“It’s a quick test,” I said, “compare the evidence to known powder.”
“Mine.”
“Anybody’s would do. You and I just happen to be living in the same house.”
“You saying Georgia got whacked on the biathlon course?” He gave a weak grin.
I did not return it. “I’m saying she might have walked where you shoot. Nothing more.” I waited. “So, bro, do I get a cartridge?”
“No can do. My gear’s not here.”
Where, then? I knew his skis were in the ski locker on the front porch, with mine. Where else would his shooting gear be but safely stowed in his room? I said, “Then help me with this. Obviously, you guys shoot up at Lake Mary on the range. Anywhere else?”
He popped his thumb on the spoon handle. “What makes you think you got biathlon powder?”
What makes you so touchy about it? I said, slow, “It’s one option.”
“There’s a shitload of other options. Why don’t you go scope out Casa?”
“I have.”
He gave the spoon a shove and headed out of the kitchen. “So good luck.”
“Wait a minute.”
He started to hum — the Looney Tunes theme — then flattened himself against the doorjamb. “Look, I can’t get into this. I don’t have space for it. I just got space for my skis and my rifle and my body and my mind. Race, remember? I gotta keep it in control for the Cup.” He jerked upright and moved into the hallway.
I was absurdly relieved. It’s just Jimbo being Jimbo. This is the way my brother always plays it. Put in an appearance and then get called away by a pressing need to do whatever he wants to do. Clear his plate from the table and leave me to do the dishes. This is what Jimbo does best — enlist your sympathy for whatever is bedeviling him, then bag out. So now he’s bedeviled by his lousy performance at practice today, and he doesn’t want to carry an image of Georgia tomorrow at Lake Mary.
I didn’t blame him. And I didn’t want to dig for biathlon powder unless I had to. I went after him and blocked him in the hallway. “Answer me, Jimbo, is there anywhere else you shoot?”
“I go out in back and plink at rats in the woodpile.”
“Biathlon. I’m going to sample the range at Lake Mary. Should I be looking anywhere else? It’s a simple question.”
“Just Casa, like I said.”
“Biathlon, Jimbo
“Yes, Catherine.” He raised his hands like I’d put a gun in his back. “That’s a ten-four, ma’am. We did, in the line of duty, shoot biathlon ammo at the targets at Casa Diablo.”
“For God’s sake,” I said.
He swiveled, grinning, hands still high. “It’s this way, ma’am. We like to practice with the same ammo we use in a race. Can’t practice at Lake Mary in the summer. Not allowed to shoot the campers. Summer we shoot at Casa. Ma’am.” He sidestepped around me.
“I’m trying to find out where Georgia died.”
Silence in the hallway. Whine of warp speed from the TV in the living room — into the unknown. He said, finally, “Get’s weird, you know, having a forensics chick for a sister.”
“Gets weird having a brother who ducks the question.”
“I answered—Casa and Mary.” He gave me a light punch in the shoulder. “Hey, here’s another answer for you — got an idea for Bill’s birthday. Vegas. Hotel, meals, shows, and then he can roll the dice with the leftovers. Win maybe, blow his mind.” Jimbo sauntered toward the living room.
This is what Jimbo does second best — switch the subject. I called after him, “I still need a cartridge.”
His voice came, above the threshhold of hyperspace, “I’ll get one to you.”
I knew my brother. I knew he’d just bagged me. I dearly hoped it was just Jimbo being Jimbo. I took the stairs to the second-floor hall.
The lights were off. You a shareholder in the power company? my father asks anyone who leaves the lights on. I flipped the switch; Scotland’s halfway across the world. I passed my old room and then the laundry room — which had been, once, Henry’s room, where I was babysitting Henry bored out of my mind, staring out the window at nothing important when Henry fell and hit his head.
And then I came to Jimbo’s room and went inside and shut the door and turned on the light.
My brother’s room was neat, uncluttered. His childhood stuff, whatever he’d kept, was stored like mine in the attic.
I passed his dresser; drawers were too short to accommodate a.22 rifle. I yanked open the closet door. Clothes, shoes, a damp wool sock. I cursed it. Angry at having to search, angry for letting myself search. My hand brushed heavy nylon. I shoved deeper into the closet and pulled out a long bag.
It was his gun sack. He had lied. His gear was here.
I went very cold, and then I told myself you don’t know anything yet.
I worked the zipper, removed the rifle, and felt around the bottom of the sack. Nothing. Where was the ammo? I’d seen his gear often enough, spread on the living room floor. There should be a cleaning kit and a metal ammo box.
Okay, I thought, there’s another way. The rifle stock, where I gripped it, had an ammo clip attached. I had once pestered Jimbo into showing me how his rifle worked; I’d missed the target several times and lost interest. My fingers played along the edge of the clip, found a catch, and it popped out. It was so small that I wondered if Jimbo ever fumbled it in the rush to snap it into place for firing. Seconds count like dollars in a race, he’d told me. At the open end of the clip was a cartridge. I rolled my thumb across the bullet tip, wiggling it, but it didn’t want to come free. Jimbo never showed me how you got the cartridge in and out of the clip.
I expelled a breath. Toughest thing in a race, Jimbo says, is that you’re skiing so hard your pulse hits 180 and then you dead stop and try to get your breathing under control so you can shoot straight.
I knew how to get a cartridge. I snapped the clip into firing position, the way Jimbo taught me. I found the bolt, palmed it up, drew it back, slid it forward, pressed it down. Should be a round in the chamber now. I fumbled with the clip, seconds adding up like dollars, and extracted it. Okay, four rounds in the clip, one in the rifle. This was like my first days in the lab, keeping meticulous track of everything I touched.
I had a loaded rifle. If it went off, it was going to shoot a hole in my brother’s ceiling and bring him stampeding upstairs.
Avoiding the trigger like the plague, I pulled the bolt upward, and back. There was a pop as the bolt-action ejected the cartridge. I stashed the slick metal plug in my pocket. Breathe. I replaced the clip, jockeyed the rifle into its sack, and returned it to the closet. I was at the door when I realized what I’d done wrong. There are five targets on the range and the athlete carries five rounds in the clip, one per target. I’d left Jimbo with four. Of course he’d check before racing, and reload, but he’d know a cartridge was missing.
And maybe by that time I’d know why he lied, why he hadn’t wanted me to compare his powder to my evidence. My brother has contributed his share to less-than-perfect days but he’s never before told me a bald-assed lie.
My mind jumped to Eric on the retrieval, trying to send Walter and me back. Explaining, at the cop house, how he hadn’t wanted to see me upset. I didn’t know what his real reason was but I did know it was a real bad call.
I thought of Stobie on the retrieval, chiming in with Eric, giving me that bizarre cold smile.
My pulse was heading back up.
Eric and Stobie, two bad calls. Jimbo, one lame lie. Three biathletes trying to keep me from doing my job, or so it seemed to me. There had to be a reason but it was beyond belief that any of them contributed to Georgia’s death. They’d never had trouble with Georgia.