Icy Clutches

I huddled behind the small outcropping as well as I could, but a piece of flying debris struck me in the temple with paralyzing force. Numbly, I watched my good hand loosen its grip, flutter tentatively, and drop to my side, palm up, fingers loosely curled. I seemed to be outside my own body now, looking down on myself with no more than a dispassionate curiosity. Feet first, unresisting, I slid slowly down a gentle incline toward the turquoise gash of a newly opened crevasse.

I resigned myself to meet my maker.

'It does fit what you found, doesn't it?” Julie said, looking up. “The ice ax, the jaw injuries, everything.'

Gideon finished the page and nodded. “All the skeletal evidence supports it. I'd have to guess this is pretty much the way it happened.” To himself he admitted a keen sense of disappointment. No profound, complex motives had come to light, no unexpected twists; just another squalid, brutal homicide, prompted by nothing more than sex, and revenge, and the searing, momentary heat of rage. The usual.

'Not necessarily,” Minor said, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. “What happened to Steven Fisk, yes; who did it to him, no.'

'You mean maybe it was Tremaine who killed him? And then blamed it on James?'

'Exactly. Who is there to argue the point?'

'That could be,” John agreed. “Steve was complaining about Tremaine ripping off his ideas. Maybe this was how Tremaine shut him up.” He glanced over his shoulder at Gideon. “I hear these scientist types can get a little uptight about that stuff.'

'Maybe,” Gideon said, “but I don't think it was Tremaine who swung the ax. He would have been forty or so at the time, and a small, fragile forty at that; he couldn't have been more than 135 pounds. Steven was a muscular twenty-five-year-old 200-pounder.'

'I should think that an ice ax might compensate for any disparities,” Minor put in.

'As far as the blow to the back of the skull goes, sure. But what about the one to the front of the jaw? Did Steven just stand there and let Tremaine belt him? From everything we've heard, he wasn't exactly a pacifist. And he had an ice ax of his own.'

'Hum,” Minor said.

'If Tremaine didn't do it,” Julie said, “which he says he didn't, then why did he cover it up all these years?'

'That's in here,” John said, taking back the manuscript and leafing through the pages. “Well, I can't find it, but he talks about how he knows he made some mistakes the way he ran the project, and the personal relations were lousy and all, and he deserves the blame for the whole thing because he was the director, and he was afraid that if people found out somebody actually got murdered, he'd never direct another project.'

'So why is he suddenly willing to tell everything now?'

'That,’ John said, “isn't in here.'

'It doesn't seem so hard to figure out,” said Gideon. “Scandals and murders sell books, and Tremaine had a book to sell. None of this could hurt his botanical career anymore. If anything, it would have made him more popular than ever. He comes off looking pretty good, at least the way he tells it.'

'Yeah, that's probably right, Doc.'

'But wouldn't the police have come after him, once it came out? For withholding evidence or something?” Julie asked.

'Maybe, maybe not,” John said. “Anyway, what could they do to him? What would be the point?'

'Besides,” Minor said dryly, “anything they did do would hardly be harmful to sales.'

Julie nodded. “Okay, but look: If he was going to tell all this anyway, why did he pretend he didn't remember the ice ax a few days ago? Why did he get so angry when the murder was discovered?” She held up a hand before anyone could answer. “Wait...he wanted the book to make a splash when it came out. He didn't want the story leaking out piece by piece before he was ready.'

'Could we get back to now?” asked John, whose interest in the old murder had always been limited. “Can anybody tell me what's so important about this thing?” He slapped the manuscript. “What's the big deal? Why would anybody steal it? Why would somebody kill Tremaine over it? So what if it got published? Who'd give a damn?'

'Well,” Julie said hesitantly, “one person—I'm just thinking out loud—one person who'd care would be Gerald Pratt. He wouldn't be too happy about his brother being labeled a murderer.'

'I take your point,” Minor said, “but in all honesty it hardly seems a credible motive for killing Tremaine.'

'Besides,” Gideon said, “how could Gerald know what was in the manuscript? About the murder, I mean.'

'How could anybody know?” John asked. “Tremaine was the only one who got out of there alive.” He shook his head. “So what reason would anybody have—'

Julie frowned. “John, can I have that manuscript back?'

She quickly found the place she wanted “Listen. ‘For an instant his panicked eyes locked with mine, and then he was lost to sight, driven headfirst, despite his frenzied scuttling, into a jumble of sharp black boulders and broken ice.'” She leaned forward, growing more excited. “That's James Pratt he's talking about. Tremaine saw Steven killed, right? He saw Jocelyn fall into a crevasse that closed up over her—but the last he saw of James he was still alive.'

John looked at her temperately. “So?'

'Well, I don't know exactly. But how do we know he was killed at all? How do we—'

'We know,” Gideon said, “because we have skeletal remains from two males, and those are—necessarily—