A Superior Death

wider at the bottom than the top, and had ridges at the mouth where a screw cap had once fitted. If there had been a label it had been scrubbed off completely.

“A jar,” Anna said blankly.

“A pickle relish jar…” Damien encouraged her.

Anna began to feel her brain had fogged up somehow. Could there have been something in the tea? Was Tinker a self-styled witch? Damien a warlock hopeful? Or were they merely a couple of eccentrics, the kindhearted flakes she’d thought them to be? One thing was certain: Anna was not making sense of much of what they were saying. If they did have a puzzle, the pieces they offered didn’t seem to fit any picture she could come up with.

“A pickle relish jar,” she repeated.

“Heinz,” Tinker added.

“That”-Damien pointed to the little bottle as if it were something unclean-“is not an isolated incident. The last food order Scotty Butkus sent to Bob’s Foods included an order for an entire case of pickle relish.”

ISRO employees ordered their food for a week at a time, sending lists to several markets in Houghton. Every Tuesday the food was shipped back on the Ranger III.

“That’s a lot of relish,” Anna said, wondering what it was she was agreeing with. “I take it you saw his order form?”

“It was in the trash,” Tinker explained.

From beyond the screened-in window, Anna could hear muted laughter, the dull-edged variety brought on by vodka. Trail crew must have made a late appearance at the party and were now staggering back to their boats for the short ride home to their bunkhouse on Mott.

Suddenly voices were raised in anger: a brawl, quickly hushed. On Mott they were allowed more freedom; here in the lap of the tourist trade the hard-drinking crew were kept in line.

Another burst of noise, invective. “Rock Harlem” seemed terribly apt at the moment. Anna had a dizzying sense of having been transported to a basement apartment in a bad section of New York City.

“You went through his trash.” This time Anna didn’t bother to school her voice. Her nerves were becoming frayed. With an effort, she focused on Tinker. She looked hurt. Even her hair seemed to droop. A flower blasted by the cold. Anna felt a stab of remorse. She ignored it.

“We were seeking recyclable materials,” Damien said stiffly. “The Butkuses’ trash customarily provides seven to ten pounds of recyclable glass and aluminium.” He pronounced the word “al-yew-min-ee-um.”

“I’ll bet,” Anna said. Scotty would be a veritable Philemon’s pitcher of bottles and cans. Pickle relish wasn’t the only thing he ordered by the case. The repetition of thought triggered understanding. “ Twenty-seven Bottles of Relish!” Anna exclaimed. It was a short story about a man who had consumed the evidence of his wife’s murder, with relish as the condiment.

“That’s what we think,” Tinker said. She had brightened again, Anna’s disapproval a cloud that had passed.

With comprehension, the fog began to lift from Anna’s mind and she was mildly ashamed she’d suspected the drugging of her tea. To clear Tinker of an accusation never made, she took a swallow. Cold, it tasted more of earth and root than of mint and honey. She set it aside.

“You’ve got expectant ducks and an empty pickle jar,” Anna summed up the evidence. She knew she sounded abrupt but she was getting tired. Under her collar, her sunburn had begun to chafe and the smoke from the candles was making her eyes water.

“We also have photographs,” Damien said. He rose, swirling his calf-length cape alarmingly near the open flames, and took down a tin box from the jumble of bags and boxes that filled the top of the two bunk beds.

Anna’s interest pricked up. She eased her back, forcing herself to sit a little straighter.

“We’ll need artificial light for this,” Damien apologized. Anna was grateful. She could use the nice healthy glare of the overhead electric. Disappointment soon followed: Damien took a flashlight from the upper bunk. Anna allowed herself a small sigh. It was barely even a change in her breathing pattern, but Tinker caught it. She lay one tapered finger on Anna’s sleeve as if to lend her patience. Or faith.

Damien sat on the floor again, tailor fashion, the black cape billowing around his knees, then settling like a dark mist. He opened the box with the lid toward Anna so she couldn’t see its contents. Some rummaging with the flashlight produced two snapshots. For a long irritating moment he studied them, then handed the first to Anna.

She took it and the flashlight from his hands. The Polaroid was of Scotty Butkus in his NPS uniform standing on the dock in Houghton. Behind him the hull of the Ranger III rose like a blue wall. Suitcases and boxes and canoes littered the pier. Apparently it was loading day; the day most of the staff moved to the island for the season.

“Now look at this one.” Damien handed her the second photograph.

Dutifully, Anna trained the flashlight on it: Scotty Butkus leaning against the wall of the Rec Hall on Mott Island. He was wearing Levi’s and a white vee-necked undershirt. In his right hand was what was probably a Mickey’s Big Mouth. The aspen trees behind him were in full leaf and in the background Anna could just make out Canada dogwood in bloom. The dogwood had only begun to flower in the last week. The picture had been taken recently.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?” she asked.

Tinker, unable to contain herself any longer, leaned over Anna’s arm and pointed at Butkus’s midsection. “Look how much fatter he is in this picture. He’s a blimp. He must’ve put on fifteen pounds.”

Scotty was heavier. His belly hung over his belt and his face was puffy. Anna clicked off the flashlight and handed it and the photographs back to Damien. “Given that Scotty, for whatever reason, decided to murder his wife,” she began, trying a new tack, “doesn’t it seem odd that with access to a boat and hundreds of square miles of deep water, he would choose to dispose of the body by eating it?”

“Not if he was the reincarnation of Charlie Mott,” Damien said triumphantly. He and Tinker looked at her expectantly, twin Perry Masons having delivered the coup de grace.

Anna rubbed her face. “Could we have some light in here, please?”

Damien hopped up obediently and switched on the overhead. The room’s mystery vanished. For a few moments the three of them blinked at one another like surprised owls.

“I’ll look into it,” Anna said and dragged herself up on legs numb from sitting so long. “Right now I’m for bed. Thanks for the tea.”

“You can stay here,” Tinker offered. “Damien and I sleep on the lower bunk.”

Damien reached out and took his wife’s hand. They shared a smile that made Anna lonely.

“Stay,” Damien said. “You can sleep with Oscar if you don’t mind cigar smoke. Oscar likes company sometimes.”

Anna knew housing for seasonals was tight in the National Park Service but this arrangement shocked even her. The bunks were barely wide enough for one adult. “I’ll sleep on the Lorelei,” she said. “Thanks just the same.” She grabbed up her daypack and stepped toward the door.

“Oscar says, ‘Anytime.’ ” Anna followed Tinker’s look to the tumbled goods on the top bunk. From within a cave of boxes, they were being watched by two button eyes. The little stuffed bear had a dilapidated red bow tied around his neck and an amiable expression on his face.

“Thanks,” Anna said, not knowing whether she addressed Tinker or the bear, and made her escape into the cleansing cold of the night.

Like the southwestern deserts, the northern lake country was a land of extremes. Anna bumbled through the thick dark of the forest like a blinded thing, then, moving onto the open shore between the woods and the dock area, was struck with a light so intense she turned expecting to see a spotlight shining from a fishing vessel. Instead, she saw the moon. It was brighter here than anyplace she’d ever been, fulfilling a long-standing exaggeration: a sharp-eyed person actually could read a newspaper by its light.

The Lorelei was moored in the concrete NPS dock, tied at bow and stern. Anna stepped over the gunwale and let herself into the cabin. Pilcher’s boat was the twin of the Belle Isle. At the forward end of the cabin, between the two high seats and down a step, was a small door. Anna ducked through it into the triangular-shaped space in the bow. Padded benches lined the bulkhead. Beneath them she knew she would find, among the flares, line, and emergency medical supplies, the Lorelei’s spare sleeping bags.