Nevada Barr - Anna Pigeon 05 - Endangered Species

by Endangered Species(lit)

  "Not board, just room. Maybe board next year. The second half is due come September. Hull wants all the files squeaky-clean and high-tech by Labor Day."

  "It'd be easier with assistants," Mona said.

  "You just want someone besides me to boss."

  "On the rolls but never showed."

  "Kids today..." Dot clucked.

  "A mess. A nightmare," Mona said." If we didn't possess the patience of job-"

  "And nearly the same number of years on the job-"

  "We'd be more or less completely nuts'-"

  "Instead of incompletely nuts-"

  "By now," Mona finished.

  Yup, Anna thought, old married couple.

  "And Todd was a good enough fellow, " Mona said, as if feeling she'd been remiss." He hadn't much time for a couple of senior citizens."

  "Hookworms."

  "Computer nerds."

  "Schoolteachers."

  The two women exchanged comments with such rapidity, many of them fraught with private humor, that Anna was dizzied. She helped herself to a pastry to steady her mind.

  "But a dear with his wife," Mona concluded. Both faces grew somber so suddenly and in such concert with one another that only an inhaled crumb and a brief coughing fit rescued Anna from laughter.

  "How is Tabby?" Dot asked with what looked to be very real if belated concern.

  Anna saw no reason not to tell them. Theoretically everyone was a suspect and appearances could be deceiving, but Dot and Mona struck her as women who had outgrown murder. Mona lit a Virginia Slim and Dot folded her hands attentively as Anna began. Good listeners; Anna bet they'd been excellent teachers.

  She told them as much as she knew. Mitch Hanson had dropped Lynette and Tabby off at Plum Orchard around six the evening before, and Anna found herself in the awkward role of playing hostess to the returning owner. Tabby hadn't cared, hadn't seemed to notice. Had Norman Hull's comments, and her own rudimentary knowledge of pharmacology, not come into play, Anna would have thought Tabby was drugged. Her movements were slow, her responses to questions and other stimuli sluggish. Her head moved first, her eyes tracking a second later. Her speech, though not slurred, gave that impression. Tabby would lose interest in what she was saying before the thought was complete and her sentences often dribbled to a stop in the middle.

  Crippling depression; it didn't take Anna long to recognize it.

  After Zach died she'd swum in those dark waters. That had been years ago but she could still remember. Her body remembered: the weight behind the breastbone, the pressure at the base of the skull, the tedious exhausting necessity to breathe in and breathe out, the endless theatrical that demons put on just behind the eyes, making it impossible to focus on the words of those still living.

  Overlying this miasma of grief in Tabby was a need for selfdestruction only held at bay by the life she carried within her. Damage she could do that would not touch the baby, Tabby welcomed.

  Making tea, Anna caught her pressing her fingers against the red rings of the electric burner. The flesh was white as ash when Anna snatched them off and held them under the cold water tap.

  Later, when Anna thought Tabby was working on a cross-stitch of three goslings traipsing after a bonneted goose, she found the girl was repeatedly plunging the needle into the flesh of her forearm.

  She was spelling something out with dots of fresh blood. When Anna tried to read it, she smeared the letters and let herself be washed and anointed with Neosporin.

  There followed an earnest lecture as Anna told her that everything she did, right down to destructive thoughts and watching the six o'clock news, affected her unborn child. Maybe Anna was telling the truth. Who could know?

  Lynette was no help. She only stayed a quarter of an hour, then, refusing a ride from Anna, walked the mile and a half home. Either she had problems of her own or she'd caught Tabby's sadness. The usually bright eyes were lackluster and she scarcely spoke. Anna had little doubt some well-meaning person of the male persuasion with only slightly ulterior motives would turn up to succor the young woman, so she let her go without argument, relieved not to have two zombies in the house.

  When Anna had finished her story, Dot said: "Lynette was sweet on Slattery," clearing up at least one of the minor mysteries.

  "Was he sweet on her?" Anna unconsciously picked up the other woman , s phrasing.

  Mona answered." With Slattery who could tell?"

  "He was unilaterally charming," Dot explained." Pleasant for antiquarian educators but no doubt aggravating for sweet young things."

  Anna's radio grumbled, reminding her she wasn't paid to sit around having coffee. After weaseling an invitation to come play with Flicka anytime she wanted, she took her leave.

  Driving south, she considered her conversation with the two women. Had Tabby targeted Todd because he "would leave her"?

  Lynette targeted Hammond for flirting with septuagenarians? Or was the one that got away, Norman Hull, the intended target? Motive was a stumbling block when the identity of the intended victim was up for grabs.

  Love was a respectable motive for murder, well represented in fact and fiction, but it wasn't Anna's favorite for this type of crime.

  Love, the kind that could get one killed, was passionate, immediate, dramatic-at least a majority of the time. In crimes of the heart there was often, quite literally, a smoking gun.

  Murder by sabotage or-if Wayne had his way-by incompetence, breathed cold.

  In some evil recess of her mind Anna was pleased it had happened on her shift. Presuppression was deadly dull. Taken from a purely heartless point of view, a murder investigation was downright entertaining.

  Anna laughed at the wickedness of the thought and was instantly punished by an echo of pain from behind her left ear.

  Abruptly her mood changed, reality setting in with a vengeance, reminding her to stay alert lest her demise prove amusing to someone else; someone she owed one hell of a headache.

  N THE NORTH END of the island were the Cumberland MounOtains- hillocks not nearly so majestic as the thines-left behind when the sea severed the island's tip. Across a causeway, that tip still existed, privately owned. Because it was inaccessible and therefore mysterious, Anna was fantasizing about swimming the narrow channel and exploring it. Of course she never would. There were ten standard firefighting orders. Had there been an eleventh, it might have said that the instant a firefighter left her station there was bound to be a call- out.

  "What time is it?" Dijon asked.

  "Two minutes later than last time you asked."

  They lay side by side on the hood of the truck, their backs against the windshield. Having finished their sack lunches, they'd declared siesta appropriate, and as long as Guy didn't catch them at it, it would be. Neither worried; stealth and all-terrain vehicles were mutually exclusive.

  "We could go feed the baby alligators," Dijon suggested.

  "I am shocked," Anna said mildly." Maggie-Mary would get us. Besides, it's against Superintendent's Orders." Feeding wild animals human food was seldom healthy for them, and feeding wild animals that could grow up to feed on you, unwise at the best of times.

  "Pissing in the wind," Dijon defended himself.

  As oblique as the comment was, Anna understood. Tourists, island dwellers, fishermen-everyone-had hand-fed the little gators since they were hatchlings. Now the babies, all fourteen of them, were a couple of feet long. Whenever a human approached the pool they lived in, they all came crowding around like pigeons in the park. But with pointier teeth.

  So far Anna had kept to the moral high ground and not given in to the temptation to feed them, but she watched Rick and Dijoll do it and enjoyed the show, which was just as bad. Hypocrite, she reproved herself, but there was no power behind the thought. the day was too warm, the clatter of cicadas too soothing, and the baby gators too much fun to watch for her to get up a strong case against herself.

  Her mind wandered off the glittering Atlantic and onto eart
hier things. Alice Utterback had located the aircraft logs at the office at the St. Marys airport where Hammond had his mechanic work done. They were all in order and up-to-date. The Beechcraft had been given its hundred-hour check two weeks prior to the accident.

  At that time everything had been in order and signed off on. The mechanic, an older man and a staple in St. Marys, not only had the recommendations of his peers but had no idea who owned the airplane when he worked on it, or who might or might not be living with Hammond in the future. That left sabotage, intentional and deadly.

  "What do you know about either of the guys killed in the crash?"

  Anna asked. She was aware that she avoided the use of their names.

  She didn't want to make it personal.

  "Sleuthing, eh?" Dijon said in a passable English accent." Why not. I've been to law enforcement school and I could pass for Denzel Washington."

  "In your dreams."

  "Most of what I got's from Lynette," Dijon said." Hearsay. Not admissible. I got an eighty-two on that exam."

  "Bully for you."

  "Lynette had the hots for Hammond. You'd think the sun rose and set in his pants."

  "Wouldn't give you the time of day?"

  "You got it. And to resist me you have to admit she must've had it bad."

  Anna laughed." Rick teaching you how to brag?"

  "If it's true, it ain't bragging. Lynette seemed kind of down, so me and Rick dropped by her place last night with a couple of sixpacks."

  Anna's guess that Lynette wouldn't suffer for broad shoulders to cry on had been right on the money.

  "Rick and Lynette got pretty smashed-"

  "Not you?"

  "Me? You kidding? The stuff has no effect on me anymore.

  "Anyway..." Anna prompted.

  "What do you mean anyway? You're the one keeps interrupting, lousing up the flow."

  "Sorry."

  "Could you grovel and beseech me?"

  "Not that sorry."

  "Anyway," Dijon went on amiably, "it pretty much turned into a Pity party, which was okay by me. Women cry, you get to hold 'em.

  Beats sitting around staring at you old farts all night."

  " You have a heart as big as all outdoors," Anna said dryly.

  ", do, don't I? She'd met Slattery a few years back-before she got on permanent she was a seasonal up in Alaska somewhere. They went at it hot and heavy, then he started screwing around on her.

  Lynette didn't say that. 'Betrayed my trust,' is how she put it."

  " Screwing around," Anna agreed.

  " Hey, you are old, aren't you?"

  "I've been around the block."

  "Before I was born."

  Anna let that pass. She couldn't think of an adequate rejoinder.

  Besides, it was true." So he comes here and they start up again?"

  "Lynette's story is that he'd seen the light, found God, been washed in the blood of the lamb. Lynette's big into Jesus, did you know that"'

  " Nope."

  " Me neither. She seems so cool."

  " Maybe the one doesn't preclude the other," Anna said.

  Dijon snorted." She says Hammond came crawling back on his belly all drippy with true repentance and talking diamond rings and picket fences and having her babies."

  A break in the conversation followed that neither of them bothered to fill. The sounds of summer were sufficient to banish silence with quiet.

  " He wanted to get laid," Anna said after a minute.

  '.In a bad way," Dijon concurred." Nothing against Lynette, but the whole story was just too perfect: hearts and flowers and clap.

  Guaranteed to make them drop their drawers."

  "Are you going to give it a try?"

  "Whatever works

  "Maybe Slattery 'betrayed her trust' one too many times," Anna suggested.

  "You mean... Naw." Dijon pushed himself up off the windshield and stared out across the causeway. After a moment he shook his head." No. I don't see it." Then: "You think?"

  "Take it easy," Anna laughed." I don't think anything. We're just talking."

  Dijon leaned back." Boy, that would be a twist, wouldn't it?

  Lynette icing her lover? I like it."

  If Dijon had any idea how his innocence showed through a hundred cracks in his armor, he would have been mortified. Anna stored that thought away in case she needed it for self-defense at some later date.

  "What else you got?" he asked.

  "Not a whole hell of a lot," Anna admitted." Tabby knocking off Todd?"

  "Never happen. That woman couldn't unhook her own bra.

  Without Todd, she's falling apart."

  "What if he was going to run out on her?" Anna told him the story of their midnight contretemps in the meadow.

  "Still can't see it," he said, settling his cap more comfortably over his face." She'd crawl-not kill-if her man was walking out."

  "I don't know," Anna said. She was thinking of the burned fingers and the needle punctures." She's tearing herself up over something."

  " Grief."

  There was more to it than that, but since she didn't know what, Anna kept the thought to herself." How about Norman Hull? He was supposed to be on that flight. Maybe he knew better."

  Dijon considered that for a while." No," he said finally." 'Foo big a pain in the butt to fill Todd's position. Who'd take it? There's diddly- shit to do. You'll have to do better than Hull."

  Anna told him about Slattery Hammond's lawsuit against Alice Utterback.

  "That's it," he said languidly." A woman carrying that much brass is unnatural. Ball-busting bitch nails middle-class white guy. I bet it happens all the time." He was trying to get a rise out of Anna, but with his youth and transparency, he only succeeded in being kind of cute.

  "Let's go mess with Marty Schlessinger," Anna said suddenly.

  "She lied to me about hearing the shot that hit that Austrian kid."

  " God, I hate it when people lie to me," Dijon said.

  "You're in for a miserable life then," Anna told him." Everybody lies all the time just for the hell of it. By the way, you've got a tick on your neck."

  "Jesus Christ!" Dijon yelled, and scrambled from the hood to wrench the side mirror out to where he could examine himself.

  "Shit. There's no tick."

  *See what I mean?"

  *Anna, I wish you had balls. Then I'd know what to do with

  *

  YOU.

  * I do," she said as she fired up the truck's engine." A whole collection mounted on the wall of my study."

  Marty Schlessinger lived in a shack. The house, the hog pens, the outbuildings, stuck out of the forest floor like a rejected set from The Grapes of Wrath. If the buildings had ever been painted, sun and salt air had stripped them bare again.

  The house was built in the southern tradition Anna had heard referred to as a "shotgun shack." The rooms were arranged in a line, one after the other from front door to back. Presumably, one could fire a shotgun through the entire structure without doing too much damage. The screen on the front door was blasted outward as if someone had tested the theory. Most of the window screens were torn or missing. The shake siding had been broken in several places as if a truck had backed into the house and the damage had never been repaired. Gouts of tar paper flagged the holes.

  The hog pen was ten or fifteen feet from the house. Fence and shelter were the same weathered gray. Repairs had been made with whatever came to hand. A rusting dozer blade shored up a stretch of fence line. The door of an automobile, yellow upholstery still clinging to the side, had been used to stop a hole dug beneath the wire.

  Being clever creatures, the pigs were sleeping through the heat of the day. Under the rude and crumbling shelter, Anna could see a sow with eight or a dozen piglets, all of whom had fallen asleep suckling. Cumberland Island's pigs were unlike any she'd ever seen.

  In most ways-eyes and ears and snouts and tails-they were thoroughly swinish, but their markings were
odd. Dark hash marks the length of the pig ran down their tawny backs from nape to rump.

  They weren't the stripes of a zebra but the stylized markings she was used to seeing on the backs of chipmunks. Island life must have made for creative couplings.

  Schlessinger's ATV was parked in the remains of a shed adjacent to the sty. The wide door lay on the ground several yards from the building. Long pointed hinges, rusted the color of dried blood, were attached to the wood.