A Superior Death

away to stumps and their cries echoed through the clear cold skies.

“That was a long time ago,” Damien finished. “Things have changed. There are no more voyageurs, hardly any Indians. But the Windigo is still here, still all around us. Anywhere men hunger for what they cannot have, anywhere they will devour others to get their bellies filled with pride or money or land or power, that’s where the Windigo waits.”

Chris applauded. Tinker beamed: she’d heard the story before. Damien told it at evening programs. Ally was transfixed.

Alison’s eyes were a little too round for Anna’s comfort. It wasn’t a story for a five-year-old. “Does anybody want to know what really happened to Donna Butkus or not?” she asked testily.

“What happened, Damien?” Ally asked to hear him talk. The name Donna Butkus would mean nothing to her.

“She was eaten by her husband, Scotty,” Damien explained. “With pickle relish.”

Ally squealed with delight. “Was Scotty a Windigo?”

“Yes.”

Christina said: “Oh for heaven’s sake!”

Tinker crumbled chocolate into a split banana.

Oscar was unmoved.

“I did talk with Scotty,” Anna pushed on doggedly, “the morning after the reception for Denny. Donna’s sister, Roberta, ruptured a disk. Scotty told me Donna went to Houghton to give her a hand.”

“Scotty said.” Damien pursed his lips. Obviously that carried no weight with him. “And the case of relish?”

“Didn’t ask,” Anna admitted.

“Ah.”

“Roberta Ingles?” Christina sounded mildly alarmed.

“I don’t know her last name,” Anna replied. “Donna goes by Butkus. God knows why. But Scotty said ‘her sister, Roberta.’ ”

“When did this happen-the disk?” The concern was still on Christina’s face.

“Why?” Anna asked. It all seemed rather far from Chris for her to take such a personal interest.

“Because I went bicycling with Bertie Sunday. She was fine then.”

“Bertie is Roberta, Donna’s sister?”

“Yes. She told me to say hi if I saw Donna.”

“Oh Jesus,” Anna breathed. “And Scotty’s left the island.”

“What is it, Anna?” Chris touched her arm.

“Denny and Donna. Donna disappears. Scotty lies. Castle dies. Scotty leaves the island. Maybe the Houghton police had better start looking for a second body.”

“They won’t find it,” Damien said and he tapped the Durkee relish jar significantly.

“And Scotty never left the island,” Tinker added.

“Did you…” Anna hesitated to use words like “spy” or “snoop.” “…follow up on Donna’s disappearance?”

“Some. Scotty’s been kind of short with us ever since he ate Donna.”

“Sort of spiritual indigestion?” Anna offered. Everyone, including Ally, gave her stern matronly looks. “Sorry. Go on.”

“He’d been kind of nasty to Damien a time or two. But when we heard he’d gone to Houghton for a few days, we thought it would be safe to go through his garbage for recyclables.”

“You know it’s illegal?” Anna asked.

“It’s a greater crime to let resources and energy go to waste,” Damien said earnestly and Anna caught another glimpse of the boyish intensity usually hidden behind his cloak of mystery.

“Okay. So you went through his trash and…”

“For recyclables,” Christina reiterated.

“For recyclables. And…”

“We found a flier that had come in on Saturday’s Ranger Three-we know because everybody got one that day. There was a TV dinner, the kind that come with their own plastic plate and you throw the whole thing out. The leftovers were still fresh. Three Jack Daniel’s bottles and a couple of six-packs of Mickey’s Big Mouths. Dave picks up the garbage on Wednesdays and Saturdays. If Scotty’d gone to Houghton Thursday morning like he said he was going to, his trash would’ve been empty.”

If it was supposed to be empty, Anna wondered, why search for recyclables? But she didn’t say anything. “Any relish bottles?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“Aunt Anna, she’d already been eaten up!” said Ally with exasperation.

“Right. Did you see Scotty?” Anna asked seriously. “Hear anything?”

Tinker and Damien shook their heads.

“He could be hurt or sick. He’s prime heart attack material,” Anna said. “I’ll radio in as soon as we get back to Amygdaloid and get someone over there to check on him.”

“We never thought…” Tinker began and she looked so stricken Anna was afraid she would cry or faint. “I should have thought. I haven’t changed a bit. What if he’s lying there hurt or dead and I didn’t even think to look?” Tinker’s voice had risen to a wail.

Anna sat rooted to the bench. Christina, making crooning sounds, put an arm around Tinker. Damien just hung his head, helpless with misery.

“It wouldn’t be that big a loss,” Anna said in an attempt to soothe Tinker. Christina silenced her with a look.

In a few minutes Tinker had recovered herself but the picnic was over.

As soon as they’d landed at Amygdaloid, Anna radioed two-oh-two, Scotty Butkus’s call number. On the second hail, Scotty answered and Anna canceled her plans to radio Pilcher requesting Butkus’s quarters be checked. “Just making a radio check, Scotty,” Anna said. “I’ve been having some static here.”

“Loud and clear on this end,” he assured her.

Anna signed off wondering what Tinker and Damien were up to.

Christina and Ally spent the night at Amygdaloid Ranger Station. Chris took the bed. Anna and Alison camped out on the floor. “Because we’re tough,” Ally explained. The next morning Anna took them back to Rock Harbor so they could catch the Ranger III. It was a six-hour boat trip to Houghton. Anna did not underestimate what it had cost Chris to make the visit. She’d spent twelve hours cooped up on a boat with a five- year-old child. All the coloring books in the state of Michigan couldn’t have made it smooth sailing.

Anna remained on dock waving till the Ranger III cleared the harbor. Christina had insisted on it on her first visit. “It’s the closest a government secretary may ever come to leaving for Europe aboard the Queen Elizabeth,” she’d said. Anna had made a point of doing it ever since.

Finding Scotty wasn’t difficult. He liked to be on hand when the Ranger III or the Queen set sail. When Anna saw him he was across the harbor indulging in his favorite pastime on duty: swapping fish stories for fishing stories.

For a long time, she sat aboard the Belle Isle trying not to look like a cheap detective on a stakeout. She wasn’t watching Scotty, but trying to think of a way to get answers to her questions without appearing to interrogate a fellow officer. Till she had more conservative proof than Tinker and Damien’s testimony, she would not go to Ralph or Lucas.

When inspiration did not come, she decided to play it by ear. As she walked down the pier to where Scotty stood, one booted foot on someone’s gunwale, talking to a red-faced man in an orange tractor cap, she could hear the tones that usually heralded tall tales. “I kid you not, that son of a bitch was at least…”

“Hey ya, Scotty,” she said and sauntered up beside the two men. The fisherman took the interruption as an opportunity to escape, made a quick excuse, and trotted away. “How was Houghton?”

Scotty looked a little shamefaced. “To tell you the truth, I never made it,” he said with a dry chuckle. He laughed through tight lips. He always laughed like that, as if at an off-color joke he’d tell if it weren’t for the presence of a lady.

Anna treated him to the friendly silent stare she had been taught in law enforcement school. Eyes wide, brows