Endangered Species (38 page)

"What will you do now?"

"Go after the Hansons.  See how involved Norman Hull is, then call in

the cavalry."

"If you need any help, let me know.  I'll pray for you or whatever you

need."

"Praise God and pass the ammunition?"

Lynette's blue eyes twinkled mischievously ." 'An armed society is a

polite society."

"

Anna couldn't but admire a woman who could quote Jesus and AI Capone.

"WHAT TtiE HELL happened to you?  You look like you got run over by a

bush hog."

"I think it makes me look kind of like Audrey Hepburn."

"Yeah," Dijon agreed ." She's been dead awhile."

"What's put you in such a good mood?"

"Ask me where everybody is," Dijon said ." They took the boat to St.

Marys for groceries."

" Ahh." Fire crew's island sojourn was two-thirds through.  The one big

outing, one usually involving fast food and an opportunity to walk on

honest-to-God pavement, was the shopping trip to the mainland for

supplies ." Left holding the bag?" Anna asked unsympa thetically.

" Pun intended?" Dijon grumbled as he arranged himself on the seat of

the truck beside her.

Engine idling, Anna sat for a moment trying to remember what it was she

needed to do ." Food," she announced at last, and clicked off the key ."

I've got to make lunch.  I've run out of the stuff I took to Tabby's."

"Now you tell me." Dijon groaned as if buckling and unbuckling his seat

belt were the most onerous of tasks.

" You do need airing off."

"You're telling me.  I'm getting sand on the brain on this rock."

For some reason, one she herself did not understand, Anna didn't tell

Dijon of her night, or the Hansons.  Several times, as she made her

sandwiches, she started to, but something-caution, confusion, or simply

mental fatigue-stopped her.  With tendrils of dope smoke curling through

the recesses of her brain, she felt a need to clarify a few things

before she went public; opened herself up to the communal, and therefore

picayune, scrutiny of the bureaucracy .

Like any other government agency, the National Park Service lacked a

bottom line.  The buck stopped nowhere.  Too many chiefs and not enough

Indians.

"Too many cooks spoil the stew." Anna concluded her litany of aphorisms

out loud.  Dijon's look warned her to be more guarded in her actions, at

least for a while.

Dijon drove, Anna rode shotgun, happy to be quiet, to gaze at the

scenery unfurling beyond the windshield, and let time pass .

They took the pumper north along the beach, following the same path

she'd driven twelve hours before.  In daylight the oceallfront lost much

of its magic, flowing away as open and harmless as a Coppertone ad.

At the northern tip of Cumberland, Dijon stopped and Anna indulged in

the voyeuristic pleasure of watching him break the law .

As he dropped bits of Ritz crackers on the muddy bank, a flotilla of

Maggie-Mary's offspring formed up in the pond they called home.  A dozen

or more sets of eyes, barely above the level of the murky waters, were

propelled toward his feet by the flick of banded tails.

Still no sign of Mama.  Anna was not disappointed.

Though it was not yet ten in the morning she ate her peanut butter and

honey sandwich and a banana.  Soon she would be herself -again. Normalcy

was folding around her like an old bathrobe .

The effect was enervating.  As reality encroached, her experience of the

previous night seemed the more unreal by contrast.  Almost as if she had

dreamed or hallucinated the entire incident.  Such vagaries of thought

did little to motivate her.  Being thrown into the machinery of a law

enforcement investigation inspired only by her drugged recollections was

an unattractive notion.  In a bit, she promised herself, she'd make

those calls.

They reached Plum Orchard just after one o'clock.  While they topped off

the two water tanks on the expanse of lawn, Anna told Dijon what she

knew and suspected, omitting only that she'd been trapped breathing

marijuana smoke for four hours.  She wasn't up for the jokes that was

bound to generate-all with her as the butt.

"You've been keeping this a secret all morning?" Dijon asked accusingly.

"I needed to think," Anna defended herself.

"Yeah.  Like that's something you do well all by yourself."

"I've got to think about that," Anna said, and Dijon sniffed.

Tabby was out and the apartment in disarray.  Books were scattered

across the floor and half a dozen cardboard boxes of papers and files

covered the coffee table and one of the chairs.  As from another life,

Anna recalled that the clutter had been there that morning, she'd just

been too distracted to take note of it.

Using the phone in Tabby's bedroom, she dialed the St. Marys Police

Department and asked to speak with dispatch ." This is Beth Covelier in

probation," she lied when a female voice came on the line ." I'm working

on that juvenile case-Ellen Hull .

I need the exact arrest times for my report." Deceit required more

energy than the direct route but, out of her jurisdiction, trying to get

information on a juvenile arrest, it struck Anna as the most efficacious

approach.

"Oh, yeah," the woman said ." I got that.  Hang on a sec."

Anna allowed herself a small sigh of relief.  Her creative powers were

at a low ebb.  Having to elaborate would have taxed them.

"Okay," the woman said, to the accompanying sound of papers being

shuffled ." Here we go.  Thursday, at oh-nine-hundred-andseven, Miss

Ellen Rachelle Hull was taken into custody.  Do you need the names of

the arresting officers?"

Give- timewhat you've got," Anna said, and poised her pen over a scrap

of envelope she'd salvaged for the purpose of taking notes.

"Officers Mangino and King arrested her a block from the school where

she attends seventh grade.  They booked her on Possession with Intent to

Sell.  'Twelve ounces of a substance that fieldtested as marijuana were

confiscatedfrom her book bag."

" What time were her parents notified?"

"I wasn't on duty but Janice has got it down here.  Officer Mangino knew

the girl.  He asked Janice to notify her parents while still on scene.

Jan's got a 'no answer' at the residence at ninethirteen and the call to

Norman Hull at his office on Cumberland Island down at nine-fifteen.  I

guess she caught him just as he was going out for an airplane ride.  Too

bad.  A day in jail would be good for little Miss Ellen."

"Probably.  You say Officer Mangino knows Ellen or her folks?"

Anna left the question as open as she could, hoping some useful

information might be forthcoming.

"Oh, yeah," the woman said ." We all know Ellen.  She's been in and out

of here since she was eleven years old.  No one can figure out where a

kid that age gets the stuff in quantity.  Her folks tire at their wits'

end.  Norman's been hoping that Citadel case will work out so he can

ship the little twit off to military school." A suspicious silence

followed; then the dispatcher's voice came back over the wires ." Your

office should have all this," she said warily ." Isn't Felicity handling

the Hull girl anymore?"

"I'm just helping out," Anna said ." I'm a temp.  Thanks." And she got

off the line.  Taking the envelope with her into the living room, she

slumped down onto the sofa.  Chewing on a granola bar he'd liberated

from Tabby's kitchen, Dijon sat cross-legged on the floor looking

through the books.

"Ellen was arrested shortly after nine a.m.  the morning Hammond and

Belfore were killed.  The police dispatcher called Norman on the island

at nine-fifteen.  That matches up with your pudgy inamorata's saying he

arrived at St.  Marys around ninethirty.  Up till then he was apparently

planning on being on that plane with Slattery." She sat for a moment

tapping the corner of the envelope against her front teeth and listening

to Dijon crunch granola.

"Do you think he made up that bullshit about getting a call from the

regional director so he wouldn't have to tell anybody his baby girl was

a drug dealer?" Dijon asked.

It made sense to Anna.  As often as it happened, whenever a law

enforcement officer's child ran afoul of the law it was embarrassing .

The public viewed it as proof of something rotten in the family .

Worse, those who had more empathy subjected the parents to their pity.

,, If this kid has been at it since she was eleven and the Hulls are

talking military school, it doesn't sound as if Daddy is her supplier,"

Dijon said.

"Nope.  Surely a chief ranger would do a whole lot better job of

covering his tracks."

"And not use his own kid."

"That too.  Louise Hanson," Anna said after a minute ." She was Ellen's

'special friend." I remember Norman's secretary telling me that.  She

said they shared an interest in gardening.  Didn't they just .

What do you bet Louise is the one who got the girl involved?"

Dijon looked shocked ." Old Mrs.  Hanson?" He shook his head .

"No.  You've got to be kidding.  You're not kidding.  No," he said, and

shook again as if ridding himself of the idea ." Mrs.  Claus filling the

kiddies' stockings with dope?  I don't believe it."

Anna reminded herself to call Alice Utterback and sign up for her crime

ring.  They'd make a killing ." Let's go by the office," she said,

pushing herself out of the couch's embrace.  Till she sat down, let

herself relax, she'd not realized how bone weary she was ." It's time to

bump this upstairs and get back to our own work."

"Tick watch," Dijon said, but he scrambled to his feet fast enough.

The chief ranger was not pleased with Anna.  For over an hour she sat in

his office, confined to the single straight-backed chair, enduring

withering disapproval, while he made the necessary telephone calls.

Acting alone was not the Park Service way.  There was the chain of

command to be adhered to.  That one link was dead and the other a

suspect did not let Anna off Hull's hook.  First, that he was the

suspect did not endear her to him in the least, and second, she could

have called somebody.  Anybody, was the implication.  That she, a

lo\7,,Iy GS-9 field ranger, not even in her home park, had taken it upon

herself to do something was, in Hull's view, untenable.  A strong letter

would be written to her supervisors.  Had she been possessed of sword or

stripes, Hull left no doubt in her mind, they would have been broken,

thrown ceremoniously in the dust and she herself driven from the fort in

ignominy.

Anna made a few feeble attempts to explain that her brainstorm to track

down the Hansons' drug plot had come late at night, that she was merely

going to take a peek, and that the impetus to go solo derived less from

John Wayne than from Greta Garbo: she wanted to be alone.  Each word

only served as a little shovel, digging her deeper.

Regarding the delay in reporting that morning, the chief was even less

understanding.  In his fussy, gentlemanly way, he raked her over every