Endangered Species (17 page)

temperature was easily above a hundred degrees and the place smelled

like old gym socks.  A scarred Formica table held the remains of several

meals mixed in among newspapers, magazines, and junk mail, Against a

wall between the two blinded windows was a couch faded from use and

sunlight.  Its once orange and brown plaid had mellowed to a less

offensive hue.  More newspapers, underpants, and a single dirty sneaker

were scattered over it to casual effect.  No curtains softened the

windows, no rugs rescued the blue speckled linoleum floors, no pictures

graced the walls.  An old metal office desk had been shoved against the

wall where the front door banged it every time it opened.  Littered with

papers and used coffee cups, it looked the most promising.

As Anna closed the door behind her, she was caught by a stealthy sound

from the nether regions of the small house.  For a moment she froze,

listening, then wrote it off to the creaking of an old structure.

Slattery Hammond's bookkeeping habits weren't any better than his

housekeeping.  She sat at the desk and methodically shuffled through his

piles: unpaid bills, envelopes full of snapshots, canceled checks, a

postcard from North Cascades in Washington bearing the predictable

"Having a wonderful time.  Wish you were here," signed "Bonnie."

The Beechcraft was his; Anna found several payments to a West Coast bank

on the loan.  Any heirs were in for a disappointment however; she also

found a bill for the airplane's insurance that was long past due.  There

were half a dozen snapshots Scotch-taped to the wall.  One was of

Slattery standing beside his plane.

Having never seen the man at his best, Anna studied it with interest.

Hammond was surprisingly good-looking.  For some reason-perhaps the name

Slattery or maybe his reputation as recounted by Alice Utterback-Anna

had pictured him as a greaseball.  If he was, his evil ways had yet to

leave their stamp on his features.  He looked to be in his early

thirties, tall and lean, with brown hair that fell over his forehead.

His eyes were wide-set and ingenuous, his smile that of a boy.

"Deadly," Anna said, and put the photo back where she'd found it.

Of the other five pictures, four were of a girl of eighteen or twenty

playing on a beach and one was a long shot of a pale-haired hiker who

struck Anna as vaguely familiar and she wondered if it was someone she'd

known.  The coincidence wouldn't have surprised her.  The Park Service

was small and mobile.  Rangers from all over crossed paths in training,

in transit, and many of them traveled to other parks when they had the

time off.

Three drawers yielded up Hammond's checkbook, a .357 Colt revolver, four

boxes of ammunition, a stale Marlboro, and a pile of mouse droppings. No

logbooks ." Damn," Anna whispered, and pushed her chair back to survey

the room for another likely spot .

Nothing presented itself.  Hammond traveled light.

She wandered into the kitchen but wasn't inspired to touch anything.

What dishes Hammond had were crusted with food and piled in the sink.

The counters hadn't been wiped for a while and two thin black trails of

sugar ants had snaked out to feast on the windfall.

Half the cupboard doors hung open.  Anna opened the rest: dust, shotgun

shells, more mouse droppings, and three cans of chili .

The kitchen drawers produced little more.  Steeling herself for

Hammond's Good Housekeeping coup de grace, she opened the refrigerator.

It wasn't bad.  There was nothing in it but beer, ten or fifteen rolls

of Kodak film, margarine, and a pair of blunt-nosed scissors, the kind

people buy for little kids.  For a moment Anna pondered the significance

of the scissors, but drew a blank.  Undoubtedly this was one secret

Slattery had taken with him to the grave.

The freezer was better stocked, holding ice, vodka, and twelve packages

wrapped in tinfoil.  Anna dutifully unwrapped each one though she could

see no reason a pilot would be so paranoid about his logbooks that he

would disguise them as food.  They contained nothing but chunks of badly

butchered meat.  Closing the door, she noticed three zip-lock bags on

the interior shelf.  At first glance they appeared to contain one pork

chop or one ham bone each.  On close examination she was both disgusted

and mystified.  Each baggie held one obviously used tampon.

"Oh ish!" she said, using Frederick's favorite expletive.

The bedroom boasted a single bed with a sleeping bag on it, and a

beat-up dresser vomiting clothes.  Eau de gym socks overlaid the mess.

Anna made a cursory search of the dresser, picking through the contents

as if they crawled with body lice or crabs, but found nothing of

interest.

The closeness in the sealed house, aggravated by the myriad odors of

garbage and dirty laundry, was beginning to get to Anna.  A feeling of

suffocation and tunnel vision built under her sternum and behind her

eyes.  the bedroom closet was the only place she'd not yet searched. She

determined to make short work of it and get out of' there.

When she opened the closet door, the room erupted.  flammond's clotlies

flew out Lit lier as if they had a life of their own.  A licavy plaid

shirt fll)peci winglike at her face and she heard herself yelling.  The

something struck a jarring blow above her left ear .

Inside her skull she felt her brain shift and her body was jolted as if

she'd fallen from a great height.  A vortex of darkness opened in front

of her and she pitched forward into it.

EW YO it K C I'FY always exhilarated Frederick.  Desl)ite its size and

Nbrawling image, Chicago felt small, clean, and easily escaped .

Frederick's vision of Manhattan, locked in by rivers and the sca, was

that of an overburdened ship; like photos he'd seen of derelict boats

bursting with Haitian refugees.  Or maybe a birthday balloon in that

anxious limbo between plump and pop, a sense of danger, high stakes.

New York was considered the murder capital of the world.  Statistics

didn't bear that out; it was just that the city was so condensed.  When

everyone is packed onto half a dozen avenues, everything becomes public,

corpses and dirty laundry included.

Several weeks earlier a couple from Ely, Nevada, in Manhattan for the

first time, had found the naked body of a three-year-old stuffed in a

Bloomingdale's bag on the hood of their rented Hyundai.  Even in the Big

Apple that wasn't the norm, but they'd left for home convinced they'd

been to, if not Sodom, then Gomorrah.

The night was warm and he had walked up from the Parker Meridien, where

he was staying at great personal expense.  The Parker Meridien had the

key ingredient in the hotel business: location. For that Frederick

shelled out the cash and put up with the insufferable young snob at the

registration desk.

Dr.  Molly Pigeon had agreed to meet with him at a pub near the corner

of Ninth and Fifty-ninth.  More, he suspected, out of curiosity to see

her little sister's beau than to discuss the death threats .

Dr.  Pigeon had described the place: near a corner, glassed-in side walk

seating, window frames painted green.  In New York on Ninth Avenue that

didn't narrow it down much and Frederick pulled a slip of paper out of

his pocket with the pub's name written on it.  This was the place.

Standing outside in the dark gave him the edge, and feeling slightly

foolish for the professional paranoia of a lifetime, he stepped into

shadow and searched through the tables.  Back from the windows, by a

six-by-six post supporting the pseudo greenhouse, he found her.  'There

wasn't any doubt in his mind that it was Anna's sister.  There was a

strong familial resemblance.  Molly was older and her features more

refined-delicate almost.  Her face had a look of control Anna's lacked

and her lips were fuller, more sensuous, but she was unquestionably a

Pigeon.  A formidable one.  Everything about her breathed power,

competence, and control.  Her deep pur pie suit was tailored, her high

heels without a scuff, her short manicured nails painted with clear

polish.  Only two chinks showed in the armor: she was smoking and a

nervous habit of running her fingers through her hair had turned an

expensive cut into a girlish, bedroom tousle.

My turn next, Frederick thought as he walked through the door.

Anticipating her inspection, he stood straighter and tugged the cuffs of

his linen sport coat, bought for the occasion, down toward his knuckles.

Off-the-rack clothes seldom had sleeves long enough and a government

salary didn't allow for tailor-mades.  Not with a kid in college.

Brushing aside an adolescent fear of appearing uncooled he headed toward

Dr.  Pigeon's table.

She s ood when she saw him.  In her eyes there was no judgment and her

smile was warm and slightly crooked.  The illusion of coldness was

dispelled.  But not the illusion of control.  Her handshake, the

invitation to sit, the slight nod that brought a waiter running, all

gave Frederick the reassuring feeling that he'd been accepted into a

well-ordered universe.

" Scotch, no ice," Frederick said to the waiter.

"The same , Molly said, then cackled ." You and I are going to get along

fine." Her eyes were hazel, like Anna's, and deeply crinkled at the

corners.  Feigned or not, they almost twinkled with interest, as if she

eagerly awaited the fascinating story of his life .

Frederick could see how she commanded $150 an hour.

" An FBI agent," Molly stated.

Beyond Dr.  Pigeon's shoulder, Frederick could see the waiter gossiping

with the bartender.  He wanted his Scotch.  Needed it might be closer to

the truth.  Meeting Molly had him as nervous as a boy on his first date.

"A psychiatrist," he countered.

Molly laughed again and the sheer ghoulish sound of her odd chortle made

him laugh with her.

"Don't you sometimes wish you had an occupation that didn't require

comment?" she asked.

The drinks were on their way.  Unwittingly, Frederick breathed out his

relief ." Ye s," he answered honestly ." When I'm tired, I've been known

to lie just to avoid a discussion of Ruby Ridge."

"It could be worse." Molly accepted her Scotch ." You could work for the

IRS."

Within thirty minutes the last of the ice was broken, the preliminaries

were over, and two more Scotches were on their way.  TO his surprise,

Frederick found he was relaxed and enjoying himself .

Molly was no longer a legend but flesh and blood, a sophisticated,

urbanized Anna, with an openness he missed in her sister.

At the thought of Anna, he reluctantly got down to the supposed business

of this meeting ." Did you do your homework?" he asked.

"Indeed I did." Molly pulled a black leather briefcase from beneath the

table and plucked a manila folder from an outside pocket.

The folder had a computer-generated label on the top ." DEATH THRENrs,,

was written in block letters.  A tiny skull and crossbones adorned one

end, a knife dripping red blood the other ." Oh," Molly said, when she

caught his glance ." Clip art.  New software.  I couldn't resist."