Winter Study

22

A

Though it was after dark when she returned to the bunkhouse, no one had radioed to see if she were alive or dead. No one seemed to have the spirit to care. Cabin fever had become epidemic. Ridley worked at his desk in the room he and Jonah shared. Adam lay on the sofa, sleeping or pretending to. Bob’s door was closed, and Jonah, for once uninterested in company, sat in the dim light of the common room’s overhead light, dividing his time between watching Adam, as if trying to guess his weight, and staring at a well-thumbed Newsweek. On the table by the magazine was a mason jar with an inch of red wine in it. Number 2787, A

Divested of her many layers and dressed in dry, if not clean, clothes, A

“Did Ridley get through to report Katherine’s death?” she asked of the room in general.

Jonah answered. “E-mailed. Got one back. As soon as it clears, the Forest Service will be here with the Beaver. Everybody goes.”

Bob had gotten his way, to a degree. That was the reason for the spiritual collapse of the Winter Study team. This season’s work was over unless Ridley could talk the Superintendent into relenting. Given the ma

“When do they think the weather will break?” A

“Another front’s coming down from Canada. Three days, maybe a week. We’ve been here as much as two weeks without the Beaver getting in to bring us provisions,” Jonah said. “Too dangerous to fly in this stuff.”

Adam opened his eyes. “Three days?” he said. There was a note of alarm in his voice, as if three days was either not enough or too much to bear.

To A

Adam closed his eyes again.

Silence descended again, punctuated by sneaky pops and hisses as fire consumed wood. Jonah went back to reading and watching Adam. The easy camaraderie was breaking down. Ridley didn’t laugh at Jonah’s antics and Jonah seldom indulged in them. Ridley distanced himself from Adam; Jonah watched him, and Adam took every chance he could to go off by himself.

Another week of this and A

Mother Nature had sold them out and Old Man Winter held them hostage. No risks would be taken for a body recovery of a woman killed in an accident.

A

Paul’s front yard. A

The outer shell of her parka was dry to the touch. She lifted it off the rack. Turning the coat inside out to dry the lining, she felt a lump in the pocket. The vial of wolf’s blood; she’d forgotten to put it in the toolbox evidence locker. By now, it would have thawed. Stowing it beneath the carpenter’s shop would only serve to refreeze it and what little value it might have would be lost. She left it where it was.

The blood samples Katherine had carried with her to the cedar swamp stuck in A

It was possible that the blood samples didn’t fit into the story because they had no relevance. Katherine might have pocketed them with the intention of doing tests when she returned to her kitchen/ lab.

Katherine had fiddled with wolf parts nonstop for the better part of two days. The kitchen was filled with racks of vials containing samples of tissue, blood, bone, stomach contents, hair, ticks, mites and other marvelous things. What tests could be left to do? Why not use the blood she’d taken before the wolf was moved to the carpenter’s shop?

Leaving the heat of the stove and the oppressive peopled emptiness of the common room, A

The PCR was in its travel case on the counter, the record book beside it. A

As A

A

Wog DNA wasn’t what triggered Katherine. For a scientist, a find at that level of idiosyncratic bizarreness was tantamount to a cat finding a real live mouse full of catnip. Something she’d discovered during the necropsy precipitated her mad dash into the woods. A

Ridley’s hand was cut and bleeding. A

Jonah said she’d pocketed the samples and run out.