Icy Clutches

Chapter 12

For fifteen minutes, comfortably occupying the largest armchair in the upstairs lounge, Walter Judd had snuffled, chortled, and suspender-snapped his way through John's questions. No, he hadn't seen Audley after the cocktail hour last night. Yes, he himself had gone directly to his room after dinner and remained there all night. No, there wasn't anyone who could confirm that; just what was Mr. Lau insinuating? (Chuckle, rumble, snap, snap.) Yes, his room was next to Tremaine's, but no, he hadn't heard anything unusual, or anything at all for that matter.

Now, at John's latest question he stopped with his thumb hooked in a suspender strap. “Would you mind repeating that?"

"Sure. Who do you think killed Tremaine?"

"Now there's a question. My, my. Must I really answer that?"

"No, sir,” John said affably, “but I thought you'd want to help."

Judd slowly eased the band back. “Well, I just might. May I assume anything I tell you is confidential?"

"No,” John said, “you can't.” He had learned a long time ago that nine times out of ten, once someone got as far as asking him that question-paid informers excepted-the information was already as good as given, regardless of his answer. Refusing confidentiality at the outset made life simpler and saved grief all around.

Judd chuckled softly. “You certainly don't give a man a lot of room. Well, I don't imagine I'm telling you anything you don't already know if I say that the Illustrious Deceased had a somewhat, ah, shall we say, tarnished reputation when it came to using other people's ideas. Without attribution, I need hardly add."

"You don't sound as if you liked him very much."

"And who do you know who did?” Judd smiled. “Anyone of normal intelligence, I mean. And not counting his legion of adoring television fans.” The smile broadened. “Two mutually exclusive categories, I should think."

"Go ahead and tell me about his using other people's ideas."

"For example: A few years after the expedition, he published a very well received monograph on postglacial Rosacea dryas colonization. Anna Henckel claimed, quite probably with cause, that most of the ideas were stolen from her own unpublished work."

"And Dr. Henckel resented this?"

Judd gave him an amused look. “A bit,” he said drily. “To be frank, Anna still resents him quite bitterly. The other night in the bar, she was beating us about the head and shoulders with Audley's mismanagement of the Tirku survey.” He shook his bearish head wonderingly. “I mean to say, it's been thirty years."

"Us?"

"Gerald Pratt and me, though I don't think she ever quite got through to poor Gerald. One often doesn't."

"What was she saying?"

Judd blew out his lips and fluttered them like a horse. “God knows. She had some ancient memo, some self-serving document written by an obscure federal minion and mercifully lost in the files all these years, I suspect. Frankly, I wasn't paying much attention. Audley did botch things, of course, but after all this time, who cares? Unless, of course, he was going to gloss them over in his precious book and blame the problems on certain other people-which I wouldn't have put past him-in which case I, too, was prepared to set him straight. Oh, yes."

The botanist began chortling again. “If you were a botanist you'd have heard of the famous-the infamous-scene between Anna and Audley at the ASPT conference in 1969. Or 1968, was it? No, 1969; the year it was in Phoenix."

John waited patiently.

Judd's small eyes twinkled with remembered pleasure. “This was after an acrimonious exchange of letters in the Journal of Phylogeography that followed the publication of Audley's monograph. Anna had spat accusations and Audley had waffled, both true to form. Well, while Audley was speaking at a plenary session, Anna stood up in the audience and challenged him. And he refused to acknowledge her."

He leaned forward, eager and happy. “Whereupon the fearsome Henckel simply stood there and stared him down until he more or less wilted to a halt.” He rubbed his hands together. “Then she said-and I do mean said: ‘You, sir, have the balls of a fish!’ Upon which she stamped grandly out, thumping that staff of hers, her great black Dracula cape billowing."

His body began to jiggle with mirth. “Not being a piscine anatomist I can't vouch for how much sense it makes biologically, but I can tell you it brought down the house. Without fear of contradiction I may say that it has entered the annals of botanical legend.” He laid his head comfortably back and laughed without sound, eyes closed, shoulders shaking. It occurred to John that he was always making noise-sniffling, wheezing, snorting-except when he laughed. That he did silently.

The botanist was built like a turnip. His excess weight was all above the waist, mostly in that high, swollen belly. Below, he was chunky and solid, even at sixty. No spreading, sagging butt, no jellied thighs. A powerful man for all the fat, John thought; wide-shouldered, massive, thick-armed.

"Tell me,” John said, “did Tremaine ever steal any of your ideas?"

Judd clutched at his heart. “Egad, I'm a suspect!” His shoulders started jiggling again. “Sorry, Mr. Lau, I'm flattered, but I'm afraid I never impressed Audley enough for him to covet any of my ideas. More's the pity, more's the pity.” The jiggling slowly subsided. He batted a finger back and forth across pursed lips. “Although I suppose I should mention in this regard that there was some trouble between Audley and…no, no, that couldn't have any relevance to this."

John waited for him to go on. Outside of the movies, had he ever heard anyone say “egad” before?

"Really, no, it couldn't,” Judd said. “I don't know what I was thinking of."

"You never know,” John said. “Why don't you just tell me?"

"Well, it was one of Audley's graduate students: Steven Fisk. Steve seemed to think that Audley had appropriated some of his data, too. I seem to remember some grumbling about it from time to time, but it never came to anything. Of course he was Audley's student, and professors are expected to steal from their students, aren't they? In any case, Steve's been dead for all this time now, so…” He spread his palms and shrugged. “Well, you see, it just doesn't apply. Sed hoc nihil ad rem."

"Uh-huh,” John said, not willing to give him the satisfaction of asking him what it meant. “I understand you just missed getting caught in the avalanche yourself. You were sick that day?"

"I was attacked, sir. By a vicious specimen of Culex pipiens." Again he closed his eyes and shook his bulky shoulders, consumed with his odd, silent hilarity. “The things that lay men low."

John recrossed his legs and quietly sighed. He didn't think much of this heavy-footed posturing. He wasn't sure if the botanist was putting him down, or putting him on, or if maybe this was just some kind of standard routine he went in for. Whichever, it didn't make him like the man any better, or trust him, either.

"So what is that, some kind of bug?” he asked.

"Indeed, a mosquito of particularly nasty disposition. Apparently I'd been bitten several days before, and the bite had gotten infected without my realizing it. True, I wasn't feeling my best, but I flew out to Tirku with the others, determined to do my part. But when our exalted leader caught a glimpse of my wrist he said no. Despite my protestations, I was forced to remain down below on the beach, at the edge of the lateral moraine, while the others trekked across the glacier to the survey area."

"You wanted to go with them?"

"Certainly. In the strongest imaginable way, but Audley was adamant."

"The airplane had already gone back? Is that why you had to stay on the beach?"

"That's right. It was a seaplane. It was coming back for us later."

"So you were on the beach when the avalanche hit?"

"Yes, wallowing in bitterness and self-pity.” He pursed his lips. “Of course, as it turned out, I suppose you could say I was lucky."

"I suppose you could. What did you do when it happened?"

Judd seemed startled. “Do? What was there to do?” For the first time he treated a question as something other than a rich, juicy joke.

"You heard it, didn't you?"

"I saw it. In a general sense, I mean,” he added hurriedly. “I saw it sliding down the mountain. It was terrifying, unbelievable.” He sobered still more. “I didn't actually see it strike them, of course."

"Did you go up and try to help them? Find them?"

It seemed to take a few seconds for the question to get through. Judd sat like a plaster Buddha, his smile frozen, his hands clasped motionless over his belly. Even his wheeze was suspended. The only sound was a soft thud from the stone fireplace. Someone had lit a fire hours before, but it had been allowed to go out. A few blackened remnants of logs still smoldered.

"Find them?” Judd said at last. He gave an incredulous snort. “I don't believe you have any idea of the colossal-of the-It was unbelievable, stupendous. And I was desperately ill. I-"

"Ill? I thought you wanted to go with them."

"Well, I did, yes. But that had been hours before. They'd already done their reconnaissance and were on their way back when it happened. By that time I was feverish, weak…"

"So it turned out Tremaine was right about the bite."

"Well, yes,” Judd said grudgingly, “you could say that. Anyway, the first search plane arrived in less than an hour. What was there for me to do besides stay where I was and wait?"

John could think of a few things, but kept his thoughts to himself. “Afterwards,” he said, “did you get medical care for those bites?"

"I can't remember,” Judd said. He seemed offended at the question. “Wait a minute, yes I do. I was treated at the hospital in Juneau. I was put on antibiotics for ten days. I'm sure there's a record. And now I think I have a right to know why you're asking these questions. If there's any relevance to Audley's death I fail to see it."

"I'm not just looking into Tremaine's death, Dr. Judd. As I think you know, there's reason to think there was another murder-"

"Another…"

"-almost thirty years ago. We-"

Judd whistled softly. “Of course, of course. What with poor Audley, I'd almost forgotten. You're investigating James Pratt's death too, aren't you?"

John looked at him, his interest quickening. All he knew was that there was a piece of a male skull that had had an ice ax put through it. Gideon had said it could be Pratt's or it could be Steven Fisk's. Two possibilities, take your choice.

"What makes you think that was Pratt's skull?” he asked. “Well, whose else would it be?"

"What about Steve Fisk?"

"Steve Fisk?” Judd seemed honestly surprised at the idea. “I suppose it's possible, but…"

John waited.

"I don't like to pass on gossip,” Judd said with an unconvincing show of reluctance, “and I hesitate to speak ill of the dead…” Aside from M. Audley Tremaine, John thought. “Go ahead, Dr. Judd."

"Very well. Were you aware that Steve was engaged to Jocelyn Yount, the female graduate student who was with us?"

John nodded.

"Well, Jocelyn was-how shall I put it?-a rather odd young lady. She was bright but extremely passive, compliant, almost childlike. No self-discipline, no judgment-and not constitutionally inclined toward, er, celibacy, if you get my drift."

Judd reached down to tug his ankle onto his knee and wedge it forcibly into place. He leaned forward conspiratorially and leered, male to male. “What it added up to,” he said, lowering his voice, “was that Jocelyn Yount was hardly the world's most difficult lay, if you'll pardon my Latin.” He made a snuffling noise. His small eyes twinkled. “I do not speak from personal experience, I hasten to add."

"You were telling me why you think that's Pratt's skull,” John said.

Judd chewed his lower lip for a moment. “I think it was the weekend before the avalanche. Steve flew back to Juneau for the day for something or other-supplies, I suppose. The rest of us took most of the day off and James talked Jocelyn into going off on a picnic, which didn't take much talking. Anyway, Steve got back to Gustavus before they did, and when they finally got in, you'd have had to be blind not to see what they'd been up to. Well, Steve had had this sort of trouble with Jocelyn before, and he just blew up, literally flung himself on James like a panther. Chairs flying, Jocelyn screaming-oh, it was quite a show. You can ask Audley-oops.” He rolled back his head and chuckled warmly. “Well, that might be a little difficult, but you can ask Anna. She was there too."

"Who got the best of it?” John asked.

"Oh, Steve, quite definitely. They were both powerful men, you understand, but James was in the wrong and knew it. Besides, he was caught by surprise. This wild animal just leaped on him. He wound up on his back with Steve straddling his chest, pummeling away like a madman-"

"Were there any injuries?” John asked, remembering what Gideon had told him about the mandible. “To Pratt's jaw? Or Fisk's jaw, for that matter?"

"Injuries?” Judd made chewing motions, presumably to help him remember. “Well, there was a little blood, I think. James had a split lip, a few scrapes, no more than that. Why do you ask?"

"Go ahead,” John said. “What happened then?"

"Somehow Audley cooled things down before anyone got killed, but Steve took himself pretty seriously, you see, and this was a real blow to his ego, his manhood, whatever. And the fact that Jocelyn truly couldn't see what all the fuss was about didn't make him any happier. Audley insisted on a truce, and Jocelyn got a fatherly lecture, too, but it was all very touchy, very uncomfortable, from then on."

He went back to snapping his suspender strap gently, thoughtfully. “Well, when I heard yesterday that someone had apparently been murdered, I assumed…well, obviously."

"Assumed what, Dr. Judd?"

"Well, I can't say that I reasoned it through very carefully. I suppose I assumed there must have been another confrontation out there on the ice before the avalanche struck, and that Steve-well-killed James."

"Why not the other way around? Pratt must have had it in for Fisk too."

"Oh, well, I suppose so, but James was a quiet, sober sort. He knew he had that licking coming and he took it like a man. Steve was more of a brawler by nature; thin-skinned, belligerent, quarrelsome…"

Judd's fingers drummed thoughtfully on either side of his abdomen while he searched for more adjectives. For a man who hesitated to speak ill of the dead he was pretty good at it, once he got going.

"It doesn't sound as if you liked him too much yourself,” John said.

The fingers stopped their tapping. “Ah, liked him myself?"

I hit some kind of nerve there, John thought. He's thinking hard. “Did you and Fisk have a problem?"

Judd tipped back his head and chortled. “Why should there have been a problem? He was Audley's student, not mine, and Audley was welcome to him."

John waited for him to go on. Judd was hiding something, waffling, embroidering the facts. Something.

"Oh, I suppose you could say I didn't care for his ways too much, but no, there was no problem, none at all. Steve and I got along just fine."

Something.

"I make no secret of it,” Anna Henckel said forthrightly. “Professor Tremaine was no friend of mine; there was little about him I respected.” She hesitated, not something she did often, John imagined. “But I am sorry he was murdered in that way."

Did that mean she'd have preferred some other way? Dr. Henckel didn't show much in the way of grief for the dead Tremaine. No more than Judd had. She had made an impressive entrance in her “Dracula cape"-not black these days, but bottle green-a dramatic, full-length, collared cape held together at the neck by a heavy chain. She had set the staff she carried in a corner and had taken the one unpadded wooden chair in the upstairs lounge. Since then she had sat with the cape around her shoulders, stiff and distant, as restrained as Judd had been wriggly. Occasionally she took a puff from a cigarillo, held between the tips of her thumb and middle finger, European-fashion.

"What was it about him you didn't like?” he asked.

"Because you are a policeman is no reason to dissimulate,” Anna replied sharply.

These weren't exactly your everyday interviews. He'd been at it only an hour and already he'd run into an “egad” and a “dissimulate.” What next?

"I'm aware,” she went on, “that you've already talked with Walter. Do not ask me to believe he passed up the opportunity to prattle about my long-standing differences with Professor Tremaine."

"I think maybe he did say something about it, now that you mention it,” John allowed.

Anna studied him expressionlessly. If that was her you-sir-have-the-balls-of-a-fish look, no wonder Tremaine had wilted.

"I'd like to hear your version,” he said.

"It's very simple, Mr. Lau. I did not dislike him. I was…disappointed in him. As a young man he had had enormous potential; a truly original mind, capable of the highest level of synthetic thinking. He had already done great work in the 1950s. He might have become…” For a moment the aloof gray eyes gleamed, but she cut herself off with a tired wave. “However, he threw it all away."

"To become a TV star?"

"No, that was later. That followed, perhaps inevitably. No, he threw it away by taking the easy course, not the scientist's way. He was lazy and he was dishonest,” she said flatly. “He plagiarized the ideas of others, Mr. Lau. No, that isn't the right word. He stole the ideas of others."

"Including yours."

"Most definitely. In 1966 he wrote a monograph, in its time a significant contribution, in which his ‘new’ approach to the nondirectional complexities of primary-plant succession were taken directly from an unfinished paper on which I had been working for more than a year."

"Rough."

The lounge was warm but she pulled the collar of the cape a little closer around her. “Afterwards I made the most strenuous objections, quite publicly, and he baldly denied my accusations. That's all there was to it."

"You never got any satisfaction?"

One gray eyebrow rose. “Prior to last night, you mean?"

John didn't smile. “Prior to last night."

"Once in print he went so far as to say that it was conceivable we had gotten the same idea at the same time, but that he had simply been fortunate to publish first. Like Darwin and Wallace, you know? That was not enough for me."

"Sorry, I know who Darwin was,” John said. “I'm afraid I never heard of Wallace."

She smiled for the first time. Not with humor, but not with malice either. “That is precisely my point."

"It must have been pretty hard to take."

"Mr. Lau,” she said wearily, “if I had wanted to kill him over it, I assure you I would have done it many, many years ago, not now. Believe me, I put all this behind me when I left the hallowed halls of ivy for the far more civilized world of commerce."

"That was when?"

"In 1970. I've been with Amore Cosmetics ever since. I'm now their director of research and development."

"Have you had much contact with Tremaine since then?"

"None at all. It was a chapter in my life I was happy to close. Nothing until his publisher contacted me about this book of his."

"You must have had to take a week's leave to come here."

"Yes, a week's vacation."

"Why?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why use up a week's vacation for this if you put it behind you long ago? Why not just let him write whatever he wanted to?"

She stared silently out the window for a moment. “Audley was incapable of perceiving his own inadequacies, Mr. Lau. I have no doubt whatever that his book would have blamed his misdirection of the expedition on others. Especially on me, as the assistant director. I couldn't allow that."

"You think he misdirected the expedition?"

She gave a dry bark of laughter and looked levelly at him again. “Yes, I think he misdirected the expedition. I make no secret of that either."

"I understand you have some kind of report on that."

"I have?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

"You were showing it to some of the others in the bar."

"Oh, that, yes. Not a report, but a Park Service memorandum: the results of a pro forma investigation concerned with the tragedy. Sketchy as it is, there is no doubt about Audley's culpability."

"I'd like to see it, please."

"As I recall, I gave the copy I have with me to Mr. Pratt. But I can tell you what it said, Mr. Lau. Simply this: They should never have been on the glacier that day. There had been increasing earth tremors, even small avalanches, and what did any of us know about ice travel? I advised against it, the Park Service advised against it. But no, he knew better. And as a result of his obstinacy and Walter's incompetence, three young people died."

Two, John thought. One was already dead when the avalanche hit, assuming Gideon was right. Which he was, of course.

"Or rather two,” Anna murmured, in tune with him. “I understand someone seems to have been killed with an ice ax before the avalanche struck. Can you tell me which one it was?"

"I don't know which one it was. I hear there was some bad feeling among the crew."

"Oh, yes, there was considerable bad feeling."

"Over what?"

"Over Jocelyn Yount, primarily.” The dry, scaly corners of her mouth turned down. “She was a woman of scant discretion and few morals. To her, anything wearing trousers…surely Walter didn't fail to go into this?"

"No, ma'am. He told me her fiancee and James Pratt fought over her, that Fisk physically attacked Pratt."

"That is true."

"Would you care to make a guess about what happened out there on the ice?"

"No. Is there anything else?"

"Dr. Henckel, you said Jocelyn Yount was the primary cause of bad feeling. Does that mean there were other causes?"

"I see no relevance to what you are investigating, but at the end, of course, we were all somewhat irritated with Walter."

"Why was that?"

She eyed him. “You don't know why it was they had to go back into the field that final day, the day of the avalanche?"

"No, ma'am."

"Ah,” she said with a pale smile. “So Dr. Judd left a few things out of his account after all."

"Maybe he forgot."

Again the shadowed smile. “I don't think so."

"Suppose you tell me then."

She pulled the high collar closer about her neck, “Mr. Lau, our fieldwork had already been completed. We were to leave for home the next day. Our equipment was packed. And then it was found that Walter had bungled his sampling. An immediate, unscheduled field trip was required to regather the contaminated data. We had to put off our departure. Naturally, this was a source of annoyance and some bad feeling."

John played a hunch. “Between Steve Fisk and Dr. Judd in particular?"

If the question surprised her she didn't show it. “Yes, it was Steven who discovered Walter's slovenliness and called it to our attention. Being Steven, he was not overly charitable in his manner of doing it. Walter held his tongue at the time-what could he say?-but I imagine that-being Walter-there was some sulking and resentment later, in the privacy of his room."

Bingo. Judd had been covering something up, all right. Dissimulating like hell.

"You needn't look so keen, Mr. Lau. Steven may have been murdered, but Walter didn't do it. He may be a weak man, an ineffectual man, but he is not a bad man. Besides, I saw him when he was brought out, and I assure you he was in no condition to do anyone violence; his infection was very real."

Was it? Or had he somehow faked those bites? Had he remained behind on the beach for only an hour or two, then gone sneaking after Steve Fisk, disgraced and enraged, to bury that ice ax in his skull? And now, thirty years later, had he throttled Tremaine to keep him from revealing it in his book? No, that didn't add up. How could you “sneak” across a glacier? How could Judd have managed to escape the avalanche himself and get back to the beach? And why would Tremaine have kept quiet about it all these years? For that matter-whoever had really swung that ax-why had Tremaine kept quiet? Because he'd done it himself, as Gideon had thought? Maybe, but now his own murder raised questions about that.

John scribbled a few notes, reminders of things to look into. “You yourself weren't with them that day."

"No. I remained at our headquarters in Gustavus."

"The headquarters were in Gustavus? Not here?"

"There was no ‘here.’ This lodge was not built until 1965. No, we rented a house in Gustavus, and it was there that I stayed, redoing our frequency distributions and dot maps. This was at Audley's express instruction."

"Uh-huh.” There didn't seem to be much point in continuing in that direction. “A few minutes ago you said Jocelyn went after everything in pants. Did that include Tremaine? Were there any problems there?"

"Females,” she said stiffly, “were not one of Audley's problems."

John glanced up from his notebook. “Are you saying he was gay, ma'am?"

"No, Mr. Lau,” she said quietly, looking out the window. “I have no knowledge of or interest in his sex life. I only know that women were not central to him. A woman can tell such things. I was young then myself, remember, and would have known if his attitude toward me had included anything more than-” She jerked her head angrily and ground out the stub of her cigarillo. “Why are we discussing these things? If you have no questions more pertinent than these, I would like to go now."

"Yes, ma'am, you can go. Thanks for your cooperation."

He watched her descend the open stairwell, erect and regal, thumping her polished wooden staff as she went. Step, thunk, step, thunk, step, thunk.

John dropped his notebook into his shirt pocket. Deep stuff here, he thought.