Endangered Species (39 page)

coal he could find.  More than once it occurred to Anna to tell him

she'd failed to report in a timely manner because she was stoned out of

her mind, but she had a feeling it would not improve her professional

image.

While she sat in the nonlethal equivalent of the electric chair, he went

on with his strategy making.  He only spoke to Anna for the purpose of

reprimand, but from his phone conversations she learned that it was

Hanson's Friday.  Their houseboat had been in its slip near the ranger

station on Cumberland that morning at seven when maintenance came on

duty.  Unless he'd dumped the marijuana between four a.m.  and seven, it

was still on board.  As usual on his weekends, he and Louise would be

docking in St.  Marys.  After Anna assured Hull for the umpteenth time

that neither Mitch nor his wife knew they'd been found out, he arranged

for the Park Service and the Coast Guard to stake out Hanson's mainland

berth in hopes they could find who his connection was.

The chief ranger informed whoever was on the other end of the line that

the Hansons were also wanted on suspicion of murder; they were to be

considered armed and dangerous.

As a result of Todd Belfore's death, Hull was shorthanded.  He would

take three members of fire crew, all commissioned law enforcement

rangers, along on the bust.  Part of Anna's punishment was that she

would not be included in this elite.  Under normal circumstances, the

snub would have rankled more than it did.  As it was, she was relieved

to be given the night off.

Throughout the grilling, she'd been careful not to say anything about

Dijon's involvement.  The tactic worked and the young ranger was invited

along on the stakeout.  Rick would bi left on the island with Anna to

mind the store.  Dijon was gleeful.  Anna hoped she wouldn't be around

when the news was broken to Rick.

Day drifted into night.  The cloud of disfavor hanging over her grew

darker with each passing hour.  Guy was offended she hadn't come to him

with her suspicions.  Rick and AI sided with the crew boss.  All of them

were more or less pissed off because they'd missed out on the

excitement, and covering it with overstated concerns for her personal

safety.  Guy and AI were mollified by their inclusion on the stakeout.

Rick was not to be borne.  To hear him tell it, he was the only one

capable, trained, qualified, and spiritually prepared to make a major

drug bust.  Leaving him behind was tantamount to shackling Superman with

kryptonite just as the busload of schoolchildren plummeted off the

cliff.

the whole performance made Anna tired.  Her head throbbed with defenses

she never bothered to put into words.  'The Hansons would be caught;

Anna wasn't going to get fired.  Theoreticilly all's well that ends

well.  She chose to leave it at that.  Near nine she was finally able to

slink away.  The men, clustered happily on the dock playing with

bulletproofvests and personal flotation devices, didn't even notice her

departure.

For them the case was closed.  For Anna it was merely over.  Too many

questions remained unanswered.  Who had knocked her out with the butt of

the shotgun and why?  Who had slashed the truck seat?

Hanson could have done both.  Maybe there'd been something in Slattery's

house that incriminated him and he didn't want to be caught in the act

of retrieving it.  If he'd not found that something, he may have

searched Anna's truck on the chance that she'd made away with it after

she recovered from the knock to the head.  That was a possible

explanation for two of the questions but others remained for which she

could devise no solution.

The Hansons' involvement in the marijuana cultivation was fairly

straightforward; it tied Mitch solidly to the booby trap that lamed the

Austrian, though no one would ever be able to prove it .

Louise's connection with the crop was equally well established, as was

her connection with Ellen Hull.  From what Anna had heard of the girl, a

combination of threats and bribes would probably be sufficient to get

her to squeal on her special friend.

Damning as these bits and pieces were, they didn't prove either of the

Hansons removed the actuator bolt and sabotaged the Beechcraft.  Mitch

very possibly was cold-blooded enough to do it.  Anna always suspected

overly jolly people of hiding black hearts.  When she was a child,

clowns had made her nervous.  There was something sinister in the

exaggeration of their features and in their unholy need to make short

people laugh at them.

Burning the dope struck her as incongruous.  Anyone with the greed and

determination to take lives to further the business wouldn't be the type

to cheerfully kiss off plants worth potentially a hundred grand or more.

The assumption the plants had belonged to Hull had provided a weak

rationale for torching them.  Now even that was gone.

If Slattery was blackmailing the Hansons, and that was the motive for

killing him, why burn the profits saved by hard-earned homicide?

Not her case, she reminded herself, not her park, and obviously, not her

day.  It was with relief she saw it drawing to a close.  Two nights with

little or no sleep were catching up to her.  Her vision tunneled until

all she could see beyond the battered olive green of the truck's hood

was her sofa in the cool quiet of the Belfores' living room.

Tabby was home.  She'd been to St.  Marys for a checkup.  The baby was

fine, a boy.  Tabby proudly announced she could see his "little tally

whacker" on the ultrasound.  Todd was to be the baby's name .

No surprise there.

Lynette was with Tabby, and after the baby news was shared, both women

went out of their way to compliment Anna on her hair .

Tabby said a woman named Frieda had called.  A Bella somebody had

spilled something in Anna's house.  Please call back.  There was nothing

Anna could do about a ruined rug or a'stained chair from two thousand

miles away, so she decided the call could wait.

A bottle of Chardonnay sat on the coffee table; both Lynette and the

very pregnant Tabby held a glass ." The baby's pretty much fully baked

or I wouldn't have any," Tabby explained, though Anna was too tired to

notice and too indifferent to take the woman to task for it if she had.

They offered Anna a glass and she actually considered accepting.  A year

or more had passed since she'd last imbibed.  Tonight she was saved from

the temptation of alcohol by the reality of marijuana.  She'd just been

too high too long.  Even a gentle white wine buzz wasn't appealing.

Taking a cup of tea in its stead, she settled onto the uninhabited end

of the sofa and answered all of their questions about Mitch and Louise

and Anna's night out.

Oddly enough she found she enjoyed talking about it.  The men had given

her such short shrift.  Angry they'd not been included, angry they'd not

been given the decisions, the power; they were critical of every choice

she'd made, every observation, concerned her actions had robbed them of

glory in the present or would come back to bite them on the ass in the

future.  Giving this adventure to a girl" was roughly the emotional

equivalent of telling the dog one was going to give it to the cat.

Good to be among your own kind, Anna thought of the women, and smiled

wearily.  She felt her teacup being taken from her fingers and realized

that for a while she'd been telling her story with her eyes closed.

Then she wasn't telling it at all.

ti E V 0 I C!  LS of the women wrapped around Anna, made lier feel

isafe, and she let herself sleep there in the chair.  It was as if she

floated on a velvet river.  Now and then she'd drift close enough to the

shores of consciousness to make out words from the gentle murmur of

conversation.  For once Tabby wasn't crying.  Anna was immensely

comforted by that.  Having been assigned the girl's interim caretaker,

she'd felt responsible for her happiness.

People can't make people happy, Anna thought drowsily.  That's why

animals are so beloved.  The right person can make a cat happy .

Anybody can make a dog happy.  The vision evoked of joyous forbearing

mammals made her want to laugh, but the weight of her languor was too

great.

Words evaporated, Morpheus overwhelmed cannabis, and all was deliciously

blank.  When she was again aware, sleep was ebbing, but she did not yet

want to return to the world of the living.  In blissful somnolence, she

stayed in her chair, eyes closed.

Talk had turned to outdoor sports as it often did when two or more Park

Service people gathered.  Fitting, she thought in pleasant confusion,

that Wilderness should be present when two or more were gathered in Her

name.

Tabby and Lynette were reliving favorite hikes, canoe trips, camping

spots, and glorious climbs.  As their voices lovingly recounted days of

ice storms and sunsets, rapids and rappels, a niggling sense of disquiet

built under Anna's breastbone and she wondered what triggered it.  For

several minutes more she lay as one dead, listening.

Tabby was telling of a splendid hike in the Cascades, a rare day when

the sky was cloudless blue and mountain peaks had thrown off their

customary shroud of virga, of seeing a bear with cubs in a meadow, two

eagles high above fighting or flirting over the living prize of a

hapless bunny.

Despite the pastoral-if somewhat graphic-scene, Anna felt the disquiet

deepen ." I do so miss all of that," I'abby said, and Anna realized what

was bothering her.  Her eyes popped open.  The women gaped at her like

heroines in a melodrama when Dracula suddenly awakes in his coffin.

The Chardonnay was gone, a bottle of Chablis taking the place of its

fallen comrade.

"You're awake," Lynette said unnecessarily.

"You lived in town, in Hope," Anna said to Tabby.  Even to her own ears

it sounded like an accusation.

"Not for the first year or so," Tabby replied, with the air of someone

defending herself but not sure from what.

"I thought the wilderness scared you.  , "I love the outdoors," Tabby

said, bewildered ." It's one of the things that brought Todd and me

together.  We both loved all of it."

The name of her dead husband having been invoked, tears flooded her

throat.

Anna wished she'd had the good sense to remain asleep ." Why did you

move to town?" she pressed.

"I .  .  .  We .  .  .  It just seemed better," Tabby finished lamely.

Anna struggled upright on the soft couch cushions and rubbed her legs

from the memory of their having failed her once before .

Friction stirred up half-smothered chiggers and they began to itch

fiercely ." I've got to go out, " she announced.

Slattery Hammond's house was not difficult to break into.  It was merely

a matter of prying off a screen that showed signs of having been pried

off numerous times before when previous occupants had inadvertently

locked themselves out.  The latches on the aging sash windows-where they

remained attached-were willing to give up their secrets when a little