A Superior Death (12 page)

 

 

 

 

P
atience put the lodge to bed at midnight and Anna followed her home. In the last of the four lodge buildings sprinkled along the western shore of Rock Harbor, she shared an apartment with her daughter. There was nothing rustic or romantic about the decor—the furnishings looked to have been borrowed from a doctor’s waiting room—but the sliding glass doors opening out of the living room looked across the harbor to the lush shores of Raspberry Island.

Carrie Bittner wasn’t home, a fact that irritated her mother. Patience put her domestic disappointments aside, however, and turned on her hostess’s charm. Though it was transparent, it was effective. Patience knew how to put people at their ease, and Anna was glad to have been rescued from a mildewed bed aboard Pilcher’s boat. The hot shower, the strains of Rampal on the compact disc player, and the loan of one of Patience’s flannel gowns were welcome luxuries at the end of a trying day.

As Anna curled up on the sofa, Patience uncorked a bottle of Pinot Noir. Words of protest were in Anna’s mouth but Patience forestalled them.

“This is an excellent wine,” she said. “It warms without intoxicating. I promise. Tonight we both need it. Wine is important.”

“You’ve said that before.”

Patience smiled without embarrassment. “I suppose I have. I’ll probably say it again. Wine is history, comfort and strength, food and drink, art and commerce. You can’t say that about much else.” She handed Anna a small glass of dark purple liquid. She raised hers to the light, met Anna’s eye, and said: “Over the lips and through the gums, look out stomach, here it comes.”

Anna enjoyed both the wine and the company. She told Patience all she dared of Denny’s whereabouts. The exact details, the 1900s captain’s uniform, the lack of any scuba gear, the precise location, Anna kept to herself. She knew that whoever handled the case would want as much information as possible to be known only to themselves and the killer.

It was close to one o’clock in the morning when Carrie Bittner came home. She had the flushed, excited look that can only be explained by young love or other covert night actions. As Patience scolded her off to her room, Anna wondered which of the busboys dared to court the boss’s daughter.

Patience apologized unnecessarily and followed her daughter to bed. Though soothed by wine and warmth, Anna still was not sleepy. For the third time that day she dug in her daypack for
Ivanhoe.
So much had transpired since last she’d turned its pages, it seemed that Rebecca must surely have perished from old age by now.

Anna couldn’t concentrate. Putting the book away, she came across Christina’s letter, brought on the
Ranger III,
unopened, forgotten amid the Sturm and Drang of the past thirty-six hours. She tucked her blankets around her on the sofa and opened the letter. Alison had drawn her a picture of Piedmont. He looked like a yellow and red armadillo but there was an authentic paw print to prove otherwise.

Anna smiled at the struggle that must have ensued before Piedmont had let one of his perfect golden paws be pressed into an ink pad, and laughed aloud when she read Christina’s account of trying to scrub vermilion cat tracks off the kitchen counter. Alison was to play Uncle Sam in the Fourth of July pageant, the lilacs were in full bloom, Anna’s order for Justin boots had finally been forwarded from Texas, Christina was going bike riding with Bertie on Sunday, the plumber said the outside faucets needed frost-proof somethings. Anna couldn’t make out Chris’s scrawl.

She put away the letter, looked again at Piedmont-as-armadillo. Christina, as always, had a talent for reaffirming life. She got to the crux of it: Sunday school and plumbers and “What’s for dinner?” Everything else was mere affectation.

Anna turned off the light. Life would go on. A five-year-old girl was playing Uncle Sam. Universal peace couldn’t be far away.

CHAPTER 7

L
ucas had wanted a good long surface interval and he got it. The wheels of justice were grinding slow. Not because they ground exceeding fine, Anna thought, but because they were mired down in red tape.

As Lucas gave Anna a ride back to the north shore he told her of his call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assured that the corpse would keep as well at the bottom of the lake as it would in the refrigerator at the morgue, the FBI wanted a man on site when the body was brought up. That man was Frederick Stanton out of Detroit. Frederick (known to his intimates, the FBI secretary told Lucas, as “Frederick”; “Fred” or “Freddy” could undermine any potential for an amicable working relationship) specialized in narcotics violations occurring on the American-Canadian border in the midwest region. Officer Stanton had to give a deposition in New Jersey on Wednesday. Thursday he would fly to Houghton, and Friday take the seaplane to Rock. Only after he arrived could the body be recovered.

The Chief Ranger speculated that the FBI smelled big-time crime. The Feds couldn’t conceive of any bizarre form of death that wasn’t either mob- or drug-connected, and since everyone knew Italians didn’t dive, that left Denny Castle on the drug connections list.

Frederick Stanton’s specialty.

Despite the reports of arrogance, Anna developed a bit of a soft spot for Frederick the Fed: His delays would postpone the dreaded
Kamloops
dive for five days.

As the
Lorelei
motored down Amygdaloid Channel, she saw the
3rd Sister
moored at the dock in front of the ranger station. She wondered if anyone had called Hawk and Holly to tell them of Denny’s death. Anna didn’t even know where they lived.

Isle Royale was like a place out of time, out of the ordinary run of lives. No one but the wild creatures really lived there. The human population appeared for six months out of each year, a full-blown society with cops and robbers, houses and boats, shovels and Hershey bars, pumping gas and drinking vodka, making love and money. Then, October 19, humanity closed up shop and left the island to heal itself under the winter snows.

A government-issued Brigadoon. And what is known of the people of Brigadoon? The ninety-nine years that they are hidden in the mists, what do they do to pass the time? Somehow Anna couldn’t picture the Bradshaws puttering around the house, watching television, going to a bed that didn’t rock and bob with the moods of the lake.

“Who told the Bradshaws about Denny?” Anna asked the Chief Ranger.

“Nobody. Couldn’t raise the
Third Sister
by radio. And we didn’t have any luck by phone. The only number we have for the Bradshaws is the number at the Voyageur Marina in Grand Portage. I left a message with the old guy that runs the place but they never called me. They don’t know Denny’s dead—shouldn’t know, anyway.”

Anna understood the implication. Denny Castle’s body was found in a place only a handful of people had the courage or the skill to go. The Bradshaws would top the list of murder suspects.

“I hear Holly was pretty upset about Denny’s marriage to Jo.” Lucas began the fishing. “Hell hath no fury? Her and Denny?”

“Holly was unhappy but she wasn’t spitting tacks,” Anna said carefully. “I’d think if her lover was marrying another woman there’d’ve been more china through the plate glass, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was just that Jo would break up the Three Musketeers. The Bradshaws have been diving with Denny a long time. I got the feeling they’d be pretty lost without him. Maybe even out of business. Who owns the
Third Sister
?”

“I always assumed it belonged to Denny but I never asked,” Lucas replied. “I’ll ask.”

Including gear, the dive boat would be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Anna picked up Lucas’s field glasses from the instrument panel and looked at the docked vessel now less than a quarter of a mile away.

“They’ve got Denny’s gear aboard,” she said. Castle was what some of the lake divers referred to as a clotheshorse. He had a lot of fancy equipment. Anna recognized his distinctive orange dry suit.

“We knew it wasn’t on Denny.”

“How in the hell did he get down there?” Anna wondered aloud.

“Either he put himself there, or somebody else did.

Maybe the autopsy will tell us something. If there are tire tracks on his chest or a piece of hot dog lodged in his throat, we can figure somebody else did.”

“In an antique sailor suit,” Anna added.

“In an antique sailor suit. Maybe he borrowed gear, put the costume on, dived, dumped his tanks. Suicide.”

“On his honeymoon?”

Lucas said nothing, and Anna was reminded that the Castles’ marriage had not been made in heaven but forged from equal parts determination and rebound. Even this “honeymoon” was a working vacation. The
3rd Sister
had clients arriving on the next
Ranger III.

“In thirty-four-degree water he’d have been dead of hypothermia before he reached the engine room,” Anna said.

“Possibly. Maybe he had the costume under the dry suit.

No. . . . Nix that theory. Ralph and I didn’t see any suit or tanks, and he couldn’t have swum far without them. He must have been killed above the water, then the corpse was hidden there.”

“In the hope it would get lost in the crowd?” Anna asked dubiously.

“No good either,” Lucas contradicted himself. “I don’t think the ‘hide in plain sight’ axiom works with such a celebrated collection of bodies as inhabit the
Kamloops
.”

“He could have been put there just for that; to be seen.

A warning of some kind,” Anna suggested. “Like drug dealers who break legs, or a mob execution.”

“Could be. That would make the Feds doubly happy: a drug-connected mob killing.”

Anna laughed. Even given the circumstances, it felt good. Especially given the circumstances.

“Do you know Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke?” Lucas asked abruptly. “They’re SCAs at Rock. Flaky. Naturalists.”

“I know them,” Anna said. She didn’t know whether to bring up Charlie-Mott-cum-reincarnation-and-cannibalism or not, so she waited.

For a moment Lucas didn’t go on. He looked as if he struggled with a statement as absurd as the one resting under Anna’s tongue. Then he chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I was down at the marina fueling the boat when they heard of Denny’s death. They were trying to catch that herring gull—the one that’s got a fishhook stuck in its beak—so they could get the hook out before the bird starves. Jim came in on the
Loon,
saw a couple of fresh ears, and started babbling out the story—Tattinger, by the way, spilled the beans about the location of the body. Anyway, Tinker looked at Damien and said: ‘The
Kamloops.
Yes. Denny would want to look after his friends.’ ” The recitation finished, Lucas looked uncomfortable with the telling. He fiddled with the throttles, cutting back to a speed that wouldn’t wake the boats moored at the dock.

Anna speculated that he’d taken comfort in Tinker’s offbeat theory and was too much of a man to be easy with that.

“It’s as good an explanation as any we’ve come up with,” she said. “It certainly fits with the personality involved better. I can’t see Denny Castle dealing with drugs or mobsters, but it’s not hard to imagine him standing guard for all eternity over the submerged treasures of Lake Superior.”

Lucas snorted genteelly. Though he’d brought the subject up, this line of conversation was to be at an end. Anna fell silent, and Vega turned his attention to docking the
Lorelei.

Bow and stern lines in hand, Anna jumped ashore and tied off while Vega shut down the engines. Through the cabin window she saw him take off the green NPS baseball cap and put on the flat-brimmed straw hat used on official occasions.

Lucas stepped onto the dock, smoothing his coarse black hair where the hat ruffled it. “Stay close,” he said. Obediently, Anna followed him down the dock and stood by as he knocked on the cabin of the
3rd Sister.

The windows were open but all the curtains were drawn, and when there was no answer, Anna wondered if Hawk and Holly had gone ashore for some reason. Lucas knocked again.

Scarcely louder than the squeaking of the boats as they rubbed their fenders between dock and hull, mutterings leaked through the cabin windows. Hawk and Holly were conferring in whispers.

Anna reminded herself that under scrutiny all human foibles appeared to be suspicious behaviors. She exchanged a look with Lucas and he knocked a third time.

The cabin door opened. Hawk, tousled and blinking, looked up at them.

“Sleeping?” Lucas asked politely.

“No.” Hawk looked over his shoulder into the cabin’s interior. “No, we were just . . .” The words trailed off as if he couldn’t concentrate long enough to finish the sentence.

“Sorry. Come aboard if you want. We can put on coffee or something, I guess.”

Anna had seldom heard a less gracious invitation, but it seemed borne more of embarrassment than malice.