Track of the Cat (17 page)

Anna was touched, tears again threatening. Damn the drugs, she thought, choosing to blame chemistry rather than psychology. "I've been around the block, as they say. If I haven't learned to watch my step by now it's nobody's fault but my own."

"Anyway," he drew the word out like a man anxious to change the subject.

"I was in town and, I must confess, I couldn't resist the temptation to have conversation with someone who, politically speaking, is somewhat to the left of Yippi Ti Yi Yo."

Anna smiled. It still hurt. "A Texas liberal. I thought that was a contradiction in terms."

Harland sank down on the foot of the bed. Even that small jolt sent an ache reverberating through Anna's bruised innards. Still she hoped the nurse wouldn't come and shoo him into the red plastic chair.

"I'm not from Texas," Harland said.

Anna was surprised. "You drawl," she accused, raising a speculative eyebrow. That hurt, too.

"Pensacola, Florida. Navy brat."

"You've been around the block and around the world?"

He laughed, a rich male noise that warmed Anna's cracked bones like good brandy. "I've done this and that," he admitted.

"Tell me," Anna said. "I could use a good bedtime story."

He obliged with tales of "wrassling 'gators" and serving as general dogsbody at a roadside SEE OUR DEADLY POISON SNAKES attraction in Florida to work his way through college; of going to Vietnam to fight for democracy and spending three years procuring Japanese kimonos and Russian vodka for officers and their wives; of kicking around the States trying his hand at leading canoe trips, hunting expeditions, working for the YMCA; of finally finding a home with the Park Service.

Harland stayed nearly an hour. Anna was sorry when, shortly before supper, the nurse shooed him out.

Mechanically Anna ate a color-coordinated meal consisting of the four basic food groups, all of which tasted pretty much the same. She asked the LVN-a high school girl with over-processed hair and a sweet, slightly vacant face-if the food was vacu-formed by Mattel. For her attempt at levity, Anna got an empty smile. However, the girl was willing to smuggle in a cup of coffee with honest-to-God caffeine so Anna forgave her, her shortcomings.

Fortified by food and stimulants, she opened the autopsy report on Ranger Drury. Much of it was chemical analyses that meant little to her. After a cursory look through, she turned to the summation and comments on the last page.

Ranger Drury had died between seven p.m. and midnight on Friday, June 17.

The cause of death was perforation of the spinal cord between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. The puncture wound, one and a half inches deep, was found to have traces of animal fur at the opening and, one inch down, a fragment of a tooth from a large carnivore. There were three other puncture wounds three-quarters to one inch deep in a pattern consistent with the size of an adult lion's bite. Several animal hairs were found in the scrapes along the shoulder. There were no broken bones or other signs of trauma. Stomach contents included an incompletely digested pear and salami and cheese.

The only other item of interest was a trace of a hallucinogen which had been found in Sheila's blood. Possibly LSD.

In college Anna had dropped some Window Pane acid at Avila Beach. The world became a totally different place. Backpacking without water, in a closed area-all could become logical seen through that distorted glass.

There was no knowing what rainbow the Dog Canyon Ranger had been chasing or what demons she had been running from.

Paul had underlined the final sentence: "Death accidental: killed by a mountain lion (Felis concolor)."

Anna laid the papers on her lap and leaned back into her pillows. No plaster casts to make prints, no garden tools masquerading as lion's claws, no wilderness Moriarity planning the perfect murder; just one lady ranger with an overheated imagination and an affinity for cats.

"Killed by a mountain lion (Felis concolor)." Anna read the words again, then let the papers slip to the floor. She hurt. She was a fool. Her collarbone was broken. She was skinned up from neck to knees. She was old and alone.

"Goddamn, but I'm tired," Anna whispered. Though it was only seven thirty-five, she switched off the bedside lamp and closed her eyes.

14

"PAUL told me to take all the time I needed," Anna said into the phone receiver. "I hate to seem paranoid but from the way he said it, I think he wants to be rid of me for a while."

Feet tucked under her like a teenager, Anna was curled up on Christina's bed. One of the midnight kittens was asleep on the pillow between a fuzzy polar bear and a doll dressed in flounces and a picture hat that would have put Scarlett O'Hara to shame.

Anna's left arm was in a sling and both hands were lightly bandaged. She held the receiver of the peach-colored Princess phone against her ear with her fingertips.

"Take it," Molly commanded. "Two weeks at least. Get the hell out of there. I knew bucolic splendor was bad for the health. Come to New York.

We'll send out for deli, take in some shows. We'll avoid stairs, take only elevators. There won't be anything for you to fall off of."

Molly sounded annoyed. Every time Anna hurt herself her sister got mad at her. "Maybe I will," Anna said but she doubted it. She was feeling too old, too beat-up to face Manhattan even on her sister's income. Probably she would go to Rogelio's place in Mexico. He'd invited her often enough.

Perhaps now was the time to go. Maybe bake him a birthday cake. Thinking of him, Anna's promise to pay better attention crossed her mind.

"Molly," she said on impulse, "how are you doing? Are you happy and everything?"

The moment of stunned silence embarrassed Anna more deeply than any recrimination her sister might have made.

"I'm all right, I guess," Molly said at last. There followed the pregnant pause of a match finding tobacco, the sigh of relief. Molly laughed. "My fees have gotten so high I can't afford to ask myself how I feel."

"I'll ask again," Anna promised. "On the family discount."

After they'd hung up, Anna sat a while in the quiet of Christina's room.

Outside the high window of the government-issue house the sky had grown gray with evening. A star flashed, giving away its identity as a 747.

The room was very feminine, traditionally so, with ruffles and stuffed toys, dresser scarves, bottles of perfume on a mirrored dressing table, framed Arthur Rackham prints on the walls. But Anna liked it. All the things: the silver-backed hairbrush, the basket full of potpourri, the glass jewelry box with the unicorn engraved on the lid, all the toys and tchotchkes seemed honest. Items with meaning acquired throughout a life.

Not decor purchased in bulk and sprinkled to effect.

Anna scooped up the kitten. Being limited to the use of one hand, she dangled him a bit and he woke, but within seconds on her lap curled back into his catnap. Soft and trusting, the warmth of the little body under her hand soothed her.

She'd been out of the hospital two days. She was healing fast.

Painkillers helped her sleep. Real food was giving her back her strength.

She'd even managed to go into the ranger station for a couple of hours.

It was the same damn thing, Anna thought wearily. Bureaucracy, petty power struggles. Corinne in her office muttering behind closed doors, chewing up some unfortunate underling. Paul, already chewed, looking harried and grim and-God damn him, Anna thought uncharitably-understanding. Just once, maybe twice, she'd love to hear him tell someone to bugger off, to take a flying fuck at the moon. Marta sniping, always within safe limits, always with the same sly, smiling, sideways glance, asking solicitously after Christina. Chris had called in sick the day Anna fell. Marta made it clear she didn't believe it for a minute.

The superintendent gone to a function. Craig Eastern shrugging and twitching his way through a plan to camp on the West Side with night photographic equipment next full moon. He would record the aliens, then nobody would laugh.

There were days Anna doubted she was in West Texas at all, days it seemed as if she must be in the psych ward at Columbia Hospital suffering from the delusion that she and all her fellow inmates were park rangers.

Tired of the insanity du jour, Anna had escaped into the library and returned the call from Tim Dayton at the Roswell lab. He was on vacation but his assistant, an eager and efficient woman, found the blood-test results. The sample Anna had sent was not human. As far as the woman knew there was no test to determine what kind of an animal. And, no, Tim hadn't left any information regarding the other samples she'd sent. Duty done: the blood found in Karl's truck wasn't human. The other samples didn't matter much.

Anna leaned back against Christina's pillows. A delicate floral scent floated up from the shams. She closed her eyes. Molly was right: she needed to get away for a while.

A timid tap at the bedroom door brought her head up. The door opened a crack and Christina peeked in. "If you're done with your call, supper is ready," she whispered. Then she pushed open the door all the way, flipped on the light and smiled. "If you're not done, supper is still ready."

"I'm done," Anna replied, trying unsuccessfully to restore the kitten to his former resting place without waking him. "I was just enjoying being in a real house, in a real room, where real people live."

Supper was "grown-up supper" as Christina called it. It was after eight o'clock. Alison had eaten her grilled-cheese and green beans and been tucked in bed. Christina and Anna sat on the screened-in porch drinking a chilled California blush wine and eating overpriced artichokes. The light was velvety gray, casting no shadows. To the west it deepened to a bruised purple. Stars shone; diamonds to a distant radio tower's insistent ruby light. Though the sun had gone it was still near eighty degrees. Silence settled like dust over the desert. No crickets, no coyotes, not even the sound of trucks hauling natural gas to Juarez.

"Marta told me you were sick last week," Anna said. "Nothing serious, I hope."

Heavy quiet prevailed for a minute and Anna wished she'd let well enough alone, enjoyed the evening, the wine, the company.

"The day you fell? The day I said I heard it on the office radio? Still your prime suspect, am I?" Christina said lightly, but Anna thought she could hear an underlying edge to her voice. "If you prove I'm a liar, will that prove I'm a killer, too?"

"No murder: no suspects," Anna returned.

"You are supposed to let go of all this. The autopsy; you promised Paul,"

Christina said.

Anna wanted to see her face but it had grown too dark. She reached instead for the wine. Christina's fingers closed over hers, imprisoning her hand and her glass in a gentle grip. She lifted the bottle, refilled Anna's half-empty glass.

"Why can't you let go? I have, and Sheila was my friend. She was my lover."

"I don't know," Anna answered honestly. Then, stringing the thoughts together, she spoke: "I guess because things just aren't right. They don't fit. Puzzle pieces from a half a dozen puzzles and they-Paul, Corinne-are pretending they all go together, make a whole picture. They just don't. The autopsy said lion kill. But the neck wasn't snapped, the body not eviscerated."

"Maybe Craig's space aliens did it," Christina teased. "Like those mysterious cow slayings in Nebraska a few years ago."

Anna ignored the interruption. "The killer lion has apparently no hind feet. Sheila hiked in, high on acid, no water, no cuts or scratches. She must've been one hell of an acid freak to negotiate the climb out of Dog Canyon two thousand feet, no trail, full pack, then eight miles down the roughest country in the park into a saw grass swamp, stoned out of her mind, and not sustain a single scratch."

"Acid?" Christina said. "They say Sheila was taking acid?"

"The autopsy showed it. Why?"

"I didn't know is all." Christina sounded sad.

"She didn't do drugs?"

"I really don't know. She used to."

"We all used to." Anna's voice sharpened with interest. "Did she still?"

"Anna." Christina said the name in a maternal tone designed to dampen growing excitement in children. "I honestly don't know. She smoked a little dope sometimes. She believed drugs could expand your consciousness. She wasn't an old hippy-she had missed all that. But she

'dabbled,' if that's the word."

Anna was dampened but not quenched.

Christina cleaned the artichoke heart, split it carefully in two and pushed half to Anna's side of the plate.

"Pieces. Ill-fitting, motherfucking pieces," Anna grumbled. "Have you ever watched somebody talk-somebody with something wrong with them? A toupee coming unglued, a bit of mustard in their mustache? You don't hear a word they say. All you can see is that silly bit of something askew.

"That's all I'm seeing, Chris. That wrong bit of something. I'm too tired to let go. Like one of those bulldogs who lock their jaws, hang on even after they're dead."

Christina sipped her wine.

"Were you?" Anna asked, cursing herself as she did. "Sick, I mean?"

"No," Christina replied pleasantly. "I was up on that mountain, lurking behind an agave, hoping to push you over the precipice. I wish I'd pushed harder now."

"Sorry. I don't mean that," Anna said. "Nobody pushed me. Nobody was near me. It's just. I don't know . . . Maybe I'm just tired of stories with holes in them. Fill all the holes: understand the story." She took all of her half of the heart, dipped it in mayonnaise, and ate it in one bite.

"Were you?"

The other woman laughed. It sounded genuine if exasperated. "No. Alison's sitter was. I couldn't find anyone else."

"Why did you say you heard my accident reported on the radio?"

Darkness had come, had filled the porch with warm anonymity. Anna heard a sigh, then a tiny galloping horse: soft fingertips drumming on the chair arm.

"It was easier," Christina said at last. "You're like a hawk sometimes, Anna. Waiting to swoop down on any suspicious little act that dares to creep out of some hole. I just didn't want to deal with it. I lied. So sue me."