Endangered Species (30 page)

bids for attention.

"Quite a crowd," Anna remarked as she and Dijon pulled over into the

shade.

"Best show in town," Guy drawled ." Where are the two of you headed?  A]

and Rick have gone north along the beach." It wasn't really a question.

Guy had a laid-back management style.  He was merely checking his troop

deployment.

"We thought we'd do the same but stay inland," Anna answered dutifully.

"Sounds good." He loosed a stream of tobacco juice politely downwind of

the ladies.

"Where's Tabby?" Anna asked Lynette.

"At the apartment.  Marty's helping her pack up some of Todd's stuff."

Dijon made face; a mime depicting comedic surprise.  The helpful

domestic scene struck Anna as unlikely too but she didn't say anything.

A minute or two was ticked off by the incessant clack of cicadas.

"I wish something would break," Guy said ." Rain, wind, fire, any damn

thing.  I swear ain't nothing changed since we got here but me .

I'm a damn sight older, I can tell you that."

"You don't want wind or rain," Lynette teased him ." You want fire.

You're such an old fire horse, you'll die and go to hell and think

you've landed in heaven."

"If it's burnin' I'll put it out," Guy bragged inoffensively, and won

another laugh from the young interpretive ranger.

"Have you guys worked together before?" Anna asked on impulse.

"Three project fires," Guy said ." Okefenokee once, and Big Cypress

twice.  Lynette here's one of the best fire dispatchers in the

business."

Anna filed that bit of information away.  Because they were transitory,

not connected to the island in any visceral sense, she hadn't considered

anyone on fire crew to be a suspect in the sabotage of the Beechcraft.

Naive: all worlds were small worlds, circling their own tiny suns and

evolving their own forms of intelligent life ." Did you ever work a fire

with Slattery Hammond?" she asked abruptly.

As heavy-handed as the question was, Guy didn't seem alarmed by it.

Either he was ready and had rehearsed his answer or the idea of his

being connected to the man's death was as far from his mind as it had

been from Anna's.

"I don't think I have.  He may've flown bird dog on some fire I worked

out west.  That'd make sense if he's been in the business long.  Pilots

don't mix with grunts.  Liable to get those snazzy orange flight suits

dirty."

Anna sighed.  If every man who'd ever fought fire or had a crush on

Lynette Wagner had to be questioned, her life's work was cut out for

her.  Time to narrow down the possibilities at least by one.

"Be back in a minute," she said to no one in particular, and wandered

across the dusty road toward the airstrip.  The instant she stepped out

of the shade, the sun slapped across her shoulders, pressing hot fabric

against her skin.  Plowing through the miasma of heat, eyes to the

ground, Wayne and Shorty were showing the effects of it.  Both had sweat

pouring from beneath their caps and Shorty's face was a lovely

heatstroke red.

Alice Utterback was as cool and unperturbed as ever.  Anna fell in step

beside her and stared at the ground just as if she knew what they were

looking for.

"C,lews, dontcha know, clews," Alice volunteered without being asked ."

The odds are a zillion to one we'll turn up anything useful, but this

has got to be the place our buddy detached the actuator rod.  I figured

we'd better give it the once-over on principle.  Who knows, maybe the

guy dropped his wallet."

"Why do you say 'guy'?"

"Just a figure of speech.  An equal-opportunity guy."

It wasn't much of an opening but Anna decided to push her way I 9 I in.

"Speaking of which, rumor has it Hammond had a case filed against you ."

" Among others."

Silence, embarrassed on Anna's part, fell between them ." Could it have

ruined your career?" she asked finally.

Alice stopped and looked up.  The patch on her lower lip that she'd been

fingering during the investigation of the wreck had blossomed into the

promised cold sore ." Probably the sun," she said, as if she felt Anna's

eyes on the unsightly blister ." It tends to bring the horrid things

out." Mirrored aviator's glasses obscured Utterback's eyes and Anna was

uncomfortably aware she could be staring at her, reading her face.

"Hammond ruin my career?" Utterback said thoughtfully .

"He'd've had to hurry.  I retire next January.  I've got a ranch to run

.

Could he have left a bad taste in my mouth if he'd gotten as ugly as I

think he had the potential to?  Sure.  Nobody likes to lose.  I wouldn't

wish death on anybody, but if somebody had to go, I can't say as I'm

sorry it was Stattery Hammond.

"Besides"-she smiled and returned to her survey of the sere grasses

beneath their feet-"I've got an alibi.  Me and Shorty and Wayne are the

only ones who weren't on the island when the Beech Was tampered with."

" Am I that transparent?"

"Like glass.  I could have sent some flunky down to do it.  There are

people for that," Alice offered.

"That would be thoughtful.  You were my favorite suspect.  I liked the

vigilante justice of it."

"Me kill Hammond .  .  .  I must say there's an appeal there.

Killing a government employee has got to be less complicated than firing

one.  Nah," she concluded after a moment's deliberation ." I don't think

I could bring myself to screw up a perfectly good airplane.  Were I to

embark on a life of crime, i'd do it for cash, not revenge.  I'd hire

only women and only those of a certain agesomewhere between forty and

ninety-women with sedans, credit cards, and salon-styled hair.  Drugs,

white slavery, gun-running-you name it-we could take over the market.

Nobody would suspect us of a thing.  Least of all of having initiative

and a brain in our heads."

"It's something to think about if the ranching doesn't work out," Anna

said.

"Mmm.  I did get some info back from the lab," Alice went on .

"Not that it sheds any light on the matter.  They analyzed the'contents

of the plastic bags we found in the outboard fuel tanks.  Now here's a

question for a trained investigator: They were sandwich bags.  What do

you figure they were found to have contained at one time?"

" Sandwiches?"

"On the nose." Alice tapped the end of that feature with a stubby finger

." Traces of a substance that was probably mayonnaise and a bread crumb

or two."

"Weird." If silence tokens agreement, Alice Utterback agreed .

"Your end of the investigation is about finished," Anna said ." How much

longer will you be staying on?"

"Not much if I'm reading the signs right.  I was over to the Hulls' for

dinner last night.  Unspoken rule: Lesser brass has greater brass home

to dinner the first and last nights of detail.  Maybe he knows something

I don't.  Nice wife.  His kid's a piece of work, though."

" Alice!"

The women looked up.  It was Shorty who'd hollered.  Looking apoplectic

from the heat, he was mopping his brow with a blue handkerchief ." We

about done?"

"All done," Alice said ." We're beating our heads against a brick wall

here."

Alice stuck out her hand to Anna ." In case I don't see you again , she

explained ." It's been good working with you."

"Likewise." Anna shook hands briefly, feeling less ridiculous than usual

performing the ritual.

"I'm sorry I didn't kill Slattery."

"That's all right," Anna said generously ." It was just a thought."

Plum Orchard was on their way to the north end.  Anna said she needed to

stop and pick up something she'd forgotten, but it was just an excuse to

check on Tabby.

The widow was comfortably ensconced on the sofa under the icy blast of

the air conditioner, directing the marine biologist's efforts.  Marty,

dressed this time in khaki shorts and a black tank top, her white braids

loose around her face, was boxing books.  Both seemed sane, sober, and

constructively occupied, so Anna left them to it.

"Maybe Schlessinger's got a heart of gold under all that dead meat,"

Dijon said when they'd left.

Anna just grunted.  She wasn't in the mood to give anyone the benefit of

the doubt.

"At least she wasn't fucked up," Dijon said, and: "Excuse my French."

Anna nodded an acceptance of the apology.

"You sure she was last time?" Dijon asked.

"I'm sure.  But what the hell?  It was her day off."

"Want to take another look at the wreck?" he asked hopefully .

Anna shook her head ." Be that way," he said.  Pulling a Walkman from

his yellow pack, he effectively entered another dimension.

Anna was glad to be left alone with her thoughts, though they were

scarcely entertaining.  Vague disquiet was the underlying theme

regardless of whether she contemplated her personal life or the tangled

web somebody was weaving on Cumberland Island.  If the knot on her head

and the slashes behind her shoulder blades were any indication, a web

she'd stumbled into.

When Anna was in her teens and Molly in her early twenties, they'd been

addicted to true crime stories and would while away long car trips

trying to plan the perfect murder.  There was always a hitch.  With this

one Anna couldn't find that hitch.  The murder weapon-the separated

actuator rod-could have been put in place at any time over a

sixty-two-hour period.  The Beech was tied down in the open in a

relatively secluded field.  Practically everybody had opportunity.  Two

men were killed, so motive was stretched thin .

Means was a little narrower.  Not everyone was possessed of the know

-how to disable a twin-engine airplane.  But given enough effort, most

information is available.  There was pathetically little to go on.

Norman Hull had called in the county sheriff and he and a local FBI

agent had visited the site, but nothing had come of it.  They could add

nothing to what Utterback had already discovered.

Had the deaths been the end of it, Anna suspected whoever had done it

would get off scot-free.  Statistics were in their favor.  A majority of

murders went unsolved.  The attack on herself and the truck suggested

removing Hammond and Beffore hadn't proven the final solution the

perpetrator had hoped for.  Somewhere on the island was a loose end.  If

she could find it before it was tied Off, she would find her man-or

woman, she reminded herself.  Equal opportunity.

A break in the flickering tunnel of trees brought her out of her

reverie.  Mitch Hanson's grader was pulled off the road, the driver

nowhere in sight.  Concentrating on the configurations of clearing and

trees, Anna reoriented herself.  They'd been on the road a quarter of an

hour or more.  That would put them just north of where the plane went

in, east of the loggerheads' nesting area.  She stopped the truck,

tapped Dijon, and pointed.  When he removed his headset, she said:

"Hanson's grader."

"So?  Maybe he's taking a piss."

"Want to mess with him?"