Nevada Barr - Winter Study

Searching by flashlight had its advantages. Able only to see the three-foot-by-three-foot spotlighted area, the eye was not distracted. Occasionally Anna’d turned the lights out when there was electricity to burn and used a flashlight to concentrate her mind on details.

The box of merlot was on the floor where they’d left it, the overturned mason jar nearby. Anna shined her light on the bottom: number 4427. Adam’s. Robin did well in the largely male world of wolf research by keeping as much under the radar as a beautiful young woman can hope to. In the days Anna had known her, she was careful not to call attention to herself and did her best to fade into the woodwork when others did. Breaking the tradition of the mason jars was out of character. If she’d been sufficiently drunk, she might not have noticed she was taking Adam’s jar – or noticed but been beyond worrying about consequences. Robin might have taken Adam’s glass for spite. Had she been a silly young woman, Anna would have considered that she could have taken it for love, the island equivalent of wearing the boy’s letterman’s jacket, but Robin wasn’t silly.

Fingerprints could be lifted from the jar. Several were apparent in the beam of the flashlight. Robin’s would be on it; Bob’s, probably. Maybe Adam’s. The only print that would be telling would be the print of the human version of the wog; someone on Isle Royale who shouldn’t be. Anna bagged it. At the rate she was collecting evidence of crimes that might or might not have been committed, the crawl space under the carpenter’s shop would soon fill up.

Taking her time, she followed the yellow circle of light around the office. A few items had been left on the desktop when the island was closed to the public in October and the District Ranger went back to Houghton: a stapler, a plastic box with a magnetized opening half full of paper clips, an empty in-basket and a bright pink pad of Post-it notes. These were lined up neatly beside the many-buttoned phone.

Robin hadn’t done the bulk of her drinking in this room. Not even a naturally graceful bi-athlete could get that totally pissed without disarranging a few things, spilling a few drops.

The office chair was overturned; the five starfish legs, each with a wheel on the end, did their best to trip Anna as she moved around the desk. Chairs of that design weren’t easy to tip over. Robin must have collapsed into – or onto – it and carried it down when she went to the floor.

Tracing the three points she’d found of interest, Anna moved the light from the wine box to the mason jar to the overturned chair.

Robin had not been holding the merlot when she fell. Rectangles half full of liquid didn’t roll as far as the box was from the chair. The mason jar was a distance from both chair and wine box. Robin might have dropped them – jar, then box – then collapsed in the chair. Bob might have moved them.

Anna crouched down and shined her light along the fuzzy tops of the close-cropped carpet. A flat, square package an inch or so on a side was beneath the desk. Lying on her belly, she fished it out. A condom, the package unopened. Unless District Rangers in other parks led far more exciting lives than they did in Rocky Mountain, or a couple of enterprising seasonals, waiting for the last boat off the island, managed to find a key and take advantage of the office with the view, this belonged either to Robin or Bob. Either way, it suggested a rendezvous had been planned. If the condom was Robin’s, Anna doubted Bob was slated to be the wearer.

It was not beyond the possibility that, as Bob struggled to help Robin, a condom he’d not thought of in years but kept handy in his wallet at all times like an ever-optimistic high school jock tumbled out and was kicked beneath the desk, but it wasn’t a scenario Anna was going to put money on. Bob brought the condom because he knew Robin was drunk and an opportunity to take advantage might present itself. Or Robin had been intending to meet with a lover and Bob had spoiled it. Maybe Adam’s jar was on scene because Adam had been on scene.

Anna shook her head as if an invisible jury watched from the hall. Adam had been on the couch all evening, front and center in the common room, as if he wanted it to be seen that he was in the bunkhouse.

Anna sealed the package with its tidy ring in the center between two hot-pink Post-its and slipped it into her pocket. In movies, law enforcement fought dramatic, complex evils. In real life, that was seldom the case. Law enforcement was the endless slogging through the ooze and slime of run-of-the-mill evil, evil so ordinary, so interwoven with the threads of people’s lives, that to root it out tore the victim and the community apart while the monsters shrugged it off in true monstrous fashion. Molestation, wife beating, incest, date rape, statutory rape, gang bangs at frat parties – all the nasty, dirty crimes – damaged the victims again when “justice” was perpetrated.

Anna had testified a number of times in her career and been to quite a few depositions. Defense lawyers were there to keep their client, innocent or guilty, out of jail. At any cost.

Prosecutors were there to put the accused, innocent or guilty, in jail. At any cost. Defense attorneys routinely boasted over cocktails of getting rapists or murderers or child pornographers off. It was a testament to their abilities. The excuse they made for shelving their integrity was the law school cant: they were making the state toe the line, make its case.

Most simply wanted to win.

The sound of metal sliding into metal blasted her musings with the jarring force of a shotgun being racked. She switched off the flashlight and, trailing her fingers along the wall, moved rapidly to where the hall branched, leading into the Visitors Center’s main room.

Stealth being impossible in full winter regalia, Anna turned on her light and swept the room before she crossed to the doors. Empty. No light came from outside, no person stood on the decking in front of the doors. Hitting the crash bar, she shoved, but the doors didn’t give. She grabbed the handles and rattled. The dead bolt was engaged. The only way to lock it was with a key from the outside.

The only way to unlock it was with a key from the outside.

Switching off her light, Anna stepped away from the doors lest she make a target of herself. The one other door to the outside was at the opposite end of the hall from the District Ranger’s office. Navigating mostly by memory and the occasional flick of her flashlight, she found it quickly. The bolt on it had been thrown as well, probably when the island was closed in mid-October.

Putting her back against the door, she stared down the dark hallway. The V.C. was built in the modern style: the windows didn’t open. Climate was controlled even in the “wilderness,” the vagaries of weather and the human need for fresh air shut out by glass and technology. Minutes before, she’d wanted to be in the building. Now, because someone – not wog or weird but a human, someone with a key and opposable thumbs – decided to imprison her there, she wanted out.

Bob Menechinn was her first thought. Ridley’s key had been missing. Bob or Robin could have lifted it from his desk and unlocked the Visitors Center. Robin was in no shape to creep back down and lock Anna in. She was also in no shape to defend herself from visitors in the night. Anna comforted herself with the thought that breaking down the bedroom door would rouse Ridley and Adam. The comfort was countered with the thought that Robin might open the door to whoever rapped on it.

Flashlight on, stealth forgotten, Anna ran down the hall, checking offices, in hope that somewhere a window had been made that would open, that in a mental lapse the architect had overlooked one small portal to the real world. Otherwise she would be reduced to shattering glass.