Endangered Species (5 page)

shock.  No follow-up is called for." A long slow inhalation followed.

Anna pictured the smoke trickling up through her sister's fingers as,

cigarette in hand, she raked back her curls.

For the first time she envied Molly her addiction.  At least she still

had her drug.  Dirty and deadly as it was, nobody woke up facedown on a

car seatwith no recollection of the last eight hours because they'd

smoked one too many cigarettes.

" What was different about this threat?" Anna asked.

"For one, it was a woman.  Very rare.  Very.  Not for women to scream,

'I'm going to kill you,' et cetera, but for a serious telephone death

threat it's quite unusual.  And two, it didn't sound as if she'd made

any attempt to disguise her voice.  She sounded stressed, repressed, and

decidedly clear."

" What did she say?"

"Hang on." A series of clicks serrated the silence, then a sweet,

low-pitched voice, almost a vibrato from underlying emotion, said: "You

deserve to die.  Not just your kind, you personally.  It will be my

pleasure to do the honors.  My plate is rather full right now but rest

assured I will pencil you in as soon as there's an opening."

" Could you hear it?" Molly again.

"You taped the threat?" Anna was impressed.  Her sister was a cool

customer.

"No.  She left it on my answering machine."

Anna laughed in spite of herself ." I'm surprised she didn't fax it .

God.  The consummate businesswoman.  'Pencil you in'?"

Molly laughed with her and when the laughter wore out they were both

scared.

" Too weird," Anna said ." A practical joke?"

Molly shook her head.  Anna could tell from the wavering shush of smoky

breath blown across the receiver ." I've listened to it umpteen times

and can't make heads or tails of it.  Do you think I should call the

police?"

Molly never asked for advice.  Flattery and alarm vied for space in

Anna's heart ." Yes.  By all means.  If it turns out to be nothing,

terrific."

" Do you think they'd take me seriously?"

"You're rich, white, pushing fifty, and well connected."

"Of course." Again Molly laughed.  flers was an evil-sounding chuckle

that Anna loved.  the sort of chortle Dorothy might have heard shortly

before all hell broke loose in the land of Oz ." For a moment there, I

was ten years old again, freckled and redheaded and afraid of crying

wolf.  I'm a grown-up, by God!" Molly said.

"Save the tape," Anna cautioned.

"Done.  Two copies.  One in a safe-deposit."

" What was the first threat like,"

"A note came in the mail.  It was on expensive stationery and written in

calligritphy-the kind that was all the rage for fancy Earth Day party

invitations a few years back.  Kind of a walk-in-BroccoliForest feel to

it.  You're on hold again."

A moment iater the phone clattered back to Molly's ear ." Still there"'

"Still here."

"Okay-and for the comfort of your little cop mind I want you to know I'm

holding this with sterile tweezers while I read it.

"It's very formal, like the call.  'Dr.  Pigeon: There is apparently no

end to the damage you do.  Stupidity?  Greed?  Or just old-fashioned

evil?  You need to be dead and I need to do it.  Please reflect on this.

I wish you to be as uncomfortable as is humanly possible, should you be,

after all, human."'

Holding the mouthpiece of the phone away from her face so as not to be

munching the Baby Ruth in her sister's ear, Anna let the words soak in.

The note was strangely dispassionate, hatred grown cold, held close in

the mind till a warped but compelling logic grew up around it.

"I suppose you've gone through your patient list to see if anybody might

carry a grudge?"

"More than once.  Contrary to Hollywood's febrile depictions, a

psychiatrist's life is not fraught with serial killers.  Killers of any

kind are rare.  Killers who seek help are virtually nonexistent.  Except

for my prison work-and that's mostly drug rehab and depression-my

patients are wealthy neurotics.  I handle maybe fiftcen psychotics at

any given time on hospital and prison rounds.  Of the few that are not

incarcerated, four are men and the other is a homeless person, a bag

lady.  She has trouble stringing sentences together and cats out of

garbage cans.  Hardly the type for fancy stationery."

"The ones in lockup, they could call you or mail a letter, couldn't

they?" Anna asked.

"I suppose.  It doesn't feel right but I'll give it some thought.  It's

possible.  These people are crazy, not stupid."

Muted voices distracted Anna ." Just a sec , s he said, and held the

phone to her chest the better to listen.  The office building, like the

crew quarters, was closed up tight to seal in the air-conditioning.

Though grateful for a respite from the Georgia heat, Anna hated being

cut off from the summer, the sounds of the night, frogs and crickets.

Snuggling up in winter was different.  Winter didn't sing to her the way

summer did.

Molly temporarily forgotten, she set the receiver on the desk and forced

open the window.  The voices became clearer: human distraught, tearful

." Doggone it," she whispered to herself.

" Molly?"

"I'm here."

"There's some kind of altercation outside.  I'd shine it ormot my park

and all that-but it sounds like a woman's crying.  Probably nothing but

you never know."

"Go check." Relief permeated Molly's voice.  She was relieved to have

the spotlight off of her.  The threats upset her.  That, more than the

fear of personal violence, was what was bothering her.

God forbid the great psychiatrist should not be controlling some small

aspect of life, Anna thought and smiled ." I'm calling you back," she

said.

" Not tonight."

"Tomorrow then."

"Same time, same station." A click and the line went dead .

"Goodbye" wasn't in Molly's vocabulary.  Anna was unoffended, she'd

grown used to it a lifetime ago.  Molly had walked her to her first day

of school in Mrs.  White's first-grade class.  Outside the door she

handed Anna the paper sack with the lunch their mother had made, then

sat her down on a low bench under a row of coat hooks .

Anna was six, Molly fourteen.

"Pay attention," Molly had said ." I'm going to want details." She

turned and walked away without a backward look.  Anna hadn't felt

abandoned; not then, not ever.  She knew whatever happened, Molly would

be back to hear the details.

UCKING TVIE LAS-F of the Baby Ruth from her fillings, Anna Sstepped onto

the concrete stoop at the office's back door.  Weeping ebbed and flowed

like the waves of an incoming tide, each sob breaking higher than the

last.

A fan of the night, Anna had made her phone call without switching on

the lights.  After the indoor dark, her night vision was keen, and

moonlight washed gently over the landscape.  Across the field, where the

deer had stopped grazing to listen with more curiosity than alarm, a

pickup truck idled, its headlights plowing yellowwhite furrows in the

dust of the lane.

Two figures stood beside the truck, one so close to the front bumper

that her dress was caught by the headlight and showed bright red, the

only scrap of true color in the nightscape.  The other, a man Anna

guessed from the timbre of his mutterings, was trying to grab the

woman's shoulders and being batted away on each attempt.

Fifty yards separated Anna from the couple.  She walked quietly, keeping

to the grass-covered berm between the wheel ruts.  it didn't cross her

mind to return to the office to call for backup or alert Cumberland's

law enforcement ranger.  Family squabbles in national parks were as

ordinary as parking tickets, though considerably more volatile.  As she

closed the distance it occurred to her that she'd grown dangerously

complacent and it would behoove her to cultivate a healthy sense of fear

in the not too distant future.

"You would leave me," the woman cried clearly, and lurched back into the

glare of the headlight.  It was then Anna saw the swollen belly and knew

her for Tabby Belfore, the district ranger's wife.

The man stepped forward, reaching for Tabby.

"Hey, Todd!" Anna yelled, hoping if violence was in the offing to avert

it ." You guys need any help?"

She was close enough now to see their faces.  Annoyance mixed with

sheepishness.  Tabby blotted at her eyes with her fingertips; a woman

concerned about makeup damage.  There were no signs of high drama, j L]

St tile usual earmarks of a spat.

Because of training and a natural distrust of people, Anna checked Tabby

for any signs of' abuse ." Having engine trouble?" she asked easily.

Todd Belfore was a small man, five foot three or four and ilot more than

140 pounds, but muscular and self-assured ." Nope.  We were having a

fight," he said with disarming candor ." Tabby's smarter than me.  I had

to stop driving and concentrate if I had tiny hope of winning." -labby

laughed.  It didn't sound forced, so Anna joined her.  Alter that there

was nothing else to say and the Belfores stood looking l'oolish, both

sets of eyes flitting everywhere to avoid making contact with Anna's.

"We'd better be getting on hotne"' Tabby said finally.

Todd got back into the truck so fast he cracked his head against the

frame ." No harm done.  Hard as a rock." He laughed again, alone this

time.

"Guess we better be going." Tabby backed away from Anna, heading toward

the passenger side.  She didn't seem afraid or anxious.  Reassured, Anna

watched them drive away to be swallowed up by the oak woods.

The district ranger and his wife lived in an upstairs apartment in the

Plum Orchard mansion.  At one time the mansion had been open for the

public to tour but funds had failed and it was now closed to visitors.

Tabby probably felt isolated.  From their brief acquaintance she didn't

strike Anna as a woman of great inner resources.

As she walked back to the ATV an old Doris Day movie she hadn't watched

in years floated into her mind: Midnight Lace.  Day played an heiress,

married and rich.  She shopped, she looked terrific, she mixed martinis

and had them waiting when Rex Harrison returned fromhard day at the

office.  And she was compellingly, endearingly helpless in an era when

the liciplessness of grown women was accepted, admired-at least in

fiction.

Mrs.  Belfore had some of Day's blond vulnerability.  People found

themselves wanting to look after her.  In Midnight Lace there was an

attraction even for Anna.  It would be delicious to sink back into

frailty and let the battles be fought around you.

As she fired up the ATV, she allowed herself a brief fantasy of giving

in, giving up, giving over; absolute trust and, so, absolute dependence.

Appealing, but only momentarily.  To the victor go the spoils.  It

wasn't healthy to align oneself with the spoils.

Back in the air-conditioned sanctity of her upstairs bedroom, Anna

stretched naked on her yellow fire-issue sleeping bag.  A room and a bed