Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

“Did you hear the plane go overhead?”

“Aye.”

“And Emmett went out to try to find the bundle.”

“Yes. Maybe forty-five minutes or an hour after we heard it, he saw a break in the storm. He tied up with a rope and off he went. Never found it. He came back almost crying, he did.

And he was right there caring for that man until the end. I’ve known Emmett maybe three seasons, and I’ve never seen him so distraught. Ye’ve got to understand—”

“I am quickly coming to understand. It’s like everyone down here is part of one very tightly knit family.”

“Yes. People here may be quirky, or eccentric even, or some of them downright antisocial, but when push comes to shove, they’re there for ye.”

“What about the others?” Valena asked. “Cal Hart, the grad students, and so forth. How did they take it?”

“Ye want to take a look at Schwartz and Lindemann, especially the latter. They haven’t the loyalty I would hope for in that situation, and ye should have heard the way they spoke to the man. There was trouble between them and Emmett—and Lindemann, he got in terrible arguments with that reporter.”

“What about?”

“Everything. About the work they were doing. About the state of journalism. About the weather. About the food. About the nose on his face.”

“Can you recall anything in particular?”

“Nay. I tried to tune them out, y’know? I had work to do.”

“What about the others?” Valena asked. “The men who were along to handle the equipment and the heavy lifting.”

“Well, Willy there, he didn’t show any emotion, but that’s typical of him, and Dave, well he’s a gent. And Cal—”

“Wait. You said Willy. The man’s name was William.”

“Nay, on his birth certificate it says that, maybe, but most everyone calls him Wee Willy. I can tell ye, I wasn’t any too happy to see him at my door this evening.”

Valena pointed toward the main room of the station. “That man out there. In the living room. Watching TV. He was at Emmett’s camp?”

“Yes. And Dave, who’s out there drinking with the man.”

“That Dave?” I was afraid of this , thought Valena. It’s what’s been bugging me right along.

“Well, it’s a common enough name, I suppose, but… if ye ask me, I’d stay away from chatting about this with just anyone, my dear. In fact, I’d stop about where ye are.”

“Why?”

“Because if ye’re right about it being foul play, and it wasn’t Emmett, and I know it wasn’t me, then it could be either of those louts. Hell, Willy could kill ye without even meaning to! All he’d have to do is fall on ye! But I do know this: it’s a long way back to McMurdo through the dead zone, with too many bits of heavy equipment that could fly loose and hurt ye, know what I mean? And too many miles of ice that can kill ye either quick or slow as ye please. D’ye hear me?”

Valena stared into the cook’s icy blue eyes. Her mind seemed suddenly to be running very, very slowly, like molasses exposed to the outside air. “Yes,” she said. “Loud and clear.”

VALENA FOUND DINNER HARD TO EAT AND EVEN MORE difficult to digest. She barely tasted Sheila’s cooking, being more focused on her words. Valena had torn off across the loneliest part of the planet looking for a killer—what had she been thinking of?

The others sat around the table wolfing down the savory meat and vegetables and pie, and called for more. Valena stared at the tabletop, pretending to read the map that had been placed there underneath a sheet of Plexiglas, trying to cope with the realization that she was in a tiny station house in an increasing gale on a tiny island of naked rock at the bottom of the earth.

She had known that the man named Dave could be the David who had been at Emmett’s camp but had let the idea drift. Why? Because he was nice-looking and moved like… well, like someone with whom she’d enjoy dancing? Because he didn’t take any guff from Willy? Because she wanted him to like her so that she’d know she was acceptable? She hazarded a glance at him, only to find that his eyes were already on her. He smiled at her. It seemed a calm and friendly smile. Was this the smile of a man who would kill another?

Valena looked quickly back at her plate. And Sheila, what of her? She was forceful, decisive, brash. Can I trust everything — or, for that matter, anything — that she told me?

Valena said a silent prayer, hoping that nothing she was thinking showed on her face. The whole maze of interactions among these people spun in her head in a dizzy array. She felt like she had stumbled through an imaginary door into a barroom fight in some Wild West movie just after a shot has been fired, with the gun smoke still hanging in the air. Who had pulled the trigger? And would he pull that trigger again?

What had she gotten herself into?

Edith cracked into her musing. “You’re mighty quiet tonight,” she said.

Valena managed a faint smile. “Just tired, I guess.”

“You did great out there,” said Hilario.

“I enjoyed it,” said Valena.

“Can I buy you a drink?” asked Dave, curling his hand around the bottle of New Zealand wine he and the others were currently emptying.

Valena glanced his way, trying to determine whether his overture was in earnest or just good manners. His eyes were dark and soft, the kind that could hide a multitude of secrets. She shook her head. “No. I think I’ll just turn in early.” Having thus spoken, she pushed back her chair, thanked Sheila for the dinner, and headed out of the room. She braved the toilet, then found her parka in the mass of red and tan outer-wear, opened the door into the wind, and headed across the way to the bunkhouse, adjusting her lean as she struggled to remain upright in what was now almost a hurricane-force wind.

The bunkhouse heater appeared to have given up the small ghost of warmth it had previously offered, but once she doffed her parka and slid into the giant sleeping bag, her warmth instantly returned. She pulled off her outer layer of thermal underwear, rolled it up for a pillow, put her head on it, and then rolled over so that the part of the sleeping bag that had been designed to lie underneath her head would instead lie atop it like a hood, covering her face. She did not wish to talk with anyone who came into the bunkhouse that night.

What seemed like hours later, she still lay awake as, one at a time, the others came in, each taking pains to be quiet except Willy, who, as he climbed into the bunk above her, put one huge stockinged foot up against her neck and rocked the bunk bed like he was trying to wrestle it to the ground. Fleetingly she wondered if the bed would take his weight. At length, the muffled sounds of sleep filled the room, and someone began to snore. Valena lay awake on into the night, wondering what, if anything, she could do to help Emmett Vanderzee—or, for that matter, herself.

DAVE LAY IN HIS SLEEPING BAG LISTENING TO THE SOFT sounds of breathing coming from the bunks all around him, trying to decide which inhalations and exhalations might be Valena’s. The knowledge that she lay somewhere quite near him worked on him like an electric current, burning him wide awake.

He had drunk more than made good sense, trying to douse that fire, but instead, it had loosened his inhibitions and addled his thoughts. He had tried being the last one to walk out to the bunkhouse, letting the wind whip at his open jacket, hoping thereby to dispel what he was feeling, but the experience had only excited him further. The wild brilliance of the Antarctic midnight had glistened off the distant mountains, and he had lifted his eyes to see if he could catch a glimpse of the moon. He missed this nearest celestial body while on the ice; somehow, he could never spot it, and by this late into the Antarctic spring, the position of the sun began to lose meaning also. All spring it spiraled upward into the sky, and, making its zenith by late December, it then began its lazy descent back toward the horizon. He was sure that, no matter how many seasons he returned to the ice, he would never get used to this strange fact of the interaction of sun, earth, and latitude.