Читать книгу Dying for Murder - Suzanne F. Kingsmill - Страница 8

Sam dropped me off at the stairs to the mess room and, in daylight, I climbed those countless steps in a twisty turny path to the top. It was pretty impressive now that the no-see-ums were gone and I could actually see. The main building, which housed the dining room, blended in like a Frank Lloyd Wright building and was bracketed by the branches of a dozen oak trees so that it looked like a treehouse of awesome proportions. I could see our cabin down in the large U-shaped clearing, or rather the pathway to it as the trees, with their cloaks of Spanish moss, hid the cabin from view. There were six or seven pathways into the bush, presumably leading to more cabins, and the clearing was partially filled with various vehicles. When I walked in the door of the dining room it took awhile to adjust to the light.

“Cordi!” shrieked someone from the gloaming. I squinted and saw Martha waving her hands up and down and pointing to the picnic table where she was sitting. I waved back and went and got myself some breakfast. It was a full logger’s meal — bacon and eggs, hash browns, toast, pancakes, sausages. There was so much of it that I felt a little sick. I brought the plate over to Martha’s table.

“Holy crap, Cordi. Where have you been? I wake up at 5:30 and you’re not there!” She glared at me.

“Just out watching the sunrise with Sam,” I said, and the woman across from me choked on her breakfast.

Martha glanced over. “Melanie, this is Cordi, my boss.” Melanie was about nineteen years old, with a smooth, pale complexion and wild red and blue streaks in her blond hair. She was very thin, but the kind of thin that looked genetic rather than self-induced. Her cheeks were little hollows and her clothes hung loosely to her frame. I glanced at her breakfast plate. One apple and a glass of milk. Could have been worse, I thought.

Melanie was still trying to control her choking and flapped her hand around until she was able to say “Hi.”

She was staring at me closely with a look of surprise on her face, making me feel most uncomfortable. “With Sam?” she asked, her voice croaking, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from the choking or something else.

Oh, boy. Was I stepping on toes?

She recomposed herself and said, “He was supposed to meet me for breakfast, but I guess he forgot.”

I looked at my watch; 7:35. He wasn’t late by much if breakfast started at 7:30. As I started to sit down the squeak of the dining-room door alerted everyone and in walked Sam. Minus the shirt buttoned too high, and with his pant legs hanging over his boots, not tucked into them, he looked exceptionally masculine, his shirt opened to reveal a mass of curly black hair trying to escape. He nodded at us and went to get his breakfast. I looked at Melanie and she smiled back uncertainly.

“You’re the birdsong lady,” she said as Sam slipped in beside her and brushed her hand with his hand.

“That’s right,” I said. She flicked a strand of electric blue hair out of her eyes, as she moved her hand away from Sam’s.

“What do you do?” I said.

“Snakes,” she said. “Rattlesnakes.” The way she said it reminded me of Bond, James Bond. But it also sounded like a taunt.

I took the bait. “How did someone like you come to pick rattlesnakes as a research topic?”

Her answer surprised me. “I was terrified of snakes. One of my questionable friends put a snake in my bed one night as a joke. Some joke. Have you any idea what it’s like to be in bed and stretch out your feet, in that luxurious way you can only do in bed, and have this slithery creature dart over your feet?”

I was having a pretty good go at reenacting that scenario and gave an involuntary shudder. And I’m not even afraid of snakes.

“Exactly,” she said. “So choosing to work with a venomous snake seemed like a good way to control my fear.” I could think of other ways to do that — like avoiding them altogether.

“And did it work?”

“You can’t spend hours milking a snake, looking at its fangs under a microscope, watching it eat, watching its habits, videotaping it, without developing respect for it and once you have respect the fear fades. Not completely — these are venomous creatures — but it fades to a normal level. I mean, if you’re not afraid of venomous snakes you’d better take out a life-insurance policy. As for non-venomous snakes — they’re a breeze now.”

She smiled at Sam, her face lighting up, but even as it did she clamped down and the smile altered, the warmth draining from it to be replaced by something unidentifiable. I followed her gaze and saw Stacey, food tray in hand, coming over to join us. She really was a big woman, not big boned, just plain and simple fat. In all my years as a zoologist I had never met a fat scientist. She still looked like hell, only worse. The only colour in her face was her tiny perfect lips. Several rolls of fat bracketed her chin and jowls, each a perfect replica of her jawline. It was quite alarming, but the worst of it was her eyes. They looked trapped, like a wild animal trying to get out. Was she burning out too, or was there something else haunting her?

I looked down at the picnic bench and back up at Stacey and wondered how on earth she was going to fit. But she had it well in hand. She placed her tray at the end of the table nearest me, went over and took a chair among many lining the wall of the room, and pushed it over to our table.

She nodded at us all and the rolls of fat around her face jiggled as she sat down beside me. She was not carrying her cane and when, much to my embarrassment, she saw me looking at her bad leg she said, “Just a little sprain.” I glanced up at her face then, but she looked away and began fiddling with her food.

“Welcome to Spaniel Island,” she said, and unexpectedly she turned and smiled at me. All the fat lines that had dragged down her face suddenly accentuated the loveliness of her smile, which was contagious. Every negative thing I had thought about her was wiped away by that one small smile. Maybe burn out, but not burned out yet.

I smiled back. How could I not?

“Darcy has reminded me that you need some equipment for your experiments.”

I nodded.

“I’ll get you set up after breakfast.” She picked at a plate of food that looked as though it was on a diet itself — a few pieces of dry toast, a glass of skim milk, and a couple of apple slices. More than Melanie but not a lot.

Martha couldn’t stand the silence that descended. “So, you’re a botanist, right?” she said to Stacey, who swivelled her eyes over to meet Martha’s.

“Yes and no.” She sat back on her chair. “I’m doing dune succession studies. Looking at how naked dunes become colonized by plants, animals, and insects over time.”

Martha’s mouth dropped open. “But that would take years.”

Stacey smiled again. “Fifteen good ones and counting.”

“Are you here every summer?” I asked.

“Every summer. I live in Halifax and got involved in succession when I spent a summer on Sable Island studying their wild horse population for my thesis. It kind of grabbed me how the dunes grow.”

“Halifax, eh? A fellow Canadian,” I said. Why is it always so nice to meet one of your own when you’re away from home?

She nodded.

“Dalhousie?”

“Yeah, for my undergrad, and then McGill.”

“But Halifax pulled you back?”

“Halifax has a habit of doing that. And Dalhousie offered me the best job in the best city in Canada. How could I refuse?”

I smiled. Pride of city comes a close second to pride of country. Or maybe they are both in first place, just different versions of the same pride.

“I have to do turtle patrol tonight. Would you like to come?” Stacey asked me.

“Turtle patrol?”

“We patrol the beach every night looking for female sea turtles laying their eggs. Ten o’clock in the clearing?”

I nodded and said thank you, wondering if she was well enough to go on turtle patrol, and then didn’t know what else to say so I looked over at Sam and Melanie for relief. He was talking to her about something interesting, his face animated and his hands illustrating whatever he was saying. Melanie was paying rapt attention. Stacey reached over and touched Sam’s arm. He stopped in mid-sentence and looked over at Stacey. He hesitated a fraction of a second before he smiled.

“Stop by my office before lunch,” she said. “I want that diagram.” She dropped her hand then and he nodded, but his mind was definitely elsewhere.

“Dr. Stacey Franklin!”

Stacey froze, toast halfway to her mouth. He had come up behind her and she had to twist to see him, which was difficult for her. Wyatt was dressed in white pants and an indigo rugby shirt that made his blue eyes leap off his face. It somehow seemed criminal for anyone to be as handsome as this guy was.

He’d walked around Stacey’s chair and was holding out his hand.

“We didn’t properly meet last night,” he said. Stacey tried to get up, a look of sheer frustration on her face. But Wyatt planted his hand on her shoulder to keep her in place while waiting for her to offer her hand. She looked unsure of herself, as if she felt at a disadvantage, or maybe it was just my imagination because she suddenly reached out her hand and gripped his hard.

“A belated welcome to the Spaniel Island Research Station, Dr. Sinclair.” I was struck by how much Stacey had notched down the temperature of her voice. It was too strong and too hard and the emphasis on the last name was just plain weird, unless she was nervous for some reason. His good looks must make many a woman do stupid things.

“Call me Wyatt, please. And I trust you are over the flu?” he said and included us all in his invitation, as if we all wanted to call him Wyatt and had all had the flu. Stacey rallied her manners and introduced us all, but instead of sitting down to join us he remained standing by Stacey’s right arm.

“I got your note. We need to talk,” he said matter-of-factly. She looked at him then with such a vacant look that I thought she couldn’t possibly have heard him.

But I was wrong. She looked up at him and smiled a cold, thin smile. “About what? The vaccine?”

He looked discomfited, as if she had said something rude. It appeared the tables had turned and she had the upper hand now, although it was not at all clear why.

“As you must understand, Wyatt, I want to keep things as quiet as possible for the sake of the station. Are you absolutely sure there has been a theft?” She stared at him unblinking and he stared back. “Darcy intimated that you have a reputation for being absentminded. Perhaps you have just misplaced the vaccine? It was just one vial after all.”

He stared at her without moving, the two of them like two rams in rut facing off against each other. Stacey won. He backed off, but before he left he said, “Sometimes things aren’t as you see them.”

“And sometimes they are,” she replied.