A superior death by Nevada Barr

Author:Nevada Barr [Barr, Nevada]
Format: epub
Tags: Detective, Mystery, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Superior (Lake; Region), Isle Royale National Park (Mich.), Mystery & Detective, Fiction - Mystery, Pigeon; Anna (Fictitious character), Fiction, Women park rangers, Suspense, Women Sleuths, Mystery & Detective - Series, Mystery fiction, Superior; Lake; Region, General, Mystery & Detective - General, Pigeon; Anna (Fictitions character)
ISBN: 9780425194713
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's, c1994.
Published: 2003-09-02T07:00:00+00:00

Lest her sister should precede her through the pearly gates by too great a margin, Anna decided to work on her cirrhosis. Instead of a glass, she bought a bottle. Ordinarily Patience sold only house wine and only by the glass. For Anna she’d found a bottle of Graves Villages, 1984. At eighteen dollars Anna guessed she was getting it at cost.

The sharp flinty taste was a perfect accompaniment to the night. Out on the patio behind the lodge, the air was full of moisture and lay on her skin like damp velvet.

She relaxed into the Adirondack-style lounge chair, enjoying the gentle bite of the wooden slats across her back and thighs. Taking a sip of the Graves, she held it in her mouth, letting her tongue savor the taste, her body anticipate the alcohol. Onto the mysteries of the night, Anna projected the petty mysteries of the days, listing them for herself in no particular order.

Number one: Denny Castle, dead, one hundred and ninety-five feet below the lake’s surface, dressed in a costume that was supposed to be in a trunk in his mother’s attic.

Frederick Stanton believed the death was drug-related. Profiles indicated traffic between the U.S. and Canada. Profiles indicated the 3rd Sister as a red-hot possibility. And she was the only concession working the island that week with known dive capabilities. If Stanton could get a case up, the 3rd Sister would be impounded. The Bradshaws would be out of a living and, more to the point, out of a life. Diving was all they had, all they cared about.

Number two: Mrs. Scotty Butkus had vanished, beaten certainly, and, if Tinker and Damien were right, consumed as if by a Windigo, the cannibalistic demon said to haunt the north woods.

Number three: Tinker and Damien now had a mystery all their own. Who was threatening them? What happened in 1978 to, in, or because of “Hopkins”?

Four: Why had Jim Tattinger been running without lights near the Kamloops wreck forty-eight hours before the body was scheduled to be brought up?

And five—or was she already to six? What was Denny to Holly, and why was it so laughable to Hawk that there could be a romance there?

Why was Molly’s client wearing suspenders and a belt? More to the point, how was Hawk Bradshaw in bed?

Anna laughed. The wine was kicking in. In the close darkness, she smiled over her list. Some of the mysteries were going to be a whole lot more fun to solve than others.

A clatter of footsteps broke into her thoughts. Invisible in the shadowless dark, she lay still. The clatter ended in a flop. A pale shape dumped itself on the wooden step a couple of yards from Anna. The shape was fidgety. Anna could hear the scuffling, plucking sounds as of restless fingers and feet fiddling about. The breathing was slightly adenoidal.

“Evening, Carrie Ann.” There was a satisfying squawk from the girl. “Sorry if I startled you,” Anna lied mildly. “Out to enjoy the evening?”

“Not hardly.

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