Death Takes a Honeymoon (11 page)

Chapter Thirteen

THE MESSAGE I’D LEFT FOR B.J. WAS
GO AHEAD WITHOUT ME,
I can eat later.
It should have been
Go ahead without me, I’m
having roasted garlic fettuccine with a possible murderer.
“Most interesting” was putting it mildly.

Todd was clearly startled to see me, but Dr. Nothstine rode right over his discomfort—and mine—by making much of his kindness in bringing the cat food, and insisting that we both stay for dinner.

“It’s tiresome, always cooking for one,” she said, slamming pans around in her shipshape little kitchen. “No, Todd, I do not need any assistance. Make yourself a drink and sit down there with Carnegie.”

The young smoke jumper complied reluctantly and perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, rattling the ice in his glass and looking anywhere but at me. I bent down and busied myself inviting the marmalade cat to return to my lap, all the while speculating furiously.

Was Todd merely doing a good deed in coming here? It seemed unlikely. Al Soriano probably told the other jumpers I was asking about Brian’s belongings, and probably mentioned Julie Nothstine as someone who could help. Did that mention prompt this sudden desire to visit an old woman living alone on a back road out in the woods? If Odd Todd was up to no good, he wouldn’t even need a dark alley.

My cell phone’s in my tote bag in the car,
I thought with a prickle of tension.
Should I go out and get it? That might tip
him o f. Besides, there’s a phone right here in the living room.
Calm down. Act natural.

The cat cold-shouldered my advances in favor of scaling the bookcases again, so I sat up and said brightly, “It’s nice of you guys to help out Dr. Nothstine. I guess she goes way back with the smoke jumpers, huh?”

“Yeah.” Long pause. More rattling ice.

“It must be exciting, starting your first season.”

The look on his big, square face darkened, and I winced. Todd’s first season as a smoke jumper had started with a death, and if he wasn’t the killer, then he was grieving a comrade. So much for small talk.

I was groping for a more diplomatic remark when the marmalade cougar made another leap, this time plunging claws first from a high shelf onto Todd’s left shoulder.

“God
dammit
!”

Todd sprang to his feet and ripped the cat away from him. His face was almost purple, and when he raised one arm as if to strike the animal, I cried out in alarm. He stopped, but didn’t turn to face me, and then the silent tension was broken by the sound of Dr. Nothstine’s voice.

“Dinner is served!” she called. “I hope you both like garlic.”

We did, and we liked the red wine she served even better. By the second glass I had relaxed a little, and Todd was positively animated. He focused mainly on “Dr. J.,” as he called her, which befit her special status as a friend and confidante to the Ketchum smoke jumpers. But that gave me a chance to observe him closely, and to decide that my sense of him from the night before, of a small boy allowed into the charmed circle of the bigger kids, still rang true. But even small boys can be cruel.

Todd didn’t swagger, as Brian would have done, because his admiration was all for his compatriots, not for himself. My unease about his show of temper faded a little as he told story after idolizing story about the other jumpers, their close calls and practical jokes and, most of all, their toughness.

Dr. Nothstine had stories to tell as well. She spoke of legendary jumpers from the past, men with nicknames like Paperlegs and Shish Kebab and Catfish, who had survived horrendous injuries and epic fires and parties of mythic proportion.

Todd drank in every word, his eyes shining. To him, every injury was heroic, every prank was sidesplitting, every beer bash a fabulous bacchanal. And most of all, every wildfire contained a victory for the warriors of fire. Todd Gibson might be a cat-hater, but he was head over heels in love with smoke jumping.

By the time we asked for seconds on the pasta, I was ready to join up myself. Of course, there was that little matter of physical fitness, and my lack thereof, not to mention the inconvenient detail that I’d be terrified out of my mind. But in telling his smoke-jumper stories, and attending to Dr. Nothstine’s, Todd made it seem like the only job in the world worth doing.

The one story that both Todd and Dr. Nothstine knew, involved “Bambi buckets,” collapsible hoppers slung from helicopters, which are used to dump hundreds or even thousands of gallons of water directly onto wildland fires.

“So where do they get the water?” I asked, still scarfing down fettuccine.

“Mostly lakes and rivers in the area,” said Todd. He had plowed through two helpings and was working on a third. “Sometimes reservoirs, if they have to go farther away, or even the ocean.”

“Tell her about that dreadful incident in California,” said Dr. Nothstine, turning aside to refill his glass.

“Oh yeah, that.” Todd’s ears were reddening, no doubt from the wine. Beer must be his usual drink.

“What happened in California?” I prompted.

“Um, there was a big fire in the Sierras, and when they went in afterward to mop up, they found a corpse. Up in a tree.”

“In a
tree
?”

“Quite a bizarre case, and very sad,” said Dr. Nothstine. She blinked owlishly. “He was dressed in a wet suit, with fins and air tank. The poor man had been scuba diving in the ocean when he was scooped up in a Bambi bucket and dropped into the flames.”

“Oh my God!” I imagined the diver’s panic, the endless fall, the nightmare of the flames...then I heard a snicker from across the table. The two of them exploded into laughter, and after a moment I joined in. I’d been had.

“A marvelous tall tale, marvelous.” Dr. Nothstine removed her glasses to dab her eyes with a napkin. “I’m told that scuba divers repeat that story even more often than firefighters do.”

We all loosened up after that. The stories continued, and then circled back to the most recent one: the death of Brian Thiel.

If this starstruck young man had actually killed my cousin, I’d have expected a well-rehearsed story about discovering him there in the ashes, already dead. So I nudged the conversation in that direction.

But Todd had no story at all. He spoke readily enough about the tragedy of losing a good man like Brian—or Bri, as he called him. But he shied away from my queries about the accident scene itself like a skittish horse refusing a jump.

“It must have been an awful shock, finding Brian’s body like that,” I said at one point, when our hostess had stepped into the kitchen. “You were by yourself?”

Todd simply nodded in silence and kept eating.

“I suppose there are procedures—”

“Of course there are! And I followed them.” His voice was loud, almost anguished. Guilty or innocent, I was causing him pain. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Brownies!” Dr. Nothstine set a white cardboard box on the table and fussed around with it. “Store-bought, I’m afraid. I used to bake, but when my oven broke I took the door off so John Muir could sleep in it.”

That threw me, but a glance into the kitchen identified John Muir as the tuxedo cat from the windowsill, whose tail was indeed dangling out of the stove front. It twitched like a rattlesnake as I watched, then unfurled itself in a languid arc.
Good night, John.

“Hey, thanks,” said Todd, grateful for both the sweets and the interruption. He polished off a brownie in three eager bites and reached for another while still licking chocolate from his lips. “Everything was great, Dr. J., but I should get going. If you need anything else and you can’t find Al, just call me, OK?”

“I’ll be sure to do that.” She walked him to the door, watched him drive away, then returned to me. “Well?”

I listened to the engine fading. “Well, he seemed more embarrassed than guilty. I do think he’s hiding something, but I’m not sure that it’s murder.”

“I’m inclined to agree. Leave the dishes, please. I prefer to do them myself.” She settled on the sofa and was instantly bracketed by felines. “If not murder, then what?”

“Theft?” I sat beside the outer cat. “Todd could have stolen something of Brian’s, the necklace or—”

“Nonsense. Can you imagine that gallant child plundering a corpse?”

That gallant child was ready to strangle your marmalade cat,
I thought. But that one incident didn’t really prove anything, and I let it go.

“No, I guess not. So where does that leave us?”

Her disconcerting black-ringed eyes held mine. “It leaves us to continue investigating. You’ll have to question the other two, the Taichert girl and Danny Kane. Though he seems an improbable killer.”

I’d almost forgotten, Sam had called Dr. Nothstine his old friend. A family friend, it seemed. “Do you know Danny well?”

“Since birth.” She pointed a stern finger. “But don’t imagine my judgment is clouded on that account.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She had me talking like her now. “So do you think Danny’s capable of killing someone?”

“
I’m
capable of killing someone,” she said dryly. “Presumably you are, too, given the right circumstances. But Danny has always been...weak. Not physically, of course, but there’s something in his character that isn’t quite sound. He’s rather passive, despite his occupation.”

I thought of what Jack had said, about Danny’s parents’ divorce and his beloved uncle’s suicide. “Did you know Roy Kane?”

“Of course! Everyone in Ketchum knew Roy.” Her eyes grew distant. “He was a brilliant student, a natural athlete, everything a young man should be. We were all so proud to see him in his uniform. The Marines, you know. Danny absolutely idolized his Uncle Roy.”

I suspected he wasn’t the only one. I had a sudden vision of this formidable old lady as a girl, a tomboy, perhaps. And perhaps in love?

“I understand Roy was a hero,” I said. “What a shame, the way things turned out.”

“Those charges were dropped!” she snapped.

“What?” I said, taken aback. “I meant his suicide.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Although I’ve always wondered how someone as courageous as Roy could take his own life. It seems such an admission of defeat.”

I couldn’t help being curious. “What charges? Did he have something hanging over him that might have driven him to—”

“Nonsense. There were irresponsible accusations about looting, but Roy was entirely exonerated. He
was
a hero, in a brutal and unappreciated war.” She shook her head impatiently and returned to the matter at hand. “Never mind, you young people don’t even read history anymore. What about Pari Taichert? Is it true that she’s acting as Jack’s best man?”

“That’s right.” I waited for her disapproval of this modern notion, but I should have known better.

“Excellent. You’ll have an opportunity to question her as you oversee the wedding.”

If I ever get time for the wedding,
I thought, with a glance at my watch. “Maybe. But I don’t intend to question anyone without witnesses around. It could be dangerous. Are you sure you don’t want to take this to the police?”

“I told you, the BLM authorities rejected my hypothesis. The police would hardly favor my opinion over theirs.” She penciled the combination to Brian’s locker on a scrap of paper and handed it to me with a bitter smile. “Never get old, Miss Kincaid. It plays hell with your credibility.”

I pondered that and a lot more as I drove back out to the highway and north into Ketchum. The summer dusk hadn’t yet relinquished the last of the light, and the mountains on either side of the road crouched darkly against the luminous, silver-violet sky.

B.J.’s car wasn’t out front. When I let myself into the cabin, I found the fluorescent tube over the kitchen sink casting its cold flat light, but all the other rooms were in shadow. She had eaten dinner; a microwave lasagna box sat on the counter, its congealing scraps of long-frozen cheese still reeking of long-dead oregano. I slid the box into the garbage. How deflating, to have the combination to Brian’s locker and no one to share it with.

Though to be honest, the one I really wanted to share my news with was Aaron. I relied on him to help me sort through my mental tangles; he had a knack for organizing information. That’s why he made such a good reporter. That, and his flair for language, and his uncanny ability to ask the most awkward questions.

Suddenly I missed the sound of his annoying, wonderful voice. But our last conversation had ended on such a sour note... No, I’ll figure this out myself. I don’t need him. I was still telling myself that as I took a stool at the counter and tapped in his home number on my cell phone.

“Hello—”

“Aaron, it’s me!”

“—you’ve reached Aaron Gold. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. My number at the
Seattle Sentinel
—”

I sighed and turned off the phone. Then I turned it on again, berating myself for not checking it earlier. Sure enough, I had four messages waiting. To my disappointment, but not my surprise, none of them were from Aaron.

The first voice that played back was B.J.’s, keyed up as usual. “Hey, guess what? I just found out Brian had a locker at the jump base! Call me right away, OK?”

The next message was from Tracy’s carterer, confirming for tomorrow’s meeting, but after that it was B.J. again.

“Carnegie, where the hell are you? I can’t wait all night, this is making me crazy!” A pause, and then, “Oh, someone called from San Francisco looking for you. They said that Valerie Cox got stung by a bee and isn’t coming. Does that make sense? Anyway, call me.”

I groaned. This couldn’t be happening. Without Valerie Cox and her brilliant, undocumented floral designs, what was I supposed to do with two truckloads of blooms and greens when they arrived on Thursday? Stick them in mayonnaise jars? It didn’t make sense, it made a disaster. A
bee
?

In my dismay over Valerie, I missed the final message and had to play it again.