A Superior Death

“Come for another cup of your fine coffee,” A

“Hi, A

A

“Can I pet Delphi?” she asked.

“Sure.” Sandra went on typing.

The dispatcher’s seeing-eye dog, a seven-year-old golden retriever and, as the only dog allowed on the island, a minor celebrity, lay curled neatly under the table that held the printers. A

“There!” Sandra sighed with satisfaction. “So. You finally got those bozos on the Low Dollar afloat. Did they limp back to Grand Marais all right?”

“I guess,” A

“Do you know Do

Sandra settled back in her chair, folded her hands over her midriff where it rounded out the green fabric of her uniform trousers.

Settling in for a gossip, A

“Oh, yes. Scotty brought her back from his trip home last August. He and his third wife were good friends with her parents.” The information was delivered without emotion, but Fox had a lump of tongue in her cheek and the skin around her unseeing eyes crinkled.

“What’s she like?” A

“Hard to say what somebody’s really like.” Sandra warmed to her subject. Between the radio, the phone calls, and the gossip, A

Trixy was the seasonal who headed the Interpretive Program. Winters she taught school in Houghton. For the last six summers she’d worked at ISRO. A

Sandra smiled mischievously. “All that, of course, is merely hearsay. I didn’t see it with my own eyes. My idea of what Do

A

“Um,” Sandra said, the explanation completely satisfactory. “That De

A

“Jo’s been around forever,” Sandra said when A

“Seven-oh-one, one-two-one,” cackled at Sandra’s elbow.

“Duty calls,” she said to A

“I’ve got to go too.” A

Do

Case closed.

Despite Tinker and Damien’s wishes, ISRO was simply not a hotbed of crime. The only deaths were those of i

To Isle Royale fishermen’s credit, A

A

The letter was there. A

All morning clouds had been building in the west. White cumulus laced Greenstone Ridge, peeking up over the wooded slopes of Mount Ojibway. As A

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