Volcano Watch

CHAPTER TWELVE

“So you coming out for the race tomorrow?” my brother asked.

Jimbo and I were shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen counter, shredding lemon peel and grating nutmegs. Hot spiced cider in our house has always been a beverage of balm — bad day, fall on the slopes, D on a test, didn’t get the job, out comes the cider pot. My day today, watching Krom cook a frog, had been less than perfect. Jimbo’s day, training up at Lake Mary, had been foul as well. He’d missed a shot and taken two falls, and in the biathlon 20K race that’s all she wrote.

As if losing a race was the worst thing that could happen tomorrow at Lake Mary.

I focused on the lemon peel. Not my job to make a fuss about race scheduling. I said, light, “Tomorrow? I really should wash my hair.”

Jimbo fired a nutmeg at me.

I caught it. “Shoot like that tomorrow and you’ll win.”

“Wash your hair tomorrow and I’ll shoot you.”

I said, “You are seriously sick,” and he nodded. The old black humor. I’d finally adopted it myself, the family black-humor gene expressing. Got blacker as we grew from kids into teenagers, from teenagers into adults, as time took us farther from our brother Henry’s death, by God. Jimbo and I are living together now because we both got the jumps after a big quake swarm hit a couple weeks ago. My crummy condo is a couple blocks away and I’ve been gradually ferrying my stuff here. Jimbo’s scummy house, rented with four other guys, is on the other side of town and Jimbo goes back mainly to play beer pong. It’s weird, but good, living again at home.

Technically, we’re house-sitting while Mom and Dad are in Scotland settling property Dad inherited. Jimbo has his old room upstairs and since my old room is now my parents’ workroom, I have the cottage out back. And we seem to feel better having the jumps together, here. Tonight, the old black humor fit like a skin. Would you rather be buried in lava, Jimbo asked after the latest quake, or smothered in ash? It’s good to be back home.

I tossed the nutmeg back to him. “Trade you for a biathlon cartridge.”

He missed. “Say what?”

“Cartridge. You shoot them instead of nutmegs.”

After Hot Creek, I’d finished my dig at Casa Diablo and then returned to the lab. I’d spent several hours oven-drying my samples and catching up on paperwork. I’d nuked a burrito for dinner. I’d come home beat and taken a marathon hot shower. In an hour or so — after my cider nightcap — I plan to haul my rejuvenated carcass back to the lab and find out what I’d got at Casa. And if the gods are with me, and the soil and the gunpowder match the evidence, I’ll know where Georgia last walked.

And if the gods are indifferent, and there is no match, I’ll know where I have to go next: the biathlon range. Which is okay. If she last walked there, it did not mean anything other than she took a stroll at Lake Mary. And so I convinced myself that my dread of a dig at the biathlon range was nothing more than dread of digging through a shitload of snow. And then, as I’d been showering, I’d had the brainstorm of getting a cartridge from Jimbo. I know this about biathlon: the ammo is specifically designed to work in the cold. Few other than biathletes use the stuff and they use it in limited circumstances. If I could rule out biathlon powder, I’d save myself a dig.

I said, “Georgia picked up some gunpowder and I’m trying to trace it. If it’s biathlon, that’ll narrow the field.” And if it’s not, that’ll make my day.

Jimbo gave me a sidelong look, then swept up a handful of nutmeg and lemon peel and carried it to the pot of cider on the stove.

Our kitchen is huge — our house is huge, like a rambling old train station — and the counter is a long way from the stove. My brother remained across the room, needlessly stirring the cider. Jimbo is slender and wiry and almost always in motion. He has wing-cut blond hair that sails with every move. Even indoors, just hanging out, he moves — stretching, bobbing on the balls of his feet like he’s going to launch into a sprint, coming around you to knead your shoulders. Now he stood quietly, hand on the spoon.

“It’s a quick test,” I said, “compare the evidence to known powder.”

“Mine.”

“Anybody’s would do. You and I just happen to be living in the same house.”

“You saying Georgia got whacked on the biathlon course?” He gave a weak grin.

I did not return it. “I’m saying she might have walked where you shoot. Nothing more.” I waited. “So, bro, do I get a cartridge?”

“No can do. My gear’s not here.”

Where, then? I knew his skis were in the ski locker on the front porch, with mine. Where else would his shooting gear be but safely stowed in his room? I said, “Then help me with this. Obviously, you guys shoot up at Lake Mary on the range. Anywhere else?”

He popped his thumb on the spoon handle. “What makes you think you got biathlon powder?”

What makes you so touchy about it? I said, slow, “It’s one option.”

“There’s a shitload of other options. Why don’t you go scope out Casa?”

“I have.”

He gave the spoon a shove and headed out of the kitchen. “So good luck.”

“Wait a minute.”

He started to hum — the Looney Tunes theme — then flattened himself against the doorjamb. “Look, I can’t get into this. I don’t have space for it. I just got space for my skis and my rifle and my body and my mind. Race, remember? I gotta keep it in control for the Cup.” He jerked upright and moved into the hallway.

I was absurdly relieved. It’s just Jimbo being Jimbo. This is the way my brother always plays it. Put in an appearance and then get called away by a pressing need to do whatever he wants to do. Clear his plate from the table and leave me to do the dishes. This is what Jimbo does best — enlist your sympathy for whatever is bedeviling him, then bag out. So now he’s bedeviled by his lousy performance at practice today, and he doesn’t want to carry an image of Georgia tomorrow at Lake Mary.

I didn’t blame him. And I didn’t want to dig for biathlon powder unless I had to. I went after him and blocked him in the hallway. “Answer me, Jimbo, is there anywhere else you shoot?”

“I go out in back and plink at rats in the woodpile.”

“Biathlon. I’m going to sample the range at Lake Mary. Should I be looking anywhere else? It’s a simple question.”

“Just Casa, like I said.”

“Biathlon, Jimbo

“Yes, Catherine.” He raised his hands like I’d put a gun in his back. “That’s a ten-four, ma’am. We did, in the line of duty, shoot biathlon ammo at the targets at Casa Diablo.”

“For God’s sake,” I said.

He swiveled, grinning, hands still high. “It’s this way, ma’am. We like to practice with the same ammo we use in a race. Can’t practice at Lake Mary in the summer. Not allowed to shoot the campers. Summer we shoot at Casa. Ma’am.” He sidestepped around me.

“I’m trying to find out where Georgia died.”

Silence in the hallway. Whine of warp speed from the TV in the living room — into the unknown. He said, finally, “Get’s weird, you know, having a forensics chick for a sister.”

“Gets weird having a brother who ducks the question.”

“I answered—Casa and Mary.” He gave me a light punch in the shoulder. “Hey, here’s another answer for you — got an idea for Bill’s birthday. Vegas. Hotel, meals, shows, and then he can roll the dice with the leftovers. Win maybe, blow his mind.” Jimbo sauntered toward the living room.

This is what Jimbo does second best — switch the subject. I called after him, “I still need a cartridge.”

His voice came, above the threshhold of hyperspace, “I’ll get one to you.”

I knew my brother. I knew he’d just bagged me. I dearly hoped it was just Jimbo being Jimbo. I took the stairs to the second-floor hall.

The lights were off. You a shareholder in the power company? my father asks anyone who leaves the lights on. I flipped the switch; Scotland’s halfway across the world. I passed my old room and then the laundry room — which had been, once, Henry’s room, where I was babysitting Henry bored out of my mind, staring out the window at nothing important when Henry fell and hit his head.

And then I came to Jimbo’s room and went inside and shut the door and turned on the light.

My brother’s room was neat, uncluttered. His childhood stuff, whatever he’d kept, was stored like mine in the attic.

I passed his dresser; drawers were too short to accommodate a.22 rifle. I yanked open the closet door. Clothes, shoes, a damp wool sock. I cursed it. Angry at having to search, angry for letting myself search. My hand brushed heavy nylon. I shoved deeper into the closet and pulled out a long bag.

It was his gun sack. He had lied. His gear was here.

I went very cold, and then I told myself you don’t know anything yet.

I worked the zipper, removed the rifle, and felt around the bottom of the sack. Nothing. Where was the ammo? I’d seen his gear often enough, spread on the living room floor. There should be a cleaning kit and a metal ammo box.

Okay, I thought, there’s another way. The rifle stock, where I gripped it, had an ammo clip attached. I had once pestered Jimbo into showing me how his rifle worked; I’d missed the target several times and lost interest. My fingers played along the edge of the clip, found a catch, and it popped out. It was so small that I wondered if Jimbo ever fumbled it in the rush to snap it into place for firing. Seconds count like dollars in a race, he’d told me. At the open end of the clip was a cartridge. I rolled my thumb across the bullet tip, wiggling it, but it didn’t want to come free. Jimbo never showed me how you got the cartridge in and out of the clip.

I expelled a breath. Toughest thing in a race, Jimbo says, is that you’re skiing so hard your pulse hits 180 and then you dead stop and try to get your breathing under control so you can shoot straight.

I knew how to get a cartridge. I snapped the clip into firing position, the way Jimbo taught me. I found the bolt, palmed it up, drew it back, slid it forward, pressed it down. Should be a round in the chamber now. I fumbled with the clip, seconds adding up like dollars, and extracted it. Okay, four rounds in the clip, one in the rifle. This was like my first days in the lab, keeping meticulous track of everything I touched.

I had a loaded rifle. If it went off, it was going to shoot a hole in my brother’s ceiling and bring him stampeding upstairs.

Avoiding the trigger like the plague, I pulled the bolt upward, and back. There was a pop as the bolt-action ejected the cartridge. I stashed the slick metal plug in my pocket. Breathe. I replaced the clip, jockeyed the rifle into its sack, and returned it to the closet. I was at the door when I realized what I’d done wrong. There are five targets on the range and the athlete carries five rounds in the clip, one per target. I’d left Jimbo with four. Of course he’d check before racing, and reload, but he’d know a cartridge was missing.

And maybe by that time I’d know why he lied, why he hadn’t wanted me to compare his powder to my evidence. My brother has contributed his share to less-than-perfect days but he’s never before told me a bald-assed lie.

My mind jumped to Eric on the retrieval, trying to send Walter and me back. Explaining, at the cop house, how he hadn’t wanted to see me upset. I didn’t know what his real reason was but I did know it was a real bad call.

I thought of Stobie on the retrieval, chiming in with Eric, giving me that bizarre cold smile.

My pulse was heading back up.

Eric and Stobie, two bad calls. Jimbo, one lame lie. Three biathletes trying to keep me from doing my job, or so it seemed to me. There had to be a reason but it was beyond belief that any of them contributed to Georgia’s death. They’d never had trouble with Georgia.

The same could not be said about Lindsay, who’d clashed with Georgia as long as I could remember. Or Mike Kittleman, kicked off the biathlon team by Georgia.

I fled my brother’s room.

The hallway light was dazzling, painful. I found the switch and flipped it off, saving my father a penny or two, then took the two flights of stairs down to the garage.