Icy Clutches

knock-kneed to get their feet back under them.'

'Watch it, Oliver,” Julie warned.

'In a most attractive manner, of course,” he added sincerely. “I wouldn't have it any other way.'

Julie's openly skeptical reply was interrupted by Russ's arrival at the door. “Dr. Oliver? Ma'am? Mr. Lau sent me to look for you. The press conference started half an hour ago, and they have some questions for you. They're getting sort of impatient.'

'Damn,” Gideon said, laying the femur down, “I forgot all about it. Let's go.'

They followed Russ up the path to the lodge at a trot. Julie, normally a faster jogger than Gideon, lagged a few steps behind.

Concerned, Gideon slowed. “Is anything wrong?'

'Oh, no,” she said sweetly, “but running's not that easy when you're thick-hipped and knock-kneed.'

Silence seemed the wisest response.

* * * *

The sun had come out for the first time in almost a week, hanging twenty degrees above the hazy Fairweathers, flat and wan, but still able to burnish the air with a welcome, golden tinge of warmth. The meeting was being held outside, on the broad wooden deck at one end of the main building, and the attendees seemed less interested in the subject matter than in the sunlight. Folding fabric lawn chairs had been pulled into an arc facing the sun, and most of the people in them had their eyes closed and their faces tipped gratefully up.

It was an unusual press conference in that respondents outnumbered reporters. There were, in fact, only four journalists taking part: one reporter from the Ketchikan Daily, one from the Juneau Empire, and two wire-service stringers. The other two media people were a television crew from Anchorage who, having completed their filming for the day, were unashamedly sprawled on their backs on the bench that ran around the edges of the deck, soaking up sunshine. Tremaine's crew sat in attitudes ranging from detachment and indifference (Anna and Shirley, respectively), through boredom (Fisk) and glassy-eyed woolgathering (Pratt), to outright sleep (Judd).

John, his broad face up to the sun, was sitting next to Minor, his chair tipped back against the sun-drenched wall of the lodge, his interest level somewhere between Pratt's and Judd's.

One reason for all this lethargy was the unaccustomed effect of the sunlight. The other was Arthur Tibbett, who was holding forth and apparently had been at it for some time.

'Ah, here he is now,” he said as Gideon and Julie arrived and took chairs at the end of the semicircle. “You can ask him yourselves.'

The reporters turned their chairs to get a better look at Gideon. Notebook pages were flipped. A tape recorder was turned on.

'I've been telling them about your exploits,” Arthur said, preening.

'Is it true that you've identified the murdered man from 1960 as Steven Fisk?” The speaker was one of the wire-service people, a thin-lipped, severe woman who spoke with a cigarette jouncing at the corner of her mouth and her eyes narrowed against the smoke.

'Yes, it is.'

'There's no doubt in your mind?'

'No.” The episode of the four-foot freaks had taught him to keep his remarks to the press short.

'Why do you think Professor Tremaine was murdered?” Gideon spread his hands.

'Are there any suspects?'

Yes, and all of them were sitting within ten feet of her. Gideon glanced at them and saw John do the same thing from under half-closed lids. None of them did anything helpful, like making a run for it, or breaking into a sweat, or even stiffening guiltily.

'No idea,” he said.

'But you think there's a connection between the murders?'

'Beats me.'

The front legs of John's chair came lazily down on the deck. “Dr. Oliver's an anthropologist, not a cop,” he said good-humoredly. “If you have questions about the murders, I'm the one to ask.'

'All right, then,” the woman answered curtly, “is there a connection?'

'Beats me,” John said.

The reporter threw a poisonous look at him, a disgusted one at Gideon, and pointedly closed her notebook.

'I have a question,” said a gangling kid of about twenty-two. He put a hand up to his mouth and coughed. “C. L. Crowdy of the Empire,' he murmured, blushing. “Mr. Tibbett said that another human bone was found at the glacier today—'

'A right femur,” Tibbett interrupted helpfully. “That's the thigh bone. F-e-m-u-r. Dr. Oliver's just come from the contact station, where he's been working on it. We've set up a lab for him there, and it's worked out very well. Hasn't it, Gideon?'

'Yes, it has, Arthur.'

'Thank you, sir,” C. L. Crowdy said. “Dr. Oliver, are you able to tell us anything about this latest find? Do you know whose leg bone it is?'

Gideon hesitated. He couldn't think of any reason to keep to himself the knowledge that they had found Jocelyn