Winter Study (60 page)

Ridley
had known nothing of the plot, a fact Anna could tell both annoyed and
embarrassed him. He’d not even suspected until he and Jonah had gone to
Feldtmann tower and noticed fresh tracks and turned off their radios,
the better to sneak up on whoever was within.

ANNA
WAS LYING on the sofa closest to the stove, enjoying being warm and
relatively pain free. Jonah had expertly reduced the dislocated
shoulder. Forty years of flying hunters into the Alaskan wilderness had
made him a de facto combat medic. Her ankle was elevated, but she’d
refused to put ice on it. Enough was, occasionally, enough. She was
fairly certain it wasn’t broken, the bone merely chipped and bruised.
The result was the same: it hurt and she couldn’t walk on it.

The
bodies had been recovered by Robin, Gavin and Ridley and lay in the
carpenter’s shop with Katherine’s. There’d been no more body bags and
they were wrapped in cheery blue tarps.

Three
dead, not counting the wolf. The surviving five members of the Winter
Study team shared the warm darkness of the common room, the sun long
gone, the only light from the fire in the woodstove. Jonah had turned
on the generator, but no one, it seemed, wished to see clearly and the
lights had been left off.

Those
who remained alive on ISRO were all in the room. No one was talking.
Anna was glad for the silence, for the heat, for the companionship and
for the life that coursed through her veins. Never in her career has
she been so close to dying and never before had she such magnificent
reasons to resent it: Paul, a wonderful job, her sister, Paul.

The
hopeless tangle of human relationships would have depressed her had she
not been in a mood of gratitude. Menechinn had destroyed Cynthia and,
in the process, Adam. Menechinn had destroyed Katherine and, Anna
didn’t doubt, her mother.

Robin
and Gavin, in their heroic desire to save the wolf/moose study, might
very well have ruined their lives and those of their families. Despite
the ruination on her mind, Anna found herself smiling in the dark. The
mental picture of them stomping about with moose hooves strapped to
their boots, sprinkling trails of stink to manipulate the movements of
the wolves, cutting out and placing decoys to be seen from the air,
planting alien scat and generally sewing the seeds of a wonderful
mystery delighted her.

She
would love telling the story to Paul. Soon, a week at most, she would
be with him, sitting in front of a fire, snuggled close, her life in
front of her. A life she was determined not to lose to any fool that
happened by with a penchant for evil and the will to carry it through.
Soon Ridley would be back with his Honey, eating hot dish and preparing
class lectures. Jonah would be up north, hauling wood and waiting for
the next round of hunters. Life would go on. What happened at ISRO
would become a legend to amuse visitors around the campfire.

Blue skies would be there again.

Except for Robin and Gavin.

The thought dimmed some of the glow of her gratitude.

“How bad is it?” Gavin asked, as if reading her mind.

“Bad,”
Ridley said. “I’ve told the NPS as little as possible, but, when the
weather clears tomorrow or the next day, the island will be swarming
with law enforcement.”

“Could we go to jail?” Robin asked.

“Tampering
with research would get you a slap on the hand,” Anna said. “But your
tampering contributed to the death of Katherine Huff. That could get
you jail time.”

The
fire crackled. Jonah slid down in his chair like a teenager, almost
horizontal, chin on his chest. Anna and Jonah were not innocents.
Ridley, though young, was touched with world-weariness. Robin and Gavin
had not considered jail, that what they were doing was a federal crime,
that people could be hurt. Anna watched them from half-closed eyes. The
two of them sat close but not touching on the couch opposite hers. The
light of the fire painted their faces in translucent oranges and
yellows, erasing what faint lines of age and worry recent events had
carved there. They looked like children in a storm, lost and lovely.

Gavin
lifted his chin and the look was gone, replaced by the clear courage of
a man born to carry his weight in the world. “I will make a full
confession to whoever hears these things. Robin helped me but the plan
was mine, the execution was mostly done by myself and Adam, and
Katherine’s death is my sole responsibility.”

Robin opened her mouth, no doubt to try and take the blame from Gavin onto her own shoulders.

“Go for a walk,” Jonah said abruptly.

There was a moment’s startled silence, then Robin said: “It’s night.”

“Go to your room, then,” Jonah said.

Anna laughed and he gave her a dirty look. “Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t know what she was apologizing for.

“Go to our room?” Gavin said, confused.

“Yeah,” Jonah returned. “Just go away and let us talk.”

“Let the grown-ups talk,” Gavin said evenly.

Ridley jumped in before Jonah said anything else. “Would you mind, Gav? You and Robin are… too deeply involved as…”

“Criminals,” Robin finished for him.

Ridley smiled sadly. “Exactly. Would you guys mind?”

Gavin
said nothing, but he followed Robin as she left the common room. They
went into the bedroom Katherine had occupied and shut the door.

“What is it, Jonah?” Ridley asked.

“We’ve
got three dead bodies. The NPS, Homeland Security and probably the
state of Michigan are going to come down on us like a ton of bricks.”

“Adam was a suicide and Katherine was an accident,” Anna said.

“I killed whatshisname. Maybe it won’t be so bad after the first excitement dies down.”

It would be bad; she just said it in hopes it would be true.

“Katherine’s death wasn’t an accident,” Jonah said. “Gavin could have helped her get her foot free and hauled her out of there.”

“He
thought rescue was coming,” Anna said reasonably. “It was farther back
to Feldtmann tower than it was from here to the cedar swamp. Gavin said
when he got there Katherine was expecting us at any minute. He couldn’t
have known we weren’t coming, that good old Bob turned over and went
back to sleep.”

“Gavin could have radioed,” Jonah said.

“Katherine had phoned. Why would he radio?” Anna asked.

“Would you have?”

Jonah grunted.

“Me neither,” Ridley said. “You don’t expect people like Bob. That’s why they win.”

“Bob didn’t win,” Anna said.

“No,” Ridley agreed. “No he didn’t. You did what you had to. I hope you won’t lose any sleep over it.”

“Not a wink.”

“Gavin and Robin might’ve torpedoed your career,” Jonah said to Ridley.

“I don’t think so,” Ridley said.

“We’re
going to have to explain. There’s too much. E-mails about the big
tracks, the DNA. It’s not going under the rug,” Jonah said.

“When it comes out, our little perpetrators are going to get slammed from every direction.”

“Not if they’re dead,” Anna said with sudden inspiration.

Before
Jonah could snatch up the kindling ax to defend himself and Ridley from
her homicidal mania — which he looked ready to do — Anna went on: “Adam
and Bob set it up. Bob to… what? What would be good?”

“Bob wanted to take over the study himself,” Ridley said slowly.

“Become somebody in research circles.”

“Right,” Jonah said. “Earn the big bucks.”

Ridley
laughed. Anna was glad to hear laughter. It had been a long time since
she’d heard any that wasn’t tinged with some poison or another.

“There’s fame attached,” Anna said. “You’re somebody. Bob was nobody. People who knew him might buy that.”

“So when did he bring in the goodies?” Jonah asked. “The paw prints and scent lure and doggy cutouts? It won’t work.”

“The windigo!” Anna exclaimed suddenly.

“Are you feverish?” Jonah asked, his concern genuine.

“No.
Maybe, but that’s not it. It just occurred to me that was what I was
smelling. The windigo is supposed to have this reek that announces its
presence. I kept smelling a hint of it. I was smelling the scent lure.
That stuff is the essence of all things vile. Dogs and wolves love it.
Hah!” she said, pleased to have one more niggling question answered.

“So when did Bob stash his tools?” Jonah went back to his question.

“Adam
did that,” Ridley suggested. “Adam was doing it to save the study. Bob
figured it out, took over and there was a falling-out. Bob kills Adam
and is killed attacking Anna.”

“And Robin and Gavin skip away hand in hand — no harm, no foul?” Jonah said.

“Why
not?” Anna said. “Do you want to see them behind bars? Boy, would that
ever make you a coldhearted bastard. Why don’t you just turn in Smokey
the Bear and Woodsy the Owl and Ranger Rick for ecoterrorism?”

Silence
returned. From Katherine’s old room came the gentle murmur of Gavin and
Robin talking. The thought of them going to prison, or even through the
ruthless misery of the legal system, hurt Anna, an ache in her chest
near where her heart was. Justice had been meted out already in the
dribs and drabs of violence and insanity that Bob and Adam carried with
them to the island. Evil had vanquished itself. What came now, if they
let it come, would be politics. Politicians did not sacrifice
themselves for the greater good, not if it meant losing their jobs.

She
wanted to push Ridley and Jonah, to preach and to beg if need be, but
she sensed it would be best to let them alone. So she waited. Finally
Ridley spoke.