Nevada Barr - Blind Descent

"Gone?" Anna tensed for a confession laced with hard-core rationalizations.

"Peter got rid of her," Zeddie said, pride of ownership in her voice. "'Bout damn time."

She was too open, cheery. Anna was getting confused and a little nervous. What she had here was either a misunderstanding or an undiagnosed psychopath. She sought clarification with a gentle probe. "I hate to pry-"

"Hah!"

"Okay. I like to pry. How about this: Why in God's name did Peter think it was such a terrific idea to go on an expedition with his wife and his girlfriend and his ex-girlfriend?"

"The ex is no big deal," Zeddie said. "That was years ago. Frieda and Peter were friends. Shoot, Frieda and I were friends. With the notable exception of the Boil, I've always liked Pete's taste in women."

A clutter of tourists, jangling cameras and Anna's nerves, clattered down the trail. Duty calling, Zeddie left the bench and answered questions for a few minutes. Anna's favorite came from a scrawny youth in trousers so large the crotch hobbled him at the knees. "What does the cave weigh?"

The group was swallowed by the shadows, and Zeddie returned to the bench. "What do you want to bet that boy'll piss in the Urinal?"

Bowing to Zeddie's greater experience in things scatological, Anna declined the wager.

"Where were we?" Zeddie said, then, "Oh, right, you were interrogating me about the most intimate personal aspects of my life that are none of your business."

"That's it in a nutshell," Anna conceded. "You, Peter, and the Mrs. along on the same trip. That's where we left off."

"It does sound kinky when you put it like that. I was going through a bad time. Peter wanted to be with me. The sentiment was mutual. This survey came up. I wangled two places on it through Frieda. At the last minute Sondra dug in her heels. It was bring her or call the whole thing off. He brought her. Peter and I have known each other a long time, been through a lot together. We don't have to sleep in the same bed-though I've got to admit it's nice. Just being together, having a chance to talk, was enough."

"I take it Sondra didn't know about you two?"

"We were broken up when they got married."

"Why did he marry her, blackmail?"

"Rebound. I broke up with him. He's older than I am, established. I'm not ready to become Mrs. Doctor anybody. There are things I want to do. To make it stick, I made it brutal. Just fooling myself. I'm as addicted to Peter as he is to me. But I'm damned if I'll marry him. He was beginning to feel like an aging Warren Beatty with no Annette Bening in sight. Sondra showed up and waltzed him down the aisle. Therapy waiting to happen."

"Does he want a divorce?"

"Yeah. It embarrasses the hell out of him. They haven't been married all that long. He did make a fool of himself. We all do now and again. But he wants out. She was just too much of a bitch."

Anna let the information soak in. Zeddie genuinely seemed not to care that Peter was wed, not to want to marry him herself. It fit with the other things Anna had observed: the free spiritedness, the fierce independence, the hint of tie-dye and incense. According to her-and the story had the mundane ring of truth-Sondra had not blackmailed Peter into matrimony. She'd caught him on the bounce and parlayed it into a white veil and a wedding band. Blackmail must have come later, been used not to acquire the husband but to control him.

Zeddie was kidding herself if she believed Sondra was not aware of her relationship with the doctor. In the beginning Sondra may not have known, but after the forced intimacy of several days underground she would have figured it out. Secret lovers seldom fool anyone but themselves. The discipline of an Olivier is required to lie with body language over a protracted period. There's too much to control: looks, gestures, position, voice. Women are especially adept at reading the signs. When a husband and a younger woman are involved, the senses become preternaturally acute. Sondra knew. A few questions to Frieda or Curt would have told her Zeddie, like herself and Frieda, had once been a patient of Dr. McCarty's. Two would be added to two, and Sondra would have enough leverage to keep Peter married to her or walk away with a hefty divorce settlement.

Anna had heard her threaten Peter with those choices. During that part of the rescue the team had been strung out along the route, each with a job to perform in the problematic evacuation. Peter would not have had a chance to talk with Zeddie, not before Katie's Pigtail. Zeddie wouldn't have known Sondra was going to play hardball.

"… was too much of a bitch… was a boil…" Zeddie had used the past tense when speaking of the doctor's wife.

"Was a boil. You said 'was.'"

"Too crude for you?" Zeddie asked offhandedly. "Too bad. It's about the nicest thing I can think of to say about her."

"Was. Not is. Why the past tense?"

"Okay. Is."

Not a flicker of self-consciousness. Anna got no inkling that Zeddie had been caught in a trap, given herself away.

"As long as she's not a boil on my personal butt, I couldn't care less. What're you, her press agent?"

"I only asked because Sondra never came out of Lechuguilla."

Zeddie snorted her truncated laugh. "Yes she did."

"Nope. Never came out, never rode down to town, never flew out of the Carlsbad Airport."

"You're kidding." Zeddie sounded hopeful.

"Not kidding."

"Jesus." Zeddie took off her flat hat so she could lean back against the stone. Stretching her heavy legs, she drummed her heels softly against the asphalt; an obstruction just waiting for a tourist to trip over it. Anna sat without speaking, watching gray ghostly visitors glide along pathways below.

"Sondra never came out?"

"Never did."

"Jesus," Zeddie repeated. "Is this the part where you accuse me of murder?"

"No," Anna said. "Not quite yet." She was thinking of that something else that had been troubling her. "You said Peter came down because you were going through a bad time."

Zeddie didn't reply, and for the first time since they'd sat down together Anna sensed wariness. "What was that about?" she pressed.

"Just some personal demons. I intend to keep them that way."

Warning was clear in her voice. Anna chose to ignore it. "You had an older sister?"

"Darla," Zeddie said dully.

"She was killed in a climbing accident, wasn't she?"

Zeddie didn't say anything. Had they not been so close, Anna wouldn't have seen her nod. Her chin dipped toward her chest in acquiescence or defeat.

"Ten years or thereabouts?" Anna asked.

"Ten years this month."

The tenth anniversary of her sister's death; Anna could understand how that would cause a bad patch, emotionally speaking. "Was Frieda there when it happened?"

Again the nod. Before Anna could go on, Zeddie looked up like a woman coming out of anesthesia. Anna didn't need light to see the anger burning in her face. "What are you saying?" Zeddie demanded. The hard edge to her voice should have tipped Anna off, but it didn't.

"That maybe what happened to your sister happened to Frieda."

Anna never saw the blow coming. Suddenly she was facedown on the path with a buzzing in her right ear and a feeling the world had fallen in on her. Imposing as a limestone formation, Zeddie towered above her. In the velvet semidark Anna could not see her face. She could see strong hands bunched into fists next to muscular thighs and the broad expanse of shoulder looming between her and the vastness of the cavern's ceiling. The shadowed bulk moved back. Anna curled into a tight ball, readying for a kick in the ribs.

"Oh my gosh! What happened?" A voice piped through the gloom. Half a dozen tourists, smelling of catsup and cologne, pattered down. The herd closed around Anna.