'Oh,” Tibbett said, still looking at the shoe with extreme distaste, “well.” He cleared his throat. “I'm not absolutely sure, to tell you the truth. I'll go back to the boat and radio my chief ranger. He's more familiar with this...this sort of thing, you know. He'll know the right way to go about it.'
'And in the meantime,” Anna said decisively, “we look some more and see what we can find.'
* * * *
'Mort, how would I claim a set of Lego blocks?'
FBI Special Agent Morton Kessler resignedly clicked off the microphone of the dictating machine into which he was recording a memo to file and looked wordlessly at his colleague. It was the sort of question you expected John Lau to ask, and Kessler had learned not to be surprised. Other agents’ expense statements listed hotel bills, taxi rides, and meals, but John Lau wasn't quite like other agents. He had come to the FBI late, in his thirties, and unusual expense statements were the least of the many ways he didn't quite fit the mold.
Kessler had gotten to know Lau well in the four years since the big Hawaiian ex-cop and former NATO security officer had joined the bureau. What with the partitionless bullpen arrangement on the sixth floor of Seattle's federal building, you learned a lot about the other agents in your squad. The desks were placed in groups of three, arranged in a triangle, with the agents facing in toward the center. It wasn't very often that all three agents were in off the street at the same time, but even so, you got to know your desk mates pretty well.
'Like anything else,” Kessler said. “Put it under
'Right, thanks.'
Kessler tried without success to go back to his memo. Again he flicked off the machine. “John, I know I'm going to be sorry I asked, but what the hell is a set of Lego blocks doing on your claim form? I mean, it's not something you see every day.'
'Well,” John said, continuing to write, “this informant was getting mixed up drawing the layout of a house in Renton, so I thought if I got him a set of Legos he could—'
'—build you a model. Right. Of course. It's obvious.” He got up out of his chair. “I need to get a file in rotary. If anybody calls be back in ten.'
The single telephone shared by the three desks rang. Kessler hung back while John picked it up.
'Five-Squad. Lau.'
'Mr. Lau, this is Annie. Will you hold, please?'
'For me,” John mouthed to Kessler, who waved and headed for the filing unit.
'The SAC wants to speak with you, Mr. Lau,” Annie went on.
Abbreviations and acronyms were not John's long suits; no more than claims and paperwork. “SAC?'
From halfway across the room Kessler turned. “Special agent in charge, for Christ's sake!” he hissed. “The boss.” He shook his head once, briefly raised his eyes to the fluorescent lights, and continued on his way.
John waited, ear to the telephone. The special agent in charge of the Seattle field office was Charlie Appletree, a veteran from the old school who still wore a dark suit and white shirt to the office every day, and still sported a crew cut, although there wasn't much to cut anymore. He had been a confidant of every director since Hoover, with the exception of William Ruckleshaus, whom he had openly regarded as a naive, pipe-smoking do-gooder. “I don't know where you came from,” he was reputed to have told the gentle Ruckleshaus in a celebrated exchange, “or who the hell you are, but you sure as hell aren't the director of the FBI.'
Generally speaking, however, he was more restrained; soft-spoken, intelligent, subtly political.
'Hello there, John. How are you today?'
'Fine, sir.'
'Look, I've just had a call from Dan Britten, the SAC in Anchorage...” He paused, familiar with John's small failings. “Uh, you know what SAC means...?'
'Sure.” John laughed with amusement at the question. “Special agent in charge.'
'That's right, that's right.” Appletree sounded pleased. “Good. Well, it seems Dan got a call from the resident agent in Juneau, who got a call from the National Park Service people at Glacier Bay. They've turned up some bones there, apparently human, and they need some help.'
'Foul play involved?'
'No, nothing like that. It's a matter for the NPS, not the bureau. They're pretty sure they're the remains of a scientific party that was lost years ago in an avalanche. No question of murder.'
'Uh-huh.” John toyed with his pen. “I guess I don't see how we're involved.'
'We aren't, really. But they need a forensic anthropologist to sort out the bones and tell them what they have, maybe get them positively identified. The Glacier Bay people asked the Juneau agency to help them out, but the woman they usually use is somewhere in South America at the moment. So Juneau called Anchorage, and Charlie remembered that anthropologist you've brought in a few times—'
'Gideon Oliver.'
'Right, Oliver...” The name seemed to start him thinking. John heard the creak of his high-backed leather chair. Appletree was no doubt leaning back, tapping his lower lip with one of the pencils he used instead of pens. “He does tend to stir things up, though, doesn't he?'
'In what way, sir?” John asked. Not that it wasn't true.
'Well, I have nothing against him, you understand. He's done some good things for us. It's just that whenever we put him on some simple, cut-and-dried case, it...well, it always seems to turn out to be anything but cut and dried. Or haven't you noticed?'
