Mystery

Von Heilitz said nothing.

“How long have you been here? You didn’t just get to Eagle Lake an hour ago, did you?”

“Did you think I’d send you into this lion’s den alone?”

“You’ve been here the whole time? How did you get my letters?”

“Sometimes I went to the post office and picked them up, sometimes Joe Truehart brought them to me.”

Tom nearly jumped off his chair. “That was you I followed—that was you carrying the flashlight.”

“You almost caught me too. I went to my lodge to pick up some things, and I don’t see as well at night as I used to. Let’s go, shall we? We ought to get back, and I do want to see more of you than that glimpse I had when you came creeping in. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Where are we going?”

Von Heilitz stood up. “You’ll see.”

Tom watched the dark blur of the older man move toward him. His white hair shone in the moonlight. “That house in the clearing,” Tom said. “Mrs. Truehart’s cabin.”

The tall shape before him tilted forward, and the white hair gleamed. Von Heilitz grasped his shoulders. “She probably wants to apologize to you too. She doesn’t normally scare away visitors with a rifle, but I didn’t want you to know I was there.” He squeezed Tom’s shoulders and straightened up.

Tom followed him into the study, and in the moonlight, von Heilitz turned and took him in, smiling. “I can’t get over it,” Tom said.

“You’re what I can’t get over,” von Heilitz said. “You’ve done everything I hoped you would, and more. I didn’t expect you to solve any burglaries while you were up here.”

“I had a good teacher,” Tom said, feeling his face get hot.

“More than that,” the old man said. “Now open that door, will you?”

Tom unlocked the back door, and von Heilitz moved outside. Tom followed after him, and knelt to lock the door with the key again.

Von Heilitz placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder, and left it there as Tom stood up. He did not remove it even when Tom turned to face him at last, and the two of them stood in the moonlight for a second, looking into each other’s faces. Tom still felt the shock of pleasure and relief of seeing von Heilitz, and blurted, “I don’t think Anton Goetz killed Jeanine Thielman.”

Von Heilitz nodded, smiled, and patted Tom’s shoulder before he lowered his hand. “I know.”

“I thought—I guess I thought you might be angry or something. It was one of your most important cases—I know what it meant to you.”

“It was my single biggest mistake. And that’s what it means to me. Now you and I are going to put things right—after all this time. Let’s go to Mrs. Truehart’s, so we can talk about it.”

Von Heilitz jumped neatly off the dock and began moving toward the shoreline. At Roddy Deepdale’s, he led Tom across the grass toward the track. They cast identical long shadows in the moonlight. Neither of them spoke until they came to the opening of the path into the woods behind the Thielman lodge. Von Heilitz switched on his flashlight and said, “Tim Truehart arrested your friend Nappy, by the way,” and plunged into the woods.

“He did?” Tom followed. “I didn’t think Spychalla would give him the message.”

“He might not have if Chet Hamilton hadn’t been curious about why you were asking directions to Summers Street. He drove out there not long after you did, and got close enough to see Nappy stacking boxes outside the shop. He just turned his car around and went to the nearest phone. Spychalla couldn’t ignore two calls.”

“But what about Jerry?”

“Nappy is still claiming he did all the burglaries himself. He’ll change his mind when it finally hits him that he’ll serve a lot less jail time if he turns in his friends. Spychalla is looking for Jerry Hasek and Robbie Wintergreen, but so far he hasn’t found them. This must be where you got lost the other night.”

The flashlight shone upon smooth grey-brown tree trunks. He moved the beam slightly to the left, and the narrow path reappeared, wandering deeper into the woods. “It looks like it,” Tom said.

“I was sorry to have to let that happen.” Von Heilitz followed the bend in the path.

“So why did you?”

“I told you. Because I wanted you to do just what you have done.”

“Find out that Barbara Deane killed Jeanine Thielman?”

The light stopped moving, and Tom nearly bumped into the old man. Von Heilitz let out a loud, explosive laugh that sounded like “WHA-HAH!” He whirled around and shone the light on the middle of Tom’s chest. Even in the darkness and with his face hidden behind the glare of the light, he looked as if he were suppressing more explosive laughter. “Excuse me, but what makes you think that?”

As irritated now as he had been relieved before, Tom said, “I looked into a box I found in her closet, and along with some old articles that almost accused her of murder, I found two anonymous notes. Jeanine Thielman wrote them.”

“My God,” von Heilitz said. “What did they say?”

“One said ‘I know what you are, and you have to be stopped.’ The other one said something like, ‘This has gone on too long—you will pay for your sins.’ ”

“Extraordinary.”