Icy Clutches

John smiled. “I noticed. It's just that he's good at what he does, that's all. He finds things other people miss.” He paused. “At least that's what I think it is.'

'Well, what the hell, this one will be Anchorage's baby, not ours. Can you get hold of him? Do you think he'd be available to go up to Glacier Bay and help them out for a few days?'

'To Glacier Bay?” John leaned back in his chair and laughed. He and Marti had gone out to dinner with Julie and Gideon the night before they'd left for Alaska. “Yeah, I think he'd be available.'

'Good. Can he get out there right away? Where is he now?'

'Boss, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'll get right on it.'

* * * *

'I just don't know, Owen.” Tibbett shook his head darkly. “It isn't...well, seemly.'

Chief Park Ranger Owen Parker threw up his hands and disagreed succinctly with his supervisor. “Seemly? What's seemly got to do with anything? It has to be done, Arthur.'

'Why does it have to be done? We brought the remains in, didn't we? We know who they belong to, don't we? Why do we have to go through all this forensic analysis crapola?'

'Because...' Parker couldn't keep a matching note of irritation out of his voice. Arthur had already approved the process of calling in a forensic expert to identify the bones; he was just being difficult, just covering his ass in case there were some kind of administrative repercussions; although why would there be repercussions? But of course you never knew. No doubt the ever-prudent Arthur would write a memo to file, expressing his reservations, just in case.

Parker's exasperation was, as usual, short-lived. What the hell, it wasn't really the guy's fault. He'd spent too many years behind a desk in D.C., that was his problem. You just had to be patient with him.

'Because,” Parker said more quietly, “how else do we deal with the remains? They'll have to go to the nearest relatives, right? Do we just divide the bones into three piles and split them between them? For that matter, how can we be absolutely positive those bones are from the expedition until—'

Tibbett waved him down. “Oh, come off it, Owen, really. Of course they are.'

Parker shook his head. “A lot of people have disappeared out there, Arthur.'

'Right on the edge of Tirku Glacier? Practically on the spot where the avalanche happened? Don't be ridiculous.'

Parker shrugged. “I don't know. We're just lucky we have Dr. Oliver here'—he tipped his head in Gideon's direction—'to help us out.'

Gideon nodded back with a smile, but in fact he shared some of Tibbett's discomfort. Working on a set of bones—two sets? Three sets?—with the putative next of kin practically looking over his shoulder was going to be a peculiar experience.

Tibbett began to rock rapidly, or rather to vibrate, in his swivel chair. “Well, I don't want the press making some gruesome, sensational story out of this. We don't need that kind of publicity for Glacier Bay.'

'I absolutely agree,” Parker said. “No need for it at all.'

Owen Parker made a marked contrast to his pudgy, skittish supervisor. Decisive, easygoing, quietly self- assured, the chief park ranger was a handsome, copper-skinned black man of forty with the trim physique of a swimmer, a physique earned in 1968 when he'd made it to the Olympic trials. His gray polyester uniform shirt, with its crisp, permanent-pressed creases, lay as neatly against his flat belly as a shirt on a department-store mannequin.

'No need for it at all,” he repeated soothingly.

The three men sat in the cluttered, one-room frame building that served as the ranger station, about a quarter of a mile from the lodge, part of the National Park Service complex in a wooded nook on Bartlett Cove. The gray, white-trimmed building was rustic, almost primitive, the location remote and serene. Otherwise it was like just about every other federal office Gideon had ever been in. The walls were layered with notes, charts, annotated calendar pages, and dog-eared cartoons ('You want it WHEN???'). The furnishings were standard GSA-issue: three aged gray-steel desks with Formica tops, three gray-steel file cabinets, gray-steel bookcase, gray-steel table, and gray-steel chairs enlivened with spinach-green seats and backs of waterproof, tearproof, maybe bulletproof plastic. The furniture was ranged along the walls, leaving a small open space in the middle, where the three had rolled chairs to face each other.

Gideon had been hunted down by Park Ranger Frannie Martinez an hour earlier, at loose ends and leafing without interest through a copy of Alaska Geographic in the lodge lobby. His new non- goal-directed approach to life had not been a marked success, and he had almost hugged the woman when she told him what it was about: The Tremaine party had found some bones at Tirku Glacier a couple of hours before; the bones had been brought back by boat; the FBI in Juneau had been asked for a skeletal expert and they had recommended him. Would it be possible for him to enter into a limited consulting arrangement with the National Park Service (a) to determine if the bones were human, and (b) if they were, to identify them to the extent possible? The standard hourly consulting fee of $32.50 would, of course, apply.

Yes, he had told her gratefully, yes, it would be possible, it would be highly possible. Forget the fee.

She had driven him in a Park Service pickup truck to the compound and left him at the station. Since then he had been listening to Parker and Tibbett go back and forth over the same ground: Tibbett indecisive, cautious, obstructive; Parker calmly reassuring and consistent.

'And you, Gideon?” Tibbett said.

Gideon's attention had been wandering. “And me what?'

Tibbett continued his nervous rocking. “How do you feel about publicity?'

Tibbett's attitude toward him had become more subdued, more wary, since he'd realized that Gideon was the Skeleton Detective (a sobriquet hung on him by an over-imaginative reporter who'd participated in a case at another national park, Olympic, a few years earlier). Gideon was sympathetic; he wasn't too keen on being the Skeleton Detective himself.