Mystery. Part 39

Tom took one too, and realized that it was a landing card. The first line was for his name, and the second for his pa.s.sport number.

He gaped at the stewardess, and she said, "Gee, what happened to your eyebrows?"

Von Heilitz tugged at his sleeve. "The boy was in a fire. He just realized that he doesn't have his pa.s.sport."

"Gee," she said. "Will you have any trouble?

"None at all." He walked Tom across the tarmac toward the door.

"Why not?"

"Watch me," said von Heilitz.

At the baggage counter, the pool of yellow liquid seemed to have advanced another six or eight inches across the linoleum, and the American pa.s.sengers gave it uneasy glances as they waited for their cases to ride toward them on the belt. Tom followed the old man toward the desk marked MILL WALK RESIDENTS MILL WALK RESIDENTS, and saw him take a slim leather notecase from his pocket. He tore a sheet of perforated yellow paper from the case, bent over it for a second, and signaled for Tom to follow him to the desk.

He said, "h.e.l.lo, Gonzalo," to the official, and gave him his pa.s.sport and landing card. The sheet of notepaper was folded into the pa.s.sport. "My friend has been in a fire. He lost everything, including his pa.s.sport. He is the grandson of Glendenning Upshaw, and wishes to convey the best wishes of Mr. Upshaw and Mr. Ralph Redwing to you."

The official flicked bored black eyes at Tom's face, opened von Heilitz's pa.s.sport, and pulled the note toward him. He s.h.i.+elded it behind his hand and opened the top half. Then he slid the folded note into his desk, stamped von Heilitz's pa.s.sport, and reached back into the desk for a form marked REPLACEMENT Pa.s.sPORT APPLICATION REPLACEMENT Pa.s.sPORT APPLICATION. "Fill this out and mail it in as soon as possible," he said. "Nice to see you again, Mr. von Heilitz."

The first words on the form were: No resident of Mill Walk shall be allowed to pa.s.s through Customs and Immigration until a replacement pa.s.sport has been received No resident of Mill Walk shall be allowed to pa.s.s through Customs and Immigration until a replacement pa.s.sport has been received.

"What was in the note?" Tom asked.

"Two dollars."

They went outside into light and heat.

"How much would it have been without the best wishes of my grandfather and Ralph Redwing?"

"One dollar. Haven't you ever heard of n.o.blesse oblige?"

Tom looked across the ramp and saw half a dozen carriages and gigs in the open parking lot. The odor of horse manure drifted toward him, along with the smells of fuel oil and salt water. They were home. Von Heilitz raised his hand, and an old red taxi with one dangling headlight pulled up before them.

A short, chunky black man with a wide handsome face climbed out and smiled at them, showing two front teeth edged in gold. He went around to open his trunk, and von Heilitz said, "h.e.l.lo, Andres."

"Always good to see you again, Lamont," the driver said. The trunk smelled strongly of fish. He hoisted in the cases and slammed the trunk shut. "Where we going today?"

"The St. Alwyn." They all got in the car, and von Heilitz said, "Andres, Tom Pasmore here is a good friend of mine. I want you to treat him the same way you treat me. He might need your help someday."

Andres leaned over the back of the seat and stuck out an enormous hand. "Any time, brother." Tom took the hand with his left, raising his bandaged right hand in explanation.

Andres pulled out toward the highway into town, and Tom said, "Do you know everybody?"

"Only the right people. Have you been thinking about what I said?"

Tom nodded.

"Kind of stares you right in the face, doesn't it?"

"Maybe," Tom said, and von Heilitz snorted.

"I don't know if we're thinking of the same thing."

"We are."

"Can I ask you a question before I say anything else?"

"Go ahead."

Tom felt a reluctant tremor move through his body like a slow electric shock. "When you were up at the lake, did you ever go swimming or fis.h.i.+ng? Did you ever do anything that took you out into the lake?"

"Are you asking if I ever actually saw the front of your grandfather's lodge?"

Tom nodded.

"I never swam, I never fished, I never went out into the lake. I never set foot on his property either, of course. Congratulations."

But it was not like the time the Shadow had leaned beaming across a coffee table and shaken his hand. Tom fell against the back seat of Andres's taxi, seeing Barbara Deane wake up in a burning bed.

"He's so bold," bold," von Heilitz said. "He told me one huge bold whopping lie, and I swallowed it whole. You know what really galls me? He knew it was the kind of lie-the kind of detail-that would really speak to me. He knew I would go right to town on it. He knew I would build an entire theory on that lie. It didn't take him an instant to figure all that out. From then on, everything fell into place." von Heilitz said. "He told me one huge bold whopping lie, and I swallowed it whole. You know what really galls me? He knew it was the kind of lie-the kind of detail-that would really speak to me. He knew I would go right to town on it. He knew I would build an entire theory on that lie. It didn't take him an instant to figure all that out. From then on, everything fell into place."

"Everybody thought he left for Miami the day after Jeanine disappeared," Tom said.

"But he stayed long enough to kill Goetz."

Tom closed his eyes, and kept them closed until they pulled up in front of the old hotel. There are things it might be better not to know There are things it might be better not to know, Barbara Deane had told him.

Andres said, "Here we are, boss," and von Heilitz patted his shoulders. A door slammed. Tom opened his eyes to the lower end of Calle Drosselmayer. It was before eight in the morning on an island where nothing opened until ten, and the p.a.w.n shops and liquor stores were still locked behind their bars and shutters. A junk man's horse clopped past, pulling a rusted water heater, a broken carriage wheel, and the dozing junk man. Von Heilitz got out on one side, Tom on the other. The air seemed unnaturally warm and bright. Far up the street, in the fas.h.i.+onable section of Calle Drosselmayer, a few cars rolled east, taking office workers and store managers from the island's west end downtown to Calle Hoffmann.

Andres carried the old man's two bags to the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and von Heilitz gave him some bills.

"Aren't you going home?" Tom asked.

"Both of us ought to stay out of sight for a while," von Heilitz said. "I'll be in the room adjoining yours."

Andres said, "Big change from Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road," and pulled a little stack of business cards held together with a rubber band from a ripped pocket of his jacket. He pulled one out of the stack and presented it to Tom. The card was printed with the words Andres Flanders Courteous Efficient Driver Andres Flanders Courteous Efficient Driver and a telephone number in the old slave quarter. "You call me if you need me, hear?" Andres said. He watched Tom put the card into one of his pockets. When he was sure it was safe, he waved to both of them and drove off. and a telephone number in the old slave quarter. "You call me if you need me, hear?" Andres said. He watched Tom put the card into one of his pockets. When he was sure it was safe, he waved to both of them and drove off.

Tom turned around to look up at the tall facade of the hotel. Once it had been pale blue or even white, but the stone had darkened over time. An arch of carved letters over the entrance spelled out its name. Von Heilitz said, "I divided my clothes up between these bags, so why don't you just take that one and use what's in it as long as we're here?"

Tom lifted the heavy bag and followed him into the dark cavern of the St. Alwyn's lobby. Bra.s.s spittoons stood beside heavy furniture, and on the wall opposite the desk three small stained gla.s.s windows glowed dark red and blue, like the window on the staircase at Brooks-Lowood School. A pale man with thinning hair and rimless gla.s.ses watched them approach.

Von Heilitz checked in as James Cooper of New York City, and Tom filled out a card for Thomas Lamont, also of New York. The clerk took in his bandaged hand and singed eyebrows, and slid two keys across the desk.

"Let's go upstairs and talk about your grandfather," von Heilitz said. The clerk's eyebrows twitched above the rims of his gla.s.ses.

Von Heilitz picked up both keys and bent to put his hand on the suitcase he carried in. "Oh," he said, having seen a stack of Eyewitnesses Eyewitnesses in the gloom at the end of the counter. "We'll each have one of those." He straightened up and put his hand in his front pocket. in the gloom at the end of the counter. "We'll each have one of those." He straightened up and put his hand in his front pocket.

The clerk peeled two newspapers off the neat stack and pushed them forward in exchange for the two quarters von Heilitz slapped down on the counter, presenting them with the headline in the newspaper's lower right-hand corner.

The old man folded the papers under his arms, and they each picked up a suitcase and went to the elevator.

In Tom's room, they sat six feet from the bed in high-backed wooden chairs on opposite sides of a dark wooden table on the surface of which a traveling musician had once scratched PD 6/6/58. Tom reached the end of the article, and immediately began reading it again. The headline said: GLENDENNING UPSHAW'S GRANDSON DEAD IN RESORT FIRE GLENDENNING UPSHAW'S GRANDSON DEAD IN RESORT FIRE.

A fire of unknown origin claimed the life of Thomas Upshaw Pasmore early yesterday morning. Seventeen years old and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Pasmore of Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road, Pasmore had spent the first weeks of the summer at the lodge on exclusive Eagle Lake, Wisconsin, belonging to his grandfather, Glendenning Upshaw....

The fourth-floor room stretched away from him, lighter than the lobby, but at seven in the morning filled with a twilight murk that obscured the painting above the bed. The other copy of the Eyewitness Eyewitness rattled, and Tom looked across the table to see Lamont von Heilitz folding the paper to read an article on the inside of the front page. rattled, and Tom looked across the table to see Lamont von Heilitz folding the paper to read an article on the inside of the front page.

"When did you first begin to think that my grandfather murdered Jeanine Thielman?" he asked.

Von Heilitz snapped the paper into a neat rectangle, folded it in half, and set it down between them.

"When one of his employees bought the house on The Sevens. How do you feel, Tom? Must be unsettling, reading about your own death."

"I don't know. Confused. Tired. I don't see what we can do. We're back on Mill Walk, where even the police work for the people like my grandfather."

"Not all of them. David Natchez is going to help us, and we are going to help him. We have a rare opportunity. One of the men at the center of power on this island committed a murder with his own hands. Your grandfather is not a man to choose to suffer in silence, any more than the man who killed my parents. If he's charged with murder, he'll bring the whole house down with him."

"But how do we get him charged with murder?"

"We get him to confess. Preferably to David Natchez."

"He'll never confess."

"You forget that we have two weapons. One of them is you."

"What's the other one?"

"Those notes you saw in Barbara Deane's room. They weren't written to her, of course. She found them in the lodge when Glen sent her over to clean up. He probably left them on top of his desk-or maybe he even showed them to her. He knew that she'd sympathize with anyone falsely accused. He might even have said that the notes referred to his wife's death. I suppose Barbara got a few anonymous notes herself, back when the paper ran those stories about her."

"But maybe that's what they were-notes someone sent to her."

"I don't think she would have kept them, in that case. She would have burned them. She kept these because they troubled her. I also think she planned to show them to you."

"Why?"

"Because when you turned up, asking a lot of questions about Jeanine Thielman and Anton Goetz, you stirred up all the doubts she had about your grandfather. She She didn't want to think he killed Jeanine, not after everything he'd done for her, but she was too smart not to wonder about it. He brought Gloria to her before the body was discovered-when n.o.body but the murderer knew that Jeanine was dead. I think Barbara was very relieved when I stumbled in and found Mr. Goetz hanged in his lodge." didn't want to think he killed Jeanine, not after everything he'd done for her, but she was too smart not to wonder about it. He brought Gloria to her before the body was discovered-when n.o.body but the murderer knew that Jeanine was dead. I think Barbara was very relieved when I stumbled in and found Mr. Goetz hanged in his lodge."

Von Heilitz leaned back against his chair. A white stubble gleamed on his face, and his eyes were far back in his head. "Afterwards, people all over the mainland asked me to solve murders. I didn't want to admit I was wrong any more than Barbara Deane did. Anton Goetz had put me on my way."

"Could we reconstruct what really happened?" Tom asked. "There's a lot I still don't understand."

"I bet you do, though." Von Heilitz straightened up and rubbed a hand over his face. "Let's say that Glen knew immediately that Jeanine Thielman had written him those notes. She was threatening him with some kind of exposure. She knew something-something really damaging. Her husband was a business rival of Glen's, and Goetz might have told her more than he should have about your grandfather's business. Or, as I think, it might have been another kind of exposure. At any rate, she was telling Glen to stop whatever he was doing. He left a noisy party at the club-I think he had set up this meeting for the day before he was supposed to go to Florida, but I don't think he planned to kill her. He came to her lodge. She was waiting for him on her deck. He confronted her. Whatever she knew about was serious enough to ruin him. Jeanine refused to cooperate with him, or to believe his denials, and turned her back to go inside. He saw the gun her husband left on the table, picked it up, shot and missed, and then he shot again. Everybody else at the lake except Anton Goetz was at the club, having a good time dancing to a loud band-do you know how music carries, up there?"

Tom nodded. "But he was a bad shot. How did he hit her?"

"Because of the gun-he would have missed her both times, if the gun had been accurate. Anyhow, I don't think he was very far from her. After that, I think he pulled her off the deck so that she wouldn't bleed all over it. And then-"

He looked up at Tom, who said, "Then he ran across the little path and went through the woods to get Anton Goetz. My mother saw him through the window in her bedroom, but she wasn't sure who it was-she only had a glimpse of him. Goetz worked for him, but I bet he wasn't an accountant, any more than Jerry Hasek was a public relations a.s.sistant."

"He would have been a lot more useful than Jerry Hasek. Goetz could go everywhere, he could talk to people and hear things. Goetz did whatever Glen couldn't afford to be seen doing. Mainly, I suppose he carried money around for Glen and the Redwings. He was a criminal with a smooth facade. I misunderstood him completely, exactly in the way he wanted to be misunderstood." Von Heilitz gave Tom an angry, self-disgusted look. "Tell me what they did next."

"My grandfather and Goetz wrapped her body in the old curtains, weighted her down, and rowed her out into the lake after the party broke up at the club. Then they must have washed off the deck. My grandfather carried my mother over to Barbara Deane's house early the next morning, and then walked back to Goetz's lodge and spent the next four nights in the guest room, waiting to see what would happen. Goetz brought them meals back from the club. Everybody knew Grand-Dad was planning to go to Florida, and they just a.s.sumed that's where he was."

"And by the time I got to Miami, he was there waiting for me."

Tom looked down at the article about his death. "Oh, my G.o.d," he said. "Grand-Dad is going to know I didn't die in that fire. The Langenheims saw me, and the Spences know that I got out alive."

"When they read that a fire 'claimed your life' in the paper this morning, they'll think you died in the hospital. Smoke inhalation kills more people than actual fires. People generally believe what they read in the papers. You're dead, I'm afraid."

"I suppose that's a relief."

Von Heilitz smiled at him. "Tell me what happened to Goetz."

"After you talked to him at the club, he went back to the lodge to tell my grandfather that you'd accused him of the murder-he was an accessory, anyhow. As soon as Goetz told him that you thought he'd killed Mrs. Thielman, he knew-" Tom remembered Sarah's father saying, "Your grandfather does everything by the seat of his pants, you know," "Your grandfather does everything by the seat of his pants, you know," and shuddered-"he knew how to solve all his problems." and shuddered-"he knew how to solve all his problems."

"Glen strangled him, or knocked him down and suffocated him, or maybe just got the line around his neck and threw the spool over a beam and pulled him off the ground. It's no wonder the line nearly took Goetz's head off. Then he took a couple of shots at me just to slow me down, got his things together, and took off for Barbara Deane's house to pick up his daughter."

"Did you know all this when I went to your house, that first time?"

"I didn't really know any of it. When I began spending more time on Mill Walk, I did a little checking into the owners.h.i.+p of Goetz's house and lodge. One dummy company led to another dummy company, which was owned by Mill Walk Construction. Glen could have made it a lot more complicated, but he never thought anybody would bother to look even that closely. Once I knew that Goetz had worked for Glen, I began to think about Goetz bringing his meals home from the club, and telling Mrs. Truehart not to go into his guest room."

"But you didn't tell me about any doubts. You just told me about the case."

"That's right. I presented it to you exactly as it came to me."

For a moment they looked at each other across the table, and then Tom smiled at the old man. Von Heilitz smiled back, and Tom laughed out loud. Von Heilitz's smile broadened. "You handed it to me!"

"I did, I handed it to you. And you took took it!" it!"

"But you didn't think I'd actually go to Eagle Lake."

Von Heilitz shook his head. "I thought we'd have a few more peaceful conversations, and I'd let you know that Goetz worked for your grandfather, and things would go like that for a while."

"Peaceful conversations, nothing," Tom said. An astonis.h.i.+ng bubble of hilarity broke free inside him; this laughter seemed to come from the same place as his tears, in the moonlit clearing when he had learned the answer to the puzzle of his childhood.

Von Heilitz kept smiling at him. "You turned out to be a little more talkative and energetic than I bargained on. And it almost got you killed. I'm glad you're laughing."

Tom leaned forward in his chair. "It's hard to explain-but everything's clear clear now. We sit here talking for twenty minutes, and all of a sudden I can see exactly what happened-it's like points on a graph or something." now. We sit here talking for twenty minutes, and all of a sudden I can see exactly what happened-it's like points on a graph or something."

"That's right," von Heilitz said. "Clarity is exhilarating."

"The only thing we don't know is why it all happened." Tom leaned back in his chair and pushed his hands against his forehead, straining to capture some knowledge that seemed just out of sight-something else he knew without being able to see. "What were those notes about? What did Jeanine Thielman know he was was?" He threw his arms out. "Maybe she knew that he killed his wife and faked her suicide. Maybe the newspaper editor was right."

"Would she say, You have to be stopped-this has gone on too long?" You have to be stopped-this has gone on too long?"

"Sure, she could," Tom said.