A Superior Death

pad, and laughed aloud when she read Christina’s account of trying to scrub vermilion cat tracks off the kitchen counter. Alison was to play Uncle Sam in the Fourth of July pageant, the lilacs were in full bloom, Anna’s order for Justin boots had finally been forwarded from Texas, Christina was going bike riding with Bertie on Sunday, the plumber said the outside faucets needed frost-proof somethings. Anna couldn’t make out Chris’s scrawl.

She put away the letter, looked again at Piedmont-as-armadillo. Christina, as always, had a talent for reaffirming life. She got to the crux of it: Sunday school and plumbers and “What’s for dinner?” Everything else was mere affectation.

Anna turned off the light. Life would go on. A five-year-old girl was playing Uncle Sam. Universal peace couldn’t be far away.

SEVEN

Lucas had wanted a good long surface interval and he got it. The wheels of justice were grinding slow. Not because they ground exceeding fine, Anna thought, but because they were mired down in red tape.

As Lucas gave Anna a ride back to the north shore he told her of his call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assured that the corpse would keep as well at the bottom of the lake as it would in the refrigerator at the morgue, the FBI wanted a man on site when the body was brought up. That man was Frederick Stanton out of Detroit. Frederick (known to his intimates, the FBI secretary told Lucas, as “Frederick”; “Fred” or “Freddy” could undermine any potential for an amicable working relationship) specialized in narcotics violations occurring on the American-Canadian border in the midwest region. Officer Stanton had to give a deposition in New Jersey on Wednesday. Thursday he would fly to Houghton, and Friday take the seaplane to Rock. Only after he arrived could the body be recovered.

The Chief Ranger speculated that the FBI smelled big-time crime. The Feds couldn’t conceive of any bizarre form of death that wasn’t either mob- or drug-connected, and since everyone knew Italians didn’t dive, that left Denny Castle on the drug connections list.

Frederick Stanton’s specialty.

Despite the reports of arrogance, Anna developed a bit of a soft spot for Frederick the Fed: His delays would postpone the dreaded Kamloops dive for five days.

As the Lorelei motored down Amygdaloid Channel, she saw the 3rd Sister moored at the dock in front of the ranger station. She wondered if anyone had called Hawk and Holly to tell them of Denny’s death. Anna didn’t even know where they lived.

Isle Royale was like a place out of time, out of the ordinary run of lives. No one but the wild creatures really lived there. The human population appeared for six months out of each year, a full-blown society with cops and robbers, houses and boats, shovels and Hershey bars, pumping gas and drinking vodka, making love and money. Then, October 19, humanity closed up shop and left the island to heal itself under the winter snows.

A government-issue Brigadoon. And what is known of the people of Brigadoon? The ninety-nine years that they are hidden in the mists, what do they do to pass the time? Somehow Anna couldn’t picture the Bradshaws puttering around the house, watching television, going to a bed that didn’t rock and bob with the moods of the lake.

“Who told the Bradshaws about Denny?” Anna asked the Chief Ranger.

“Nobody. Couldn’t raise the Third Sister by radio. And we didn’t have any luck by phone. The only number we have for the Bradshaws is the number at the Voyageur Marina in Grand Portage. I left a message with the old guy that runs the place but they never called me. They don’t know Denny’s dead-shouldn’t know, anyway.”

Anna understood the implication. Denny Castle’s body was found in a place only a handful of people had the courage or the skill to go. The Bradshaws would top the list of murder suspects.

“I hear Holly was pretty upset about Denny’s marriage to Jo,” Lucas began the fishing. “Hell hath no fury? Her and Denny?”

“Holly was unhappy but she wasn’t spitting tacks,” Anna said carefully. “I’d think if her lover was marrying another woman there’d‘ve been more china through the plate glass, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was just that Jo would break up the Three Musketeers. The Bradshaws have been diving with Denny a long time. I got the feeling they’d be pretty lost without him. Maybe even out of business. Who owns the Third Sister?”

“I always assumed it belonged to Denny but I never asked,” Lucas replied. “I’ll ask.”

Including gear, the dive boat would be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Anna picked up Lucas’s field glasses from the instrument panel and looked at the docked vessel now less than a quarter of a mile away.

“They’ve got Denny’s gear aboard,” she said. Castle was what some of the lake divers referred to as a clotheshorse. He had a lot of fancy equipment. Anna recognized his distinctive orange dry suit.

“We knew it wasn’t on Denny.”

“How in the hell did he get down there?” Anna wondered aloud.

“Either he put himself there, or somebody else did. Maybe the autopsy will tell us something. If there are tire tracks on his chest or a piece of hot dog lodged in his throat, we can figure somebody else did.”

“In an antique sailor suit,” Anna added.

“In an antique sailor suit. Maybe he borrowed gear, put the costume on, dived, dumped his tanks. Suicide.”

“On his honeymoon?”

Lucas said nothing and Anna was reminded that the Castles’ marriage had not been made in heaven but forged from equal parts determination and rebound. Even this “honeymoon” was a working vacation. The 3rd Sister had clients arriving on the next Ranger III,

“In thirty-four-degree water he’d have been dead of hypothermia before he reached the engine room,” Anna said.

“Possibly. Maybe he had the costume under the dry suit. No… Nix that theory. Ralph and I didn’t see any suit or tanks and he couldn’t have swum far without them. He must have been killed above the water, then the corpse was hidden there.”

“In the hope it would get lost in the crowd?” Anna asked dubiously.

“No good either,” Lucas contradicted himself. “I don’t think the ‘hide in plain sight’ axiom works with such a celebrated collection of bodies as inhabit the Kamloops.”

“He could have been put there just for that; to be seen. A warning of some kind,” Anna suggested. “Like drug dealers who break legs, or a mob execution.”

“Could be. That would make the Feds doubly happy: a drug-connected mob killing.”

Anna laughed. Even given the circumstances, it felt good. Especially given the circumstances.

“Do you know Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke?” Lucas asked abruptly. “They’re SCAs at Rock. Flaky. Naturalists.”

“I know them,” Anna said. She didn’t know whether to bring up Charlie-Mott-cum-reincarnation-and- cannibalism or not, so she waited.

For a moment Lucas didn’t go on. He looked as if he struggled with a statement as absurd as the one resting under Anna’s tongue. Then he chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I was down at the marina fueling the boat when they heard of Denny’s death. They were trying to catch that herring gull-the one that’s got a fishhook stuck in its beak- so they could get the hook out before the bird starves. Jim came in on the Loon, saw a couple of fresh ears, and started babbling out the story-Tattinger, by the way, spilled the beans about the location of the body. Anyway, Tinker looked at Damien and said: ‘The Kamloops. Yes. Denny would want to look after his friends.’ ” The recitation finished, Lucas looked uncomfortable with the telling. He fiddled with the throttles, cutting back to a speed that wouldn’t wake the boats moored at the dock.

Anna speculated that he’d taken comfort in Tinker’s off-beat theory and was too much of a man to be easy with that.

“It’s as good an explanation as any we’ve come up with,” she said. “It certainly fits with the personality involved better. I can’t see Denny Castle dealing with drugs or mobsters, but it’s not hard to imagine him standing