Icy Clutches

Chapter 14

Gideon's appetite had caught up with him. He swallowed a mouthful of cold poached salmon and mayonnaise, followed it with a hearty helping of coleslaw and half a small boiled potato, and bit into a sourdough roll. Then he pulled over a nearby chair, propped his feet on it, fixed the plate more firmly on his lap, and settled down to serious eating.

On the other side of the small table, in much the same posture, John, whose appetite never needed to do any catching up, was working on his own heaped plate. They had brought their food from the buffet to John's room, preferring to keep their distance from the members of Tremaine's party, who were at lunch in the dining room.

"Food's good here,” John said. On his plate were three pieces of fried chicken, two wedges of salami pizza, and a jelly donut.

"You know Marti's going to ask me if you ate lots of monounsaturates and complex carbohydrates,” Gideon said. “And fiber. What am I supposed to tell her?"

John's wife Marti attacked the hopeless task of reforming her husband's eating habits with a resolute affability that was remarkable in the face of continual defeat. For his part, John resisted with equal good humor.

"Tell her I did,” he said around a mouthful of pizza. “It'll make her feel good.” He washed it down with a swig of Sprite. “So what do you think, Doc? Do scientists really go around knocking each other off over who got which idea first?” He had just finished telling Gideon about his sessions with Walter Judd and Anna Henckel.

Gideon swallowed some grapefruit juice while he thought about it. “When I was within a couple of months of finishing my dissertation, I heard that somebody at the University of Chicago was doing one on the same subject. Believe me, if it'd been true, and if murder had been the only way to keep him from coming out with it first-well, I wouldn't have wanted to put any money on his survival chances."

"Come on, seriously."

Gideon eased the edge of his fork through some more of the pale, tender salmon. “I don't know, John. I don't know anything about Henckel, but, generally speaking, scientists take those things pretty seriously."

"Like Darwin and Wallace,” John said knowingly.

Gideon looked at him, impressed. “Yes. But I can't see her waiting all this time."

John shrugged. “Well, maybe seeing him again brought it all back. I think she had a thing for him, you know? Something she wouldn't even admit to herself. A person's judgment gets screwed up when that happens."

"Maybe,” Gideon said. “Do you actually believe this, or are you just throwing around ideas?"

"Just throwing around ideas. Our boy Judd's got a pretty good motive too. Did you know he is up for some high mucky-muck state job? An appointment by the governor?"

Gideon shook his head.

"Well, he is. Imagine if all this stuff got raked up in Tremaine's book. First the guy messes up his work so bad they have to go out and do it over again. Then he sits around nursing a mosquito bite, for Christ's sake, while they're all getting creamed in an avalanche-which they wouldn't be, if not for his screw-up-and he doesn't even try to help them."

"You think the governor might think twice about appointing him?"

"I know if I was Judd I'd be worrying about it.” He began shifting things on the table, looking for something. “Damn, didn't I get any ketchup?"

"For pizza?"

"What, are you kidding me? For the chicken. Ah,” he said, and tore open a packet that had been under the edge of his tray. He made a puddle of it on the rim of his plate, stuck in a piece of chicken thigh, and heartily bit in. “Two interviews, two suspects,” he mused, chewing. “By the time I talk to the other three I'll probably have five."

Gideon nodded. “It just about has to be one of the people he was meeting with, doesn't it? No one else here had any connection with him. That we know of,” he said as an afterthought.

"Yeah. Of course it's possible someone came in from the outside, did it, and took off again, but pretty unlikely. They'd have had to come by plane, either to Gustavus or straight to Bartlett Cove by seaplane. Pretty hard to do that without being noticed."

"And pretty hard to wander inconspicuously around the lodge looking for Tremaine's room when there are only a few guests and everybody knows everybody else by sight."

"That's right. I got initial statements from all of them, you know. Nobody saw any strangers. Nobody saw any anybodies. They all had dinner together-expecting Tremaine, who never showed-and then around seven they started going to their rooms. So they said. Shirley Yount read in front of the fire till eight-thirty, then she went to her room too. Nobody came out again till this morning."

"Well, one person did."

"True."

They addressed their food for a while, looking out the window at a forest of young alder and hemlock, A couple of the turkey-sized, speckled birds that hung around the woods meandered vacantly among the trees. Blue grouse, Julie had said they were. The day had gotten so gloomy the, lights were on in the room.

"Doesn't the sun ever shine around here?” John said.

Gideon laughed. “You've only been here four hours."

"It's as bad as Seattle,” John muttered, swabbing up a glob of ketchup with a thickly battered, unidentifiable piece of chicken (assuming there was any chicken under the deep-fried coating). He chewed with placid enjoyment, his muscular jaws working slowly. “They're sending out another agent to work with me. He'll be out on today's plane. Julian Minor. Remember him?"

"Wasn't he with you on the Lake Quinault killings?"

"That's the one."

Gideon recalled a middle-aged black man, competent and methodical, with rimless glasses, neat, grizzled hair, and the chubby, tidy, pin-striped appearance of a contented tax accountant. And a prim, anachronistic vocabulary straight out of the age of celluloid collars: “Be that as it may…” “I take your point…” “Thus and so…"

"I remember him,” Gideon said.

"Well, he sure remembers you."

"Did he ever forgive me?"

"What's to forgive? Just because you left him cooking a putrid piece of cadaver in a pot on a stove for three hours?"

"Two hours,” Gideon said.

Other than that, John's description was accurate. A rotting human hip joint had been found in a river, and Gideon had had to boil the shreds of flesh off the bones with an antiformin and sodium-hydroxide solution. But he'd had to go somewhere, and somehow poor Julian Minor, with his white shirt cuffs folded neatly back, had gotten stuck with the task of periodically stirring the greasy mess with a long wooden spoon. Like a witch in Macbeth. He had given Gideon a lot of room after that.

"Well, there won't be any cooking chores this time,” Gideon said. “Did the people from the crime lab finish up?"

"Oh, yeah, they're gone. So's the body. Dr. Wu too. You want to guess what they looked for and didn't find?"

"Fingerprints?” Gideon said after a moment.

"Good guess. Oh, there were plenty of latents on the walls and towel racks and stuff; they probably go back weeks."

"Years."

"Fingerprints don't last years. Didn't you know that?” Gideon glowered at him.

"Anyhow,” John said cheerfully, “the front doorknob was wiped off-nothing on it but the maid's prints-and the handle on the closet, and Tremaine's boots, and a few other things. The killer was careful.” He finished the piece of chicken and wiped his fingers with a napkin. “Guess what else they didn't find."

Gideon shook his head. “I have no idea."

"Tremaine's book,” John said. “The manuscript."

Gideon put down the piece of roll he was buttering. “Maybe he kept it in the hotel safe."

"Nope, “I checked."

"Well, there must be other copies somewhere, John. He wouldn't have just one. Maybe he left one at home. Maybe his publisher has a draft."

"No good.” John told him about two telephone calls he'd made to Los Angeles. He'd spoken to Valerie Kaufman, Tremaine's editor at Javelin Press, and to Talia Lundquist, his agent. Both said they didn't have copies of the manuscript and hadn't ever seen it. More than that, neither of them knew exactly what was in it.

John shook his head. “Do you buy that? Javelin was paying him half a million bucks without knowing what the book was about?"

"I don't think it's that unusual, John, especially with a celebrity author."

"You're kidding. Is that the way it is when you write something?"

Gideon laughed. Having published one extremely esoteric graduate textbook and several dozen scholarly articles and monographs, he knew little about half-million-dollar advances. Or any other kind of advances.

"Not in my kind of writing,” he said. “The American Journal of Physical Anthropology lures its contributors with glory, not gold. And I have to send in detailed abstracts first. But I'd think someone like Tremaine would be in a different league. Anything he wrote would be as near to a guaranteed best-seller as you could come."

"Yeah. Well, Javelin knows it's about the expedition and that there's some sensational stuff that hasn't ever come out before.” He took out his notebook and flipped it open. “'Dissension and jealousy among crew, open conflict…'” He glanced up. “'…and murder.’”

Gideon put down his fork. “Murder? So they do know-"

John shook his head. “All they know is that there was a murder. That was all he told them."

Not who had been murdered, or by whom, or how, or why. Those little matters he'd preferred to keep to himself. But it had been enough for Javelin. Now, of course, with Tremaine dead-sensationally dead-they were desperate for a copy themselves.

"There has to be one somewhere,” Gideon said. “I can't believe he wouldn't have a backup copy."

"If he did, no one's seen it. From what I hear he was a little paranoid about copies."

There was an agitated barrage of knocks on the door. “Inspector! Inspector!"

John looked at Gideon. “Jesus, what now?"

"It sounds like Elliott Fisk,” Gideon said.

It was. “I want to report a crime,” the dentist blurted as John yanked the door open.

"What happened?"

"My diary's been stolen! Well, not my diary, my journal. Well, not my journal-"

John stepped back from the door. “Why don't you come in and sit down, Dr. Fisk?"

"I don't want to sit down,” Fisk said petulantly, but he came in anyway and took the chair John had been using to prop up his feet. He glanced at Gideon and looked with distaste at the half-eaten lunches. “I want you to do something,” he told John. “It was my uncle's journal."

"Your uncle was Steven Fisk?” John turned the other chair backwards and sat down, forearms crossed on top of the back.

"Yes, of course."

"And this was a personal journal he kept?"

"Yes, yes, of course.” He was wiggling with impatience. “At the time of the expedition. It went to my father with his belongings when he died. My father was his brother."

"Uh-huh. What makes you think it was stolen?"

"I don't think it was stolen; it was stolen. A blue, diary-type notebook. I had it with me in the dining room this morning when I was having breakfast with the others. I left it on my chair when I went to get Professor Tremaine. That was when…” His eyelids flickered. “Well, you remember."

John nodded.

"When I realized I'd left it and came back later it wasn't there."

"Did you check with-"

"I checked with the help. They hadn't seen it. And with the others. They all claimed they hadn't seen it."

"Are you sure you had it with you? Did you look in your room?"

"I had it with me. I brought it for the session we were supposed to have.” He shook his head decisively. “Oh, it was stolen, all right."

"Uh-huh. Who would want to steal your uncle's journal?"

"Shirley Yount,” Elliott replied promptly.

"And just why would Shirley Yount want to do that, sir?"

"Don't patronize me, Inspector,” Fisk snapped.

"Sorry,” John said amiably. “Why do you think she took it? And I'm not an inspector."

"Because she was afraid of what was in it, naturally. She's afraid my uncle told the truth about her unspeakable sister. And he did. Oh, he certainly did."

"Her sister was Jocelyn Yount? Steven's fiancee?"

John knew more than he was telling Fisk; he just liked to hear things more than once. Gideon had already told him about the angry exchange he'd walked in on between Fisk and Shirley Yount the day before.

"Yes, and she was like a stone around his neck. Steve deserved better than her. He was a brilliant student.” Behind his beard, pale lips stretched in a catty smile. “Which Tremaine realized only too well. Steve did all the work, and the great Tremaine did all the publishing-with no credit, of course. That's all in the journal too. Oh, yes. With verification. You should have seen Tremaine's face-"

"What's this got to do with Shirley Yount, Dr. Fisk?"

Fisk bridled at being interrupted. “I was about to tell you before you got me off the track. Her sister was a tart. Can I be any plainer than that?"

"Did you know Jocelyn Yount yourself, Doctor?"

"Well, no, I didn't actually know her. But it's all in the journal."

"And you think Shirley stole it to protect the memory of her sister?"

Fisk turned to Gideon with a little moue of exasperation. At least, Gideon thought it was a moue. “Didn't I just say that?"

"I suppose you did,” John said with a quiet smile. “How would she know what was in the journal?"

"Everyone knew. I told them about it yesterday afternoon. It came up during the meeting."

"If they knew about it, and if they were with you in the dining room this morning-they were, weren't they…?"

"Yes," Fisk said with an imploring look heavenward. “My God, how many times do I have to repeat this? I wish you'd write it down if you can't remember."

"Then how do you know it was Shirley?” John said in the same calm voice. “Why not one of the others?"

Gideon marveled at his equanimity. John did not have a quick temper, exactly, but neither was he the most restrained of men, at least not in the many heated, arm-waving discussions he had had with Gideon over the years. This was business, though, and that clearly made it different. Besides, John had spent over an hour with Dr. Wu that morning; Elliott Fisk was child's play in comparison.

All the same, Gideon thought, if it were me I would have kicked the guy by now.

"It was Shirley Yount,” Fisk maintained. “Now are you going to do something about it, or are we going to sit here talking about it all day?"

"We'll do something about it, sir. I appreciate your telling me about it. I'll be in touch."

Fisk looked at Gideon again. “I gather I'm being dismissed."

John laughed good-naturedly and opened the door for him, then came back and picked up the last of the chicken pieces.

"John,” Gideon said. “I think you're actually mellowing."

"That's the way they teach us to do it at the academy.” He gnawed contentedly at the wing bone, searching out and finding the last resistant scraps of meat with his teeth. He was sitting on the base of his spine, with his feet back up on the other chair. “But inside I'm a mass of seething tensions."

"I can see that. It's terrifying.” Gideon finished the last of the salmon, slid the plate away, and popped up the lid on his coffee. “Do you think someone really stole his journal?"

"Someone, yeah. Maybe even Shirley, But not to protect her sister's memory. “I can't see that. Why should she care what Steve Fisk wrote in his journal all that time ago?” With the nail of a pinky he went after a shred of chicken between his lower incisors. “Why should anyone, for that matter?"

"I don't know. I'm betting it's got something to do with the murder, though."

"Could be. Whoever killed Tremaine-"

"Not that murder; the one in 1960."

"How do you come up with that?"

"Well, think about it: Yesterday we figure out that someone was murdered on that glacier-"

"You figure out. It makes me nervous when you get modest."

"-and inside of a few hours the only remaining person who was there gets strangled, and his description of it disappears. Then this morning the only other contemporaneous account of the survey that we know about disappears too. It can't be coincidence. There has to be a relationship.” The Law of Interconnected Monkey Business, his old professor and friend Abe Goldstein called it.

"Maybe, maybe not. Twenty-nine years is a long time ago. Maybe Tremaine got killed for some reason we don't know anything about; he didn't seem to have any problem ticking people off. And maybe Fisk's journal got ripped off for a completely different reason. Let's keep our options open.” He broke his donut in two and examined the interior, evidently finding it to his satisfaction.

"Let me ask you about something else, Doc. Maybe we can whittle down our suspects a little. Would a woman have been able to pull Tremaine's body into position like that? Actually lift him up off the floor and tie the thongs to the hook?"

Gideon leaned back in his chair, considering. “Well, those are two pretty hefty women you're thinking about. Anna Henckel must weigh a hundred and sixty; Shirley more. Tremaine was only a hundred and thirty-five or so. You'd get a lot of leverage from pulling the thongs over the top of the partition and then wrapping them around the hook as you went. And the body wouldn't have been hanging free, it would've been propped against the partition. That would have helped."

"So you're saying yeah?"

"I'm saying yeah."

John rocked slowly back and forth on the rear legs of his chair. “You know, it's sad. A few years ago we could have ruled the ladies out right off. Women didn't strangle people. Poison, sure. Guns, you better believe it. But no strangling, no knives, no torture, no mutilation. Boy,” he said with a world-weary sigh, “times have changed. Well, what about Fisk? He's not exactly hefty. Would he be able to lift Tremaine?"

"I think so, John. It looks as if we'll have to stay with five suspects for the moment."

"What's with this ‘we,’ Doc? We're just having a conversation, that's all. This is my job, not ‘our’ job."

"Of course it's your job. You're the one who started talking about ‘we.’ What do I know about solving murders?"

"Yeah, sure, you're just a simple bone man, right?” John looked at him doubtfully. “Doc, I want your word that you're gonna concentrate on the bones. You solve that murder, I'll solve this murder. That'll make us both happy. My boss too."

"Fine."

"I mean it. And I want to know what you're doing every step of the way. I'm in charge, understand?"

"I said fine."

"That doesn't include going around doing your own little interviews with Judd or Henckel, or anyone else. Or messing around with-"

"John, I'm not a complete idiot."

John's feet came off the chair. “Yeah, you are! When it comes to this, you are! Look, I know you. You think you know everything about everything. You stick your nose into things, you get involved where you don't have any business, you make life hard for everybody. My goddamn boss was right about you.” He was chopping at the air with both hands, more like the John that Gideon knew. “Well, do me a favor and stay out of this one, dammit!” There was a long pulsing silence while he stared angrily at Gideon.

Gideon studied his friend in return. “On the other hand,” he said judiciously, “it could be that you haven't mellowed."

John's irritation hung on a second longer, then wavered and slid away like shards of glass from a broken mirror. He blew out his pent-up breath, leaned back in his chair again, and laughed. “Doc, Doc, somebody here is a killer. “I don't want you making him mad, I don't-ah, hell, I don't want to see you get hurt, that's all I'm worried about."

Gideon clapped him on the forearm. “I know it, John. I never thought anything else. I'll concentrate on the bones, I promise. What do you mean, your boss was right about me?"

"Never mind, you don't want to know.” He looked at his watch and stood up. “Things to do. Meet you and Julie for dinner?"

"Uh, I don't think we'll be here."

"You're not gonna be in Glacier Bay?"

"No, I was planning to catch the six o'clock plane into Juneau. If I can convince Julie to play hooky for a day, I'll take her with me. We'll be back on tomorrow's flight."

"What's in Juneau?” John asked suspiciously.

"The anthropologist who worked on those bones in 1964. I want to compare notes with him."

"Mm,” John said. “I guess that makes sense."

"Would there be any problem with my taking the fragments along with me? That'd be a help."

John sat down again. “I don't know, Doc, that could be a problem. That's evidentiary material, especially that piece of skull. Tell you the truth, I'm not even too keen about it just being in the Park Service safe up here. I'd be happier if it was in an FBI evidence room somewhere."

"Well, isn't there an FBI office in Juneau? I could drop it off for you."

"That's not exactly kosher."

"I know, but we're not exactly in Seattle, with agents and couriers all over the place."

John paused, then made a decision. “Okay. Take it with you and leave it at the resident agency office. Federal building, ninth floor. I'll let ‘em know you're coming."

"Good, I will."

John stood up again and stretched, then leveled a finger at Gideon. “Lose it, you die."

"Thanks for your confidence,” Gideon said.

"Just don't screw up. Hey, are you planning to eat that brownie or not?"

"Damn right I am,” Gideon said, and snatched it off the plate before John could make his grab.

Shirley Yount stopped them on the boardwalk outside by standing squarely in their way, hands on hips, elbows akimbo, feet planted. A formidable figure.

"I understand that little fart says I stole his diary."

"Yes. ma'am, you could say that,” John said.

She glared at John, very nearly eye to eye. “Well, I didn't,” she said.