Chunks of ice drifted around like tiny bergs on the gently moving water, and the whole lab had a strong, briny odor. But Michael was puzzled-and frankly, a little pissed. Was this Dar-ryl's idea of a joke? Because if it was, he wasn't laughing. He, Michael, should have been consulted if the bodies were going to be relocated again.
“Okay-what gives?” he asked Darryl. “Did you tell someone to move them?” But from the stunned look he now saw on Darryl's face, he already knew the answer to that.
“Where are they?” Charlotte innocently asked, unwinding a long scarf from around her neck.
“I… don't… know,” Darryl replied.
“What do you mean, you don't know?” she said. “You think Betty and Tina took ‘em back?”
“I don't know,” Darryl repeated.
The shock in his voice was apparent to her, too. She glanced over Darryl's head at Michael.
“Well, it's not like they got up and went anywhere on their own,” she said.
But the silence hung heavy. Michael went around to the other side of the tank and turned off the PVC valves. He saw a stool, set up in front of one of the space heaters, and another one close to the door. Why, he wondered, would Darryl have moved the lab stools like that?
“I know you like your privacy, but has anyone else been working with you in here?” he asked.
“No,” Darryl replied in a low voice, as if still unable to process the disaster. He hadn't moved from the lip of the tank.
“Murphy will know what's up,” Charlotte said, in an upbeat tone. “He must have had the bodies transferred.” She went to the intracamp phone mounted by the door, and even she looked puzzled for a second by the stool that stood in her way.
Michael, his thoughts reeling, used a mop to push some of the water toward the floor drains while Darryl looked into the tank as if staring long enough could make the bodies reappear. Charlotte talked on the phone, and Michael didn't have to pick up more than a few of her actual words-”not here,” “are you sure?” “of course we did”-to know that Murphy O'Connor was as baffled by what he was hearing as anyone.
Darryl, his brow furrowed in thought, retreated to the lab counter, where he plopped down in front of the microscope. Michael used the mop to move the stool away from the heater and noticed that although the tank overflow hadn't really come up that far, there was a round puddle underneath where the stool had been. Almost as if something had been drying and dripping onto the floor there. He glanced over at the other misplaced stool, the one by the door, then leaned the mop up against the wall and walked over toward it.
Charlotte had just hung up the phone and announced that Murphy had no clue about what was going on. “He's contacting Lawson and Franklin. Maybe they'll know what's up.”
Michael looked under the stool by the door, and although there wasn't any water there, he suddenly felt a cold sliver of air descending on his shoulders, and glanced up. A narrow, rectangular window, more of a vent really, ran along the roofline, and when he climbed up onto the stool, he found that the window had been cranked open. Flakes of snow and ice had already begun to congeal on the inside rim, and through it, he could see straight across the concourse and into the bright glare of the kennel and sled shed, where everything appeared quiet and undisturbed.
“Darryl,” he asked, “did you ever crank this vent open?”
“What?” Darryl looked up at him, as he balanced precariously on the stool. “No. I doubt I could even reach it.”
Michael cranked the window closed again, and got down. Somebody, he thought, had cranked it open-and recently-and they'd done it to get a glimpse of the outside.
“Want to hear something else?” Darryl said, resignedly.
“Is it good or bad?” Charlotte said.
“The wine bottle's gone.”
“Was it on the lab counter?” Michael said, and Darryl nodded.
“It was right here,” he said, “next to the microscope.” He picked up a slide. “I've still got proof-this-that the damn thing existed. But no bottle, and no bodies, anymore.”
But to Michael, it made perfect sense; whoever had come to make off with the bodies-but why, and what for? — had grabbed the wine bottle, too. The slide must have been overlooked. Was someone really going to try to destroy all the evidence and make it seem that the whole discovery had never happened? What would be the point of that? Or was it-and this made even less sense to him-somebody's idea of a moneymaking scheme? It was way too knuckleheaded for any of the beakers to try, but had a couple of the grunts found out what was going on and decided that they could spirit the frozen corpses back to civilization and make a fortune exhibiting them?
Or was it all just part of an immense, and not very funny, practical joke? If that's what it turned out to be, Michael knew that Murphy would have the heads of the perpetrators.
Michael realized that he was clutching at straws, that these ideas were crazy. He told himself to calm down. It had to be something simpler. Betty and Tina had probably reclaimed the ice block for further work, or something like that. And the mystery would be solved before they all went to bed.
“Weren't there some other bottles, in that chest that was brought up?” Charlotte said, and Darryl's eyes brightened.
“Yes, there were. Michael, where'd they put the chest?”
“Last I saw it, Danzig had unloaded it from the sled. It was in the back of the kennel.”
“Then at least we might still have those!” he said.
“Why don't you and Charlotte look around the lab here-make sure nothing else is missing-and I'll go over to the kennel.” Ever since he'd looked out of the vent, he'd wanted to check out everything across the way.
He zipped up his coat again, and as he descended the ramp, he looked carefully for any signs of a dolly's wheels, but the only markings were from bootheels. How the hell did whoever it was get the damn thing out? He marched across the snow to the kennel and found the chest at least right where Danzig had unloaded it. But despite the fact that a few odds and ends were still inside-a silver cup engraved with the initials SAC, a white cummerbund, yellow with age-the bottles were all gone.
“Hey, what the hell's going on?”
Michael turned around to see Danzig himself standing with his arms out in wonderment.
“I guess you just heard from Murphy.”
“Heard what from Murphy?”
“Oh, about the missing bodies, from the ice block.”
“The dogs, for Christ's sake-I'm talking about the dogs! There's one hell of a storm coming, and I came to make sure they were settled in for the night.” He looked all around, like somehow he might have simply missed them. “Where the hell are they?”
Michael had been so set on retrieving the bottles that it hadn't occurred to him that something even more surprising was gone. But now he saw the dogs’ stakes, still in the ground, and their empty food bowls, lying upturned on the straw.
“The sled's missing, too,” Danzig said. “What the fuck is going on?”
Michael couldn't believe that anyone would dare to mess with the dogs, much less without Danzig's express permission-which would almost certainly not be granted.
“I was just checking to see if the chest had been looted,” Michael said, feeling the need to explain his own presence. “It has been.”
“I don't give a shit about that, or that pair of human popsicles. Where are my dogs?” Danzig boomed as he stomped around the kennel, his eyes fixed on the floor. “How long have you been here?”
“I got here just before you did.”
“Goddammit!” He kicked one of the bowls clear across the kennel, then he stopped at the foot of the stairs, yanked off one of his gloves, and touched something on the steps. As Michael looked on, he raised it to his face, smelled it.
“It's blood,” he said, lifting his eyes toward the loft. And then he was racing up the stairs as fast as his heavy boots and gear would let him.
Michael heard him cry, “Jesus, no!” and by the time Michael got up there, Danzig was down on the floor, cradling the bloody carcass of Kodiak in his burly arms.
“Who did this?” Danzig was muttering. “Who would do this?”
For Michael, too, it seemed unthinkable.
