Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 06 - Icy Clutches

by Icy Clutches

  "Well,” Julie said hesitantly, “one person—I'm just thinking out loud—one person who'd care would be Gerald Pratt. He wouldn't be too happy about his brother being labeled a murderer."

  "I take your point,” Minor said, “but in all honesty it hardly seems a credible motive for killing Tremaine."

  "Besides,” Gideon said, “how could Gerald know what was in the manuscript? About the murder, I mean."

  "How could anybody know?” John asked. “Tremaine was the only one who got out of there alive.” He shook his head. “So what reason would anybody have—"

  Julie frowned. “John, can I have that manuscript back?"

  She quickly found the place she wanted “Listen. ‘For an instant his panicked eyes locked with mine, and then he was lost to sight, driven headfirst, despite his frenzied scuttling, into a jumble of sharp black boulders and broken ice.'” She leaned forward, growing more excited. “That's James Pratt he's talking about. Tremaine saw Steven killed, right? He saw Jocelyn fall into a crevasse that closed up over her—but the last he saw of James he was still alive."

  John looked at her temperately. “So?"

  "Well, I don't know exactly. But how do we know he was killed at all? How do we—"

  "We know,” Gideon said, “because we have skeletal remains from two males, and those are—necessarily—Steven Fisk and James Pratt. As far as the bones go, Jocelyn's the only one unaccounted for. Sorry."

  Julie grumpily withdrew, as she sometimes did under such circumstances, sinking back into the seat and folding her arms. “Why do I always do this to myself?” she muttered to the window. “Why don't I just let all the big-time detectives solve it themselves?"

  "Oh, yeah,” John said with a laugh, “we're doing just great."

  That effectively ended the conversation for the rest of the drive. When Minor pulled into the lodge parking lot and turned off the ignition, they continued to sit silently for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts, until John sighed loudly and pushed open his door.

  "See you guys for dinner,” he said. Then, without moving to get out, he added: “You know what I'm starting to think? That maybe we've been on the wrong track all along; maybe the two murders aren't even connected; maybe Tremaine was killed on account of something else in the book. Hell,” he finished glumly, “maybe the damn book doesn't have anything to do with it."

  "Could be,” Julie said.

  "Perhaps so,” said Minor.

  Maybe, Gideon thought, but only if somebody had just repealed the Law of Interconnected Monkey Business.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 19

  * * * *

  Due to the recent tragedy involving M. Audley Tremaine, things were understandably subdued at the lodge that evening. The Icebreaker Lounge had remained closed and dark during the cocktail hour, and now in the dining room the atmosphere, if not one of inconsolable grief, was appropriately restrained. Most of the search-and-rescue class were at their usual large table, eating heartily enough, but without the attendant verve and hilarity that usually characterized their meals. The death of Professor Tremaine had cast a pall of gloom on their customary animation. That, or the deletion of the cocktail hour.

  The members of Tremaine's party were no longer sitting at a single table. If they had ever enjoyed each other's company, it was obvious that they didn't anymore. Gerald Pratt sat with Elliott Fisk, both of them silent, Fisk picking sourly at his food, Pratt shoveling it placidly in. Nearby, with her back pointedly toward Fisk, Shirley Yount was at a table with Walter Judd, who was chugging and chortling away like a washing machine, but seemingly by rote, his mind elsewhere. Shirley made no pretense of listening. She looked mostly over his head, at the top of the wall behind him. Under the table her long, bony foot bobbed while she chewed.

  Alone, her cape draped majestically over the back of her chair, her polished staff leaning against the wall, Anna Henckel sat in regal isolation, looking out over the darkening water of the cove as she ate.

  And at a table at the far end of the room, in front of a wall that was carved and painted with owl-eyed totem figures to look like the side of a Tlingit longhouse, six newcomers—three women and three men—gobbled down their food and talked earnestly.

  "John, who are those people?” Julie asked. She had seen them on the flight from Juneau a few hours before. They had kept to themselves in a knot in the smoking section and been met by Arthur Tibbett with the lodge bus.

  "Reporters,” John said, picking up a menu. “And a TV crew.” He had just joined Gideon, Julie, and Minor. “The media's been pushing us for news, so we're going to have a press conference tomorrow at four o'clock."

  "Do you want me to deal with the logistics?” Minor asked. “Orient them, show them around, arrange a meeting room, and so on and so forth?” He took off his rimless glasses and blew a speck of dust from them.

  "If you can get them away from Arthur Tibbett, but I don't think you have a chance. Let him do it; he's like a kid with a new bike? He looked at Gideon. “Doc, can you be there? There'll be questions."

  "Sure."

  "Good. You can come too, Julie, if you want.” He scanned the menu, folded it, and dropped it on the table. “I told Henckel and Pratt and the rest of them to come too. I figured I'd let Tibbett run the show, since he's having such a good time."

  Minor's pepper-and-salt eyebrows lifted briefly. “Do you think that's wise?” He began polishing his glasses with a handkerchief that looked as if it had never been unfolded before, let alone used.

  "Sure, I don't have any problem with it. Besides, who says we have a choice? We don't have any right to keep the press away from them; and I figured an open meeting'd be the best way to handle it. I had a talk with them when they arrived, and they promised to stay away from Tremaine's people if I promised to have them at the press conference. At least this way we get to hear what they say."

  Cheri, the chirpy, whip-thin waitress who had single-handedly been doing the serving all week, was at his elbow. “Have you decided, or do you want me to come back?"

  John looked at the menu again. “What's the Prospector's Special?"

  "Salisbury steak with bacon strips and mushroom gravy, buttered mashed potatoes, fried onion rings. Yum."

  "Sounds good. Can I get French fries instead of mashed?"

  "Sure."

  "Great. Make it well done, okay? Lots of gravy. On the fries too. Thousand Island on the salad."

  "I just hope Marti doesn't ask me what you ate,” Julie said.

  John looked at her over the top of the menu. “Are you gonna get on my case too? What'd you order?"

  "Broiled halibut."

  "Doc?"

  "Same."

  John growled something. “Julian?"

  Minor replaced his glasses, adjusting the wire earpieces one at a time over his ears. “Penne pasta with cauliflower and broccoli in sesame-seed sauce,” he said.

  John stared at him with something like awe. “Jesus Christ.” He heaved a sigh of capitulation and handed the menu to Cheri. “Okay, okay, hold the gravy on the fries."

  "You got it. Back in a sec with the salads."

  She stooped at the folding table behind Gideon to shoulder the heaped tray of dirty dishes and silverware just cleared from the rangers’ table. The tray looked as if it weighed as much as she did. Instinctively Gideon reached out to help her steady it, but she laughed him off.

  "Never mind, honey, I'm used to it. I only look skinny. I got muscles on my muscles."

  A lift, a momentary hitch like a weight lifter performing a clean-and-jerk, and up it went with a clank of settling dishes to rest firmly on the flat of her hand and her shoulder. She grinned at them, adjusted the load with a hunch of her shoulder, and scudded off.

  "John,” Minor said in his precise way, “when I asked if you were sure it was wise, I wasn't referring to the press conference in general; I was referring to the idea of allowing Tibbett to lead it"—he lowered his already quiet voice—"consider
ing what we learned today."

  "Yeah, I think it's okay, Julian.” John scowled. “Hey, do they give you bread with dinner, or do you have to—"

  "What did you learn today?” Gideon asked. “What's wrong with Tibbett running the press conference?"

  Minor looked warily at John, who nodded. “He's on our side, Julian,” John said. “So's she."

  From a thin briefcase on his lap Minor extracted a few sheets of paper. He was as decorous and fastidious as Gideon remembered him: dark-blue banker's suit, meticulously knotted tie decorated with tiny fleurs-de-lis, blinding white shirt with mother-of-pearl cuff links. He passed the sheets to Gideon and Julie.

  They glanced at a densely typed two-page memorandum done on a National Park Service form, its print faded to a barely legible gray from being photocopied so many times.

  "Go ahead and read it,” John said, and turned to call over his shoulder: “Hey, Cheri, does bread come with this?"

  The first line of the memo was the date: September 24, 1960. Two months after the Tirku expedition. Their eyes were drawn to the lower part of the page, where several paragraphs had been heavily circled with a red felt-tip marker.

  Although appellant admits that he “lost his temper” twice in dealings with Professor Tremaine, and that such behavior is inexcusable, he feels that it was the understandable result of Professor Tremaine's “abusive, belligerent, and unreasonable manner,” and his refusal to heed safety advice of the most basic kind, e.g.:

  (a) Professor Tremaine's refusal to postpone or cancel his group's final day of activities in the vicinity of Tirku Glacier despite the increasing frequency of earth tremors in the region;

  (b) His insistence on taking a route directly across the northern tongue of Tirku, although it was in the path of a large, unstable hanging glacier. (Professor Tremaine's justification for this was that the half-mile walk over the ice would save his party an arduous three-mile trek around the tongue, through an area choked with postglacial vegetation.);

  (c) His “contemptuous disregard” of suggestions to carry ropes and/or other safety equipment, despite summer conditions that had left an extremely treacherous film of snow obscuring many crevasses.

  Gideon looked up. “You guys have been busy. This is the report Anna Henckel was showing to Pratt and Judd, isn't it?"

  John nodded. “Right. Henckel didn't have it, Pratt didn't have it, so I figured the place to look was where she was showing it to him: the bar."

  Minor politely demurred. “I do believe that was my suggestion, John."

  "Julian, you gotta learn to be less territorial. Anyway, there it was, in one of the stacks of magazines."

  "But what does it have to do with Tibbett?” Gideon asked.

  "Finish reading it, Doc.” He broke a roll from the basket the waitress had brought, buttered it, and leaned back, chewing reflectively.

  Gideon and Julie continued with the memo.

  Appellant stated that he believes his warnings to Professor Tremaine were borne out in the disastrous results of the Tirku expedition, an opinion in which this investigator concurs.

  However, while it is true that appellant's advice to Professor Tremaine was sound and would, if followed, have resulted in the saving of three lives, it is also true that Park Service personnel must use tact in dealing with members of the public. It is the view of this investigator that the complaint filed by Professor Tremaine on July 25 pertaining to appellant's “obstructive and officious manner” is justified. It is this investigator's further view that a more sensitive and diplomatic attitude on appellant's part would very likely have convinced Professor Tremaine of the need for more vigorous precautions and precluded the needless loss of three lives.

  Finding: Appellant's termination is sustained.

  "I still don't get it,” Gideon said. “What does this have to do with Arthur?"

  "I don't get it either,” Julie said.

  John sighed. “Will you people read the beginning?"

  This time Gideon read aloud.

  DATE: September 24, 1960

  TO: Thomas Llewellyn, Assistant Director for Personnel

  FROM: Edgar V. Luna, Appeals Mediator

  SUBJECT: Appeal of Cornelius H. Tibbett from Termination

  The purpose of this—

  "Tibbett?" Julie said.

  Gideon had passed right over it. Not that he was about to admit it to John.

  "Bingo,” John said, “Tibbett. Finally. Cornelius H. Tibbett was Arthur Tibbett's father. Tell them what you found out, Julian."

  Julian folded his well-groomed hands on the table. “Upon losing his job, Cornelius Tibbett returned to New York with his wife and turned to drink, never holding a meaningful job for the rest of his life, which was unhappily brief. In 1962 he jumped in front of the Lexington Avenue IRT at Eighty-sixth Street."

  "You're saying,” said Julie after a pause, “that this gives Arthur a motive for killing Tremaine?"

  "Damn right,” John said. “Tremaine gets his father canned, which ruins his career and his life, and two years later the guy kills himself. And the way Arthur probably sees it—hell, the way I see it—is that it was Tremaine that was in the wrong every step of the way."

  Julie shook her head. “But, John, Arthur was just a little boy. It was such a long time ago."

  "Are you kidding?” John said, laughing. “Compared to the other things we've got to go on, 1962's recent."

  "In point of fact,” Minor told Julie, “Arthur Tibbett was twenty at the time his father was dismissed."

  He continued explaining while they ate their meals. Arthur himself had just begun working for the Park Service as a seasonal ranger in 1960 and had been shattered by what had happened to his father. Throughout much of his subsequent career he'd been obsessed with the idea of someday returning to Glacier Bay in a position of authority; to restore the Tibbett honor, as it were. Two years ago the position of assistant superintendent became vacant. Arthur applied, did well on the examination, and got the job.

  "All of this,” Minor concluded, “is well known to his colleagues and superiors in Washington, D.C."

  "But not to me,” John said, “which is what bugs me. Never once did he say anything to me about having a grudge against Tremaine."

  "Well, why should he?” Gideon asked. “He achieved his goal, he was satisfied. Why stir it up again? I'd probably have kept it to myself too."

  "No, you wouldn't,” John said crisply. “Not once Tremaine got killed, you wouldn't. Once that happened it was damn pertinent. You'd have come forward and told the investigating officers. You wouldn't have sat around waiting for us to dig it up by ourselves."

  "No, you're right; I would have told you. Arthur should've told you. Still—"

  Still what? Now that Gideon thought about it, Tibbett's virulent dislike for Tremaine had come through dearly enough that first evening at dinner. And after Tremaine had been killed, hadn't his mood perked up noticeably? Well, yes, but still—

  "Look,” John said, “I'm not accusing the guy. I just need to have a little heart-to-heart with him, that's all. Get a few things straight."

  "I'd like to wait on that until tomorrow, if it's all the same,” Minor said. “I still have some telephone calls in to Washington on him."

  Across the room, the members of Tremaine's group had been leaving one by one, darting glances at the FBI agents. Elliott Fisk remained behind and was now approaching the table.

  "Sir?” John said to him.

  Fisk held out a thick, flat notebook bound with blue imitation leather; the kind with a little fold-around flap that fitted into a slot on the front to keep the cover closed.

  "The journal?” John said.

  "I found it under a bird feeder near my door this afternoon. There's a bench next to it and I usually sit there for a few minutes before breakfast.” He turned to Gideon. “To plan my day."

  Plan his day? At the lodge? What was there to plan?

  John took the journal and held it without opening it. “How
do you think it got there?"

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  "You tell me."

  "Shirley finished with it and decided to return it after all, for reasons of her own."

  "She told you this?"

  Fisk gave him a look of scathing incredulity. “Oh, certainly."

  "Uh-huh,” John said.

  "Now, look. I assure you I did not accidentally leave it under the bird feeder yesterday morning. I had it with me at breakfast. Dr. Judd can vouch—"

  "Okay, I believe you,” John said. “Are any pages missing?"

  "None."

  "Can I hold on to this for now?"

  "By all means, do. You'll find it quite interesting, I'm sure."

  When Fisk had left, John pulled out the flap and riffled without interest through the pages. The last third were empty, the rest covered with a sloppy, slanting scrawl in blue ink. “The first entry's January 2, 1960. Last is"—more riffling—"July 25, the day before he got killed."

  He closed the notebook and slid it to Minor. “Julian, will you have a look through it and see what you find?"

  "My pleasure,” Minor said. Gideon could smell his cedary cologne as the agent reached for the journal. The dark, neat hand hesitated over the notebook. “Perhaps we'd better go over it for fingerprints first."

  "Nah,” John said, “don't waste too much time on it. Just read it when you get a chance."

  "You don't think there'll be anything important in it?” Julie asked.

  John shook his head. “Not if it got returned."

  They were on their second cups of coffee when John suddenly snapped his fingers. “Hey, I almost forgot! They found some more bones for you, Doc."

  Gideon was caught in the act of putting his coffee cup to his mouth. He managed to avoid spilling any and set the cup back in its saucer. “Bones?"

  Julie and John both burst out laughing.

  Gideon looked at them, puzzled. “What's funny?"

  "You,” Julie said. “The way you say ‘Bones?’ If dogs could talk that's the way they'd say it. I think your ears actually prick."

  Gideon shrugged. “I guess I like my work,” he said, laughing too.