Endangered Species (28 page)

getting caught.  As long as they covered the island at least once, Guy

wouldn't much care how they spent their time.  On an island eighteen

miles long and three wide it wasn't as if they were going to wander off.

Their job was mainly to be around just in case.

Both tanks were topped.  Absently, she followed the hose back toward the

pump.  Sweat beaded on her upper lip and her shirt stuck to her back

between her shoulder blades.  It was 6:35 in the morning.

Parked behind the pumper truck was a battered orange Volkswagen bug, the

chassis turned to burnt metal lace around fenders and door from the

incursion of rust.  The din of the Mark IV had covered the sound of its

arrival and, lost in her thoughts, Anna had not seen it.  Inattention

made her nervous.  Dreamers were easy marks.  Muggers, rapists,

pickpockets, could cut them out of a crowd.  Purse snatchers made a

living off of them.  The frank delirium of a southern August carried

away sharpness on zephyrs of scented air, softened reality with a brush

of Spanish moss.  The South was famous for vivid eccentricity.  Anna

could see why.  Anger flared in the heat; reality became tenuous.

The Volkswagen belonged to Lynette.  A cross dangled from the rearview

mirror and the Virgin Mary rode in regal splendor on the narrow dash.

Brochures of Cumberland Island and field guides to the Southeast were

scattered over the back seat and the floor.  A box of files filled the

passenger side.

It was "Tuesday.  Probably Lynette's lieu days were midweek .

Anna hoped so.  It would be a relief to know there was someone to sit

with Tabby.  She regained the stairs and climbed to the apartment.  The

door was open but the screen closed and latched.  From within came the

murmur of prayers.  A faint clicking accompanied them and at first Anna

thought someone was telling the rosary through her fingers, but the

sound was coming from a flat green insect the size of her thumbnail

clinging to the screen.

"God can forgive anything." Lynette's low voice trickled out through the

wire mesh.  She spoke in a monotone, the intensity of her personality

rather than changes in pitch adding color to her words.

"Not this he can't.  Not me," Tabby returned.  Her voice was choked with

tears.  Her voice was always choked with tears.  Though Anna understood

and even empathized, it was beginning to get on her nerves.  Sliding

down, fanny on the steps, back against the railing, she settled in for

some unabashed eavesdropping.  If she was caught she could pretend she

simply didn't want to disturb their devotions.

What a prince, Anna thought of herself dryly.  Tilting her head back

against an upright, she closed her eyes the better to listen.

"That's kind of arrogant in a way," Lynette said gently ." It's like

saying, 'My sin is so magnificent not even God can forgive it."' "You

don't understand," wailed the eternally drowned voice of the widow.

" Try me."

Anna's ears pricked up, or felt as if they did, but the hoped-for

revelation was not forthcoming.  Tabby cried out ," can't!" and

dissolved again.

Anna liked Tabby well enough but the woman had a bit of the invertebrate

about her.  It was hard to picture her under an airplane, her pregnant

belly thrust up like a fecund shark fill, unscrewing the panel to the

actuator arm.  Nor could she picture her offing her husband.

What about offing Slattery?

Twisted soap opera plots gamboled through Anna's brain.  The baby was

Hammond's, Hammond was going to tell Todd.  Tabby had been jilted by

Hammond.  Or jilted by Todd.  Todd and Hammond were secret lovers.

Everybody was related and separated at birth.

She laughed and pulled herself up from the warm wood.  Prayer service

was over.  She wanted to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

and get on with the day.  Banging on the screen she yelled, "Somebody

let me in."

Lynette unlocked the screen.  Round without in any way being fat, her

face was a soft oval, eyes wise and blue.  In the 1930s she would have

been considered a beauty.  Lynette was in her late twenties and, if one

saw with the eyes only, she looked it.  Fine lines were forming around

her mouth, and her forehead was creased from years of raising her

eyebrows in concerned interest.  To the other senses, Iynette registered

as considerably younger.  Innocence, trust, a wit that was sharp but

never cutting, gave her a childlike quality that somehow missed being

treacly.

"Off today?" Anna asked, to have something to say.

Lynette shook her head, her permed curls quivering charmingly .

"don't go on till ten-thirty."

Anna nodded.  Boatloads of tourists from St.  Marys would be arriving.

Lynette gave them a tour of the splendid ruin of Dungeness mansion, the

impressive bones of what had been one of the prenuer homes in the 1880s.

Fire and time had reduced it to memories evoked by steps, stone patios,

partial walls, and cold fireplaces.  For Anna's money it was as

inspiring in its own way as the ruins of the Anasazi in Mesa Verde

National Park.  Dungeness had yet to acquire the patina of centuries but

already it spoke of a unique human history, a nostalgia for better days.

"'Fabby is making herself sick over something," Lynette saiel as Anna

spread a meticulously even layer of peanut butter on a slice of raisin

bread.

"Other than death and impending birth, what do you figure?"

Lynette flicked up a bit of peanut butter from the side of the jar and

put it in her mouth.  Her fingers were tapered, almost pointy, her teeth

small and even ." A fight?" she hazarded ." That would be a drag,

wouldn't it?  To tell your sweetie he's a real son of a bitch and then

have him die thinking you meant it?  Even if you did?"

"A drag," Anna agreed ." Was Todd a son of a bitch?"

"Who ever knows, but I don't think so.  He seemed sweet and sweet on his

wife.  No eyeballing-the-naked-ladies sort of thing."

"Does Tabby have anyplace to go?  The NPS isn't going to toss her out on

her ear anytime soon, but she can't stay here forever .

Whoever replaces Todd is going to need a place to live."

"Tabby's from money," Lynette told her ." Old lumber money out of

Seattle.  Her folks will take care of her and the baby."

"Now would be a good time to start," Anna said sourly, and wriggled her

PB&j into a sandwich bag stolen from the Belfores' cupboard.

"They're somewhere in the Far East on a Stanford University tour to see

primitive peoples." Lynette spoke as if she were reading the words from

a snooty brochure ." Incommunicado for another week or so.  Then they'll

come."

Relief hit Anna harder than she would have expected.  Being even

peripherally responsible for the weeping, gestating girl was tiring ."

At least she'll be financially secure." The meager lunch complete, she

turned her back to the counter so she could watch Lynette ." Both widows

are," she said.  Nothing but polite confusion crossed Lynette's smooth

face ." Slattery's wife will be taken care of by his life insurance."

" Slattery wasn't married," Lynette said.  It didn't sound as if she

believed it, at least not a hundred percent.

"A wife and a little boy in Washington State." Anna knew she was being

cruel.  She needed the truth and didn't know any other way to get at it.

Fleetingly, she wondered if biologists testing pain response in animals

forgave their actions with the same rationale.

"A little boy?" Lynette echoed, her voice small and stunned.

She might have suspected Slattery was married but Anna was willing to

bet the farm on the fact that he had a child was new information.

Lynette turned and left the kitchen without a word.

Anna had delivered the blow, made the world a slightly more miserable

place, and gotten virtually nothing for it but the sense that maybe,

just maybe, Lynette was lying about not knowing Hammond had a wife.  Not

much to pin a murder indictment on.

Heat and the dusty jolt of the truck brought on a wave of fatigue .

Had there been a time she could stay awake all night, eat cold pizza for

breakfast, and bound out to take on a new day?  She remembered there

had.  Of course she did; one of the wonderful things about youth was

attaining a respectable distance from it.  In retrospect, all things

became possible: endurance greater, grades improved, tomance polished to

a fine shine.

Slowing the truck to a crawl, she began a mental list of things to do.

It was not yet eight a.m.  The office would be empty.  There'd be a

phone she could use and the necessary privacy to make the most of it.

Frieda would have had time to cull, charm, and weasel information from

all available sources.  Between the computer, the phone, and her

wide-ranging, if eclectic, contacts, there was little she couldn't

ferret out of a federal agency.  With luck she would have gotten the

dirt on Hammond's suit against Utterback and his connection with the

Belfores.

This murder was not unlike the Deep South itself, intricate,

slow-moving, relationships unclear, each aspect draped or veiled by

something else.  Facts married to their first cousins producing

information that was slightly out of whack.

A silver pickup appeared in the lane ahead and politely pulled to the

side so Anna would have room to pass.  Peeking from behind palmetto

fronds, the little truck looked almost coy and Anna smiled as she slowed

to squeeze by.  Dot was driving, wild gray curls halfcaptured beneath a

red ball cap, hands in the ten and two position .

Anna glimpsed Mona nearly hidden behind a stack of antiquated turtle

files.  The fawn was on her lap, his head out the open window like a

dog's.

As the pumper truck edged by, both women waved and both grimaced

identical grimaces as they pointed to the pile of paperwork between

them.  On Mesa Verde there were two trees that had joined together late

in life.  Pushed over by a storm, they became one rather than die.  Anna

wondered how many years it took human beings to grow together like that.

When she reached the fire dorm she found Dijon balancing on a

four-by-four that had been laid on the ground to delineate parking lot

from "lawn." A subtle distinction the sand did not recognize.

"Where the hell have you been?" he asked as the truck rolled to a stop.

Before she could answer, had she indeed intended to, he tossed his

yellow pack into the truck bed and was jerking open the damaged door ."

You're late," he accused, and looked at his watch .

"Taxpayers' dollars at work and all that.  At my salary you've j!lst

upped the gross national debt by a buck and a quarter."

The other truck was gone, as was the ATV.  Dijon had been left all

alone.  Entertaining himself was not his strong suit.  'ro make amends,

Anna told him of the vandalism of the truck.  She omitted her nudity,

preferring to seem a coward than a prude.

Dijon indulged in a favorite law enforcement pastime: Monday morning

quarterbacking.  A minute or so after he'd finished telling Anna what he

would have done-and with the guaranteed success rate of hindsight-he