Icy Clutches

'Over Jocelyn Yount, primarily.” The dry, scaly corners of her mouth turned down. “She was a woman of scant discretion and few morals. To her, anything wearing trousers...surely Walter didn't fail to go into this?'

'No, ma'am. He told me her fiancee and James Pratt fought over her, that Fisk physically attacked Pratt.'

'That is true.'

'Would you care to make a guess about what happened out there on the ice?'

'No. Is there anything else?'

'Dr. Henckel, you said Jocelyn Yount was the primary cause of bad feeling. Does that mean there were other causes?'

'I see no relevance to what you are investigating, but at the end, of course, we were all somewhat irritated with Walter.'

'Why was that?'

She eyed him. “You don't know why it was they had to go back into the field that final day, the day of the avalanche?'

'No, ma'am.'

'Ah,” she said with a pale smile. “So Dr. Judd left a few things out of his account after all.'

'Maybe he forgot.'

Again the shadowed smile. “I don't think so.'

'Suppose you tell me then.'

She pulled the high collar closer about her neck, “Mr. Lau, our fieldwork had already been completed. We were to leave for home the next day. Our equipment was packed. And then it was found that Walter had bungled his sampling. An immediate, unscheduled field trip was required to regather the contaminated data. We had to put off our departure. Naturally, this was a source of annoyance and some bad feeling.'

John played a hunch. “Between Steve Fisk and Dr. Judd in particular?'

If the question surprised her she didn't show it. “Yes, it was Steven who discovered Walter's slovenliness and called it to our attention. Being Steven, he was not overly charitable in his manner of doing it. Walter held his tongue at the time—what could he say?—but I imagine that—being Walter—there was some sulking and resentment later, in the privacy of his room.'

Bingo. Judd had been covering something up, all right. Dissimulating like hell.

'You needn't look so keen, Mr. Lau. Steven may have been murdered, but Walter didn't do it. He may be a weak man, an ineffectual man, but he is not a bad man. Besides, I saw him when he was brought out, and I assure you he was in no condition to do anyone violence; his infection was very real.'

Was it? Or had he somehow faked those bites? Had he remained behind on the beach for only an hour or two, then gone sneaking after Steve Fisk, disgraced and enraged, to bury that ice ax in his skull? And now, thirty years later, had he throttled Tremaine to keep him from revealing it in his book? No, that didn't add up. How could you “sneak” across a glacier? How could Judd have managed to escape the avalanche himself and get back to the beach? And why would Tremaine have kept quiet about it all these years? For that matter—whoever had really swung that ax—why had Tremaine kept quiet? Because he'd done it himself, as Gideon had thought? Maybe, but now his own murder raised questions about that.

John scribbled a few notes, reminders of things to look into. “You yourself weren't with them that day.'

'No. I remained at our headquarters in Gustavus.'

'The headquarters were in Gustavus? Not here?'

'There was no ‘here.’ This lodge was not built until 1965. No, we rented a house in Gustavus, and it was there that I stayed, redoing our frequency distributions and dot maps. This was at Audley's express instruction.'

'Uh-huh.” There didn't seem to be much point in continuing in that direction. “A few minutes ago you said Jocelyn went after everything in pants. Did that include Tremaine? Were there any problems there?'

'Females,” she said stiffly, “were not one of Audley's problems.'

John glanced up from his notebook. “Are you saying he was gay, ma'am?'

'No, Mr. Lau,” she said quietly, looking out the window. “I have no knowledge of or interest in his sex life. I only know that women were not central to him. A woman can tell such things. I was young then myself, remember, and would have known if his attitude toward me had included anything more than—” She jerked her head angrily and ground out the stub of her cigarillo. “Why are we discussing these things? If you have no questions more pertinent than these, I would like to go now.'

'Yes, ma'am, you can go. Thanks for your cooperation.'

He watched her descend the open stairwell, erect and regal, thumping her polished wooden staff as she went. Step, thunk, step, thunk, step, thunk.

John dropped his notebook into his shirt pocket. Deep stuff here, he thought.

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Chapter 13

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