High Country- Pigeon 12 (28 page)

Recalling the items in Trish's storage boxes-clothes, cosmetics, paperback novels-the one that didn't fit was the battered, water-soaked leather satchel. It had come from the downed plane, Anna was suddenly sure of it. When the airplane hit the ice and shattered, the pilot's briefcase must have spewed out of the cockpit along with everything else that busted loose. Customarily a captain's briefcase would contain maps, charts and whatever personal paraphernalia were deemed necessary for comfort. A satchel in the cockpit of a drug plane might well carry cash, enough of it to make things interesting. That would account for Dickie's pressing need to recover his sister's effects.

"Damn," Anna whispered and ignored a questioning look from Mary. Her thread of reasoning had snapped. If the aborted letter was any indication, Dickie had been ignorant of the downed plane and, so, of all proceeds derived there from. This wads-of-cash theory also left unexplained Dickie's urgency to recover each and every little scrap belonging to his sister right down to her apron, ticket book and uniform.

Anna let Dickie slide from her mind but retained the satchel and its presumed contents. Given Trish found the bag and packed it out, who might know what it contained? The three people with her, whomever they might have told, and the folks responsible for the drug run in the first place. Any of these could have been behind the search of Anna's dorm room, but given Nicky's albeit sketchy description of the two men as strangers and city boys, Anna's money was on the drug importers.

It was a fine solution, but brought with it more questions: How had the importer known where in the great Sierra wilderness his cargo came to earth? How had he known a satchel of cash had been thrown from the cockpit? How had he known Trish Spencer found it?

The rational answer was that Trish, Dix, Caitlin or Patrick told the importer or told someone who'd passed the information on. Dix, Caitlin and Pat might have done so either intentionally or inadvertently. From what Anna had learned of them, they were adventurers, casual dope smokers and opportunists, but none of them had the record or reputation to indicate they were more deeply involved in the trade.

Trish was the dealer. She would likely have only one contact, the person who supplied her, the next bird up in the pecking order. That was the person who Trish would have approached to unload the dope she couldn't sell to her park cronies, the person who would have passed the information up to the next level.

They passed through El Portal. Full darkness had come but without the crushing overcast which had oppressed eastern California for two weeks. Night was no longer the blinding dark of LowerMercedPassLake. Stars, looking impossibly close, were caught in the tops of the pines and flowed in a silver-white river over the highway. A thumbnail moon as perfect as any in a children's picture book-or cut in the door of an outhouse-rose above the mountains. The jagged black of the forest pressed close and, as they passed the boulders standing sentinel at the park's entrance, rock walls began to rise. Even in this faint and frosty light, the stone glowed, polished granite catching the light and reflecting it back. Though they were again in The Ditch there was no sense of claustrophobia. Narrow as this crevice in the bastion of the Sierra was, all of the great universe looked down on it.

Anna breathed a sigh so deep it was a marvel stars weren't sucked into her lungs. "I'm glad the weather's cleared," she said.

"I know. Me too," Mary replied. "The world gets way too little up here when there's no sky."

CHAPTER 16

Since Anna had awakened in the hospital-indeed, before that, about the third time she'd tumbled off a stone step in her flight from Mark and Phil-she had assumed her undercover operation was at an end. A gimp waitress wasn't much good to anyone, and in her mind at least, she'd blown her cover. In reality, she hadn't. Except for Mary Bates, she'd told no one. According to Mary, the "bunch" that suspected her of spying for the Ahwahnee higher-ups was, in truth, only herself and Scott Wooldrich.

Because she'd been attacked, threatened, hunted and shot, Anna had assumed she was back in her role as a federal law enforcement officer. She had forgotten that most violent crimes are perpetrated upon ordinary citizens. Mark hadn't struck at the arm of the law stretched out to snatch him from his felonious pursuits and slap him in the penitentiary, nor had he defended himself against the force of the legal system as personified by Anna Pigeon, National Park Ranger.

Mark had set out to butcher a waitress out hiking on her day off just because she might cost him money. With this thought a rush of anger warmed and strengthened Anna. She pulled out of the slump she'd allowed herself to collapse into. "What shits!" she exclaimed. Mary laughed, then apologized, lest it was an inappropriate response.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Those bastards thought they were killing a nice middle-aged lady who maybe had kids, a husband, a dog for Chrissake."

"Not you," Mary said carefully.

"No," Anna fumed. "Somebody innocent. Bastards!"

Mary made a noise as if suppressing a laugh. As Anna saw nothing funny, she ignored it.

Anna had intended to make Leo Johnson's house her first port of call, but it was after ten P.M. when they drove into YosemiteVillage. If his bingeing ran true to form, Leo would be drunk on booze and self-pity by this hour. An interview would be pointless. Come morning he might not even remember it. Lorraine would have put one of her rangers on as acting chief, but Anna didn't know who it was. In retrospect it struck her as odd that Lorraine had left her with no interim contact. A chief like Lorraine Knight would have left behind instructions, messages, a phone number in Montana. At least that was the impression Anna had gotten of the woman. And she hadn't changed her mind.

The only thing that made sense was that the messenger hadn't bothered to deliver them. For this crime of omission Leo Johnson was Anna's prime suspect. Tomorrow, when she was stronger, braver and more patient, she would tackle him.

Mary turned toward the Ahwahnee. "Mary," Anna said. "Don't tell anyone what I told you, okay? I'd like to stay on in my waitress persona awhile, just till I can get a few more answers."

Mary was thrilled to be in on such a terrific secret. Lest the girl endanger herself by knowing only a fragment of the truth, Anna had left out none of the pain or the terror. She hadn't wanted Mary thinking of this as a game and getting in the way of evil. She'd told her everything up to the point when she'd ignited Mark. That wasn't a story she was ready to share with anyone, much less a seventeen-year-old girl who looked like a Christmas angel.

"I can help," Mary said too eagerly.

"You already have, just by letting me talk."

"No. Really. Trish tried a bunch of times to get me to smoke marijuana. If I noise it about that I'm ready, could be somebody else'll pop up to offer to sell me a baggie. Nobody'll offer it to you. You're ol-not the right age."

Anna thought about it awhile. Mary was right. If she should start asking for a supplier it would look fishy. Mary Bates wouldn't look fishy with an armload of mackerel. Because Trish was dead didn't mean the drug business wouldn't go on as usual. Either Trish's contact would step in to fill the void or another user would be recruited to keep the party circuit supplied, particularly if there was an overabundance of weed. Whoever was moving the stuff in the park would want to get rid of it. What better way than getting patsies to pay for the privilege of burning the evidence?

"Okay," Anna said. It was against her better judgment and, if Lorraine Knight found out she had enlisted the help of a civilian and a minor, Anna would be severely reprimanded, probably sent back to Mississippi in disgrace. Not only did it run counter to policy, but it created an ideal situation in which the park service could be sued for punitive damages to the tune of half the gross national product. Anna invited Mary to assist because she was ninety-nine percent sure Mary was determined to do it anyway. By the pale green light washing back from the dashboard, Anna could see the glitter in her eyes and the set of her jaw. To deny her would be to send her underground. Mary was safer if Anna kept tabs on her.

"Got to promise me three things," she said.

"Anything," Mary replied. No hesitation, no jockeying. Anna believed she would be as good as her word.

"You tell me before you do anything."

"Okay."

"You report back to me immediately after you do anything."

"Okay."

"And if I tell you not to do something, you don't do it."

There was a fraction of a pause, but not enough to be alarming. "I can live with that," Mary said.

Anna sincerely hoped she could.

"We're home."

"Home" was of course the dormitory. At forty Anna'd sworn she would never accept dormitory accommodations again. The pajama-party atmosphere she'd so enjoyed as a boarder at MercyHigh School and, to a lesser degree, in college, had lost its allure. There were times when even the strong sweet presence of Paul was too much for her to bear; times when her psyche couldn't deal with the impact of any life not blessed with fur and paws. Paul seemed to understand this rather than take offense. An upstairs room in his historic house in Port Gibson, Mississippi, had been set aside for her exclusive use after they were married. He very kindly didn't offer to decorate or furnish it for her. It was hers alone to do with as she pleased. He'd promised to knock before entering.

Anna wished she were in it now, bare wood, bare walls, bare of furniture. Often as not, privacy and a hard floor beat company and a soft bed. The memory wavered, then faded. A room of her own and all that entailed belonged to another life. One that grew ever harder to hang on to. By repetition, the big lie of who she was became ever more believable.

She stopped at the door of the room she and Nicky shared. Mary continued down the hall calling a "good night" over her shoulder. The prospect of being Anna's partner in anti-crime had her jacked up.

"Before you do anything," Anna reminded her, "you tell me."

Mary spun around, came to an abrupt halt, heels together. Saluting smartly, she said: "Ma'am. Permission to brush my teeth, ma'am."

Even knowing it only encouraged children, Anna couldn't help but laugh. "Permission granted."

Anna opened the door and flipped on the light.

Nicky wasn't in. Anna had figured that when she'd found the door closed. Both Nicky and Cricket suffered from the fear that they were missing something when they weren't at the heart of a group of babbling people.

The room was a shambles. It seemed ironic that the only time she'd seen it tidy was after it had been tossed by professionals. She was half sorry she'd spent so much time and energy assuaging Nicky's fears. Had she stayed scared she might have continued to pick up after herself if for no other reason than to create an illusion of control over some small part of her life.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Anna exclaimed, hearing her dead mother-in-law's voice in her own. Nicky hadn't been happy simply to trash her own side of the room, she'd trashed Anna's as well.

"Doggoned, silly-assed little nitwit," Anna cursed gently. Up near MercedPass she'd gotten enough of the brutal sort to leave a bad taste in her mouth when it came to four-letter words. She flicked on her desk light.

"Oh dear." Where she had been merely annoyed she was now alarmed. The clutter covering her unmade bed, spilling out the open door of her narrow closet and littering her desktop did not belong to her roommate. All of it was hers: books, papers, clothes, everything dumped out and tossed into a dismaying salad of single shoes, pencils, unmarried socks, Altoid mints, paper clips and other small things she'd thought to bring along as necessary to life and human dignity.

Snapshots of Paul and Piedmont were on the floor. Snatching them up protectively, she held them to her shirt front as if she didn't want them to see the mess.

Much as she'd denigrated this cramped and crowded space, for the moment, it was all the home she had. On one level or another she'd been missing it for three days and two nights. Here she had pajamas that didn't leave her fanny out in the breeze, a pillow that had been molded to her head, blankets that didn't smell of cleanser. Her things.