A Superior Death

SEVEN

Lucas had wanted a good long surface interval and he got it. The wheels of justice were grinding slow. Not because they ground exceeding fine, Anna thought, but because they were mired down in red tape.

As Lucas gave Anna a ride back to the north shore he told her of his call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assured that the corpse would keep as well at the bottom of the lake as it would in the refrigerator at the morgue, the FBI wanted a man on site when the body was brought up. That man was Frederick Stanton out of Detroit. Frederick (known to his intimates, the FBI secretary told Lucas, as “Frederick”; “Fred” or “Freddy” could undermine any potential for an amicable working relationship) specialized in narcotics violations occurring on the American-Canadian border in the midwest region. Officer Stanton had to give a deposition in New Jersey on Wednesday. Thursday he would fly to Houghton, and Friday take the seaplane to Rock. Only after he arrived could the body be recovered.

The Chief Ranger speculated that the FBI smelled big-time crime. The Feds couldn’t conceive of any bizarre form of death that wasn’t either mob- or drug-connected, and since everyone knew Italians didn’t dive, that left Denny Castle on the drug connections list.

Frederick Stanton’s specialty.

Despite the reports of arrogance, Anna developed a bit of a soft spot for Frederick the Fed: His delays would postpone the dreaded Kamloops dive for five days.

As the Lorelei motored down Amygdaloid Channel, she saw the 3rd Sister moored at the dock in front of the ranger station. She wondered if anyone had called Hawk and Holly to tell them of Denny’s death. Anna didn’t even know where they lived.

Isle Royale was like a place out of time, out of the ordinary run of lives. No one but the wild creatures really lived there. The human population appeared for six months out of each year, a full-blown society with cops and robbers, houses and boats, shovels and Hershey bars, pumping gas and drinking vodka, making love and money. Then, October 19, humanity closed up shop and left the island to heal itself under the winter snows.

A government-issue Brigadoon. And what is known of the people of Brigadoon? The ninety-nine years that they are hidden in the mists, what do they do to pass the time? Somehow Anna couldn’t picture the Bradshaws puttering around the house, watching television, going to a bed that didn’t rock and bob with the moods of the lake.

“Who told the Bradshaws about Denny?” Anna asked the Chief Ranger.

“Nobody. Couldn’t raise the Third Sister by radio. And we didn’t have any luck by phone. The only number we have for the Bradshaws is the number at the Voyageur Marina in Grand Portage. I left a message with the old guy that runs the place but they never called me. They don’t know Denny’s dead-shouldn’t know, anyway.”

Anna understood the implication. Denny Castle’s body was found in a place only a handful of people had the courage or the skill to go. The Bradshaws would top the list of murder suspects.

“I hear Holly was pretty upset about Denny’s marriage to Jo,” Lucas began the fishing. “Hell hath no fury? Her and Denny?”

“Holly was unhappy but she wasn’t spitting tacks,” Anna said carefully. “I’d think if her lover was marrying another woman there’d‘ve been more china through the plate glass, if you know what I mean. Maybe it was just that Jo would break up the Three Musketeers. The Bradshaws have been diving with Denny a long time. I got the feeling they’d be pretty lost without him. Maybe even out of business. Who owns the Third Sister?”

“I always assumed it belonged to Denny but I never asked,” Lucas replied. “I’ll ask.”

Including gear, the dive boat would be worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Anna picked up Lucas’s field glasses from the instrument panel and looked at the docked vessel now less than a quarter of a mile away.

“They’ve got Denny’s gear aboard,” she said. Castle was what some of the lake divers referred to as a clotheshorse. He had a lot of fancy equipment. Anna recognized his distinctive orange dry suit.

“We knew it wasn’t on Denny.”

“How in the hell did he get down there?” Anna wondered aloud.

“Either he put himself there, or somebody else did. Maybe the autopsy will tell us something. If there are tire tracks on his chest or a piece of hot dog lodged in his throat, we can figure somebody else did.”

“In an antique sailor suit,” Anna added.

“In an antique sailor suit. Maybe he borrowed gear, put the costume on, dived, dumped his tanks. Suicide.”

“On his honeymoon?”

Lucas said nothing and Anna was reminded that the Castles’ marriage had not been made in heaven but forged from equal parts determination and rebound. Even this “honeymoon” was a working vacation. The 3rd Sister had clients arriving on the next Ranger III,

“In thirty-four-degree water he’d have been dead of hypothermia before he reached the engine room,” Anna said.

“Possibly. Maybe he had the costume under the dry suit. No… Nix that theory. Ralph and I didn’t see any suit or tanks and he couldn’t have swum far without them. He must have been killed above the water, then the corpse was hidden there.”

“In the hope it would get lost in the crowd?” Anna asked dubiously.

“No good either,” Lucas contradicted himself. “I don’t think the ‘hide in plain sight’ axiom works with such a celebrated collection of bodies as inhabit the Kamloops.”

“He could have been put there just for that; to be seen. A warning of some kind,” Anna suggested. “Like drug dealers who break legs, or a mob execution.”

“Could be. That would make the Feds doubly happy: a drug-connected mob killing.”

Anna laughed. Even given the circumstances, it felt good. Especially given the circumstances.

“Do you know Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke?” Lucas asked abruptly. “They’re SCAs at Rock. Flaky. Naturalists.”

“I know them,” Anna said. She didn’t know whether to bring up Charlie-Mott-cum-reincarnation-and-cannibalism or not, so she waited.

For a moment Lucas didn’t go on. He looked as if he struggled with a statement as absurd as the one resting under Anna’s tongue. Then he chuckled to himself and shook his head. “I was down at the marina fueling the boat when they heard of Denny’s death. They were trying to catch that herring gull-the one that’s got a fishhook stuck in its beak- so they could get the hook out before the bird starves. Jim came in on the Loon, saw a couple of fresh ears, and started babbling out the story-Tattinger, by the way, spilled the beans about the location of the body. Anyway, Tinker looked at Damien and said: ‘The Kamloops. Yes. Denny would want to look after his friends.’ ” The recitation finished, Lucas looked uncomfortable with the telling. He fiddled with the throttles, cutting back to a speed that wouldn’t wake the boats moored at the dock.

Anna speculated that he’d taken comfort in Tinker’s off-beat theory and was too much of a man to be easy with that.

“It’s as good an explanation as any we’ve come up with,” she said. “It certainly fits with the personality involved better. I can’t see Denny Castle dealing with drugs or mobsters, but it’s not hard to imagine him standing guard for all eternity over the submerged treasures of Lake Superior.”

Lucas snorted genteelly. Though he’d brought the subject up, this line of conversation was to be at an end. Anna fell silent and Vega turned his attention to docking the Lorelei.

Bow and stern lines in hand, Anna jumped ashore and tied off while Vega shut down the engines. Through the cabin window she saw him take off the green NPS baseball cap and put on the flat-brimmed straw hat used on official occasions.

Lucas stepped onto the dock, smoothing his coarse black hair where the hat ruffled it. “Stay close,” he said. Obediently, Anna followed him down the dock and stood by as he knocked on the cabin of the 3rd Sister.

The windows were open but all the curtains were drawn, and when there was no answer, Anna wondered if Hawk and Holly had gone ashore for some reason. Lucas knocked again.

Scarcely louder than the squeaking of the boats as they rubbed their fenders between dock and hull, mutterings leaked through the cabin windows. Hawk and Holly were conferring in whispers.

Anna reminded herself that under scrutiny all human foibles appeared to be suspicious behaviors. She exchanged a look with Lucas and he knocked a third time.

The cabin door opened. Hawk, tousled and blinking, looked up at them.

“Sleeping?” Lucas asked politely.

“No.” Hawk looked over his shoulder into the cabin’s interior. “No, we were just…” The words trailed off as if he couldn’t concentrate long enough to finish the sentence. “Sorry. Come aboard if you want. We can put on coffee or something, I guess.”

Anna had seldom heard a less gracious invitation but it seemed borne more of embarrassment than malice.

“Holly, we got company,” Hawk said and they heard a muted scramble from within as he vanished inside. Lucas followed.

“The quarters are cramped. You stay on deck.” The Chief Ranger-half in, half out of the cabin-fixed Anna with a stare to be sure she understood what he wanted.

She did. He closed the door behind him. Through the window Anna heard him saying: “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Denny’s been killed.” Only silence answered him. Neither Hawk nor Holly asked how or when, neither cried out.

Anna was glad to be on deck. Other people’s angst sawed at the nerves like a dry wind.

Remembering Lucas’s pointed stare, she stopped eavesdropping and began searching the deck; not looking for anything, just looking at what was there and what was not.

Gear was piled in every available place. Besides two bottle caps, a bit of braided black nylon cord, one broken thong sandal, and the usual boat supplies, there was full diving paraphernalia for three people and a portable air compressor-the gasoline-driven kind that was the bane of lovers of quietude-for recharging spent tanks. As a rule divers recharged their tanks immediately after use. Six one-hundred-cubic-foot scuba tanks were piled in a pyramid between the box covering the engine and the hull. An oversized single with a Y valve that Anna recognized as Denny’s had rolled to one side.

She glanced at the pressure gauges. All the one hundreds were fully charged. The single was only half full. There could be a dozen good reasons the single had not been topped off. Hawk or Holly might have used it on a dive earlier that day. Most ISRO dives didn’t require double hundreds. The regulator might have been damaged. They could have run out of fuel for the compressor, or just gotten lazy.

But to a suspicious mind it could suggest that when the Bradshaws had filled the tanks the previous day, they had known Denny would not be needing his.

Lucas’s interview with the twins was neither reassuring nor conclusive: The Bradshaws, he said, reacted as if dead inside. Maybe shock, maybe forewarning-Vega was a ranger, not a shrink.