said, “I’d like you to come with me to Davidson and give the news to Jo. I’d like a female officer to be present.”
Anna nodded. She never felt particularly comfortable when called on to be a female officer. Some arcane, instinctual talents were expected and she’d never figured out exactly what they were. “What then?” she asked.
Lucas wiped a fine-boned brown hand over his face, dragging down the flesh of his cheeks. “I’ll call the Feds. This clearly is no accident. The man didn’t bump his head diving off the high board and drown. He’s a couple of hundred feet down floating around in a Halloween costume.
“Then I guess we go get him. It’s a hell of a crime scene to investigate. The standard techniques aren’t going to help much. I doubt there’s an FBI man in a thousand miles who could even get to the scene, much less function after he did. We’re stuck with this one. At least for a while.”
Anna wondered if Lucas expected her to make the dive for the body recovery. A dormant claustrophobia began to awaken within her, a cold hard spot just under her breastbone. It was the park’s policy that a ranger was never to tackle a task she or he felt unsafe performing for any reason. She would not be forced to go.
“Do you feel you’re ready for a dive that technical?” Lucas asked.
“Sure.”
He clapped her on the shoulder and went into the cabin.
Ralph Pilcher, still seated on the engine box, drank his coffee as the Bertram powered up. Anna felt him watching her. She coiled the last of the line and stowed it in its niche in the hull by his knees. Ralph had a crooked smile-rather, his smile was straight but a twice broken nose unbalanced his face till it seemed crooked. His hair, wild from the rubber hood, stood out from his head in a brown tangle. “The lake scare you?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Good. It should. It’s one scary place.”
Anna stopped what she was doing to look at him. Fit, compact, in his early thirties, he didn’t look afraid of anything. Except perhaps, if the gossip had any truth to it, being tied down to his new baby and his pretty new wife. “Does the lake scare you?” she returned.
“No. But then it didn’t scare Denny either.” He threw the last of his coffee over the side of the boat. “Why didn’t you tell Lucas you were scared to dive? He’d never razz you about it. He’d give you something else to do, something you’re comfortable with.”
“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t,” Anna replied. “Time I made his acquaintance.”
Pilcher nodded. “We’ll give you all the help you need. Don’t get pigheaded.” He stood up, his feet firm and easy on the moving deck. “And stay a little scared. You’ll live longer.”
The District Ranger went inside. Anna didn’t want to think anymore of the dive. I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it, she told herself. She lashed the tanks down so they wouldn’t roll, then settled her shoulders against the cabin where she was out of the wind.
The drizzle had stopped and the sun was piercing through a rent in the clouds above the island, pouring gold down onto the treetops until they glowed a rich green against their shadowed fellows. Sparks of sunshine reached the water. Where they touched, the lake turned emerald and azure. Light, life, color: Anna breathed deeply and knew the breath for a miracle, a celebration, an act of devotion.
Sandra Fox’s comfortable voice came into her mind, telling her again of a high school girl’s relentless love of a boy. How it molded her career, shaped her life even into her early thirties. A week and a half ago Jo had married her high school boy. Now that boy was dead.
At the moment, in Jo’s mind, Denny still lived.
The instant Anna’s husband died, each minute that he had lived became a memory. The good were golden, the bad like an acid that burned in the mind. She hoped Jo’s thoughts these last precious minutes were not the kind that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
By the time they reached Davidson Island the sky was clear and the sun shone down as if it always had. Pilcher and Tattinger had been left at Mott. Anna piloted the
Lucas made the lines fast to the dock cleats and stood in the sun waiting. Both he and Anna did each small unimportant task with a time-consuming precision designed to postpone the inevitable.
As they walked up the wooded path toward the cabin, three bunnies, new-made and too young to be afraid, hopped out of their way. White baneberry blossoms leaned close and the woods were carpeted ankle-deep in bluebead lilies. A world where rain fell: the abundance of life stunned Anna. This afternoon there was something both reassuring and mocking in such wealth.
The door of the cabin was open. From within came the sound of a woman’s tuneless humming. Across the honey-colored wooden floors, Anna could see Jo Castle bent over the counter labeling corked test tubes and storing them upright in a wooden rack. The long hair curved out around the oversized glasses frames, then fell till it was forced out again by her wide hips.
Jo saw them before they had a chance to knock. And she knew there was bad news before they had a chance to speak.
“What?” she demanded, looking from one to the other. Then more sharply: “What?”
Lucas took an audible breath. In the short eternity while he was collecting his thoughts, forming his sentences, Anna could see the strain rip through the muscles of Jo Castle’s face, turning each to stone as it passed.
“It’s god-awful, Jo,” Anna said. “Denny’s been killed.” And Anna started to cry. Jo Castle left the test tube she’d been labeling on the counter, its contents slowly seeping out, and walked straight into Anna’s arms as if she had always found solace there.
Sandra Fox and Trixy came over at ten-thirty after Trixy’s evening program. Sandra had a casserole that smelled enticingly of onion and garlic and cheese. Women could sit with grief, hold its hand, watch it pour from the eyes of friends and children, lie down beside it and help it to rest. Their delicate strength would weave a net strong as spun steel, keep the widow Castle from hitting bottom.
Anna slipped out the kitchen door. She would stay the night in Rock Harbor and check on Jo in the morning before she bummed a ride back to Amygdaloid. For a time Jo would need her. Not because she was a friend, but because Anna, too, had lost her husband. Sandra had only lost her eyes, Trixy her parents. In the arrogance of grief, Jo would not believe that they could understand.
Evidently Lucas had radioed for a lift back to Mott. He had left the
“Tell me a story,” Anna said into the mouthpiece. “I’ve had a real bad day.”
“What kind of a story?” Molly asked. “One where all the bad guys die?”
“One where nobody dies and the girl gets Robert Redford.”
“Is this a New York story, or do they live happily ever after?”
Anna laughed. “Does anybody?”
“If they do they never pay me a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to hear about it. What’s wrong, Anna?”
“Zach’s still dead.”
“Zach and Franco.”
“Better make it a story with no plot and great costumes,” Anna said. “Tell me about your Westchester wine soiree.”
“That turned out to be a hoot. At eight hundred and twenty bucks a pop, I wasn’t allowed to sip the elixir of the gods, of course. Us peons had to settle for some French stuff. But the Palates sipped and swirled and sniffed. Three of them said it was the True Vintage-not unlike, I gathered from their tone, a splinter from the True Cross-and the other two swore it was a hoax. My client was in the hoax contingent, as you might imagine. Nothing makes a bona fide Seeker more neurotic than having one of his fellows stumble across the holy grail before he does.
“How’s that for a story: mystery, romance, tuxedos. And Zach’s still dead. What’s up, Anna?”
“A diver who worked here was killed on one of the wrecks. I just got done telling his wife.”
There was sympathetic silence from New York. In the background Anna could hear police sirens.
“You know the saddest part?” Anna said. “She hasn’t got a sister to tell her stories.”
