Icy Clutches

by Aaron Elkins

  "I don't want to sit down,” Fisk said petulantly, but he came in anyway and took the chair John had been using to prop up his feet. He glanced at Gideon and looked with distaste at the half-eaten lunches. “I want you to do something,” he told John. “It was my uncle's journal."

  "Your uncle was Steven Fisk?” John turned the other chair backwards and sat down, forearms crossed on top of the back.

  "Yes, of course."

  "And this was a personal journal he kept?"

  "Yes, yes, of course.” He was wiggling with impatience. “At the time of the expedition. It went to my father with his belongings when he died. My father was his brother."

  "Uh-huh. What makes you think it was stolen?"

  "I don't think it was stolen; it was stolen. A blue, diary-type notebook. I had it with me in the dining room this morning when I was having breakfast with the others. I left it on my chair when I went to get Professor Tremaine. That was when...” His eyelids flickered. “Well, you remember."

  John nodded.

  "When I realized I'd left it and came back later it wasn't there."

  "Did you check with—"

  "I checked with the help. They hadn't seen it. And with the others. They all claimed they hadn't seen it."

  "Are you sure you had it with you? Did you look in your room?"

  "I had it with me. I brought it for the session we were supposed to have.” He shook his head decisively. “Oh, it was stolen, all right."

  "Uh-huh. Who would want to steal your uncle's journal?"

  "Shirley Yount,” Elliott replied promptly.

  "And just why would Shirley Yount want to do that, sir?"

  "Don't patronize me, Inspector,” Fisk snapped.

  "Sorry,” John said amiably. “Why do you think she took it? And I'm not an inspector."

  "Because she was afraid of what was in it, naturally. She's afraid my uncle told the truth about her unspeakable sister. And he did. Oh, he certainly did."

  "Her sister was Jocelyn Yount? Steven's fiancee?"

  John knew more than he was telling Fisk; he just liked to hear things more than once. Gideon had already told him about the angry exchange he'd walked in on between Fisk and Shirley Yount the day before.

  "Yes, and she was like a stone around his neck. Steve deserved better than her. He was a brilliant student.” Behind his beard, pale lips stretched in a catty smile. “Which Tremaine realized only too well. Steve did all the work, and the great Tremaine did all the publishing—with no credit, of course. That's all in the journal too. Oh, yes. With verification. You should have seen Tremaine's face—"

  "What's this got to do with Shirley Yount, Dr. Fisk?"

  Fisk bridled at being interrupted. “I was about to tell you before you got me off the track. Her sister was a tart. Can I be any plainer than that?"

  "Did you know Jocelyn Yount yourself, Doctor?"

  "Well, no, I didn't actually know her. But it's all in the journal."

  "And you think Shirley stole it to protect the memory of her sister?"

  Fisk turned to Gideon with a little moue of exasperation. At least, Gideon thought it was a moue. “Didn't I just say that?"

  "I suppose you did,” John said with a quiet smile. “How would she know what was in the journal?"

  "Everyone knew. I told them about it yesterday afternoon. It came up during the meeting."

  "If they knew about it, and if they were with you in the dining room this morning—they were, weren't they...?"

  "Yes," Fisk said with an imploring look heavenward. “My God, how many times do I have to repeat this? I wish you'd write it down if you can't remember."

  "Then how do you know it was Shirley?” John said in the same calm voice. “Why not one of the others?"

  Gideon marveled at his equanimity. John did not have a quick temper, exactly, but neither was he the most restrained of men, at least not in the many heated, arm-waving discussions he had had with Gideon over the years. This was business, though, and that clearly made it different. Besides, John had spent over an hour with Dr. Wu that morning; Elliott Fisk was child's play in comparison.

  All the same, Gideon thought, if it were me I would have kicked the guy by now.

  "It was Shirley Yount,” Fisk maintained. “Now are you going to do something about it, or are we going to sit here talking about it all day?"

  "We'll do something about it, sir. I appreciate your telling me about it. I'll be in touch."

  Fisk looked at Gideon again. “I gather I'm being dismissed."

  John laughed good-naturedly and opened the door for him, then came back and picked up the last of the chicken pieces.

  "John,” Gideon said. “I think you're actually mellowing."

  "That's the way they teach us to do it at the academy.” He gnawed contentedly at the wing bone, searching out and finding the last resistant scraps of meat with his teeth. He was sitting on the base of his spine, with his feet back up on the other chair. “But inside I'm a mass of seething tensions."

  "I can see that. It's terrifying.” Gideon finished the last of the salmon, slid the plate away, and popped up the lid on his coffee. “Do you think someone really stole his journal?"

  "Someone, yeah. Maybe even Shirley, But not to protect her sister's memory. “I can't see that. Why should she care what Steve Fisk wrote in his journal all that time ago?” With the nail of a pinky he went after a shred of chicken between his lower incisors. “Why should anyone, for that matter?"

  "I don't know. I'm betting it's got something to do with the murder, though."

  "Could be. Whoever killed Tremaine—"

  "Not that murder; the one in 1960."

  "How do you come up with that?"

  "Well, think about it: Yesterday we figure out that someone was murdered on that glacier—"

  "You figure out. It makes me nervous when you get modest."

  "—and inside of a few hours the only remaining person who was there gets strangled, and his description of it disappears. Then this morning the only other contemporaneous account of the survey that we know about disappears too. It can't be coincidence. There has to be a relationship.” The Law of Interconnected Monkey Business, his old professor and friend Abe Goldstein called it.

  "Maybe, maybe not. Twenty-nine years is a long time ago. Maybe Tremaine got killed for some reason we don't know anything about; he didn't seem to have any problem ticking people off. And maybe Fisk's journal got ripped off for a completely different reason. Let's keep our options open.” He broke his donut in two and examined the interior, evidently finding it to his satisfaction.

  "Let me ask you about something else, Doc. Maybe we can whittle down our suspects a little. Would a woman have been able to pull Tremaine's body into position like that? Actually lift him up off the floor and tie the thongs to the hook?"

  Gideon leaned back in his chair, considering. “Well, those are two pretty hefty women you're thinking about. Anna Henckel must weigh a hundred and sixty; Shirley more. Tremaine was only a hundred and thirty-five or so. You'd get a lot of leverage from pulling the thongs over the top of the partition and then wrapping them around the hook as you went. And the body wouldn't have been hanging free, it would've been propped against the partition. That would have helped."

  "So you're saying yeah?"

  "I'm saying yeah."

  John rocked slowly back and forth on the rear legs of his chair. “You know, it's sad. A few years ago we could have ruled the ladies out right off. Women didn't strangle people. Poison, sure. Guns, you better believe it. But no strangling, no knives, no torture, no mutilation. Boy,” he said with a world-weary sigh, “times have changed. Well, what about Fisk? He's not exactly hefty. Would he be able to lift Tremaine?"

  "I think so, John. It looks as if we'll have to stay with five suspects for the moment."

  "What's with this ‘we,’ Doc? We're just having a conversation, that's all. This is my job, not ‘our’ job."

  "Of course it's your job. You're the on
e who started talking about ‘we.’ What do I know about solving murders?"

  "Yeah, sure, you're just a simple bone man, right?” John looked at him doubtfully. “Doc, I want your word that you're gonna concentrate on the bones. You solve that murder, I'll solve this murder. That'll make us both happy. My boss too."

  "Fine."

  "I mean it. And I want to know what you're doing every step of the way. I'm in charge, understand?"

  "I said fine."

  "That doesn't include going around doing your own little interviews with Judd or Henckel, or anyone else. Or messing around with—"

  "John, I'm not a complete idiot."

  John's feet came off the chair. “Yeah, you are! When it comes to this, you are! Look, I know you. You think you know everything about everything. You stick your nose into things, you get involved where you don't have any business, you make life hard for everybody. My goddamn boss was right about you.” He was chopping at the air with both hands, more like the John that Gideon knew. “Well, do me a favor and stay out of this one, dammit!” There was a long pulsing silence while he stared angrily at Gideon.

  Gideon studied his friend in return. “On the other hand,” he said judiciously, “it could be that you haven't mellowed."

  John's irritation hung on a second longer, then wavered and slid away like shards of glass from a broken mirror. He blew out his pent-up breath, leaned back in his chair again, and laughed. “Doc, Doc, somebody here is a killer. “I don't want you making him mad, I don't—ah, hell, I don't want to see you get hurt, that's all I'm worried about."

  Gideon clapped him on the forearm. “I know it, John. I never thought anything else. I'll concentrate on the bones, I promise. What do you mean, your boss was right about me?"

  "Never mind, you don't want to know.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Things to do. Meet you and Julie for dinner?"

  "Uh, I don't think we'll be here."

  "You're not gonna be in Glacier Bay?"

  "No, I was planning to catch the six o'clock plane into Juneau. If I can convince Julie to play hooky for a day, I'll take her with me. We'll be back on tomorrow's flight."

  "What's in Juneau?” John asked suspiciously.

  "The anthropologist who worked on those bones in 1964. I want to compare notes with him."

  "Mm,” John said. “I guess that makes sense."

  "Would there be any problem with my taking the fragments along with me? That'd be a help."

  John sat down again. “I don't know, Doc, that could be a problem. That's evidentiary material, especially that piece of skull. Tell you the truth, I'm not even too keen about it just being in the Park Service safe up here. I'd be happier if it was in an FBI evidence room somewhere."

  "Well, isn't there an FBI office in Juneau? I could drop it off for you."

  "That's not exactly kosher."

  "I know, but we're not exactly in Seattle, with agents and couriers all over the place."

  John paused, then made a decision. “Okay. Take it with you and leave it at the resident agency office. Federal building, ninth floor. I'll let ‘em know you're coming."

  "Good, I will."

  John stood up again and stretched, then leveled a finger at Gideon. “Lose it, you die."

  "Thanks for your confidence,” Gideon said.

  "Just don't screw up. Hey, are you planning to eat that brownie or not?"

  "Damn right I am,” Gideon said, and snatched it off the plate before John could make his grab.

  * * * *

  Shirley Yount stopped them on the boardwalk outside by standing squarely in their way, hands on hips, elbows akimbo, feet planted. A formidable figure.

  "I understand that little fart says I stole his diary."

  "Yes. ma'am, you could say that,” John said.

  She glared at John, very nearly eye to eye. “Well, I didn't,” she said.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 15

  * * * *

  The daily turnaround flight between Juneau and Gustavus is surely one of the most spectacular jet flights in America. Going southeast, toward Juneau, you leave the flat Gustavus plain, with Glacier Bay tilting on your left, rise quickly over Icy Strait and the huddled green Chilkat Mountains, and wing out over the Inside Passage. Below, in the muted blue water, are the thousand forested, uninhabited islands of the Alexander Archipelago, and a few miles to the east the rearing, gleaming white chain of the Boundary Range. Beyond them, in British Columbia, appears the even grander, whiter mass of the great Coast Range, stretching out of sight to the north and south. Toward the end of the flight, the vast Juneau ice field comes into view (larger than the state of Rhode Island, the pilot informs you over the public-address system), and, finally, as the plane wheels and drops toward Juneau Airport, the colossal, frozen river that is Mendenhall Glacier, impressive even after Glacier Bay.

  All this in twelve minutes’ air time, in a 727 that never gets more than four thousand feet off the ground and seems to float between the two airports like a dirigible with wings. Few passengers do anything during the twelve minutes but stare out the windows, struck dumb. But Julie and Gideon hadn't even glanced up, hadn't stopped talking.

  They hadn't stopped talking since he'd met her boat at the pier at a little after four, Persuading her to play hooky for a day had taken all of thirty seconds. Trying to explain what was going on had taken the rest of the two hours, even with John's help on the drive to Gustavus. Small wonder. When she'd started off that morning the only mystery had been the pierced skull from 1960, and that had been mystery enough. But by the time Gideon saw her again nine hours later, Tremaine had been found dead; the manuscript had disappeared; Burton Wu had come, made his pronouncements, and gone; Elliott Fisk's journal had been stolen; and dark, old motives were popping to the surface like fizz in a glass of Alka-Seltzer.

  It had been a hell of a day.

  "So what's your working hypothesis?” Julie asked as the wheels touched down. “That Tremaine was killed to keep him quiet about the other murder?"

  "Who has a working hypothesis?” Gideon pushed back into his seat against the strain of the backthrust as the plane touched down, and waited for the engine roar to quiet. “But if I had one, I guess that'd be it."

  "But who would even know what happened out there, besides Tremaine? Everybody else was killed in—” She made one of her pitiful attempts at snapping her fingers. “I forgot. John thinks Dr. Judd might not really have been that sick, that he might have followed them out there and killed Steven Fisk himself and then gotten back out before the avalanche."

  "No, that's just an outside possibility. I don't think he really believes it."

  Julie unstrapped her seat belt as the plane rolled to a stop, and stood up.

  "What do you think?"

  "I don't think it's too likely either.” He flicked open his seat belt, stretched, and stood up too. “What are we saying—"

  Her hand went out. “Gideon—"

  But she was too late. Straightening, he thumped his head on the overhead rack. “Damn!"

  "It's just amazing,” she said. “You do it every time. You never miss. Some physical anthropologist in five hundred years is probably going to go bonkers trying to figure out how your skull got so lumpy."

  Wincing, Gideon rubbed his head. “Thank you for your concern,” he grumbled, and looked at his hand. “No blood, anyway."

  A flicker of worry crossed her face, like a shadow. “You're all right, aren't you?"

  "Sure,” he said with a quick smile, “I built up a callus there years ago.” He reached up for their bags and squeezed her hand as they headed out of the near-empty plane. Julie squeezed back.

  "Anyway,” he said, “what would we be saying Judd did? Went sneaking over the glacier after them? You can't sneak over a glacier like Tirku, not without being seen. So, if not for a fortuitous avalanche, which he couldn't have predicted, there would have been three witnesses to the murder, or at least three people who saw him
there."

  Julie nodded. “That's so. And Tremaine himself was right there. Why would he keep quiet about it all these years? From what John said, there wasn't any love lost between the two of them."

  They entered the terminal building ("Wipe your feet,” the no-nonsense sign on the door told them), walked past the ten-foot-high stuffed polar bear that greets incoming passengers, and went out into the misty drizzle.

  The fifteen-minute trip downtown was made in Juneau's version of an airport limousine, an old school bus painted blue, with MGT (for Mendenhall Glacier Transport) on the side. The route took them through the Mendenhall wetlands, a bleak silt plain left behind by the retreating glacier, then along Gastineau Channel, Juneau's sole avenue to the Inside Passage and the outside world. As with Glacier Bay—as with much of coastal Alaska—the only ways in or out of the state capital were by air and by water. The one highway out of Juneau led thirty-six miles to Auke Bay. And back.

  As they walked the three blocks from the bus stop to the old Baranof Hotel on this dreary, drizzly late afternoon, Juneau looked like the isolated outpost it was, huddled uneasily in its narrow fjord at the foot of hulking Mount Juneau. Great snowfields clung to the mountain's steep flanks directly above them, seemingly ready to break free and come down on their heads at the next stiff breeze. Even the heavy sky seemed to press down on the little town; rain dripped from a layer of lowering clouds that smothered the tops of the surrounding mountains, closing in the fjord like a pewter lid.

  The city itself was appropriately subdued in the face of this sullen, menacing Nature. The turn-of-the-century street lamps on Franklin Street glowed a gloomy yellow, the tourist shops that were the main tenants of the false-front, frontier-style wooden buildings were closed and dark, the street traffic minimal, the rainswept sidewalks nearly empty. Only the bars were open—the Red Dog Saloon, the Sourdough, Mike's; open and rowdy, to judge from the sounds. An occasional group of two or three men, mostly in parkas and rubber boots, shoved their way through one set of swinging doors and wavered half a block to the next one.

  "Never arrive in a strange place at night on an empty stomach” had been Abe Goldstein's first rule to his class on anthropological field technique. “In the dark and with a low blood-sugar level, new places don't look so hot."