Sarah Andrews - In Cold Pursuit

Valena stepped lightly over the snow, following the steps she had kicked coming downward. She had put on both layers of boot liner and had tightened the laces as tight as she could, but it was still tough going.

“I don’t have anything to tell you,” said Dan, pulling up beside her.

“That’s too bad,” said Valena evenly. She was becoming interested in the way the snowflakes refracted the light. They were like diamonds, and here and there lay a ruby, an emerald, a sapphire, or richest citrine.

“Emmett was going down, and if I’d stayed with him, I’d be sitting in Reno right now with Taha. Or I’d be in your shoes.”

“Mm-hm.” She glanced up the slope. The distance to the others was widening. She picked up her pace.

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know who was where when it happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the Airlift Wing dropped the bundle. Where were you?”

“I was in the cook tent. We heard it go overhead. But it was blowing and snowing so hard… well, we stayed put.”

“You stayed put.”

“No, I followed the ropes down to my tent. The one I shared with Bob. We were together the whole time. Emmett told me later that he and Cal went out right away, but they were nuts.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it?”

“Okay, and who was in the cook tent?”

“Sheila. Morris. Dave.”

“That’s interesting. You called him by his given name.”

“Who?”

“Morris Sweeny. He was a real person to you.”

“Oh, sure. Kind of an ass, but he was a good writer.”

“Even if he misrepresented Emmett’s work?”

“It was Frink who wrote that article, not him, though we had some lively debates about all that. But Morris seemed more intent on… well, like he was looking for something here in Antarctica. Another story. Maybe his own story.”

They were on the steepest part of the slope now. Valena tilted her head back to look for Naomi. She was just disappearing up over the convex curve of the glacier. “What sort of story?”

Lindemann said, “I don’t know… human interest, more. He asked a lot of questions about the people he was going to meet in camp.”

“Who in particular?”

“He was pretty cagy, didn’t focus on anyone in particular, but asked lots of questions about who had been in the military, or how long they’d been around the university. How well Emmett knew everybody.”

“And how well did Emmett know you all?”

Lindemann stopped to take a drink of water from his pack.

Valena looked upslope. The two drillers had disappeared. Only the second graduate student was still in sight.

Lindemann started moving again, but he changed the subject. “Like Frink, Morris didn’t get the science. Just didn’t have a clue about how it’s done. You know how it goes: he thinks a theory is a fact, and thinks the facts are negotiable based on who observed them. Doesn’t understand the scientific method, or what it’s good for and what it’s not. Basically clueless. Educable, perhaps, if you get him away from his neo-con buddies. That’s why Emmett invited him down, or at least, that’s why he said he did.”

“And was he getting educated?” She looked again uphill. They were alone. She quickened her pace.

Dan shook his head. “It was kind of a mess. The storm hit just after we got him to the high camp, and then he got sick. It sure put an end to our arguments.”

“You argued with him?”

“About the science.”

“Had you ever met him before?”

“Huh? No. Why?”

“Then how do you know so much about him?”

“I was down in McMurdo when he arrived.”

“I didn’t know that.” She was sweating from the pace.

“Yeah. I’d gotten sick, so Emmett left me behind when he went up to the high camp. In fact the only way I got up there at all was because they had the plane scheduled to fly in to pick up some of the fuel barrels that had gotten buried to another site.”

“I don’t understand. Why drop the barrels and then move them?” She was panting with the effort. She dropped her skis and put them on, hoping the gradient was now shallow enough that she could ski and pick up the pace. She slipped, then the skis caught, and began to surge forward.

“I don’t know, really. The Airlift Wing had dropped them, and someone needed some over in another camp, so NSF sent in the Otter to pick a couple up. That meant there were two seats for us going in, and Morris push his way into the high camp because there had been such delays and he hated McMurdo. Too many liberals.”

“I can just imagine.”

“So NSF went along with it. They should have called his bluff, but they didn’t.”

“So you had kind of gotten to know him while waiting in McMurdo.”

Lindemann nodded. “The Coffee House.”

“Wine.”

“New Zealand merlots. We had that in common.”

“And women.”

“Yeah, he liked women. So do I,” he said, sliding an evil look her way. “So what?”

“Okay.” She was making better time now, the slope of the glacier shallow enough that she could really begin to move.

“And I was making progress with him. Helping him understand things a little better.”

“That’s good. So then you were at the high camp, and Ted the blaster flew out with the Otter pilot, and the storm hit, and Morris got sick, and that was that.” Her breath burned in her lungs from the effort of speaking while she pushed so hard on the skis. “Have I got all that straight?”

“Yeah.”

“So how did the other Gamow bag find its way back to McMurdo?”

“That—” Dan shuffled along for a while, thinking. “I don’t know,” he muttered.

“All right then, here’s another question: did you notice anything unusual or unexpected after you got there? I mean, as regards Morris’s conversations with the others. Before he got sick.”

“What do you mean?”

Valena thought carefully about how to phrase her question. Whoever had visited Naomi’s camp to pass the word of Emmett’s arrest would not have known the particulars she knew, so if Dan offered them up, he knew them from having been there rather than from having been filled in after the fact, and she did not want to contaminate him as a witness. “Well, the feds assumed that Emmett was the one who caused the death because he was the one who was angry with the deceased. But perhaps someone else had a beef. So who else did he communicate with?”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” Dan thought a while. “It’s hard to remember after all this time. Mostly what I recall was how scared Emmett and everyone was when the guy got sick.”

At last, they were back up on top of the glacier and could see the tops of the Scott tents coming up over the curve. “Let’s put it another way, then. Who wasn’t scared?”

“Oh, that’s easy. That Wee Willy guy. But I figured he was just too damned stupid to get scared.” Dan stopped skiing. He stood still, thinking. “And come to think of it, there was another guy Morris didn’t like.” He gave her an appraising look. “Exactly what’s it worth to you to know?”

Valena pushed ahead. Over her shoulder, she called, “It’s worth your damned doctorate!”

“Dave,” called Dan. “He didn’t like Dave.”

ON MONDAY WHEN THE ASTAR THUDDED OUT OF THE sky onto Clark Glacier, Valena was ready and waiting next to the loaded core boxes. The downdraft from the rotors of the descending helicopter blasted her and everything within fifty yards with flying snow. She said her good-byes and thanks to Naomi, waved to the others, and climbed aboard. Her departure accomplished, she greeted the liftoff with the sharp focus of the single-minded. She had narrowed her search to two suspects, and it would soon be one.