Nevada Barr - Track Of The Cat

"I know adoption is all the rage," Anna said. "But I think I'd want my own. I'd want to see myself, my mother, my dad-reflections, anyway. These days with drugs and AIDS and whatever, if it wasn't really yours, you'd never know." She laughed. It was genuine. She was enjoying herself. "You know what they say: if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself."

"Do you have children?" The question was abrupt, aggressive. Erik was beginning to twitch under her lash.

"No," Anna replied. She let his look of self-satisfaction settle for a couple seconds. Then she added. "I wish I did now Zach is gone. He wanted to wait. We were so broke. Both times I got pregnant-well, abortion seemed the right choice at the time."

"Abortion!"

Anna had him. "We used birth control but…" She allowed herself a small secret-sad smile. "Zach was exceedingly virile… Anyway, I doubt I'll have kids now. But maybe I'll be an honorary aunt. I know Christina plans to have another child." Anna sipped her coffee, hoping she hadn't laid it on too thick. Maybe he'd clam up, leave the room or something.

"That'd be a shame," he said quietly after nearly a minute had elapsed.

Anna waited, egging him on with silence.

"Criminals ought to be sterilized," he said with sudden vehemence. "Thieves and perverts breed thieves and perverts."

Perverts held no interest for Anna. It was clear to her which of the two had perverted love to their own ends and it wasn't Christina. "Thieves?"

Erik laughed. "I see Chrissy didn't tell you. Good old Mommy is a crook. She wrote nearly ten thousand dollars in bad checks signed in my name. That phony Madonna-and-Child act she does so well is all that kept her out of jail. Linda-" he made the name sound like an adjective describing something vile. "Linda, it seems, required recompense for her services."

Christina walked into the ensuing silence. The apologetic half-smile that she wore constantly in Erik's company flickered unsteadily at the hostility in the room.

"Is the coffee okay, Erik?" she asked anxiously.

"It's fine, Chrissy," he said. His tone implied: "for the best effort of a fool."

Christina took his cup away.

Anna wished Chris had written a hundred thousand dollars worth of bad checks.

"Ally asked if you would read her a bedtime story," Christina said while she busied herself at the sink. "Could you?"

Without a word, Erik got up and walked into the dark hallway toward the bedrooms.

There was a sharp crack, the sound of broken glass falling. Christina had smashed his coffee cup against the side of the stainless-steel sink.

"Walk me home?" Anna said.

Clouds obscured the stars to the west and lightning flickered formlessly, too distant to be more than a vague and sudden glow. Christina sucked air noisily into her lungs. "God! Erik seems to take up all the oxygen in a room, doesn't he?"

"I can see why you left him. He sucks the life out of you."

"I suppose he told you about the checks?" Christina said.

It saddened Anna to hear herself addressed in the same anxious apologetic tone Christina used with Erik. "He told me."

"He did try to get Ally on the lesbian angle, too. I just left out the forgery part. I didn't mean to lie to you."

"I know," Anna replied. "It was easier."

As they approached Anna's door both women slowed. Neither had much reason to go home and the night was warm, the stars deep overhead. In common unspoken agreement they sat side by side on the curb fifteen feet from Anna's apartment.

"What happened to Zach?" Christina asked. Then quickly added: "You needn't tell me, if you don't want to."

"I don't mind," Anna said. "We were having a special supper, celebrating the fact that it was Thursday and there were no other holidays declared to infringe on ours. Zach was broiling steak on a little hibachi out on the fire escape. I wanted A-l sauce. He was sprinting across Ninth Avenue to Goodman's to get it. A cab hit him. The cabby drove off. Nobody got the license number. Zach died. That's about it."

Christina was quiet for a while but she shifted closer and Anna felt comforted by the warmth of her shoulder in the darkness. "Such a sad thing," she said. "Is that why you are a vegetarian?"

"No. Maybe it's why I drink."

"A little wine is good for the soul."

"A lot is better."

AT ten past nine in the morning Pacific Daylight time, Anna called the California DMV. They reaffirmed what she'd already guessed: E. Wheelan was legitimate; an Ernest Wheelan from San Anselmo, California. She then called Brown and Coldwell in San Francisco. Dianne, Mr. Walters's secretary, was glad to check a date for a Gunnison Oil secretary. No, no trouble. She'd loused up a few times in her career. Secretaries had to stick together. No need for the boss to know every little glitch.

Mr. Walters had been in a board meeting from three p.m. till nearly eight on July 2. Yes, she was certain. She'd been kept running the whole time fetching coffee and sandwiches and Xerox copies, then had to take the bus home at eight-thirty at night because Brown and Coldwell wouldn't spring for cab fare.

Anna hung up, leaned her head on her hands and stared out the dirty attic window of the Frijole ranger station. The attic was hot and fly-specked but it housed the only phone in the park where one could be relatively assured of privacy. The escarpment showed nearly white in the early sun, evergreens at the top fine and black as a fringe of silk. Anna found it difficult to believe there was more than one murderer stalking the backcountry of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. If that were true, then alibis for the time of her or Craig's attacks would imply innocence in the Drury lion kill. Unless one of the "accidents" were really an accident. Unlikely but far from impossible.

For the moment she would put Erik and Christina into the "Innocent" category. She looked down at her list.

Karl Johnson was next.

In front of her on the desk was a yellow slip of paper: the phone message Marta had pressed on her when she'd first returned from Mexico. Anna had forgotten it. Then at five p.m. the previous evening, when she'd finally gotten around to doing her laundry, she'd found it crushed in the pocket of her Levis. It was from Tim Dayton at the Roswell lab where she had sent the samples from Karl's truck. The note said only that he called and to call back. Nothing urgent.

She dialed the number. Tim was in. From the faint swallowing sounds that came through the wire as she waited, Anna guessed the man who answered had laid the receiver down by a Bunsen burner with something boiling on it. She preferred it to Muzak.

After several minutes, Tim came on the line.

"Thanks for the blood test," Anna said. "Your assistant told me the samples were animal blood."

"Yes," Tim replied. He was older than Anna but, to his eternal annoyance, he sounded like a little kid over the phone. "Tessie said. Since you didn't call back, I figured it was no big deal, but I wanted to check with you before I threw out that hypo you sent-the one with the ketimine."

"Ketimine?"

"Yeah. It's pretty common. Vets use it to anesthetize animals. It puts them under more safely than the depressants they used to use."

Anna knew Roads and Trails sometimes sedated a problem animal so the Resource Management team could relocate it. It seemed odd that the stuff was in Karl's truck, but no one had been anesthetized. Not yet, anyhow. "Thanks, Tim. Go ahead and toss it."

"Sure you don't want it back?" His voice took on a teasing edge. "Used on people, the stuff is one hell of a hallucinogen. One more time for auld lang syne?"

"LSD!" Anna exclaimed, remembering Drury's autopsy. "My God."

"Not exactly, but it'll get you there."