A Superior Death by Nevada Barr Read Free Book Online Page B

bet,” Anna said. Scotty would be a veritable Philemon’s pitcher of bottles and cans. Pickle relish wasn’t the only thing he ordered by the case. The repetition of thought triggered understanding. “Twenty-seven Bottles of Relish!” Anna exclaimed. It was a short story about a man who had consumed the evidence of his wife’s murder, with relish as the condiment.
    “That’s what we think,” Tinker said. She had brightened again, Anna’s disapproval a cloud that had passed.
    With comprehension, the fog began to lift from Anna’s mind and she was mildly ashamed she’d suspected the drugging of her tea. To clear Tinker of an accusation never made, she took a swallow. Cold, it tasted more of earth and root than of mint and honey. She set it aside.
    “You’ve got expectant ducks and an empty pickle jar,” Anna summed up the evidence. She knew she sounded abrupt but she was getting tired. Under her collar, her sunburn had begun to chafe and the smoke from the candles was making her eyes water.
    “We also have photographs,” Damien said. He rose, swirling his calf-length cape alarmingly near the open flames, and took down a tin box from the jumble of bags and boxes that filled the top of the two bunk beds.
    Anna’s interest pricked up. She eased her back, forcing herself to sit a little straighter.
    “We’ll need artificial light for this,” Damien apologized. Anna was grateful. She could use the nice healthy glare of the overhead electric. Disappointment soon followed: Damien took a flashlight from the upper bunk. Anna allowed herself a small sigh. It was barely even a change in her breathing pattern, but Tinker caught it. She lay one tapered finger on Anna’s sleeve as if to lend her patience. Or faith.
    Damien sat on the floor again, tailor fashion, the black cape billowing around his knees, then settling like a dark mist. He opened the box with the lid toward Anna so she couldn’t see its contents. Some rummaging with the flashlight produced two snapshots. For a long, irritating moment he studied them, then handed the first to Anna.
    She took it and the flashlight from his hands. The Polaroid was of Scotty Butkus in his NPS uniform standing on the dock in Houghton. Behind him the hull of the Ranger III rose like a blue wall. Suitcases and boxes and canoes littered the pier. Apparently it was loading day; the day most of the staff moved to the island for the season.
    “Now look at this one.” Damien handed her the second photograph.
    Dutifully, Anna trained the flashlight on it: Scotty Butkus leaning against the wall of the Rec Hall on Mott Island. He was wearing Levi’s and a white vee-necked undershirt. In his right hand was what was probably a Mickey’s Big Mouth. The aspen trees behind him were in full leaf and in the background Anna could just make out Canada dogwood in bloom. The dogwood had only begun to flower in the last week. The picture had been taken recently.
    “What am I supposed to be seeing?” she asked.
    Tinker, unable to contain herself any longer, leaned over Anna’s arm and pointed at Butkus’s midsection. “Look how much fatter he is in this picture. He’s a blimp.
    He must’ve put on fifteen pounds.”
    Scotty was heavier. His belly hung over his belt and his face was puffy. Anna clicked off the flashlight and handed it and the photographs back to Damien. “Given that Scotty, for whatever reason, decided to murder his wife,” she began, trying a new tack, “doesn’t it seem odd that with access to a boat and hundreds of square miles of deep water, he would choose to dispose of the body by eating it?”
    “Not if he was the reincarnation of Charlie Mott,” Damien said triumphantly. He and Tinker looked at her expectantly, twin Perry Masons having delivered the coup de grâce.
    Anna rubbed her face. “Could we have some light in here, please?”
    Damien hopped up obediently and switched on the overhead. The room’s mystery vanished. For a few moments the three of them