Heart of Stone (16 page)

He chuckled then turned dark again. “So what about Gayle?” he asked. “What did she want?”

I shrugged. “She didn't seem to want anything except to know where her husband was.”

Isaac's eyes betrayed a secret. He was holding something back from me.

“I have a question,” I said. “You knew Gayle was in Prospector Lake, but how did you know I'd seen her?”

“Your aunt told me. She gave me a lemonade while I waited for you. Your cousin Max is quite a character, by the way. He had me believing you're some kind of hotshot reporter who solves murders.”

That hurt. I'm not boastful by nature, but I'm proud of my accomplishments. And I've worked hard to earn them. Twice as hard as my colleagues, but with half the credit. I wanted to tell him that I was indeed a hotshot reporter who solved murders, at least whenever one presented itself. And I wanted Isaac to know and to admire me for it. God, I wanted him to fall in love with me. Damn it. I wanted him to love me. But I didn't want to admit such a desire to myself. I nearly corrected him. But I kept my mouth shut and wished instead that he'd believed sweet old Max's bragging on me. I resolved to pour Max an extra-large glass of port after dinner that evening.

“What's wrong?” asked Isaac, noticing my agitation.

“I was just wondering why you're so worried about Gayle Morton,” I said, putting my bruised ego to one side. “What harm could she possibly do? Does she even know any of you at Arcadia?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Perhaps you're right. She doesn't know any of us.”

“She met Miriam,” I said.

Isaac glanced at me, almost in surprise. “Yes, of course. But that was just that one time in the restaurant in Los Angeles.”

“Was it?” I asked.

“Was it what?”

“Just one time?”

Isaac laughed. “Of course. What a thought.”

“Anyway,” I said, returning to the question of Gayle Morton's presence on Prospector Lake, “I met her in her cabin at the motel and told her the bad news as Terwilliger had asked me to do. She seemed stunned, and that was it.”

“Her cabin?” asked Isaac. “Tom's Lakeside Motel doesn't have cabins.”

“Tom's Lakeside Motel?” I said, realizing that Gayle Morton had fed me a pack of lies. “She was staying at the Sans Souci Cabins.”

CHAPTER TEN

Isaac begged me to join him at Arcadia Lodge later that evening. They were planning another musical soirée, but this time folk songs. Just David on guitar and Simon on bass fiddle. Actually Simon didn't have a bass fiddle, but he figured the cello was close enough to get the job done.

“Eddy Arnold and Tennessee Ernie Ford night?” I asked.

“A little better than that. David's quite good, and we all join in the singing. Mostly protest songs. The usual left-wing folk-song conspiracy stuff, as they used to say.”

“I'll tear myself away from Max's stories about my journalistic success and try to make it,” I said.

Isaac smiled. Then something seemed to snag in his thoughts. He looked at me, his smile a little on edge. I believed he'd received the message.

I helped Aunt Lena prepare a supper of franks and beans, corn on the cob, and fresh tomato salad. Hardly fine dining but warm and comforting in the chilly evening air.

After supper, as I handed Max his brimming glass of port, I thought back to my conversation with Isaac on the lake. Something was off beam. I couldn't figure why Gayle Morton would cover up the fact that she had rooms at both Tom's and the Sans Souci. I told myself it didn't matter to me what she was up to. Still, it was odd.

I patted Max gently on his forearm as he sank into his chair. He took a sip of his port and thanked me.

“You're a fine girl, Ellie,” he said. “Why hasn't some smart young man scooped you up?”

Again the talk of scooping up Ellie. “What's the hurry?” I asked.

“She's young, Max,” said Aunt Lena. “Let her be.”

“She's twenty-five,” he said. “It's time she settled down, don't you think?”

“And when are you going to settle down, Max?” I asked. “You're sixty-eight and have never been married.”

“Precisely my point, my dear,” he said. “I'm old and must now live with the sting of regret for never having taken a wife. I missed my chance. Or should I say that a generation of girls missed
their
chances?”

“Yes,” said Lena, rolling her eyes. “Those poor old ladies are kicking themselves, I'm sure.”

“Laugh if you will, my dear. There's more to a man than ephemeral beauty, though that once was mine as well.”

I'd seen photographs of Cousin Max as a young man. He had, in fact, once been quite handsome. But age and indulgence had worked their magic on him, and now he was bald of head, round of belly, and slow out of a chair. Though his eyes retained their impish gleam, giving him a roguish charm, no one was lining up for the chance to have and to hold him. I thought of him as one of those aging matinee idols from the silent pictures. Once a dashing sheik, he was now a flabby shadow of his former self, dressed in a paisley ascot, subsisting on heaping portions of caviar and booze.

Cousin Max, the personification of avuncular, sipped his port and smiled off into the distance. He said nothing more about men scooping me up.

Aunt Lena switched on the old Philco radio in the parlor. As it warmed up, she said she wanted to find some soothing music before turning in. She searched up and down the dial, braving the static, buzzing, and whining, until she found a voice.

“. . . reports that he was spotted in southern Essex County early Monday morning. A three-state manhunt is underway, with Vermont, Connecticut, and New York state police coordinating efforts to capture Yarrow. Residents are advised to lock their doors and report any suspicious activity to local police.

“Once again, repeating our top story, escaped murderer Donald Yarrow continues to elude police dragnets in and around the Adirondack park. In the past twenty-four hours, there have been reported sightings in several locations, including Ticonderoga, Schroon Lake, the Essex ferry, and Hinesburg, Vermont.”

With a quick turn of the knob, Aunt Lena located the faint signal of the CBC broadcasting Sibelius from Montreal.
Finlandia
. She settled back into her chair and picked up her book.

“I'm going to turn in,” I announced.

After the previous night's thunderstorm and the accompanying terror of being chased through the woods, I was resolved not to make the trek on foot again. Even though I'd had a couple of preprandial drinks, I would take my car and drive over. It was only a quarter mile away after all. I had wanted to tell Terwilliger about my close call in the woods but, in the end, decided I'd rather not besmirch my own reputation. The same concern had stopped me from sharing the story with Lena and Max. But it really had happened. Someone was out there among the trees, possibly Donald Yarrow, waiting for me or some other unsuspecting soul traipsing through the woods at night. I needed to tell the authorities before the spook bagged his first victim.

I arrived at Arcadia a little before nine thirty and parked my car on Lake Road, out of sight. I made sure all four doors were locked then capered up the path to the Great Lodge. All the usual suspects greeted me warmly, and I waved back at them. Still, I worried I was wearing my welcome thin. Then I noticed a new face.

“Ellie, this is my cousin, Audrey Silber,” said David.

An auburn-haired beauty in black tights and a form-fitting sweater smiled up at me from her seat next to Isaac. I said hello. She just blinked at me.

Once I'd been handed a drink, I asked Audrey when she'd arrived.

“Just a couple of hours ago,” she said. “David met me at the Port Henry train station. I came down from Montreal.”

“You're Canadian?” I asked. “Do you speak French?”

“We're Anglos,” she said. “But, yes, I do. How about you?”

I admitted that I did not. At least not well. Audrey looked disappointed but not surprised. She turned back to Isaac, flashing a brilliant white smile at him, and ignored me for pretty much the rest of the evening.

I'd finished my first drink and filled up another when David pulled his guitar from its case. He tuned it methodically then proceeded to pick and strum something folksy. He played some songs I'd never heard before. Something called “We Met Today in Freedom's Cause” and “Up from Your Knees, Ye Cringing Serfmen.” Simon asked why I wasn't singing along.

“Don't tell me you're with the ruling classes?” he said in jest.

I blushed and glanced at Isaac, who was chatting with Audrey. “It's just that I don't know the words.”

Simon jumped to his feet and retrieved a red book from inside David's guitar case. He handed it to me.

“
Industrial Workers of the World Songs: The Little Red Songbook
,” I read.

David launched into “Joe Hill,” and Simon accompanied him, plucking away on the cello as if it were a bass. I sang along halfheartedly. Isaac was all in in full voice, while Audrey watched him with the love light in her eyes. Or that was what it looked like to me.

The boys took a break, and Isaac sidled up to me. “You're going to spend the night, aren't you?” he whispered in my ear.

“If nothing better comes along,” I said, and he went back to his seat next to Audrey.

Try though I did, I just couldn't enjoy the folk music. Some of it was poetic, and a couple of songs were pretty. But most of it was just “unite,” “organize,” “wake up,” and so on. I much preferred the Fauré evening.

Once the music had ended around eleven, Simon cornered me by the makeshift bar. He glanced behind himself as if checking to see who was listening, then asked me about Karl's wife.

“What was she like?”

“Just a grieving wife,” I said. “Maybe not quite as distressed as I might have expected.”

“Pretty?”

I hadn't expected that question. I wrinkled my nose and asked why he wanted to know. He changed course and said it didn't matter. He was just curious about the
shiksa
siren who'd lured Karl away from his friends and family.

“You could visit her,” I said. “I'm sure she'd appreciate the gesture.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “I don't want anything to do with her. Or him, for that matter.”

He had a funny way of showing his indifference. I was beginning to feel that I didn't much like Simon. At least not always. At times he was friendly and sweet. At others he was surly and boorish. Maybe he didn't hold his drink. But whatever it was, when he was in his unpleasant moods, he made broad assumptions about my philistinism and challenged me about my politics. I had no patience for mean drunks.

Miriam joined us at the bar, and Simon quickly changed the subject to Donald Yarrow. Miriam's contribution to the conversation was to stare unblinkingly at me as Simon gave the latest news he'd heard. Apparently Yarrow had been seen as far away as the Vermont–Maine border and Niagara Falls, all in one day. I poured myself another drink and slipped away.

By midnight the soirée was running out of gas. Gone was the revelry of the previous nights, and the pall blanketing the Great Lodge was Karl Merkleson. Even when people weren't speaking of him, his death was never far from their thoughts. It hovered in the air like a specter, an urge to draw a heavy sigh. Just beyond the conscious but not quite forgotten.

I wanted to sleep, but Isaac wasn't finished holding forth again on the fence in Berlin. The Soviets were testing Kennedy, he said. “They wouldn't have tried this stunt on Eisenhower's watch.”

“Are you saying you'd rather have Eisenhower in the White House?” said Simon.

Isaac shook his head. “Of course not. You know me better than that. I'm saying that Khrushchev is manufacturing a crisis to see what the new guy is made of. It's like bull elephants fighting for the right to breed with the females.”