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Authors: Nevada Barr
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quiet. I think she feels out of place here. Everybody’s so rough-and-tumble and always talking shop. She and Trixy got fairly close. Both artsy types. I think she pretty much hero-worshiped Scotty. Then she married him. Oops!” Sandra laughed good-humoredly and Anna laughed with her. “Why are you interested? Lucas got you investigating rangers’ wives?”
Anna shook her head. “No. Tinker and Damien hadn’t seen her around and were concerned. I asked Scotty about her this morning and he blew up—something about Denny Castle. Piqued my interest. I’m just being nosy.”
“Um,” Sandra said, the explanation completely satisfactory. “That Denny Castle thing was all the talk this winter. He and Donna spent a lot of time together, I guess. I don’t know if there really was ever anything in it, but a man who marries a woman thirty years younger than himself’s bound to have a few insecurities. Especially if he’s not rich. I guess the romance was mostly on Denny’s side. He made kind of a fool of himself. Following her, that kind of thing. Those deep sensitive types get funny yens. Myself, I like bluff hearty types who swat you on the behind.”
Anna felt she owed Sandra for the information and paid in kind. She told her the details of the reception. The dispatcher had been on duty that evening. Sandra listened with a concentration that flattered most people, including Anna, into telling her things they’d never really intended to.
“Jo’s been around forever,” Sandra said when Anna had finished. “Always finding excuses to work with Denny, or at least get to the island. She’s been chasing after him since high school. Them what’s uncharitable say that’s why he took to the water: to get away from her. Then she went to college—double major in freshwater and marine biology. ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no ocean deep enough,’ I guess. She’s got him now,” Sandra concluded philosophically. “More power to her.”
“Seven-oh-one, one-two-one,” cackled at Sandra’s elbow.
“Duty calls,” she said to Anna.
“I’ve got to go too.” Anna stayed just long enough to hear what 121—Lucas Vega—was calling about. It didn’t concern her, so she gave Delphi a farewell pat and left.
D onna was in Houghton nursing a sister with a ruptured disk.
Case closed.
Despite Tinker and Damien’s wishes, ISRO was simply not a hotbed of crime. The only deaths were those of innocent fishes and that was deemed not only legal but admirable. So much so it surprised Anna that it was not written into every ranger’s job description that he or she was too ooh and aah over the corpses of what had once been flashing silver jewels enlivening the deep.
To Isle Royale fishermen’s credit, Anna forced herself to admit, they almost always ate what they killed—unlike the trophy hunters in Texas who wanted only heads and racks and skins to display on dusty walls.
Anna waited till the Ranger III docked at noon, in the hope there would be a note from Christina. Anna had become friends with Chris and her daughter, Alison, in Texas. The desert had never appealed to Christina and she had missed town living. In the weeks Anna had been out on the island there’d been a note with each Ranger III docking. A letter this Wednesday would mean a lot and she waited even at the risk of having to kayak Blake’s Point in the dark.
The letter was there. Anna put it away: a treat for later. At the convenience store at Rock she bought half a dozen Snickers bars and two Butterfingers. She didn’t bother to track down Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke. Next week would be soon enough to tell them of Donna’s miraculous recovery from connubial cannibalism. Let them enjoy one more week of the game.
A ll morning clouds had been building in the west. White cumulus laced Greenstone Ridge, peeking up over the wooded slopes of Mount Ojibway. As Anna shoved the kayak out into the calm waters
Anna shook her head. “No. Tinker and Damien hadn’t seen her around and were concerned. I asked Scotty about her this morning and he blew up—something about Denny Castle. Piqued my interest. I’m just being nosy.”
“Um,” Sandra said, the explanation completely satisfactory. “That Denny Castle thing was all the talk this winter. He and Donna spent a lot of time together, I guess. I don’t know if there really was ever anything in it, but a man who marries a woman thirty years younger than himself’s bound to have a few insecurities. Especially if he’s not rich. I guess the romance was mostly on Denny’s side. He made kind of a fool of himself. Following her, that kind of thing. Those deep sensitive types get funny yens. Myself, I like bluff hearty types who swat you on the behind.”
Anna felt she owed Sandra for the information and paid in kind. She told her the details of the reception. The dispatcher had been on duty that evening. Sandra listened with a concentration that flattered most people, including Anna, into telling her things they’d never really intended to.
“Jo’s been around forever,” Sandra said when Anna had finished. “Always finding excuses to work with Denny, or at least get to the island. She’s been chasing after him since high school. Them what’s uncharitable say that’s why he took to the water: to get away from her. Then she went to college—double major in freshwater and marine biology. ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no ocean deep enough,’ I guess. She’s got him now,” Sandra concluded philosophically. “More power to her.”
“Seven-oh-one, one-two-one,” cackled at Sandra’s elbow.
“Duty calls,” she said to Anna.
“I’ve got to go too.” Anna stayed just long enough to hear what 121—Lucas Vega—was calling about. It didn’t concern her, so she gave Delphi a farewell pat and left.
D onna was in Houghton nursing a sister with a ruptured disk.
Case closed.
Despite Tinker and Damien’s wishes, ISRO was simply not a hotbed of crime. The only deaths were those of innocent fishes and that was deemed not only legal but admirable. So much so it surprised Anna that it was not written into every ranger’s job description that he or she was too ooh and aah over the corpses of what had once been flashing silver jewels enlivening the deep.
To Isle Royale fishermen’s credit, Anna forced herself to admit, they almost always ate what they killed—unlike the trophy hunters in Texas who wanted only heads and racks and skins to display on dusty walls.
Anna waited till the Ranger III docked at noon, in the hope there would be a note from Christina. Anna had become friends with Chris and her daughter, Alison, in Texas. The desert had never appealed to Christina and she had missed town living. In the weeks Anna had been out on the island there’d been a note with each Ranger III docking. A letter this Wednesday would mean a lot and she waited even at the risk of having to kayak Blake’s Point in the dark.
The letter was there. Anna put it away: a treat for later. At the convenience store at Rock she bought half a dozen Snickers bars and two Butterfingers. She didn’t bother to track down Tinker and Damien Coggins-Clarke. Next week would be soon enough to tell them of Donna’s miraculous recovery from connubial cannibalism. Let them enjoy one more week of the game.
A ll morning clouds had been building in the west. White cumulus laced Greenstone Ridge, peeking up over the wooded slopes of Mount Ojibway. As Anna shoved the kayak out into the calm waters
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