socks and wrapped her in two blankets. A small jet was not that much of a rarity anymore. More and more people had them. This one was rather unusual, and they correctly concluded it must be new.

Mike took the snowmobile out to the runway where he could now see the landing lights of the Honda Jet on final approach. After the plane landed, he led it off of the runway and as close to the DPS Post as they could get. He stopped in front of it, and waved the pilot to do the same. Aboard the plane, a six-seater, were a woman and two men.

After the pilot shut it down, to take on some fuel, they went inside to get Mary and the girl. As soon as they had taken on enough fuel to safely reach Anchorage, everyone boarded, except Mike, who was told by headquarters to stay there. The older gentleman stayed in the cabin with Mary to assist, while the woman went up front with the pilot. Her attention riveted on Karen, she paid little heed to the man across from her, as she removed the heavy parka.

The man noted her nametag, and chuckled, "That was my mother-in-law's name, and you look nothing like her."

Mary looked up, and right into the eyes of her grandfather. "Grandpa, is that you?" she whispered, not believing he was there aboard someone's business jet.

"If you are Kathy it is," Dom replied, still uncertain after her new make over.

"I was," Mary replied, "but now I am Officer Mary Jankowski, Alaska State Trooper."

"That was Beverly's mother's name," Dom recalled. "I'll be. Come give me a hug."

After the reunion, Mary explained that the girl had been the victim of a child molester that had kidnapped five young girls in the villages to the west of her. She and her partner, and now husband, Mike found her just a couple of hours before north of McGrath while on snowmobile patrol. She looked to be infected with Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Dom told Mary that her sister Carol, was up front, and went to send her back. As Carol went to see what the trooper wanted, which is all Dom told her, Dom told the pilot Grif that the trooper was Kathy in her new persona. Grif nodded and patted the happy grandpa on the shoulder.

In the cabin, the Mary said, "Carol Ray, imagine finally catching up with you after all of these months." Carol was scared to death, and told the woman she was Carol Griffin and didn't know a Carol Ray.

"Oh come now," said Mary, "You had a sister named Kathy that was killed in a police shootout, a brother named Ricky that went to jail and then into the Army. I heard that you were dead too. Killed in a plane crash along with your mother, aunt and cousins off the coast of Baja California or somewhere. Now I find that you are alive too?"

"How do you know that stuff?" the terrified teen asked.

Mary teased, "Because I am the Police. We know everything about everybody. Don't you know who I am?"

Carol replied, "No but you look sort of familiar. Are you a cousin or something?"

"Or something is close enough," said Mary. "Remember the movie 'Eraser' you went to see with your sister?"

That startled Carol, who asked, "How did you know that and why are you asking?"

"Because Miss Carol Griffin," Mary answered, "Your sister has been erased, just like you were. I was Kathy. See, I'll take out my contact for you."

Carol screamed at her sister, "Do you have any idea how bad you scared me? The stinking Mafia was after Mom and Aunt Sheila. We had to go live with Grif and Tara out in west 'who knows where' Alaska! And you tease me like that?"

"I'm sorry Carol," Mary apologized. "I thought the teasing would give me away. Talk about a small world in a big state. Grandpa is coming up to live too? That is awesome."

The pilot, "Grif" Griffin came over the intercom for them to prepare for landing. They buckled up and Mary put her contact back in, as the girls exchanged e-mail addresses, and the address of the house in Anchorage. As soon as they stopped, the ambulance met the plane and Mary went to the hospital with the little girl.

With the girl safely on her way, Mike alerted Lt. Randall that he needed a forensics team to McGrath, first chance they got. Then he gathered a sled for the snowmobile, and several stakes, and several rolls of "yellow crime scene do not cross" tape, and another tarp to cover the boot prints, and the ski marks. Then he headed back to where they found Karen just two hours earlier.

Once the scene was secured he made some notes on a pad he carried inside his shirt pocket with a pencil. (Ink can freeze.) Then he returned to the Post to await Mary's call. In retrospect of the day's events he was pretty exhausted from the high stress of trying to save the child. After opening a can of beans and warming it still in the can on top of the heater, he sat down to watch the news on the 19-inch TV in the Post Lounge. The rescue had already drawn some news people who picked up their radio communications on their Police Scanners.

"Just what she needs," Mike thought.

(Meanwhile, back in Anchorage)

Mary accompanied the girl on the ambulance as the paramedics began their IV. Karen was still feverish, and opened her eyes, and looked like she was looking behind Mary. "Are you an Angel?" she asked.

"No, Sweetie, just a concerned friend," Mary answered.

"I know who you are. Your name is Mary. I meant the lady behind you," Karen said.

There was nobody behind Mary, except the side of the ambulance. "Poor girl," Mary thought, squeezing her hand, "she is hallucinating."

The ambulance backed in and the Paramedics brought the girl into the Emergency Room, and Mary saw several other troopers in the hallway being mobbed by reporters. "Oh, crap!" she muttered, as she walked around to another entrance. She found a small waiting room off on one wing, and sat down to begin her reports.

"There you are, Jankowski," Capt. McHenry said. "Officer Jankowski, meet Commandant Sellers."

Mary stood at attention.

"At ease trooper," Capt. McHenry said, "I have been trying to explain to Commandant Sellers for the past hour why someone assigned to a 'low profile' duty post finds herself thrust into the spotlight as a regional heroine! Now we have this place crawling with reporters and I have to decide how to handle this attention, and keep you incognito! Do you have any suggestions? Or did you even think about that?"

"No, sir," Mary said, "I was not thinking of myself."

"I don't think you were thinking of much at all Officer Jankowski!" he growled through gritted teeth. He had just been getting "chewed out" by his Commander. "What were you and your partner thinking?"

"We were trying to save her life, sir," Mary replied, shaking. "We did get good DNA evidence from semen, and if she lives, she will be the first survivor of the 'Bigfoot abductions' and can give us something other than misleading information to go on."

The Captain and Commander excused themselves and went into the hall to converse. Commandant Sellers left and Capt. McHenry returned and then he turned to Mary and apologized, "I am sorry. I should have thought of the obvious solution. I am just frustrated that I don't have another two dozen like you and Donnelly, Jankowski. I will create a press release from your report, and let Morris and Paulson do the 'media dance' for you, if that is OK."

"That is fine with me, sir," Mary replied. Then she whispered, "I am sorry you got it on my account sir."

Capt. McHenry said, "I will go tell the media that we have no comment at this time out of respect for the girl's family, and an ongoing criminal investigation. Get us those reports at 0800 and keep up the good work. You may not get a commendation publicly, but you and Donnelly will definitely get one in Sellers' office one day soon!"

As Mary finished the report and was about to leave, Arthur and Colleen Brock came in from Anvik, accompanied by another State Trooper. Capt. McHenry accepted Mary's report, and said, "I'll take this from here, Officer Jankowski. You are dismissed until 0800 in the morning. If you need a place to bunk, call the barracks."

Mary took a cab to the address given her by Carol.

Meanwhile, her younger sister Carol, who had recently taken an interest in cooking something besides microwave dinners, was helping Grif prepare what she found to be a superb meal of baked salmon.

Growing up rich and spoiled, Mary, as Kathy, had never learned to cook for herself what she could pay someone else to fix for her. Now as Officer Jankowski, out there in the middle of "Nowhere, Alaska" she thought it would be a good idea to try and learn. Carol offered to send her sister some simple recipes for her to try. They even offered her a couple of salmon fillets and some Caribou steaks to take back with her.

After so many things in her recent life happening to point to "someone looking out for her", and the girl's comment in the ambulance, Mary felt compelled to ask to say "grace" at dinner. Kathy may have been an Atheist, but Mary, felt like she was getting help or guidance from somewhere. She chose to follow Grif's advice not to try to figure it out, accept the help and be thankful for it!

Mary called Mike after dinner, and he gave her the report of the forensics team from Anchorage going out to McGrath sometime the next day. He had secured the crime scene from accidental tampering, or a fresh snowfall or wind drift, and anxiously awaited her return. She told him she was bringing something back to break the boil water or nuke it diet they existed on. They said, "I love you" and "goodnight," and Mary went to visit with her sister and grandpa some more.

(Trammel's cabin near Shageluk, Alaska, west of McGrath)

Maurice Trammel had worried now whether he had done the right thing or the wise thing rather, in dropping off Karen Brock near Sterling Landing. Now he worried about the smaller boot prints he left in his panicked state. Now if the snowmobile riders had found her, and the troopers had come to investigate, he knew his false description was no longer the one lead they had.