Mystery

“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 assistant.”

“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 façade. 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 assumed 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 God,” 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,” 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 ownership 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 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 astonishing 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 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.”