Icy Clutches (25 page)

And while this was happening I could see James on the other side of the crevasse, desperately fighting for his balance on the shifting, splintering ice; falling, then stumbling to his feet, only to be knocked down again by the incredible upheaval. 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.

A sharp wind spattered my face from the direction of the avalanche and I lifted my head to see an almost spherical gray cloud already blotting out the mountains and expanding in every direction, like a motion picture of an atomic-bomb blast. Caught up in this exploding cloud, chunks of ice the size of trucks were hurtling toward me, bouncing in mesmerizing, slow parabolas of two and three hundred feet.

A second later the vanguard of the blast was on me, howling and strafing my face with freezing, burning grit. I shut my eyes to it just as a spate of ice spicules were driven into my face. I could feel them sticking out of my cheeks like nails. A sharp piece of ice or rock struck my knee and I screamed with pain. Something hit my wrist, and something far larger crashed and squealed along the ice a few yards away. The wind was terrific, screaming in my ears, rasping my bloodied face, tearing at my handhold.

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—Steven Fisk and James Pratt. As far as the bones go, Jocelyn's the only one unaccounted for. Sorry."

Julie grumpily withdrew, as she sometimes did under such circumstances, sinking back into the seat and folding her arms. “Why do I always do this to myself?” she muttered to the window. “Why don't I just let all the big-time detectives solve it themselves?"

"Oh, yeah,” John said with a laugh, “we're doing just great."

That effectively ended the conversation for the rest of the drive. When Minor pulled into the lodge parking lot and turned off the ignition, they continued to sit silently for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts, until John sighed loudly and pushed open his door.

"See you guys for dinner,” he said. Then, without moving to get out, he added: “You know what I'm starting to think? That maybe we've been on the wrong track all along; maybe the two murders aren't even connected; maybe Tremaine was killed on account of something else in the book. Hell,” he finished glumly, “maybe the damn book doesn't have anything to do with it."

"Could be,” Julie said.

"Perhaps so,” said Minor.

Maybe, Gideon thought, but only if somebody had just repealed the Law of Interconnected Monkey Business.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Due to the recent tragedy involving M. Audley Tremaine, things were understandably subdued at the lodge that evening. The Icebreaker Lounge had remained closed and dark during the cocktail hour, and now in the dining room the atmosphere, if not one of inconsolable grief, was appropriately restrained. Most of the search-and-rescue class were at their usual large table, eating heartily enough, but without the attendant verve and hilarity that usually characterized their meals. The death of Professor Tremaine had cast a pall of gloom on their customary animation. That, or the deletion of the cocktail hour.

The members of Tremaine's party were no longer sitting at a single table. If they had ever enjoyed each other's company, it was obvious that they didn't anymore. Gerald Pratt sat with Elliott Fisk, both of them silent, Fisk picking sourly at his food, Pratt shoveling it placidly in. Nearby, with her back pointedly toward Fisk, Shirley Yount was at a table with Walter Judd, who was chugging and chortling away like a washing machine, but seemingly by rote, his mind elsewhere. Shirley made no pretense of listening. She looked mostly over his head, at the top of the wall behind him. Under the table her long, bony foot bobbed while she chewed.

Alone, her cape draped majestically over the back of her chair, her polished staff leaning against the wall, Anna Henckel sat in regal isolation, looking out over the darkening water of the cove as she ate.

And at a table at the far end of the room, in front of a wall that was carved and painted with owl-eyed totem figures to look like the side of a Tlingit longhouse, six newcomers—three women and three men—gobbled down their food and talked earnestly.

"John, who are those people?” Julie asked. She had seen them on the flight from Juneau a few hours before. They had kept to themselves in a knot in the smoking section and been met by Arthur Tibbett with the lodge bus.

"Reporters,” John said, picking up a menu. “And a TV crew.” He had just joined Gideon, Julie, and Minor. “The media's been pushing us for news, so we're going to have a press conference tomorrow at four o'clock."

"Do you want me to deal with the logistics?” Minor asked. “Orient them, show them around, arrange a meeting room, and so on and so forth?” He took off his rimless glasses and blew a speck of dust from them.

"If you can get them away from Arthur Tibbett, but I don't think you have a chance. Let him do it; he's like a kid with a new bike? He looked at Gideon. “Doc, can you be there? There'll be questions."

"Sure."

"Good. You can come too, Julie, if you want.” He scanned the menu, folded it, and dropped it on the table. “I told Henckel and Pratt and the rest of them to come too. I figured I'd let Tibbett run the show, since he's having such a good time."

Minor's pepper-and-salt eyebrows lifted briefly. “Do you think that's wise?” He began polishing his glasses with a handkerchief that looked as if it had never been unfolded before, let alone used.

"Sure, I don't have any problem with it. Besides, who says we have a choice? We don't have any right to keep the press away from them; and I figured an open meeting'd be the best way to handle it. I had a talk with them when they arrived, and they promised to stay away from Tremaine's people if I promised to have them at the press conference. At least this way we get to hear what they say."

Cheri, the chirpy, whip-thin waitress who had single-handedly been doing the serving all week, was at his elbow. “Have you decided, or do you want me to come back?"

John looked at the menu again. “What's the Prospector's Special?"

"Salisbury steak with bacon strips and mushroom gravy, buttered mashed potatoes, fried onion rings. Yum."

"Sounds good. Can I get French fries instead of mashed?"

"Sure."

"Great. Make it well done, okay? Lots of gravy. On the fries too. Thousand Island on the salad."

"I just hope Marti doesn't ask me what you ate,” Julie said.

John looked at her over the top of the menu. “Are you gonna get on my case too? What'd
you
order?"

"Broiled halibut."

"Doc?"

"Same."

John growled something. “Julian?"

Minor replaced his glasses, adjusting the wire earpieces one at a time over his ears. “Penne pasta with cauliflower and broccoli in sesame-seed sauce,” he said.

John stared at him with something like awe. “Jesus Christ.” He heaved a sigh of capitulation and handed the menu to Cheri. “Okay, okay, hold the gravy on the fries."

"You got it. Back in a sec with the salads."

She stooped at the folding table behind Gideon to shoulder the heaped tray of dirty dishes and silverware just cleared from the rangers’ table. The tray looked as if it weighed as much as she did. Instinctively Gideon reached out to help her steady it, but she laughed him off.

"Never mind, honey, I'm used to it. I only look skinny. I got muscles on my muscles."

A lift, a momentary hitch like a weight lifter performing a clean-and-jerk, and up it went with a clank of settling dishes to rest firmly on the flat of her hand and her shoulder. She grinned at them, adjusted the load with a hunch of her shoulder, and scudded off.

"John,” Minor said in his precise way, “when I asked if you were sure it was wise, I wasn't referring to the press conference in general; I was referring to the idea of allowing Tibbett to lead it"—he lowered his already quiet voice—"considering what we learned today."

"Yeah, I think it's okay, Julian.” John scowled. “Hey, do they give you bread with dinner, or do you have to—"

"What did you learn today?” Gideon asked. “What's wrong with Tibbett running the press conference?"

Minor looked warily at John, who nodded. “He's on our side, Julian,” John said. “So's she."

From a thin briefcase on his lap Minor extracted a few sheets of paper. He was as decorous and fastidious as Gideon remembered him: dark-blue banker's suit, meticulously knotted tie decorated with tiny fleurs-de-lis, blinding white shirt with mother-of-pearl cuff links. He passed the sheets to Gideon and Julie.