Winter Study

Under the file name “The Great Escape” were fragments of sentences, as if Katherine had been jotting down ideas or keeping a list.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS NEGATIVES ANYMORE.

IF MOTHER WAS DEAD, WHO WOULD CARE?

MURDER OR SUICIDE.

IF I WERE DEAD, WHO WOULD CARE?

MOTHER.

MURDER’S A DONE DEAL.

EVERYBODY’S ON THE NET.

WHO WOULD HIRE ME?

I WOULD DIE.

“Well, that’s just cryptic as hell,” A

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS NEGATIVES ANYMORE.

The list that followed was nothing but negatives. “Everybody’s on the Net,” A

She minimized that screen and clicked on a file named “Pictures” from the main menu. Given the propensity to save everything when space is measured in gigabytes, Katherine hadn’t saved many photographs. Most were of animals, wild and domestic, that had been taken with more love than skill. There were a half dozen of Katherine taken with the woman on the screen saver, winter shots with mufflers and skis, both women smiling and laughing.

There’s no such thing as negatives anymore.

Because few people used film. Katherine had been talking about digital photography. A

There’s no such things as negatives – in the classic stories of blackmail, victims had to buy back the negatives of incriminating photographs.

If Mother was dead, who would care? If Katherine was referencing compromising photographs this suggested, not that no one would miss Mother but that Mother was the person Katherine was most concerned about seeing the photographs.

What one didn’t want Mother to see was usually sexual in nature. Though born from Mother’s womb and because of her sexual congress with Father, girls – women – did not want Mom to see them in bed with some guy. Or some girl, A

MURDER OR SUICIDE.

A

IF I WERE DEAD, WHO WOULD CARE? MOTHER.

Suicide was ruled out because of the devastating effect it would have on her mother. Katherine was thinking clearly enough to realize whatever the digital photographs contained, they would not damage her mother as much as the death of her daughter would.

MURDER’S A DONE DEAL.

The powerful emotion evoked by the concept of murder, with the other choice being self-a

EVERYBODY’S ON THE NET.

WHO WOULD HIRE ME?

I WOULD DIE.

The rapist had sexually explicit photographs or videos of Katherine that he was threatening to put on the Web if she didn’t…

What? A

If she reported the assault? If she pressed charges? If she didn’t continue to allow herself to be raped?

“Jeez, other people’s lives,” A

Though prying eyes – should any be braving the night – had been shut outside, she closed the laptop partway and leaned her back against the wall.

The inferences she’d made from the list didn’t seem co

It was an accidental death. A

The virus needed certain conditions in which to grow; its victims had to be willing to believe; they had to want, on some level, maybe even unbeknownst to themselves, to do what the virus would tell them to do. And they had to be greedy: for profit, for importance, for revenge, for entertainment, for adventure. Only the greedy could be effectively co

Ridley wanted to keep the park closed winters so the wolf/moose study could continue.

Bob wanted to open Isle Royale to the public in winter because he’d been paid to find a way to do that, if not in cash, then in future work. Travel writers and professional “experts” had to find what the client paid them to find. Honesty might be the best policy, but it didn’t pay as well or get one invited back.

Katherine had seemed to want to keep the island open but was more concerned that Bob accept her thesis and pass it on to her graduate committee. At least until they’d come to a parting of the ways after the necropsy and Katherine had run off.

Robin wanted to keep ISRO closed in winter and the study up and ru

A

The wolves, the ice, the windigo, the weather, the very blood and bone of the island seemed to want them dead or confused or insane or gone. Wolves came so close, it was as if they wished to be near humans, wished to be seen. Wolves killed Katherine. Ice three inches thick, thick enough to ride horses across, broke in a mouth-shaped hole at the weight of one small woman. Snow blocked vision and wind tore at nerves and cold ate away at hearts.