Icy Clutches (13 page)

He pulled over a chair from the next table and dropped solidly into it. “So. I just got off the phone with the FBI. The guy who's going to be running things gave me a call."

"And?” Gideon asked.

"And he'll be out here tomorrow morning."

"Fast work,” Julie said.

"These guys don't mess around,” said Owen. He slowly poured 7-Up from the can into his ice-filled glass. “Oh, he had a message for you,” he said to Gideon. “He said: ‘Tell Doc the next time he comes up with something, would he please make it Arizona, not Alaska?’”

"Doc?” Gideon looked at Julie, then back at Owen. Only one person called him “Doc.” He put down his glass mug. “You're kidding me. John Lau?"

"That's right,” Owen said doubtfully. “What's the matter, is there a problem with the guy?"

Gideon laughed. “No, John's terrific, first-rate. He's an old friend."

"What's he got against Alaska?"

"He just likes it hot,” Julie said.

"And dry,” Gideon put in. “The world's only Hawaiian who can't stand humid weather."

"Hot and dry,” Owen said. “He must love it in Seattle."

"Can't stand it,” Gideon said. He stirred his cider with the rolled strip of cinnamon bark in it and licked the end of the bark. “But what's a Seattle agent doing in this? Isn't there a field office in Juneau?"

"It's a long story,” Owen said. “Listen, you want to drive out to the airport with me to pick him up tomorrow morning? You can explain about the bones better than I can."

"Sure, what time?"

"I'll pick you up at twenty to eight. I arranged for a charter flight to meet his plane in Juneau at seven-thirty. He'll be here about eight."

"Can I come too?” Julie asked. “It'll be fun to see John."

"I thought you were heading out to the glaciers again tomorrow morning,” Gideon said.

"Oh,” Julie said, “that's right. Rats. I keep thinking I'm on vacation too."

"I beg your pardon."
The voice was imperious, arresting, and unmistakable.

M. Audley Tremaine looked down upon them, erect and lordly. One hand was in the side pocket of his jacket. Gideon noticed that he had changed from the brown houndstooth-check sport coat he'd been wearing earlier to a bottle-green velvet jacket. If there were still such things as smoking jackets, this had to be one. The ascot had been tastefully changed to match it.

"I would like you to know,” he said coldly, addressing Owen, “that I do not appreciate the way matters have been handled thus far, and I have every intention of informing your superiors."

Owen bristled. “Matters?"

"The hole in the skull. The ice ax. The whole damned thing.” He had had that Rob Roy, Gideon realized, maybe two. He wasn't sloppy—far from it—but there was a telltale, sullen glitter in his eyes.

"Exactly what is it that you don't appreciate, sir?” Owen asked evenly.

"I don't appreciate being the last one to know. I don't appreciate being the subject of innuendo and the object of macabre curiosity to every damned park ranger in the place. I don't appreciate this...gentleman"—a frigid glance at Gideon—"coming in to us and
lying.
Through his teeth. And all the while bathing us in that wide-eyed sincerity and compassion."

Gideon began to say something, but checked himself. What Tremaine had said was true. All right, he hadn't exactly lied to them, but he'd sure omitted a few things, and he wasn't too happy with it either.

"It was my decision,” Owen said shortly. “I did what I thought was appropriate."

"Your
decision,” Tremaine repeated, the rich voice oozing contempt. “And your next decision? Am I to be arrested for murder?” He held his slim hands out, as if for handcuffing. “Don't shoot, officer."

"Professor Tremaine,” Owen said, his copper-brown face stony, “nobody's arresting you. The FBI will be—"

"The FBI. Dear me, is it as important as that? Do you suppose I'll make the ten-most-wanted list?"

"Look, Professor, nobody's accusing anyone, and nobody's arresting anyone. Why don't you just enjoy your dinner tonight and we'll worry about sorting things out tomorrow."

"Oh, we'll sort things out tomorrow, all right,” Tremaine said hotly. “You'll be lucky to have a job as a janitor by the end of tomorrow.” He glared at Owen for another moment, then turned abruptly, literally on his heel, and strode from the room.

"Whew,” Julie said. “How did he find all that out?"

"I'd guess,” Gideon said, “that someone overheard us on the boat and came back and passed the word around.” He shrugged. “You can't blame them. It's pretty exciting stuff."

Owen turned to look over his shoulder toward the knot of young rangers who had been surrounding Tremaine earlier. Under his gaze they shifted and glanced sheepishly away. The hum of conversation picked up. Gideon realized belatedly that it had died down while people had listened in on Tremaine's tirade.

"Yeah, I'd say you were right,” Owen said, turning back. “There weren't any doors on the galley, and we weren't thinking about being quiet. At least I sure wasn't.” He leaned his elbows on the table and hunched over his glass. “What the hell. Your friend John's going to love this."

"Don't worry,” Julie said. “John's a sweetie."

"I'm happy to hear it.” Owen drained his 7-Up, crunched an ice cube between his teeth, and smiled. “I'm a sweetie too."

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John tossed his shoulder bag into the back seat of the green Park Service car, ducked to get through the door, and slid in. “But what are you saying
did
happen, Doc? That Tremaine killed this guy with this ice ax, and a few minutes later this avalanche just happened to come along and conveniently bury everything?” He pulled the door closed after him.

"And conveniently kill the only two witnesses?” Owen put in, turning the key in the ignition.

"And conveniently
not
kill Tremaine?” added John. “Just bury him up to his eyeballs in the ice for two days?"

Gideon pulled his own door closed and settled himself in the front passenger seat. “What are you ganging up on me for? You're the ones who're supposed to figure all the hard stuff out. What do I know? I'm just a simple bone man."

John muttered something, finished off the last of his candy bar, licked his fingers, and stuck the wrapper in the pocket of his denim jacket.

His plane, a single-engine two-seater with “Kwakiutl Airlines” stenciled on the doors, had been early. When Owen and Gideon had arrived at the lonely cedar-board longhouse that was the Gustavus/Glacier Bay Airport terminal building, the big FBI agent had been sprawled on a wooden bench, sipping from a cardboard cup of coffee from one vending machine and munching a Butterfinger bar from the other.

"No breakfast,” had been his wistful greeting.

"I figured you wouldn't get a chance to eat,” Owen had said. “I asked them to have something for us at the lodge when we get there."

John had brightened immediately, but it hadn't stopped him from getting another cup of coffee and a second Butterfinger. Gideon and Owen had gotten coffee too, and for fifteen minutes they had sat in the otherwise deserted waiting room talking over the case, trying and rejecting one murder scenario after another.

The only thing they'd agreed on was that the murder was probably unpremeditated. Why would Tremaine or anybody else have planned to kill someone out on Tirku Glacier, with the others right there and nobody else within fifty miles? Why not wait until they were all back in Gustavus, where there'd be a couple of hundred other people to serve as potential suspects too? As it turned out, the avalanche
did
just happen to come along and bury everything, but there had been no way to foresee that.

No, it had been unpremeditated, spur of the moment, a crime of passion; perhaps the outcome of a fight. The logic of the situation pointed to that. And—more important, in Gideon's mind—so did the damaged mandible.

Now Owen twisted the steering wheel, backed away from the terminal, and swung out of the parking lot. The airport in Gustavus was only eleven miles from the lodge, but it seemed as if it were on another continent. Southeastern Alaska, as Owen had told Gideon on the way out, was a land of microclimates. There were no towering hemlocks or spruce around Gustavus, no pleasant green hummocks of mossy undergrowth. Here there was just a drab, level, tundra-like plain, windswept and gloomy, alongside the gray waters of Icy Strait. No wonder they had put the airport here. No mountains to fly in over, no trees to get tangled up in, and not much in the way of bulldozing to get the place flat in the first place.

Owen edged the car onto the gravel road and turned right, toward the lodge. It was the only direction the road went. They drove past two rustic A-frames, the only structures in sight besides the terminal. The one on the left housed a smoked-salmon business, the other an arts-and-crafts shop. Both were closed. Between them a brave, brightly colored wooden sign announced “Puffin Mall. Hours 5-6 P.M. every day, June—September.” That was when the daily Alaska Airlines flight from Juneau made its turnaround stop.

"All right, try this on,” John said. “What if we jumped on the idea that Tremaine's the killer a little too fast? What makes us so sure it's him?"

"Well, he's the only one who came out of it alive,” Gideon said. “And he sure was in a hurry to get off the subject of that ice ax yesterday."

"That doesn't mean he killed anyone."

"I don't know. Even if he didn't, he must have seen what happened. He was right there."

"So?"

"So why didn't he ever say anything about it? It's been thirty years. He's talked about the avalanche in public hundreds of times."

"Maybe he was protecting somebody."

"Protecting somebody's memory?"

"Sure, why not? Or maybe he was saving it for this book he's writing, waiting until he could cash it in for big bucks."

"It's possible,” Gideon said. He doubted it, but John was right to keep his mind open.

"What the hell,” John said, “I'll be talking to him soon enough, see what he has to say. To the others too. Look, I think it'll work a lot better if we keep this whole business about the hole in the skull to ourselves for another day or so, okay?"

Gideon and Owen exchanged a look.

Owen spoke. “Uh, I'm afraid we have a small problem there."

John leaned back resignedly. “Oh, boy,” he said, “don't tell me."

"Sorry, my fault,” Gideon said, and went on quickly. “I don't suppose you've had a chance to put together any kind of a file on the case yet? Newspaper articles...?"

"There isn't much,” John said, leaning across the back seat to slide open a zippered pouch in his bag, “but I brought out copies of what I have.” He held up a thin sheaf of papers with a buff-colored cardboard cover and an Acco fastener at the side.

Gideon took it and turned to the first page.
"Skagway Herald,
July 27, 1960” was written in longhand across the top. The headline beneath was “Avalanche Near Glacier Bay. Scientific Research Team Feared Lost.’ He read on with interest.

"About this breakfast,” John said to Owen. “I hope we're talking real food here—eggs, bacon, that kind of thing?"

"Whatever you want,” Owen said over his shoulder. “We'll be there in ten minutes; 8:45 at the latest."

"Good, I just might make it,” John said, leaning comfortably back. Then, abruptly, he sat up straight, swiveling his head to stare at a rapidly receding dark shape in the roadside foliage. “What the hell was
that?"

"Bear,” Owen said casually. “Brown, I think. Maybe black. Hard to tell the difference this time of year."

"Jesus Christ,” John muttered, settling back and closing his eyes, “where did they send me?"

Shirley Yount banged her coffee cup into its saucer. “It's twenty minutes after eight. Maybe somebody ought to go knock on his door."

This was said with more relish than impatience. Like the others, she was eager to get at Tremaine, who had been on the run from them since the electrifying news of thirty-year-old foul play on Tirku had buzzed so excitedly around the bar the night before. Tremaine had not appeared for dinner, and now here he was, going on half an hour late for their daily breakfast meeting.

"He knows what time it is. He is choosing to avoid us,” said Anna Henckel, who believed in stating the obvious.

"I wonder why,” Elliott Fisk said dryly, slicing a one-by-two-inch rectangle from his cinnamon roll and facing carefully away from Shirley, lest she think he was speaking to her.

"Well, he's going to have to come out and face us sooner or later,” Walter Judd said with a happy grin. He buttered another couple of biscuits to go with his three-egg, fresh-salmon omelet. “And when he does, he's going to have a few questions to answer."

"He sure is,” Pratt agreed equably, working steadily on a plate of steak and eggs.

"If I knew his room number I'd go get him myself,” Fisk grumbled.

Anna glanced at him, eyebrows lifted fractionally. “Room 50."

"Oh?” Fisk paused in his dissection of the bun. “Yes, well, I'll give him fifteen more minutes. Until 8:45."

Doris Boileau placed the small paper-wrapped bar of Camay on the bathroom counter, put a larger one on the recessed shelf of the shower stall, and took a final practiced look around. Satisfied, she closed the door to the room behind her and checked her watch. Only a little after eight-thirty and here she was already done with Room 48, way ahead of schedule. It certainly was a help when people got up and about their business early.

She took off one of her plastic gloves, glanced cautiously about, and had a restorative bite from the glazed cinnamon bun she'd been hauling around on her cart. She stuffed it all the way in with a pinky, then washed it down with a couple of swallows of heavily sweetened tea from a pint-sized insulated cup, while having another prudent look around. Mr. Granle didn't care for them snacking on the job, and she was in no mood to stir him up, especially after the snit he'd gotten into yesterday when she couldn't find her passkey at the end of her shift.