by Nevada Barr
You have your NPS family, a saccharine voice in her head chanted as she hung her scabrous leather coat on a peg by the door. Looking as sour as she felt, she limped into the front room. The festivities weren't as vile as her tired mind had painted them. Oscar was there, Peter and Zeddie, Curt, and a young couple Anna didn't recognize: a handsome lithe man in his mid twenties with a beard close-cropped in the fashion of Curt's, his olive-skinned wife and their toddler, a child so apple-cheeked and curly-topped she would have been a shoo-in for a Gerber's ad from the fifties.
Zeddie was on the sofa with a guitar. Calcite curled up in a ball at her hip, apparently a devotee of stringed instruments. The young woman's hair was loose and clean. Anna realized it was the first time she'd seen Zeddie without a bandana tied buccaneer-style around her head. This night she looked impossibly young and strong, a willow, wide and rooted deep, able to withstand any of life's storms. In her rich contralto she was belting out an intricate ballad, the refrain of which was "and I want a shot of whiskey!" From the laughter, Anna surmised Zeddie made up the lyrics as she went along, poking fun at the business of rangering and the politics of caving.
Peter McCarty leaned on the mantel of a fireplace that hadn't been used in so long it had been converted to a storage place for magazines. On his handsome face was a look of proprietorship and reflected glory that he had in no way earned. Not by matrimony, at any rate, or by any basic honesty that Anna had noted. Tonight she found the hypocrisy irritating.
Oscar was giving full attention either to the performance or the performer and spared Anna the barest of nods. The two strangers smiled politely, then glanced away. Curt Schatz held the apple-cheeked baby girl on his lap, looking almost as happy as if she'd been a cat. Perhaps all nonverbal animals share the same charm. Schatz dangled his keys in front of chubby grasping fingers in lieu of paws, percolating giggles taking the place of purring.
Anna caught his eye and he stood immediately, shifting the child to his hip in a practiced movement. A smile illuminated the shadows of his beard, and behind horn-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were welcoming.
Warmth brought Anna unpleasantly close to tears. If you want somebody who's glad to see you so damned bad, why don't you get a dog? she mocked herself. The self-inflicted cruelty stemmed the waterworks for only a moment. Then she remembered she had a dog, Frieda's dog, Taco, a trusting, slobbering, jowly, loving, jumping golden retriever.
"And I want a shot of whiskey!" Zeddie wailed, the depth of her voice filling the small room and pouring like hot wax into one's bones.
Anna's eyes filled.
"Uh-oh," Curt said. "Don't do that. I'll get you a beer if you'll stop," he coaxed.
"Wine," Anna said. "And it's a deal."
Schatz deposited the baby girl with her mother and vanished around the corner into Zeddie's kitchen-cum-dining area. The song came to an end in laughter and a spattering of applause. Faces turned toward Anna. She stood just barely inside the door. For a moment she believed Brent Roxbury's blood still stained her face and hands and that was the reason for the stares. Then she remembered it had been washed away in the ladies' bathroom at the BLM offices.
"What?" she said. "What?"
An embarrassing silence descended. Mouths moved like those of grounded goldfish, but no one spoke. It occurred to Anna that one of them must be her gunman. Who else could it be? Sondra McCarty, only pretending to be gone, stalking the desert with a high-powered rifle? Maybe.
"Your wish. My command. All that shit," Curt said, returning with a water glass full of red wine.
The spell was broken. People moved. They talked. They drank. And if any of them wanted Anna dead, she couldn't read it in their faces.
14
A little wine, a little music, the cat transferred to her lap, Curt sitting at her feet playing with the baby, and Anna was willing to believe she had imagined the whole thing: the funky stares at the door, the shooting, Brent's blood, even Frieda's murder. Willing but not quite able. Normalcy, instead of making violence seem unreal, was itself made unreal by that violence. Despite the purring Calcite and the warm cabernet, Anna was on edge.
Zeddie strummed her guitar, humming snatches of tunes Anna didn't recognize. With a thump, Zeddie dropped the flat of her hand onto the strings, cutting off the music. "So what did you think of Big Manhole?" she asked.
Anna twitched as if she'd been struck.
Peter dropped his pose at the mantel and took two steps across the room. Hands on knees, he peered into her face. "Are you all right?" He laid the back of his hand across her forehead as a mother checking a child for fever might. Anna would have flinched again, but she managed to control it. McCarty's face ballooned in front of her, bobbing and weaving. Cold sweat pricked in her armpits. Noises sounded distorted.
"I'm fine," she said, and heard her words as from a distance. An anxiety attack; Anna'd never had one, but she'd sat with enough displaced tourists suffering the symptoms to recognize it for what it was: an all-encompassing physical fear reaction that came from nowhere. Pain was better, exhaustion, depression, toothache, the dry heaves, herpes, hives. Breathing slowly through her nose, she rode the horror like a breaking wave. It'll pass, she told herself and, for the first time, understood why those words of wisdom always failed to comfort.
McCarty was still in her face. It was all she could do not to shove him back. Deliberately she stroked Calcite, concentrated on the warmth of the cat's fur under her hand. When she could lift the glass and find her mouth, she drank wine. Every eye was on her. It made things immeasurably worse.
To keep from rushing screaming from the room, Anna began to talk. "Big Manhole was . . ." Her voice sounded hollow and distant. She tried again. "Brent was at Big Manhole." Better. "Somebody shot him. Killed him outright. Half his face was blown off." Her intention had not been to shock, yet she slapped the morbid images across the party faces of those with her. Even as she was disgusted with herself for tracking her misery into someone else's home, she watched for any reaction that might say, "It's me; I am your shooter."
Oscar looked as if he'd sustained a physical blow. The young mother nestled under her husband's arm. Curt appeared annoyed at this emotional breech of etiquette, but he closed his free hand over the arch of Anna's uninjured foot in a show of support. Zeddie and Peter pounced on her offering succor. Zeddie's strong arms hugged Anna. McCarty propped her feet up on the sofa. Curt was sent to make hot drinks—the outdoorsman's cure for whatever ails.
Anxiety was carried away in the hubbub, leaving Anna drained and nervous. Cat still intact, she was pampered and enthroned. From her place of honor she told the story a third time. Not once, not from anyone, did she feel a flicker of guilt, see a hint of foreknowledge or an iota of ill will. Either the sniper wasn't there, or he or she was desperately clever and a practiced deceiver.
Her tale of gore effectively killed the party. The young couple were the first to go. The woman scooped her child from Schatz's lap as if merely being in Anna's vicinity might give the baby bad dreams. Oscar lingered awhile longer. He'd known Roxbury, had worked with him. Though Brent hadn't been killed in the park the superintendent would want to be told, as would George Laymon. The Bureau of Land Management would take the brunt of police and media attention, but it would be a courtesy to inform the people at Carlsbad who had been connected with Roxbury. "Courtesy" was Oscar's polite term. The underlying message was understood. Park employees learned it almost as soon as they learned where to pin their name tags and the appropriate way to wear the flat-brimmed Smokey Bear hat. Like brass anywhere, NPS bigwigs hated being blindsided. The underling who failed to inform them of approaching disaster was severely frowned upon. More than once Anna had avoided much-deserved punishment by the simple expedient of telling her district ranger she'd screwed up before an irate citizen could give him the same information in a less palatable manner.
Oscar ended with the NPS's standard warning. "I doubt newspeople will call you. This isn't a park-related incident. If they
do, refer them to me, George, or the superintendent."
Don't talk to them. Everybody got that.
"I want to talk to George," Anna said.
Iverson was at the door, holding it ajar, letting the heat out in the tradition of winter guests. A pained expression met her words.
"I think Brent's killing is linked to Frieda's," Anna pushed.
Oscar looked weary. "I'll set it up in the morning, okay? First thing."
Anna nodded. Oscar left. For a long minute the four of them stayed where they were, scattered around Zeddie's living room, no one wanting to meet Anna's eye.
"You think Frieda was killed on purpose? You think one of the core group killed Frieda?" Zeddie asked. There was belligerence as well as incredulity in her voice. "One of us?"
Anna said nothing till their combined silence undid her. "Nobody else was there."
"Maybe it was Brent," Peter said, trying to make peace. "He was up near the head of the Pigtail. Maybe he got to feeling bad about it and shot himself."
Anna gave him a withering look. "Then shot at me?"
Peter glanced over her head at Zeddie and shrugged as if to say, "I tried."
"Well," Zeddie ended a silence grown too long. "I'm hitting the hay. Murdering people in cold blood really wears me out." She left without bidding anyone good night. Peter followed, leaving Anna and Curt to each other's company.
"You don't really think that, do you?" Curt asked.
"I don't know what to think," Anna told him.
Curt levered himself up from his position near the sofa. "I'll sleep on the floor," he said. "Don't want to accidentally kick your bad ankle."
Calcite jumped off Anna's lap, clawing her in the process. She hadn't made any friends tonight.
Just after seven, the sun not yet up, they were awakened by the phone. Stumbling off the couch, Anna was reminded of her ankle. A night's sleep had done wonders. It was stiff and sore, but she could tell it would loosen up with use.
"Dillard residence," she said into the receiver. The call was for her: Oscar Iverson. George Laymon would see her in his office at eight o'clock. That was what she wanted, yet she hung up feeling dissatisfied.
Curt shambled by clad in boxer shorts and a hand-crocheted afghan in lime green and pink squares. "Who was it?" he croaked as he fumbled with Zeddie's coffeemaker.
"Oscar," Anna said, and it came to her why she'd been disappointed. Some corner of her brain had hoped it would be Sondra tracking down an errant husband and providing a few answers.
Padding after Curt in a tee-shirt, underpants, and ragg wool socks, she asked, "Did Peter ever get a hold of his wife?" Two days underground and the campout feel of group sleepovers had made them informal.
"Not that I know of. Why? Do you want to pin your pet theories on Sondra?" Curt loaded the pot expertly and poked the "on" button. Anna crawled onto a stool on one side of a counter that separated kitchen from dining space. Curt settled on the other. Both stared hopefully at the pot filling between them.
"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Anna said.
"Pinning it on Sondra?"
"She's such a twit."
Curt laughed, and Anna felt forgiven. They sat without talking till there was enough liquid in the pot to fill two coffee cups. Curt poured and Anna fetched a pint of heavy cream from the refrigerator. Curt's eyebrows rose. "No soy milk?"
Anna didn't share Zeddie's taste for good health. "I smuggled it up while you guys were still in Lechuguilla. How well do you know Sondra?" she asked as she poured cream into her cup.
"You're going to make me do something, aren't you? Something sleuthy and embarrassing. Something that will probably get my face slapped. If I just confess to shooting you in the foot and murdering whoever you think was murdered, can I be excused?"
Anna refused to be diverted. "Are you good friends, medium friends, friendly acquaintances, what?"
Curt groaned.
Anna waited.
"Between medium and friendly acquaintances," he said warily.
"Could you call her?"
"You could call her."
"Do you know people she knows? Family, friends, whatever?"
Curt sipped his coffee. Anna sipped hers. He looked over the rim of his cup. "I smell a trap. I'm not answering any more questions until you tell me what it's going to cost me."
"Since you're in the Minnesota connection, I thought maybe you could make some calls," Anna said. "Find out where she is. I'm getting a bad feeling about her."
"Why don't you ask Peter to do it? He knows more about where his wife might be than I would."
"Peter's part of the bad feeling."
"Jeez. I guess I should be honored you don't suspect me."
"Not yet." Anna wondered if she was only kidding.
"Sure. I'll do it," Curt said at last. "After all, it's not like I have a life or anything."
George Laymon was if not pleased then anxious to talk with Anna. Ushering her into his office the moment she arrived at park headquarters, he sat her down in the visitor's chair. From his familiar perch on the edge of his desk, he towered over her. His face was an interesting amalgam of aggravation and concern.
"Oscar called last night, and I talked with Holden Tillman at the BLM this morning," he said. "The sheriff's department is taking care of returning the government vehicle." Laymon didn't change the tone of his voice, yet much was conveyed in that simple sentence: the knowledge that Anna had used an NPS vehicle in an unauthorized manner, a threat of reprisals if the sedan was damaged, the hint that he now held the upper hand in this conversation.
"I think Brent's murder and Frieda's are connected," she said baldly.
Moving as if a weight had settled on his shoulders, Laymon put his desk between them. "You said Frieda changed her story, didn't remember anybody trying to kill her." Anna started to protest, but Laymon silenced her with a raised hand. "I know. You thought you might have seen something near the site of the rock slide. We went over that with Holden and Oscar," he said patiently. "Oscar felt, given the place, the conditions, and the stress levels you were all operating under, a fleeting impression in shifting loam wasn't significant. Holden agreed with him."
"He's changed his mind," Anna said. She was pushing her luck. Concern was growing rigid, cracking across Laymon's cheekbones.
He looked out the window for a minute, the cloudless sky bluing his eyes. His fingers drummed softly on the desk blotter. "I'm not surprised," he said. "Losing a patient is hard on anybody and harder on Holden than most." His focus returned to the room, the chair, Anna. Reasoning with her was at an end. Folding his hands in front of him, he told her how it was going to be.
"In using a government vehicle in an unauthorized manner, you have overstepped your bounds considerably. You have made remarks without substantiation that do not reflect well on the people here, people who worked so hard to save your friend. You have no authority in Carlsbad. You are a guest of this park. Until now we have been willing to cut you a good deal of slack because of what you have been through. You've used that slack, Anna. I can put you in touch with human resources either here or, better yet, in your home park, and we'll get some counseling for you. Other than that, there is nothing we can do. Oscar and I have talked it over with the superintendent. This latest incident is a BLM matter. Your statement has been taken, but, as you arrived after the fact, you aren't a material witness."
"Attempted murder, assault on a federal officer, illegal discharge of a firearm," Anna said. "Whoever it was shot at me more than once. Malice."
George Laymon's eyes strayed again out the window. "You had a bad scare," he said carefully.
"You think I'm making this up?" Anger boiled so hot the image of steam pouring from her ears didn't seem so much ludicrous as inevitable. What saved her from an unladylike outburst that would have gotten her tossed out of Laymon's office was the sheer profusion of hostile remarks that clogged her brain and tied her tongue.
"I didn't say that, Anna. Some of these go
od old boys around here get carried away. Look at any road sign. They are all riddled with bullet holes."
"My boot heel—"
"Could have been broken off on a rock. That's rough country out there. Or it could have been shot off like you say," he said placatingly.
Anna was not placated.
"I just think there are many explanations you haven't considered.
You're too close to this. Too personally involved. To put it bluntly, you're out of line. It's time you went home."
A brief maelstrom of emotions ranging from acute humiliation to homicidal rage seethed. Because she was female, her body's natural response to the onslaught was tears, tears of anger that, had she allowed them to fall, surely would have burnt holes in the carpet like droplets of battery acid. Determinedly impassive, she waited for the storm to abate. She hadn't a leg to stand on. Everything George Laymon said was true. A Chinese aphorism came to mind: If you keep going the way you're going, eventually you'll get where you're headed. Where she was headed was out of town, if not tarred and feathered riding on a rail, then the modern-day equivalent.
Going home to Mesa Verde, her tower house, her cat, tempted Anna to the very soul. It was, as the bard had said, peevish and self-willed harlotry that bade her stay. Self-willed harlotry won. The time had come to grovel fetchingly.
Anna sighed and rubbed now-dry eyes. "Thanks, George. A counselor would be good. I know I've been a pain in the neck. I guess I needed to blame Frieda's death on somebody human. God is so unsatisfying." She laughed, and it took no effort to sound shaky and uncertain. "I'll talk to a shrink, get some rest, and get this ankle stable. I'd like to be here for Brent's funeral, get some closure. Then I'll head home." Laymon couldn't very well refuse to let her stay for the funeral of a coworker whose body she had found. That and a shrink appointment would buy her a few more days in which to continue wearing out her welcome. "Thanks again for listening," she said. "This has been a rough week."