A Superior Death (37 page)

Over a tuna fish sandwich and soggy potato chips, Anna opened the packet of interoffice mail she’d brought back from Mott. There was a memo regarding the Backcountry Management Group meeting dated four days earlier, and an announcement for the coming Chrismoose festivities held on the island every twenty-fifth of July. One memorandum piqued her interest for a moment. Lucas had written up a report on the FBI’s investigation of the Castle murder. No new information, it said, and ended with the vague threat: “Frederick Stanton will continue to head the ongoing investigation.”

Tea, food, and routine paperwork had a normalizing effect. Anna’s brain no longer felt so fog-choked. Relief at this modest clarity was soon paid for with the nagging sense of something forgotten. Pushing away the papers that cluttered her desktop, she put her feet up and teetered back in her chair, her fingers intertwined and cradling her head. It had always been her private contention that this was the pose Rodin should have chosen for
The Thinker
.

Staring into the blankness beyond the window, Anna let her mind wander back over the day. The sense of uneasiness stemmed from her early-morning conversation with her sister.

Molly was her arbiter of sanity, her rock, anchor, and reality check. Without a doubt, Anna knew she owed Molly her life. There were days after Zachary had died when only the knowledge that her death would make her sister angry beyond recovery had kept Anna from taking her wine-wrung grief out on the Henry Hudson Parkway at eighty miles an hour.

Molly didn’t hold with suicide. “You’ve got to stay in the game. Your luck’s bound to change. Be a shame to miss it,” she liked to say.

And this morning, when her sister was in trouble, all Anna had found to say was: “Gee, gosh, I’m really sorry. . . .”

Somewhere in the conversation there must have been a word or a phrase that should have meant more to Anna than it did. Molly based her practice on the belief that if you listened hard enough and long enough even the most troubled person could tell you how to help them.

The sense of something missed might have been the squandered chance to repay even a fraction of the debt she owed her sister. Anna rocked her chair down. Next time she would listen harder, longer.

Beyond the window dusk was robbing the world of light. Two of Knucklehead’s kits had come to play near the clearing. Their red-orange fur provided the only color on the scene. The smaller of the two stood up on his hind legs and danced, trying to reach a fat bunch of thimbleberries. The pose was so like that of the fox trying for the “sour” grapes in
Aesop’s Fables
that Anna laughed.

Her laughter came to an abrupt stop. Grapes. All at once she knew what it was that she’d missed in Molly’s conversation, what had plagued her all afternoon. It had nothing to do with her sister’s peace of mind. It was the dead gourmet’s braces, his yellow suspenders worn to mock his rival. Canary-yellow suspenders tying up a bunch of purple-black grapes. That was what had seemed so familiar about the wine label she’d seen in Patience’s apartment. Anna recalled the bottle. Moonlight shining through the window; an outline of black grapes, lines, robbed of color, traced over it, ending in the familiar Y of old-fashioned men’s suspenders.

Pacing the cluttered office, Anna pushed her mind back to the story Molly had told her of the winetasting in Westchester, of the rivalry between the two connoisseurs. A rare California wine had been spirited out of the Napa Valley during Prohibition, a shipment that had vanished on its way out of the country. A wine so rare it had become almost mythical. So rare it retailed for thousands of dollars a bottle. So rare Molly’s client had been willing to risk—and lose—his life rather than admit a rival had actually found the lost shipment.

But the shipment must have been found, tracked down by a woman who worked in a California winery, who lived and breathed wine, who wanted money more than just about anything. Patience had tracked the missing vintage to the
Kamloops.
It wasn’t on the bill of lading because it was contraband being smuggled into Canada among the personal effects of the captain.

Denny had suspected some depredation. Had followed. Arrogance would have robbed him of the good sense to be frightened of one small woman immersed in his world. So Patience had killed him somehow—drowned him.

One hip on her desk, Anna lost herself in thoughts of the cynical blond woman she was becoming friends with. The courage, the brains, the daring—all the things that made Patience a fascinating companion—must have served her well in her criminal activities. Even a brilliant divorce wouldn’t keep her in silk dresses indefinitely, and Patience was a greedy woman. Greed had usurped the higher emotions. Greed had become the driving force. Greed had made theft easy and murder possible.

“One-two-one, three-oh-two,” Anna snapped into her base radio. Three times brought no response. The glacier-broken interior of the island was riddled with places where radios couldn’t reach in or out. Evidently Ralph and Lucas had pitched camp in one of them.

“Damn,” Anna whispered. Mike in hand, she debated the wisdom of broaching the subject over the airwaves with Scotty. Patience was clever, quick. If Scotty botched it, fog or no, she would be gone before anyone had a chance to stop her. And Scotty would botch it. Anna had seen the label, she had heard the story, but as yet there was no real evidence. Scotty wouldn’t have the forbearance to wait and watch without hinting or pseudo heroics. By the time Lucas and Ralph were out of the backcountry, Patience would be long gone.

The situation would keep better without interference, Anna decided. Tomorrow she would go to Rock Harbor. Lucas would be back. They would talk.

She put down the mike, stared out into the fog. The kits were gone.

“How the hell did she get into the captain’s cabin to bring the stuff up?” she demanded of the world at large.

CHAPTER 26

B
efore the coming night robbed the fog of the last light, Anna had to make her evening patrol. A moment passed in evil thoughts: a glass of red wine by the stove instead of a blind boat tour, who would know? Tonight, there would be little in the way of visitor contact.

But anyone out could be in trouble if they didn’t know the waters. Anna sighed and shrugged into her Gore-Tex.

The channel was empty. Two boats were snugged in Herring Bay near Belle Isle, a dozen more anchored in the secure waters of McCargo Cove. Anna turned a blinded windscreen back toward home and crept through a mist turning from white to gray with the setting of the sun. As she reached Twelve O’Clock Point, seven miles from Amygdaloid Island, she began to debate whether to pour her wine or divest herself of her uniform first upon reaching home.

These heavy deliberations were interrupted by the sudden coming to life of the
Belle Isle
’s marine radio.

Three or four cracking pops warned that someone was fiddling with their mike button, then a hesitant, childish voice. “Hello? Hello? SOS. Please. SOS.”

Anna snatched up the mike and waited for the caller to stop keying her radio. Finally the click came. She forced down her transmitter button. “I hear you,” she said clearly. “My name’s Anna. When I stop talking you push down the button on the microphone again, tell me where you are, then let the button up, okay? I’m stopping talking now.”

There was a silence that seemed long because Anna held her breath but it was no more than fifteen or twenty seconds. A few fumbling clicks, then the child’s voice again. “I’m out by the
Kamloops
,” she said. “My mom’s in trouble. I think she’s dead. Please come.”

“Carrie Ann? Is that you?” Anna demanded.

There was a confusion of clicks as the girl tried to talk at the same time Anna was transmitting. “Carrie Ann?” Anna tried again. This time she got through.

“Yeah?”

“Are you at the
Kamloops
’s dive buoy or Kamloops Island?”

“The buoy.”

“And your mom’s in trouble. What kind of trouble?” As she talked Anna changed course. She was less than two minutes from the wreck site. Carrie didn’t respond. Anna tried again but the girl held her silence.

“Two-oh-two, three-oh-two, did you copy that?” Anna put in a radio call to Rock Harbor. Scotty was her only option for backup. Even if she could raise them on her radio, Ralph and Lucas were too deep in the woods to be of any help.

“Ah . . . negative.”

Anna repeated the gist of the conversation with Carrie. “I’m headed over to the
Kamloops
now. I’ll keep you posted.” Again Anna tried Ralph Pilcher. There was no response. Scotty was monitoring. He promised to try Ralph from the east side.

Four hours into the wilderness and dark coming on, there was little Ralph or Lucas could do, but it was policy to keep them informed. And, Anna admitted to herself, a comfort to be in radio contact with them when there was an emergency.

This situation was double-edged: Patience might genuinely be in trouble, or she might be setting a trap.

Innocent until proven guilty, Anna reminded herself. She didn’t dare ignore a distress call, the lake was too dangerous a place. And she could think of no reason Patience should risk a confrontation; no reason she would think Anna had figured out the deadly business she had undertaken. Anna picked up her radio mike again and called Rock Harbor. “Scotty, there may be more to this. I’ve stumbled across some complications,” she said, being purposely vague since there was no way to keep the conversation private on the airwaves. “If you could start around, I may need the backup.”

There was a silence, then two clicks as if he was fingering his mike uncertainly. “ASAP,” he said after a moment. “Having some engine trouble on the
Lorelei.
”

“Fuck you,” Anna hissed but not into the mike. Scotty was lying. He couldn’t navigate in the fog and he was trying to cover himself. “Did you get ahold of Ralph or Lucas?”

“Negative.”

Loran took Anna to the buoy. Radar kept her from ramming the
Venture.
None of the Chris-Craft’s lights were on and she was all but invisible in the fog. Anna rafted the
Belle Isle
off her starboard side. Taking the precaution of removing her Smith and Wesson from the briefcase and putting it in her raincoat pocket, Anna climbed over the gunwale. “Carrie! Carrie Ann!”

The cabin door opened slowly. A kid’s sleeping bag wrapped around her against the chill, Carrie Ann Bittner shuffled out.

“What’s happened?” Anna asked. “Where’s your mother?”

“She went diving.” Carrie replied in the sulky tone Anna was accustomed to. “She dived down a while ago. She must be hurt or caught on something.”

Anna couldn’t see the child’s face clearly and could read nothing from her voice. Without explaining why, she moved past her and checked the cabin. It was empty.

Why would Patience come out in the fog, dragging her daughter with her? The question jogged Anna’s memory and she remembered the click on the line when she was on the phone with Molly—the click Molly had thought was another call but had turned out not to be. Patience could have picked up the phone in Carrie’s room, heard of the death of the gourmet clad in yellow suspenders, and known Anna would put it all together sooner or later.

If Patience did know, it made sense she would rush the last dive, try and get the remainder of the wine out before she was stopped. Carrie must have been brought along in the capacity of prisoner. Left alone, she would undoubtedly have found her way to Mr. Tattinger’s for solace.

“How long has your mom been down?” Anna asked.

“I said,” Carrie grumbled, “awhile. Maybe half an hour.”

At first Anna thought Carrie was unaware that half an hour at depth could be her mother’s death warrant but the girl had said on the radio, “I think she’s dead.”

“Why is she diving here?” Anna asked.

Carrie shrugged. “How would I know?” She sounded more aggrieved than concerned. “Anyway, she’s down there.”

Anna radioed Scotty of her intentions. “I’m going to do a bounce dive,” she said and thanked the gods that her voice did not betray the fear that was spreading through her veins like poison.

“Ten-four,” Scotty replied. “I’ll stay on this damn engine. Hell of a time to have your horse go lame.”

Anna repeated her earlier obscenities. Focusing on anger to keep the terror at bay, she struggled into dry suit, fins, weights, and tanks. “Turn on every light on the
Venture,
” she ordered Carrie, who’d stood bundled and silent watching the process.

Before she entered the lake, Anna raked the surface carefully with her handheld lamp looking for bubbles, disturbance, anything that smacked of ambush and watery graves. Fog impeded her investigation.

Finally, there was nothing left but to dive. The water was black and looked for all the world like death. Concentrating only on breathing, she clutched her light and rolled backward off the
Belle Isle
’s stern.