Endangered Species (29 page)

settled into a brief silence, fidgeted, then moved on ." So, what have

we got on the agenda for today, Mata?"

Anna raised an eyebrow.

"Like in Hari.  Mrs.  Sherlock."

Anna nodded to keep him from further analogy ." Mata" was better for the

self-image than "Marple" and he was headed in that direction ." Ranger

station," she said ." I'm going to call Frieda.  See if she's turned up

anything more.  Maybe you could call what's her name, that girl-"

" Woman ."

"Woman-of tender years-who works the Visitors' Center on St.  Marys."

"The pudgy blonde or the lanky one with the nice set of Anna counted to

three waiting for the inevitable punch line.

.  .  .teeth?"

"Whoever." Though she'd probably seen and talked to each of them at

least once in passing, Anna had noticed neither of the young women ."

Which one was on duty on Thursday morning?"

"Blond pudgy," Dijon answered without hesitation.  Hormones had

temporarily given him an almost superhuman memory for gender details.

"Okay.  Her.  Call and find out what the deal is with Hull.  She's got

the idea he was on the phone with the regional office.  Not true .

Maybe she'll tell us something we can use."

"Right.  And why am I supposed to be calling His.  (;eorgia Peach?"

"I don't know.  Boy meets girl.  Boy calls girl.  Be creative."

A silence stumbled between them that was so unlike Dijon that Anna

looked over at him ." What?" she demanded.

"She's white.  Don't look so offended.  White's not innately disgusting.

But this is Georgia.  PC ain't happening.  What if Daddy's a good ol'

I)oy with a shotgun and a sheet?"

Anna hadn't thought of that ." Pretend you're Rick," she said after a

moment.

Dijon laughed ." You're frigging weird, you know that?"

He'd do it ." Good," Anna said, and having rolled one fender into the

single scrap of shade the lot afforded, she turned off the ignition.

Frieda had been busy.  In her mind's eye, Anna saw a map of the United

States lit up by telephone calls as was sometimes depicted in old

movies.  The lawsuit against Alice Utterback was more than just a

nuisance suit.  Slattery had a strong case.  According to Frieda, in

Alice's zealousness to bring women pilots on board, she'd pulled strings

in personnel.  When the job descriptions were published, they were

explicit almost down to bra size, making it virtually impossible for any

but the four targeted women to obtain the positions.

Utterback was working with the knowledge of her superiors .

The United States Forest Service had come under contempt of court a few

years earlier for failing to hire women in sufficient numbers.  Alice

had been instructed to see it didn't happen a second time.  But though

the Forest Service would presumably cover any financial losses incurred

had Hammond pressed his suit, Utterback would have paid for it with her

career.  Every public relations disaster required a sacrificial lamb.

Sometimes the lambs were innocent and sometimes not, but the chosen took

the hit for the rest of the flock.

Alice Utterback didn't strike Anna as the type to go like the proverbial

to the slaughter.  Neither did she seem the sort to commit murder to

avoid it.  There was that about the woman that led one to believe she

would fight her battles in the open and by Queensberry rules.

The dispatcher had less luck in her inquiry into the Belfores'

connection with Slattery Hammond.  North Cascades was a big park and

wild; the districts didn't overlap socially as much as in smaller parks.

Hammond had flown out of Redmond and lived in Hope, Canada.  Todd was

district ranger in the Cascades.  The Belfores kept an apartment in

Hope, where Tabby spent most of her time .

Evidently Tabby was frightened by the wildness and isolation of the

Cascades.  Todd came to town on his weekends.  There was not even a

whisper of anything between Mrs.  Belfore and the pilot.  In a town the

size of Hope, unless Tabby was infinitely more resourceful than Anna

gave her credit for, there would have been gossip had the two been seen

together.

Frieda had tracked down the particulars on Hammond's marriage.  They

were separated and had been since the birth of their son two years

before.  Mrs.  Hammond had filed for divorce on several occasions but

never went through with it.  According to what Frieda had been able to

gather, she wasn't terribly broken up over her husband's demise.

Disposing of the inconvenient remains and getting her hands on the

insurance money were the goals an ungenerous coworker attributed to her.

There wasn't as much judgment in that as the bare words implied, Frieda

told Anna.  The Hammond marriage had not been crafted inside the pearly

gates.  For the past twenty-three months, the Mrs.  had a restraining

order against Slattery and was fighting a dogged court battle to keep

him from unsupervised visitations with his son.  Near as Frieda could

tell, the restraining order wasn't a onetime, divorce-spawned action.

Hammond had two previous orders filed against him in the past three

years.  With the exception of the last, all had been withdrawn.

" That might explain the police visits to his apartment," Anna said.

"That would be my guess," Frieda replied.

Anna thanked her for her work, and after a minute or two of

pleasantries, she rang off.

"Anything?" she asked as Dijon let himself into the chief ranger , s

office and sprawled in the straight-backed visitor's chair by the door.

God, I'm good," he said cheerfuj)y ." Rick's got a date for the day

after we get off this desert isle, and if he follows my lead, he might

even get lucky."

"He's married," Anna said flatly.

Dijon made an exaggerated face depicting horror ." Well, gee, that

changes everything."

So much for family values.  It was a moot point anyway.  As soon as

their tour of duty was over, they'd all be flown out of Georgia on the

first available plane.

"What I got," Dijon said, and ticked the points off on fingers so free

of calluses that Anna guessed to date he'd done little but read and

write about fieldwork, "our Norman was on the mainland at the time the

plane went down.  His.  Pudge saw him come off the dock in St.  Marys

around nine-thirty that morning.  After the news of the crash reached

him he came back by helicopter.  It was the chief his own self who told

her he'd been on the phone with whosis in the regional office at the

magical moment he was supposed to be rendezvousing with Hammond.  His.

P.  said Hull told her he'd taken the call over here.  It didn't seem to

bother her that he'd have to break half a dozen laws of physics to pull

that off.  I didn't push her, her being blond and all.  Didn't want to

tax her brain."

Anna nodded ." Hull told Renee he'd taken the call in St. Marys."

Briefly she pondered in silence ." Lies are good," she said at last ."

Gives us something to go on."

"So we work it out backwards," Dijon said, as they motored sedately Gp

the lane toward the north end of the island, burning petrol and being

available ." The Beechcraft is tied down in an open field in the dead

center of the island for two and a half days and two nights .

Sometime during that-what?-sixty-two hours, person or persons unknown

sabotage it.  That pretty much counts everybody in.  No one that's not

in jail can account for that long a stretch of time .

Anybody off the island?"

"Not that I know of," Anna replied ." Easy enough to check."

" Screw alibis?"

" Pretty much."

"Witnesses?"

"Maybe," Anna granted ." Dot and Mona live right off the end of the

airstrip.  They may have seen something.  If they did, I can't imagine

they wouldn't have come forward.  There's no such thing as a secret on

this island.  I doubt there's a soul who doesn't know the plane was

wrecked on purpose.  All we've managed to keep under wraps is how that

sabotage was accomplished."

"Maybe the old ladies don't know it could've happened over a three-day

period.  Maybe they only thought about who was hanging around an hour or

two before the plane took off," Dijon said.

"Worth a stop, " Anna conceded.

Dijon whooped ." Hot on the trail," he said, and: "Can I interview the

old broads?  I thought of 'em."

Inwardly, Anna groaned.  At least she thought it was inward until Dijon

said: "Stop making noises like a buffalo in heat.  I won't fu- foul up.

Jesus.  Give me a break."

Anna said nothing.  She was cursing the buddy system a paucity of

vehicles had saddled them with.

"Come on," Dijon wheedled with transparent charm ." Old ladies respond

well to godlike young men.  Take you for example."

Anna laughed ." I'll watch and learn."

The meadow near Stafford House and Dot and Mona's cottage was set on a

neck of the island not much more than a mile wide.  The field was

good-sized; enough space to house a dirt airstrip with room on either

end to climb clear of the wiquitous live oaks and paies .

Ribbons of shelf-and-sand cut the meadow from the surrounding woods.

Stafford was at the eastern edge of the airstrip.  An eerie spot called

appropriately the Chimneys bordered it to the north where a settlement

of slave cabins had been burned to the ground after the Civil War,

leaving a grove of brick-and-mortar monuments: chimneys designed to

harness fire and left as a testament to its final victory.  To the east,

pines cut off the view of the Atlantic.  Left over from the days they

were grown for harvest, the trees marched away in orderly rows.

Dijon and Anna emerged on the southern edge of the rough rectangle to

find the place bustling-or as close to a bustle as the heat would allow.

The blue truck Alice Utterback had been given was parked beside the

airstrip.  Three figures clad in the pale green of the United States

Forest Service were crceping along, heads down, eight or ten feet apart.

Along the shaded tabby wall at Stafford, a peanut gallery had formed.

Guy was there, spread over his ATV like a blanket.  Lynette Wagner sat

on the wall, her legs dangling down near the crew boss's shoulders.  She

was laughing at something Guy said.  In the unguarded moment, his face

glowed with pride and pleasure.  His defenses down, joy stripped his

worn face of years.  Anna was surprised she hadn't noticed before.  He

was sweet on Lynette.  But then everybody was sweet on Lynette; Marshall

had gotten lost in the crowd.  A scrawny band of gold on the left hand

was not proof against the girl's charms.  Anna made no judgment calls.

Given life in the nineties, it was a wonder anyone's marriage survived.

For a brief moment, one that passed so quickly she didn't even need to

hold herself accountable for it, Anna was glad s],-'d been widowed.  The

untimely death of her beloved Zachany had left her heart broken but her

dreams intact.  For Anna Pigeon and Juliet Capulet True Love would

always exist.

Oblivious of fire ants and the wiquitous ticks, Dot and Mona sat nearby

on the ground, Flicka butting first one, then the other in successful