A Superior Death (26 page)

“I don’t know,” Anna admitted wearily.

“If you do it, promise me it’ll be in a crowded cafeteria at noon,” Molly insisted. “No drama, no glamour. Egg salad sandwiches and bad coffee. Oops. Gotta go. David Letterman’s on.”

The click and the “goodbye” were almost simultaneous.

Anna put down the receiver and promised herself a trip to New York. She’d go for Christmas. Angels in Rockefeller Center, holiday scenes in the windows on Fifth Avenue, elves in Macy’s, New Yorkers moderately cheerful.

The city was at its best at Christmas.

“Are you done on the phone?” Christina poked her head in the door to Anna’s room. “Ally wants you to kiss her goodnight.”

“I can do that,” Anna said.

Alison Walters went to bed each night with more animals than the keeper at the San Diego Zoo. Three of them were alive. Two sleek black cats curled up like bowling balls near the foot of the bed and Piedmont, Anna’s yellow tiger cat, stretched almost the full length of the child, his white belly turned up to be petted. A low rattling purr emanated from somewhere.

Anna kissed Ally’s cheek and Piedmont’s belly. Christina turned out the light and pulled the door closed but for a catsized gap for nocturnal comings and goings.

By habit more than design the two women went into the kitchen. Anna sat down at the small round table where they took most of their meals. Christina rummaged through the refrigerator for an appropriate evening snack.

“Ally and I won’t ever leave you, you know,” she said without turning to look at her housemate.

Anna started to lay her head down on the table, started to cry, but since she didn’t know why she was doing it, she stopped herself. Later, alone in her room, she could cry. Then there would be no burden of sympathy or understanding.

 

 

 

A
pproached by air, the island took on the jewel-like quality of the islands of the South Seas: an emerald set in sapphire. When Anna flew in from Houghton the effect was heightened by veils of retreating fog that wreathed the island like tissue paper in a fancy gift box.

The seaplane landed in Tobin Harbor and Anna walked over the narrow peninsula to Rock just as people were disembarking from the
Queen.
She picked up the
Belle Isle
and motored down toward Mott. The narrow ribbon of water was crowded with Fourth of July revelers. A red speedboat towed a water skier bent on an illegal death. Anna saw the
Cisco
pull out. Scotty in hot pursuit.

She turned in at Mott Harbor, secured the boat, and walked the short gravel road to Ralph Pilcher’s quarters. It was one of Ralph’s lieu days but Anna knew he would want a report.

The permanent employees lived in apartments arranged in rows like the rooms of a cheap motel. In front of each was a small weedy patch that passed for a lawn.

Hawk Bradshaw sat cross-legged on Pilcher’s plot tossing a baby into the air and making those crooning noises understood by infants the world over.

Anna would have turned and run, ducked for cover behind one of the old white pines that lined the road, but she knew it was only a fraction of a second before Hawk would see her. Not even time enough to compose her features. It occurred to her that perhaps she was glad not to be gay after all. A woman lover could too easily read one’s thoughts. The lack of understanding between the sexes provided each species with at least a modicum of privacy.

Hawk caught the baby. Against its delicate skin, his hands looked to be made of mahogany. Laughingly he nuzzled the child’s cheek. Still Anna remained rooted to the gravel drive. Something in the charming scene struck her as odd. Hawk and the infant, so comfortable at play. She combed through her tangled thoughts to find the snarl.

Vasectomy: Hawk, thirty-two, had a vasectomy. Why would a young man who so clearly loved babies have ensured that he would never father one?

“Anna!” Hawk had seen her. He cuddled the baby to his shoulder like someone who knows how, and rose smoothly to his feet.

“Morning, Hawk. Ralph around?” she asked casually.

Hawk looked hurt, then annoyed. “Was the other night nothing?” he asked quietly.

“The other night was the other night,” Anna said with a shrug. She wanted to smile, touch his arm, say something more, but there was no graceful way out of the situation.

“I’m sorry, Anna.” He sounded like a man accepting his own failure. That didn’t seem in keeping with what had transpired between them, but since she would probably have to arrest him in the immediate future, Anna didn’t think this was the time to pursue the details of their aborted romance.

“Me too,” she said. “Is Ralph around?”

“He got called to Houghton, he and Lucas, I guess. It’s a shame. Mrs. Pilcher and Max”—he wiggled the baby between his hands like a bit of Play-Doh—“just got here yesterday. Max’s mom is over at Rock, visiting. I asked if I could baby-sit.”

Ralph and Lucas were off the island. They’d be gone at least a day and a night and part of the following day. Anna considered going to Frederick Stanton with her burden of proof. But if he clung to the drug-death theory, the
3rd Sister
would be impounded as evidence immediately, long before Hawk and Holly were proven guilty. With the ensuing investigation and governmental red tape, there was no telling when she’d be released. Clients would be canceled. Goodwill in a small industry lost. Insurance payments, dock fees, gear maintenance cost, would go unpaid. It wouldn’t take much to break the back of
3rd Sister
Dive Adventures, Inc. If, by some chance, Hawk and his sister were innocent, they would have paid a stiff price for her suspicions.

Hawk kissed the baby’s ear.

“Are you free for lunch?” Anna asked.

“Are you cooking?”

“Better. A crowded cafeteria at noon, egg salad, bad coffee.”

“Are you buying?”

“Dutch treat.”

Hawk laughed. “Never go into sales, Anna. How about twelve-thirty? Max’s mom won’t be back till noon.”

“Twelve-thirty.”

 

 

 

A
t central dispatch Anna left a message for Stanton: “URGENT. MEET ME AT ROCK HARBOR LODGE LUNCHROOM AT 1:30.” Sandra said she’d give it to the Fed if she saw him, but Anna knew behind the joke was the promise to track him down at all cost.

Ninety minutes to kill. Since she was out of uniform, Anna decided to play tourist. She motored back to Rock, took her place on the bench above the harbor, and waited for the eleven o’clock nature walk to begin. Visitors trickled up. Soon the bench was full, and half a dozen people milled around on the asphalt path. Anna didn’t talk much. It was restful to be incognito, not to have to feign interest in anybody’s little adventures.

At five of eleven the group perked and stirred meaningfully. The ranger was coming. It was Tinker. She looked markedly older than when Anna had seen her several days before. Her face was thinner and drawn, as if she’d not been eating or sleeping well. Her hair needed shampooing and her uniform shirt, usually worn like a flag of honor, was crumpled. Tinker noted Anna in the group with a disinterest that smacked of lethargy.

The nature walk seemed to pick up her spirits to some degree. Teaching distracted her perhaps from her private terrors. But Tinker’s usual joy, her religious reverence for the natural world, seemed blighted. Something was eating away at her.

After the walk, Anna returned to the
Belle Isle
and put on her uniform. Body armor came in all sizes and colors. The LAPD had bulletproof vests, Molly had Anne Klein suits, Anna had the green and gray.

At the lodge, she picked a table near a window. Sunlight flooded across the white cloth, splashed into the empty chair. Anna left that seat for Hawk: her back to the wall, the light in his eyes. Clichéd TV choices, Anna thought with a smile, but making them gave her something to do. Stress management, Molly would call it. Dicking around, Anna said to herself.

Hawk was late. Anna flicked all the real and imaginary crumbs from the cloth, checked and rechecked her watch, went through the reasons Hawk might have chosen to stand her up. None of them were reassuring.

At ten of one the
Loon,
piloted by Tattinger, motored up to the near dock. Through the window, she saw Hawk jump off the boat, wave a thanks, and sprint up the quay. The sun caught his curls where the breeze ruffled them. Cold-blooded killer or not, Anna thought, he was lovely.

She did not like to think of the man he would be after a few years in the federal penitentiary.

“Sorry I’m late. Couldn’t cadge a lift,” he said, smiling, folding himself into the chair opposite, whisking up the paper napkin and cracking it open as if it were made of linen. “Will you order for both of us?” Hawk was grinning wickedly. The waitress was standing at their table, pen poised, an interested expression pasted politely on her face.

“Two egg salads, two coffees. No dessert.” Handcuffs were dessert, Anna thought acidly.

“To what do I owe this honor? Is it to be: ‘About last night . . . I think the world of you but . . .’? No? Let me guess. You’re married.”

“Sort of,” Anna said. The conversation, planned and rehearsed so carefully in her head, had gotten away from her and was running amok.

“Ohmygod!” One word gusted out on a laugh. “Sort of? Sort of?”

“I’m married. He’s dead. Till death do us part,” Anna explained awkwardly.

“Only sometimes it doesn’t. Dead men are tricky. Memories are tough to beat. They only improve with age.”

“Dead people,” Anna echoed. “Let’s talk about Denny.” So much for smooth segues.

Hawk sobered. Like a light going out, the hazel eyes dimmed, the full lips stilled and thinned. “Okay,” he said evenly. “Denny.”

The waitress came then with two egg salads on white bread, bread-and-butter pickles on the side. Neither was tempted. Coffee came and got a slightly better reception. Hawk sipped. Anna pretended to.

“I went to see Denny’s mother,” she said. “She showed me the trunk in the spare bedroom. There’d been a suit of clothes there—a sea captain’s uniform. It was gone. Mrs. Castle said you and Holly had stolen it. ‘Wild children,’ she called you. Did you take it?”

Hawk thought over his reply. Took a drink of the coffee. “Denny thought a lot of that uniform. He said if he believed in previous lives—which he didn’t—he’d’ve believed he’d once dressed that way. That’s how he saw himself.”

Not a yes, not a no. Like a character in a Greek tragedy, Anna pushed on with an unpleasant sense of the inevitable. “Denny’s corpse was found dressed in that uniform. No dry suit, no tanks, no mask, just that old sea costume. Mrs. Castle said she showed it to you and Holly around the time Denny died.”

“When did he die?” Hawk asked abruptly. “Exactly?”

“The autopsy will tell us—today, maybe tomorrow.

Why?”

Hawk didn’t answer. It was as if he hadn’t heard. He pushed a bit of egg salad around his plate with the edge of a chip but didn’t look as if he was inclined to eat it.

“I saw Denny’s tank—the oversized single—on the
Third Sister
when Lucas and I came to tell you of the death. Yours and Holly’s were charged but Denny’s was down by nearly half. You’d not bothered to top it.”

“Why should we? Denny was dead.”

“How did you know? At the time you were filling tanks the body had not yet been discovered. And there was a bruise on the body. A mark like one that would be left by a dive harness. My guess is Denny was wearing the tank when he died, or just before.”

“Ah. Gotcha! That it?”

Anna waited, watched his face. Emotions flickered and flooded over the smooth brown skin but she couldn’t separate any one out as stronger than the rest. Unless, perhaps, it was sorrow.

“It’s crossed my mind,” she said, “that Denny was killed by two divers, divers who dressed him in that costume, who retrieved his gear, who stood to inherit his boat and his business.”

Hawk looked up from his plate. His eyes were hard. “The
Third Sister
has got a load of debt that should sink her. Collateral so we could buy gear for the squirrels. Do you think I’d kill Denny for a boat even if it were free and clear? I can build a damn boat.” The voice was so cold, had Anna not seen him speak she would not have recognized it as his.

“Maybe not for the
Third Sister,
but for your sister? For Holly.”

Hawk looked blank. “Holly loved Denny,” he said.

“And then there was Jo?”

“No. Nothing like that. Holly couldn’t love Denny like that. Never.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Anna said. A shadow fell across the table, drawing their eyes to the window. It belonged to Frederick the Fed, clad in a suit and tie reminiscent of a Mormon missionary witnessing door to door. He was heading for the lodge.

Instantly Hawk understood what the apparently coincidental arrival of the Bureau man meant.

“No,” he said hurriedly. “No.”

“Holly’s not gay,” Anna said. “I checked.”

“Gay!” Hawk laughed. “No.” The restaurant door opened. Anna could see Frederick looking around him in that vague half-blind way people seek a familiar face in a crowd. She started to raise her hand to signal him. Hawk caught it and held it. He leaned across the table, his face close to hers.

“There’s never been any man for Holly but me. Never any woman in my world but Holly.”

The truth jarred more deeply than Anna would have admitted, more deeply than if the man she’d slept with had been a murderer. “The vasectomy!”

“No half-wit children,” Hawk said bitterly.

“Why did you go to bed with me?”

“You for me; the three clotheshorse clients for Holly.

Denny was our savior, our cover; after he died we tried to go straight. You were my best bet. But it was too lonely. Holly’s my other self. If, after I die, I burn in hell for it, I burn in hell. I won’t live in hell now.”