Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr Page B

sense of achievement, she knew she could go back to it now just for fun, just for the sheer sensual pleasure of the commercial feminine luxury.
    "Do you need something?" Christina was asking in a low voice with a hint of a drawl and Anna realized she had been staring.
    "Do I look that desperate?" she answered with a laugh.
    Christina Walters studied her gravely. "Yes."
    "I'm afraid I'm fouling up in triplicate here." Anna almost said "fucking up" but there was something about Christina that made her want to seem a gentler person than she was.
    "Let me see." Christina walked around the low wall and looked over Anna's shoulder. Delicate perfume drifted from her hair. White Linen, Anna guessed. It suited her.
    "It's the 343 on the Drury Lion Kill," Anna said. She half turned in her chair and saw the fleeting freeze on Christina's oval face. An aging, a minute dying, as if for a moment pain- or hatred-had jabbed deep.
    "Sony," Anna said with abrupt embarrassment. "I didn't realize you knew her that well."
    Christina straightened up, her hair falling to hide her eyes. When she smoothed it back her face was working again. "I didn't know her that well. Here-" she pulled the form out of the typewriter "-it'll only take me a minute." Smiling with what looked like genuine warmth, she fluttered a manicured hand. "Magic fingers."
    Anna's radio butted in before she had a chance to say thank you. "Three-one-five; three-eleven."
    "Go ahead, Paul.
    "Are you near a phone?"
    "Ten-four."
    "Call me at Frijole. Three-eleven clear."
    Anna dialed the Ranger Division's extension and Paul picked up on the first ring. "Mrs. Drury is here," he said. By the formal measured tones, Anna knew Sheila's mother was there in the room with him. "She's come to retrieve Ranger Drury's belongings. Would you accompany her to Dog Canyon and see to it she gets all the help she needs?"
    "I'll need a vehicle. I'm in that damned jeep."
    "Take mine," Paul said. "Leave the keys in the jeep. I'll use it."
    Anna smiled. Paul wanted out from under this chore in a bad way. He was trying to buy her goodwill with the new one-ton Chevy with the fancy arrowheads and striping, flashing light-bars, air-conditioning, and radio console.
    "I'll be there in about ten minutes, Paul."
    "Ranger Drury's pack will be in the back of the truck. And thanks, Anna."
    Gratitude warmed his voice.
    Perhaps Paul was an empath, she thought as she put the cover back on the abandoned typewriter. Like in the science fiction movies. Maybe other people's pain actually hurt him, even when they were strangers.

    "Well, I'm off to Dog Canyon," Anna said to Christina's back. "Mrs.
    Drury's here to collect Sheila's things. Thanks," she added. "I owe you a beer."
    The clerk waved a "De nada."
    This beer was a social debt Anna actually considered paying. There was something intriguing about Christina Walters.
    Probably just a classy flake, Anna thought uncharitably as she threw her satchel into the jeep. But she was looking forward to that beer.

    Mrs. Drury-Mrs. Thomas Drury as she had corrected Paul when he'd introduced her-was in her late fifties or early sixties. Makeup, carefully applied, gave color to her pale skin and muddied her age without making her look younger. Her short, permed hair had been dyed a light brown. Anna assumed the shade was chosen to color the gray but not seem flashy or "fast." Mrs. Drury wore an inexpensive polyester pantsuit of sage green. A purse of the same white leatherette as her low-heeled pumps was clamped tightly beneath one arm. Respectable but not rich, Anna summed her up.
    During the two-hour drive to Dog Canyon-twelve miles on foot over the high country, nearly a hundred by road around the park's perimeter-Mrs.
    Thomas Drury told Anna more than she'd ever wanted to know about the Drury family in general and Sheila in particular.
    Sheila's father had died when she was ten ". . . but in the sixth grade, not the fifth. Sheila may have been odd but she was always bright."