CHAPTER FOUR
Alaskan Bear Lodge, August 8, 1962
Nasnana—the Athabaskan girl—got up before everybody else and hurried around to get the breakfast preparations underway. She checked by the men’s rooms to see if any of them were awake and needed some coffee. Most of the doors were closed, but the famous general’s door was ajar. She knocked timidly—too timidly she decided, because there was no response—so, she knocked again and in so doing pushed the bedroom door half open. Then she screamed.
The first responder to the frightened scream was Asaaluk, the Tlingit girl from Hoonah. She joined in the ear and heart-piercing screams. Thirty seconds later everyone in the Alaskan Bear Lodge was a mute witness to the horror of the image of General Glen Gabler, USA ret., hanging from the ceiling beams of his room, his face contorted in agony, bloated, and purple.
Donovan—the youngest and least tactful Bastrup boy—exclaimed before he thought, “Why would the general kill himself?”
His father responded by backhanding the boy across his cheek.
Neille turned to the Gabler sons and Maj. Saunders and said, “Please ignore him. He has not learned to turn on his brain before he puts his mouth in gear.”
“Obviously, everyone here has just had the same question, Mr. Bastrup,” Glen Jr. said sadly. “What do you think about this unthinkable situation?”
“It’s not suicide. Look at his wrists.”
Everyone lifted his or her eyes and looked at Gen. Gabler’s wrists and hands, glad not to have to look at the man’s grotesquely distorted face.
Maj. Saunders spoke first. “Ligature injuries. Look at how swollen and cut they are.”
Able Bastrup added, “And he has a huge bruise on the side of his head.”
“Murder,” Neille said. “Everybody clear out of here. Nobody touches anything. Michael, you stand guard. Whatever happens no looky-loos get in here. I’ll call Juneau.”
Neille called the Juneau headquarters of the Alaska state troopers. A sleepy dispatch operator answered.
“Alaska state troopers, how may I direct your call?”
“This is Neille Bastrup up at the Alaskan Bear Lodge.”
“Where is that located, sir?”
“Excursion Inlet.”
“What is the nature of your problem, Mr. Bastrup?”
“There’s been a murder at the lodge. We need troopers and a crime scene unit. We have secured the scene.”
“Oh, dear me!” the flustered voice of the young woman in Juneau said.
There was a pause.
“Are you still there, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry I got kind of flustered. I’ve only been on the job for a week.”
Swell, Neille thought.
“Can you get a trooper to talk to me?” he asked.
And hurry it up, he thought to himself.
“Sorry, Mr. Bastrup. But we’ve got a problem here. The troopers are all out of the office. The bank got robbed, and a couple of people were killed. Everybody’s either at the bank or out looking for the robbers. I’ll do my best to get hold of someone, but I can’t leave the phone. I’ll call some people who live by the bank and get them to give the message to the troopers and the town policemen. It’ll take a while.”
“Seriously!?” Neille said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his exasperation. “While we sit around twiddling our thumbs, the killer or killers are getting farther and farther away. There must be some way to get the law up here!”
“We have a reciprocal agreement with the RCMP. You could give them a call. They have a small post in Atlin, B.C. That’s really not that far from you. I could give them a call and ask for help. Would that be okay?”
“Anything would be better than our present situation. Get the Mountie to give me a call at this number.”
He gave the girl the number for the lodge and repeated it slowly. He had her repeat the number.
“I’ll get right on it, sir. And I’ll do my best to get a trooper to call you as soon as possible but don’t expect a miracle.”
“I won’t expect anything like a miracle. A little help would be better’n nothing.”
He put the phone back on its cradle, steepled his fingers on his forehead, and tried to think. Neille was a man used to getting things done and had a logical mind that functioned at its best in an emergency.
The rest of the occupants of the lodge were gathered in the main floor sitting area waiting for Neille’s report, except for Donovan who had not left his post as guard at the murder scene door. He took the stairs two at a time to see the fishermen and his employees.
“All right, here’s the deal: the troopers are dealing with a bank robbery and double homicide in Juneau; and the little new girl on duty as the dispatcher has her hands full. It’ll be a while before we can get any trooper up here. If we don’t do something, the killer or killers will be long gone before any cop gets here. The dispatcher is putting a call through to the RCMP for help. The troopers and the Mounties have a working arrangement. Maybe we can get at least temporary help.
“I’ll stay by the phone. Able, take the Lund boat over to Hoonah and go talk to Henry or Anotklosh Peratrovich. Get them to send out their boats to see if they can see any suspicious strangers. I doubt this is the work of any locals … at least I certainly hope not. Tell Henry to pay some serious attention to the two new dockworkers—maybe Russian. Put both 25 hp Evinrudes on and get over there as fast as you can move.
“Nasnana and Asaaluk, rustle up some breakfast for everybody. It’s gonna be a long hungry day.
“I know you are shocked; and it’s been a terrible blow to you Gabler boys; but if you’re up to it, why don’t you get with Kevin and Michael and have a quiet look around the area back of the lodge. See if you can see anybody back there that shouldn’t be there. Don’t do a thing except look. Whoever did this is dangerous … to state the obvious. We should have the law here before too long.
“Rick, how ‘bout you check out the boats and the plane and see if anything’s been stolen … maybe used for a getaway. Report back here in no more than an hour. I don’t want to have to send out any search parties. Okay, everybody, look lively!”
Major Saunders returned in less than five minutes.
“Neille, we have a real problem: the plane’s gone!”
“That means the murderers are in the wind. Who knows when they killed the general and how far they’ve gotten to? The plane’s tanks were full to the brim.”
The phone rang.
“Neille Bastrup here.”
“This is Constable Daniel Olsen with the RCMP at the Atlin station. The Juneau trooper office tells me you have a problem and could use some help.”
“Thanks for getting back to me so fast, Daniel. We do, indeed, have a problem.”
Neille told the Mountie everything he had learned.
“Sounds bad. There’s just me, but I’ll fly over there as fast as possible. I presume you have a floatplane dock, eh?”
“And it’s empty and waiting,” Neille said ruefully.
“I’ve got a good map, Neille. Mind if I call you Neille?”
“You can call me Mary Jane, if you want, Daniel. I’ll be that grateful for your help.”
“Anyway, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding you; but maybe you could put a colorful flag or two on your roof and send up a flare when you hear me overhead.”
“Will do, and thanks again.”
As soon as he hung up the phone, he ordered Kevin to tack every flag they had in the lodge on the top of the roof and to get the flare guns out of the fishing boats. Then they all sat down to the communal table and wolfed down breakfast.
Neille and Donovan were the only ones left in the lodge. Even the two girls wanted to be in on the adventure of hunting for the killers. Neille was all but certain that the killers were long gone and the search would be both fruitless and safe unless someone fell down and broke a leg or something. That would fit the day, he thought.
It was less than an hour before the drone of a plane’s engine sounded over the lodge. Neille and Donovan ran outside and each fired a flare. Five minutes later, a floatplane touched down in the inlet and coasted comfortably into the Excursion Inlet Seaplane Base. Neille walked out to greet the Mountie and helped him moor his plane to the dock.
“Thanks for coming, Constable. We have left the crime scene alone just as we found it. I sent out our people to get some help from the Tlingits over on Chichagof Island and some are out looking around in the bush behind the lodge. All of that is probably looking for the horse after leaving the barn door open, though; because, whoever did this probably flew off in our own plane.”
He gave the constable all the information he had.
“Did you call it in to Juneau?”
“Yes, and I called your headquarters in Vancouver.”
“That’s good. So, let’s take a look at the scene.”
Constable Olsen picked up his crime scene kit and camera. He gave the lodge a quick once over look then concentrated on Gen. Gabler’s bedroom. There, he took several dozen photographs, dusted for fingerprints and, finding dozens, he painstakingly lifted them and taped them to evidence cards. There was no blood anywhere except on the general’s head; so, Olsen concluded that there was nothing more to be done in the room except to remove the body. He had a body bag with him, along with his crime scene kit. Olsen worked quickly and efficiently. His entire persona radiated calm and efficiency. He had a well-worn uniform which had obviously seen long service. Everything about the man indicated cleanliness and a Spartan life in the out-of-doors. He had short-cropped dark brown hair, a neatly trimmed mustache, and high cheek bones. His face and hands—all the skin visible—were deeply tanned. His hands were rough and calloused, but deft and careful. He was medium everything—height, weight, dress, and manners—a prototypical nice, mild-mannered Canadian.
Neille and Daniel climbed on ladders and respectfully cut the rope from the noose and lifted the body down to the floor. Daniel checked the body temperature in the general’s rectum and then put a needle into the right upper quadrant of his abdomen and checked the liver temperature. Then the two men put the body into the body bag. Gen. Gabler’s body was moderately stiff.
“The rigor mortis is incomplete,” Constable Olsen said. “That suggests that the murder took place between three and twelve hours ago, probably closer to five or six hours. His liver temp confirms that—30 degrees centigrade. Although there are a lot of variables, the living body temperature of 37.5° C loses about 1.5° C per hour until the temperature of the body is that of the environment around it—the ambient temperature.”
“What’s that in American, Daniel?”
Daniel did a quick calculation.
“Eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit.”
Neille did a quick check on the time on his watch—eight-thirty.
“So, the time of the murder was about three, three-thirty this morning?”
“Let’s consider a range—something like three a.m. to five a.m., give or take.”
“The girls start to stir around five; so, I’d guess it was closer to three than to five,” Neille said.
“Sounds reasonable. He’s cooling down fairly rapidly, Neille. Decomp will begin to set in soon. Do you have a big ice locker and plenty of ice where we can store the body until the troopers arrive and can take over?”
“You betcha. That I’ve got.”
The searchers returned, reported seeing nothing out of the ordinary; and Neille enlisted the help of Kevin and Michael to carry the general’s body down to the ice shed. The Gabler boys were huddled around the telephone conveying the terrible news to family, friends, and business associates down below.
The Tlingit headmen, Henry and Anotklosh Peratrovich, moved into immediate action in the Huna Tlingit village on Chichagof Island. The villagers spread out and gathered up the men and women working on the docks, in the Hoonah Packing Company facility, and every fisherman not already at sea as soon as Able Bastrup located the leaders. Women and children left their breakfasts and homes and began searching all over the island. Every available boat put out of Port Frederick and into the Icy Strait to begin the sea search. The village was empty when the Alaska state troopers arrived from Juneau at eleven-forty-five.