Driven To Succeed
There is a trio of principal players In Kill Brother, Kill Sister, each of them fully overtaken — one might say overwhelmed — by a fourth, who was barely able to speak for himself. That fourth person was, of course, a child. “Scotty” Mackay was doted over, coveted and, to a great degree, manipulated by each of the parties. So much so, in fact, that his fate was propelled onto a much larger stage. Indeed, an international stage. More on that later. For now, here are our principal characters:
A Trio In The Making
Muriel Pfeil (below)
Born Anchorage, AK, June 26, 1935. In high school, she was an ace student, champion downhill skier and leading actress, among other accomplishments. She went on to ice skate professionally at the Sun Valley Resort before moving to Seattle, Washington for college. She ultimately graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Muriel subsequently attended Erlangen University, Nuremberg, Germany during the 1957-58 school year, on a scholarship in international relations. Muriel then spent two years at a Washington, D.C. think tank before returning to Germany in 1961 for a year at Radio Free Europe. On returning to Anchorage, she opened Muriel Pfeil’s Professional Travel Service in 1963, quickly growing it to the top-earning travel service in Alaska. She soon caught the eye of Neil Mackay, from whom she rented her office space. The unholy trio was now in its formative stages.
Professional Travel Service Ad: September 30, 1971
Neil Mackay: (photo: 1978, Honolulu, Hawaii)
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, April 12, 1923. Immigrated to the U.S. with his parents, October 30, 1923, age six months. Destination: Los Angeles, California. His parents had both immigrated to Canada from Scotland, his mother arriving at the Port of Quebec in 1911, his father arriving at the Port of Halifax in 1913. After immigrating to the U.S. Neil’s father, Hector, worked as a telephone lineman in the greater Los Angeles area. He was killed in a one-car accident in 1928, when Neil was five years old.
Five years later Neil’s mother — born Mary Sutherland — married John Balderson, a railroad engine house foreman and stern disciplinarian. Balderson, a widower, was nearly twenty years her senior. Following Balderson’s work site, they moved to Yermo, California, a Union Pacific railway town in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was there, at Barstow High School, the Mackay met his first wife, Barbara Hayes. Hayes proved loyal to Neil throughout the entire course of his life, even after a divorce that paved the way for Neil’s marriage to Muriel Pfeil.
The Older Brother
Robert Pfeil: Born May 16, 1930, in Anchorage. Known as “Bobby” and “Bob” during his grade school and teen years, Robert was the eldest of three children. A scholar and athlete, Robert attended West Point as a U.S. Army cadet beginning in 1947. He graduated in 1952 as a Second Lt.. After graduation he returned to Anchorage for a three year stint as aide-de-camp for the base commander at Ft. Richardson. Praised for his deep knowledge of Alaska — at that time still a Territory — he’d fished and hunted its depth and breadth as a teen. In that sense, Robert Pfeil was Alaska.
As he approached his separation from the military, Robert took the step of applying to the nascent Medical School at the University of Washington. He was accepted. His plan to become a medical doctor was well on its way. But before that could happen, tragedy struck. His father, Emil Pfeil, was killed when a float plane crashed and sank in Lake Spenard, just south of Anchorage. The pilot survived. Emil’s body, on the other hand, was not found until the plane was towed to shore. The pilot testified that he tried to dive down to the sunken plane, in search of Emil Pfeil, and failed to find him.
As a consequence, Robert Pfeil never followed through on his plan to attend Medical School. He instead took over his father’s extensive business interests. And, in an ironic twist, he also became a professional pilot for Alaska Airlines, ultimately rising to the position of Senior Pilot.
Trio Becomes A Quartet
And then… Neil Pfeil Mackay (“Scotty”):
Muriel was 37 when Scotty was born. Neil was 49 and a multimillionaire property magnate. They lived — intermittently it turned out — in Mackay’s top floor penthouse in the eponymously named Mackay building. The fights began almost immediately. Neil was effectively a recluse. Muriel was… the complete opposite. With the addition of Scotty, that trio became increasingly unsteady. The questions increasingly revolved around a young man who did not choose this battle.
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NOW available : Kill Brother, Kill Sister, part three of my Alaska Trilogy. Don’t miss this one. Three millionaires face off and only one of them survives!
