Winter Study

29

Having cached the broken tip of the tranquilizer dart with the rest of her Nancy Drew collection in the rusted toolbox under the floorboards, A

“That doesn’t make sense,” she said. The words fell into the motionless universe, leaving no ripple. “Katherine, if Bob killed the wolf, why would he make the neck wound interesting? ‘Interesting’ doesn’t get the study shut down. It goes against his interests. Bob never goes against his interests.” Momentary sadness drifted across A

“Talking to dead people,” she said to the gray that knitted branches together above her head. “At least I’m not seeing dead people.” Still, she didn’t move.

Whoever had shot the wolf had made the bite marks so it would appear as if it was killed by a giant beast. It was possible that the animal was tranquilized by one person, then another person happened along in the dark with a pointed object and thought, “Boy, wouldn’t it be fu

Flying back from Intermediate Lake the day she and Jonah saw Chippewa Harbor pack kill the old bull, she had seen a wolfish shape in black, a neat circling of nose to tail, as if a monstrous dog slept in the snow beneath the boughs of an evergreen, just the shape viewed from the air. She thought of the great deception in World War II when the British had salted England with cutouts of Spitfires and barracks without walls so that, seen from the air by German planes, they would look to be an army amassing for an invasion at Calais, while the Allies moved ahead with plans to land on the beaches of Normandy.

Huge paw prints in all the right places, never perfectly clear and always accompanied by moose prints, as if Bullwinkle had been adopted along with Romulus and Remus. A hard object shaped like the hoof of a moose and affixed to the bottom of snowshoes would work. Each step would leave the mark of the hoof; no sign of the human above it. Giant paw prints were easy enough, pawlike shapes on the end of ski poles. With the wind and the drifting snow, even an experienced tracker wouldn’t be able to tell they weren’t made by a genuine wolf.

A

The marauding animal that had terrorized their camp up by Lake Desor had snuffled like a bear, pawed at the nylon walls like a dog and left no paw prints. When Katherine hadn’t been scared, Robin had snorted – almost a laugh. Because she had known the “wolf” wasn’t a wolf? It was Robin who sent A

A

“What’s in this?” she’d asked.

“Books,” Adam said.

Not books. A drill and spare battery packs and bits. The ring in the ice had been made by a drill, holes weakening the layer, water oozing up through them creating the ridge.

The trapline torn up by an animal so powerful, the metal of the foothold trap was bent; Robin had reported seeing that. She’d gone to check the line by herself and she hadn’t brought the trap back with her.

The wog was a hoax. The hoax had turned deadly. First A

As always, that was where A

“Damn,” A

Robin with her love of the island – what was it her boyfriend had said? The last hope for the soul of civilization? Ridley with the most to lose: vocation, avocation and summer cabin at one blow; Jonah, with his loyalty to Ridley; Adam, for whatever reason, maybe just the hell of it – were all of them in on it? Would one of them kill a wolf, a ranger and a researcher to make the island sufficiently interesting that the Park Service and the Michigan Tech would fight Homeland Security over the issue of opening it in the winter months? Anyone in Winter Study could have darted the wolf. The pack was on the ice for several days, and everyone was proficient with the use of tranquilizer guns.

Robin had been in the tent the night of the marauder, but Adam or Ridley or, possibly, Jonah could have followed them. Without the heavy packs that slowed the Malone Bay adventurers, it could have been done, round-trip, home by midnight.

If they were willing to kill, why didn’t they just kill Bob and be done with it? That’s what A

Maybe they had tried to kill Bob, but he had answered the call of nature, and A

If the point of the hoax was to make the study indispensable, killing Bob wasn’t the wisest course. There was nothing so easily replaced as a government flunky. Kill one and ten popped up in his place. And accidental death by drowning wouldn’t make Homeland Security any more likely to leave ISRO alone. Katherine had a personal reason to want Bob dead, but A

“Move,” A

The men – all men; the women were vanishing at an alarming rate – were seated around the table in the kitchen.

Over the years, A

It had been her intention to arrest Bob Menechi

“Hey,” she said amiably as she banged the snow off her boots on the lintel. “Any coffee left?”

“Hey yourself,” Adam said. “On the counter. Good and hot.” No one else acknowledged her words or entrance.

Ridley bent over the stove, stirring the inevitable oatmeal, his shoulders rounded as a crone’s, his long fingers looking thi