Endangered Species (32 page)

"Does ginseng grow on Cumberland?" Anna asked.

"Soil's wrong," Dijon replied ." And pygmy oaks don't grow within two

thousand miles.  Only place I know of is on the coast of California.

Whatever Hanson was hunting, it wasn't pigs."

"IS EVEIiY130DY here frigging weird or is it just me?" Dijon asked.

It's just you," Anna reassured him.

They'd left Mitch standing guard over his grader, passed AI and Rick

near The Settlement-a cluster of houses, including Marty's, that were

still privately owned-and driven out to Lake Whitney to eat their

sandwiches.  It was a bit of a challenge to drive to Whitney .

A road existed but it was rough at best and guaranteed to mire a heavy

vehicle like the pumper axle-deep in sand at worst.  Today they'd

avoided the worst.  Adopting Rick's beach-driving techniques, Anna had

roared through the soft spots like a bat out of hell to the

accompaniment of colorful rodeo-inspired epithets from Dij\On Smith.

Now they sat in the perfect white sand of a dune that was creeping

inland, threatening the little freshwater lake's existence.

"What did you get from Dot and Mona?" Anna asked.

"Zip.  Or more accurately, too much zip.  Pretty nearly everybody,

including us, had been around that meadow in the last three days .

Near as the old ladies can remember, the only people who actually messed

with the airplane itself were Hammond of course, Norman Hull-"

" Makes sense, especially since he flew with the guy off and on."

"Todd on his security rounds, and Hanson with the gas truck."

"Everybody and nobody."

" Back where we started?"

"Back where we started," Anna agreed ." Want to go for a walk?"

"Do I have a choice?" Dijon pushed himself to his feet and stuffed the

remainder of his lunch into his yellow pack.

Circumnavigating the lake to the northwest, Anna led the way .

The edges of Whitney were rich in plant life, glistening cattails and

lily pads the size of dinner plates.  The maritime forest pushed back

from its shores to higher, drier land.  There was little cover.  Letting

the heat dictate a languid pace, Anna walked slowly.  A beautiful young

alligator, not more than four feet long and still bearing the yellow

hash marks of childhood on its tail, stared emotionlessly at t hem from

a cool lair of mud beneath the water grasses.

"Hey," Anna said, pointing, "company."

"God, I hate those things."

"You're going to hurt his feelings," Anna warned.

"They don't have feelings," Dijon returned ." That's what makes them so

creepy."

Looking at the dead reptilian eyes, Anna tended to agree but chose not

to give Dijon the satisfaction ." You never know."

" Let's just hope he prefers white meat," Dijon said, and made her laugh

by giving the alligator an absurdly wide berth.

On the opposite side of the lake, Anna found what sh(, was looking for:

Shawna and Guenther's camp.  The two were responsi able, if not

law-abiding, campers.  They'd had a small fire but they'd doused the

embers with water, then stirred the ashes and doused it again in the

prescribed manner.  No litter marred the sand and Anna found the remains

of the fire only by careful searching.  They'd taken the time to bury

the ash and spread the charred wood so those next on the site could

enjoy the illusion of pristine discovery.

"Well, that was edifying," Dijon said sarcastically when she had

finished ." More than worth an alligator-infested hike in the noonday

sun.  What are we looking for, exactly)"

"Beats me." Anna shoved her ball cap back and scratched at the roots of

her hair where sweat and sand combined to torment her scalp.  As hot as

it was and as destructive to the skin, she loved the feel of the sun on

her face.  For a moment she reveled in the sybaritic blast before

replacing her hat ." Guenther getting shot the same day as the crash; he

and Shawna camping out here where nobody's supposed to be not more than

a mile or two from where the plane went in.  It seems too cozy for

coincidence."

"Coincidence is cozy where cozy ain't supposed to be."

Anna didn't dignify that with a reply.

"ooh, I get it, international conspiracy," Dijon said ." He's Austrain,

she's what .  .  .  Cherenne?"

" Navajo, I think," Anna said absently.

"Maria drug cartels," Dijon said with certainty ." Exporting ceremonial

peyote.  Hey, lookit here." He jumped back from, then sneaked back up

upon, a mark he found in the soft soil at the lake's edge ." Snake

track.  Jesus, I'd hate to meet up with him in a dark alley."

They had continued around Lake Whitney to the south rather than retrace

their steps.  Anna caught up to him.  A stick-straight trail cut from

the waterline across the sand to disappear into a rugged stand of high

grass.  She squatted down on her heels and examined the mark.  It wasn't

a snake's trail or the drag of an alligator's tail .

The line was drawn too straight to have been made by any animal other

than man.

"Hopscotch?  I dare you to cross this line?" Dijon suggested when she

voiced her thoughts.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Once into the coarse grasses, the line disappeared.  After a few

minutes' search, they chalked it up to one more question in the growing

catalogue of unanswered questions they'd been compiling.

Depressed, Tabby had retired early, barely finding the strength to

murmur a goodnight in Anna's direction.  After the vandalism to her

truck Anna had taken note of the fact that Tabby had access to the fire

escape from her bedroom window by way of a narrow wooden catwalk that

ran the length of the apartment.  Because of the woman , s condition and

her emotional frailty, it hadn't crossed Anna's mind till too late that

Tabby could well have been the vandal .

In her blind assumption of Mrs.  Belfore's helplessness, she hadn't

bothered to check her room to see if she was still in bed.  just to be

fair, Anna put a mental mark in her sleuth's debit column but didn't

take it very seriously.  Her belief in Tabby's inaptitude was rooted'too

deep.

She returned the tepid goodnight and was glad to see the door close

behind the girl.  The day's adventures had earned her a headache and two

ticks, one lodged at the nape of her neck, the other under the waistband

of her trousers.  Even a head-to-toe inspection with a hand mirror and

combing her hair with a fine-toothed comb didn't rid her of the feeling

that bloodsucking insects were crawling all over her.

Near nine o'clock, with Tabby presumably safe in bed, it was dark enough

for decency.  She drove the three miles down through the Chimneys and

out to the beach.  Floating on the tide, she began at last to feel free

of wildlife.

Away from home, the daily routines of life, and the people she'd come to

know over the years she'd been at Mesa Verde, time came unhinged.  A

peculiar sense of having always been gone, of all other lives being just

a memory of a dream, closed over her.  Over others as well, near as she

could tell.  This disconnection allowed for behaviors that wouldn't be

considered in the familiar matrix of real life .

Without the checks and balances provided by friends, family, and the

eyes of one's neighbors, risks were taken and rules forgotten .

Anna wondered what would happen to Flicka when Dot and Mona left the

island, if Guy was having-or hoping for-an affair with Lynette, what

Slattery Hammond had done to deserve a restraining order, why he kept

used tampons in his freezer.

Letting the waves nudge her toward shore, she touched bottom with her

hands and felt her body bob sweetly on the sea.  A stray statistic about

a majority of shark attacks occurring in less than three feet of water

rose in her mind.  She banished it.

Eye level with the night beach, she let the disparate images of the past

several days flutter through her brain in no particular order: Guenther,

Shawna, the shotgun wound, Hanson, the shovel, the sack, the digs, Lake

Whitney, the camp, the ruler-straight snake trail, the basement of

Stafford, the fawn, the fertilizer, the weed killer.  The pieces came

together; a pattern once seen suddenly so obvious she cursed herself for

a fool.

She rolled over on her back.  Sand being pulled from beneath her fanny

and heels gave a disconcerting sense of movement.  Full of stars, the

surface of the sea glowed.  On the horizon there was the hint of a moon

yet to rise.

If she was right-and she was certain she was-there wasn't anyone she

dared tell.  With the exception of Alice Utterback, no one on the island

was off the hook as a suspect.  Should she do "the right thing" and

confide her suspicions to the local sheriff, his first call would be to

Chief Ranger Hull.  Anna wasn't convinced that would be such a good

idea.

Sliding from the Atlantic on elbows and knees, much as she imagined the

first sea beast had made its way onto land, she enjoyed a last wave

across her backside, then stood to let the kind night air dry her skin.

Hair slimed down her back nearly to bra strap levelhad she not

metaphorically burned that offensive garment two decades back.  Water,

feeling clammy now that she'd become a creature of the land, trickled

from the sodden tresses.  Again she thought of scissors, the freedom of

shorn locks.

The moon pushed out of the ocean and laid a silver trail to shore.  As

the desert does, sea and sand collected each scrap of illumination,

reflecting it back from shell, water, and salt till the air and land

seemed alight from within.  The magic of the night began working on

Anna.  Returning to the couch in the Belfores' griefsoaked apartment,

exposing her flesh to the artificially chilled air, struck her as

repugnant.  This was a night to wander alone like a wolf or an owl,

seeing, not seen, becoming part of darkness and shifting light.  A

deeply buried maxim of training warned her to wake Dijon, AI, Rick, or

Guy and bring them along on her quest.  Two things argued against it.

Firstly, the adventure should take less than an hour.  She had no

intention of endangering herself.  The second and more compelling

argument was that she had been so much in the society of human beings,

eating, drinking, and sleeping with the sound of others' breathing in

her ears, that to give up her solitude was too great a sacrifice.

Dressed in running shoes, the baggy NoMex trousers, and a T-shirt she'd

bought to commemorate the jackknife fire before it had become national

news, Anna drove slowly north along the oceanfront.  She kept the

vehicle near the water's edge where the sand was firm.  Not only would

any itinerant loggerheads be safe from her wheels, but her tire tracks

would be erased by the incoming tide. The moonlight was such that she

drove without headlights .

In the directionless light the landscape was painted in a thousand

shades of gray, silver, and gold.

When she'd first come to Cumberland all the beach looked the same;

fourteen miles of white sand with dunes west and water east .