Sometimes one story can have a dozen smaller stories tucked inside it. When I checked my e-mail Monday morning, I saw I was wrapped up in a story just like that.

The message in my inbox was from a man who said he read a column I wrote Sunday about his longtime companion, Nora Jean York. York was shot to death Saturday by Alaska State Troopers after a standoff at their home in Wasilla. He asked me to call him.

"I just didn't want her last time on the Earth to go down as just a crazy person with a gun," he told me over the phone. "There was a person behind it, and pain."

The news about York ran on the front page Sunday. Troopers said it began after 1 a.m. Saturday when the man called 911, scared for his life. York had been drinking and acting erratic, he told dispatchers. She had a gun. She was talking about "suicide by cop."

By the time they made it to the house, near Mile 8 of Wasilla-Fishhook Road, she was outside in her T-shirt and jeans, a handgun in her pocket and a shotgun in her hands, troopers said. They tried to slow her down with a Taser, but she wouldn't drop her weapon. She leveled it at the officers. Five of them fired at her, according to troopers.

York was pronounced dead at the scene. The troopers who fired were placed on leave, as is procedure in fatal cases. There will be an internal investigation to make sure the use of force was justified.

It was a strange coincidence, but I'd already intersected with York before the incident. Over the summer, a memorial cross appeared on the side of the Coastal Trail along my running route. It carried names of what appeared to be two pets, "Missy" and "Missy Too," along with York's name. Underneath that, written in marker, were what seemed like her birth and death dates, 1951-2009.

I searched for an obituary and couldn't find one. And so I turned to public records to piece together a skeletal story. Soon I stumbled on a surprising fact: York was born a man but after a divorce in the early '90s, began living as a woman. I learned from an ex-wife that she had buried a Boston Terrier, Missy, by the Coastal Trail. I heard she had a companion, a man in a wheelchair, whom she cared for. I didn't know why she put her year of death on the cross if she wasn't yet dead. Then on Saturday her life ended in a public, violent way. I took what I knew and wrote a column.

The next day I got the e-mail from her companion, the man in the wheelchair. He told me he didn't want his name in print, for fear of being harassed. But he wanted to tell the rest of the story.

He said he met York 15 years ago. By then she was living as a woman and he always thought of her that way. They became friends, then roommates, he told me. Eventually, their relationship deepened unexpectedly, he said.

"I'm not gay, but I'm not narrow-minded either," he said. "Ours was a platonic relationship, but I loved her. I still do."

She was laid off from her job, and he told her he would support her. He had a disability after breaking his back in a motorcycle accident and needed help. Along with their dog and cat, they became family.

"We cared about each other and did what we could to take care of each other," he said.

Five or so years ago, he came into a little bit of money, a back payment from his disability insurance. He gave it to her. He wanted her to get sex-reassignment surgery, to complete her transition, so her body would match the way she felt. He told her he would marry her.

She thought about it. She went back and forth. Then she refused the money. And after that, distance grew between them, he said.

For many years she "passed," sliding by without standing out in public, he told me. But the combination of getting older and depression meant she let herself go. Unable to pass as a woman and uncomfortable as a man, she isolated herself.

"I couldn't take her out to dinner because we'd sit down to eat our meal and sure as we live and breathe, people would make nasty remarks loud enough for her to hear," the man said. "It kept eating away at Nora to the point she couldn't stand it."

She started drinking, and sometimes she became volatile, the man told me.

In June, their dog, Missy Too, died, he said. York came apart, blaming herself. She made a grave marker for the dog and buried her on the side of the Coastal Trail. She wrote her own name on the marker as well.

After that, the man said, he couldn't recognize her. Sadness and self-loathing took over.

"There was a number of times she demanded I kill her. I wasn't going to do that, I loved her," he said. "I begged her to get help. I offered to pay for it. I tried everything I could."

Sometimes when he would come to Anchorage, he'd roll down the trail to visit the dog's grave and put a flower there, mourning both of them.

Then came Saturday morning. York was undone. The man tried to calm her down, he told me. He tried to get her to come to bed. She wouldn't. She became violent. He called 911. While he was on the phone with dispatchers, she pointed a gun at his head.

"I just told her, 'Please, don't kill me.' That's all," he said. "She took the shotgun and went back outside."

And moments later she was dead.

Thinking back, it was like she knew this was coming, he said. For the last six months, she seemed focused on getting their affairs in order. He hasn't been alone since his disability put him in a wheelchair. He told me he thinks he'll manage with the help of his neighbors.

I asked about a burial. He said officially her remains should be released to her next-of-kin. But York hadn't been in touch with her family in decades. Her parents are dead, he said. Her siblings are estranged, he said. She had nothing but a handwritten will.

"I don't want Nora in some anonymous grave," he told me, his voice sounding ragged. "I want to do what I can for her."