Heart of Stone (19 page)

After dinner we sat down for port and a smoke in the parlor. Aunt Lena checked the radio for the latest news on the escaped convict. Another sighting, this time in Paradox. Donald Yarrow was either a case of mass hysteria or he was circling around Prospector Lake, closing in like a tightening noose.

“Tonight, I think we'll bolt the doors,” whispered Aunt Lena as I poured refills of our drinks at the bar. Max was across the room, ensconced in his chair with a book of Longfellow poems on his lap. “And you, Ellie, no more late-night runs through the woods.”

I jerked my head to see her. She looked me in the eye to drive home her point. And I thought I'd been so clever and covered my tracks after the first night. I surely blushed crimson. God, who else was aware of my trysts? Miriam, of course, and the nose-picker Chief Terwilliger. I cringed, certain I was the scandal of Prospector Lake.

We switched from the Yarrow report to the CBC's classical broadcast, catching Ravel's
Piano Concerto in G
from beginning to end. Max sat transfixed, eyes shut, ignoring his Longfellow, as he soaked in the Ravel.

Afterward I asked Max which poem he was reading, and he answered in his brightest baritone, “‘This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss . . .'”

“Can't you just once answer a question?” I asked.

“Name it, my dear,” he said. “Don't let me down.”

“Of course it's
Evangeline
,” I said.

“The finest American epic poem ever written,” he pronounced.

Max read some passages from the poem, and we reminisced about my father and his favorite Longfellow poems, including “Dante” and “Holidays.”

“He made me memorize it,” I said. “‘These tender memories are a fairy tale of some enchanted land we know not where, but lovely as a landscape in a dream.'”

“But this one was his favorite line,” announced Max. “‘He hears his daughter's voice, singing in the village choir, and it makes his heart rejoice.'”

My throat tightened, and I couldn't speak. The words stung, though I was too stunned to know exactly why. Were those lines for me? Or just something he liked to repeat? He did things like that. And even though I'd resolved to move on from the long, troubled relationship with my late father, there were these powerful emotional talismans that could conjure painful memories. Yes, I'd made my peace with him, but that didn't mean I had forgotten. One thing I knew for sure: I had never heard my father recite the “Village Blacksmith” even once in my presence. Why would he quote such a random line and make damn sure I was never there to hear it?

“That's right,” said Lena. “He used to say it often, even at times when it wasn't apropos.”

“True enough,” added Max. “But the first time he quoted it was after your school singing recital, Ellie. I think you were seven years old.”

I didn't know what to think or how to react. Had he recited the lines as a cherished memory of me? Or was it a bitter reminder of how much he disliked what I had become? I would never know. And I reminded myself that I didn't care. I'd buried that torture along with his ashes, and I wasn't going back.

“What's your favorite port, Max?” I asked, changing the subject and swallowing the last of the memories.

“Any port in a storm, my dear,” he said. “Any port at all.”

Windy nights had always unnerved me as a girl. They still did as a grown woman. The rush and tumble of air, the whispering and whistling of the wind spooked me. I would listen at the window, nevertheless, and watch the trees thrashing and fluttering, fighting the storm. The spectacle awed and beckoned me at the same time.

That night, alone in my small cabin, the wind blew wet and hard from the west, down the mountainside, over Cedar Haven and across Prospector Lake. Cold rain fell for a few minutes then stopped, only to start again a short time later. Then a great branch broke off one of the cedars in the yard, loosing a loud crack and a thud when it hit the ground. That was spooky enough, but things got even worse when I heard steps climb onto the wooden porch. There came a soft rapping at the door, and I sat bolt upright in bed and reached for the robe I'd cast off before slipping under the covers. The rapping came again. Then the latch moved slowly. Up then down. The door didn't budge; I'd had the good sense to bolt it before retiring for the night. But then it shook, as if someone was trying to push it open with a strong shoulder. I leapt from the bed before I'd even wrapped myself in the robe and, completely naked, scurried across the room to grab the iron poker leaning against the fireplace. I raised it over my head and waited, breathless, thinking I'd never felt such terror in my entire life. And curious enough, I discovered, as I stood there, that fear is multiplied tenfold when you have no clothes on.

“Open up,” an eerie voice whispered, and I screamed. Then the voice called out my name. “Ellie, it's me!”

I dropped the poker to the floor and threw open the door. Isaac was standing there, soaking wet from the rain. I grabbed his arm, yanked him inside, and bolted the door again.

“My God, you scared me to death,” I said, wrapping my arms around him. He tore off his wet clothes, and we wrapped ourselves in the warmth of the dry bed. The night was not all hell and horrors after that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Isaac padded across the room in his bare feet to retrieve two glasses next to the pitcher of water. We made short work of what was left of the bottle of whiskey I'd dented the night before. Curled up in the sweaty sheets, we talked for hours.

He told me he'd wanted to come earlier, but there'd been some trouble at Arcadia Lodge. Four John Birchers had shown up looking for Simon. They said he'd tried to throttle Waldo Coons, who had been manning their booth in the village green that afternoon. Simon told him he was fired from Arcadia Lodge, and then, in a rage, he upended their table and tore up their brochures.

“They wanted to drag Simon off to jail,” said Isaac. “They even brought Chief Terwilliger with them. My father and I talked them out of pressing charges and promised we'd get Simon to pay for the brochures. And of course we gave Waldo his job back.”

“How awful,” I said.

“Simon got off lucky,” said Isaac. “Although it will pain him to pay to reprint those ridiculous brochures.”

“No, I meant how awful that you had to hire back that cave dweller Waldo Coons.”

Isaac laughed. “Come on. He's not so bad.”

“But how can he work for a bunch of socialist Jews when he belongs to the John Birch Society?”

“He doesn't understand the politics of it,” said Isaac. “He's just following along with some of his friends.”

“I can't believe that,” I said.

“It's true. I think he's retarded somehow. For example, he doesn't react to external stimuli. Once, he spilled a lobster pot filled with boiling water on his leg in the kitchen. He was wearing trousers, but still it should have hurt like all get-out. But he didn't scream. Didn't say anything. He's like that. Slow and dull. If you were to ask him for the time of day or kick him in the shins, he would just stare at you the same from those hollow eyes.”

Fascinating though Waldo Coons might have been, I pressed Isaac to change the subject and tell me stories about his own life, his work. He taught calculus to bright young students at Bronx Science High School, he said. When the school moved to its new campus in March of 1959, they faced the considerable challenge of moving all the library books from the old campus to the new.

“Someone came up with the brilliant idea to have the students check out five library books each from the old school on Friday, then return them to the new campus on Monday.” He chuckled, sipping some Scotch. “It was genius.”

We talked more about his job, and then Isaac asked again about my meeting with Gayle. I had new information for him.

“She's been in Prospector Lake since Thursday,” I said. “And Karl arrived the day before that, Wednesday.”

“I can't believe he was here for three days without contacting us.”

“And at the Sans Souci,” I said. “Barely a mile from Arcadia Lodge.”

“So what was Gayle doing here?” he asked.

“I can't say. She checked into Tom's Lakeside Motel on Thursday afternoon with her father. They took two rooms; then she switched to the Sans Souci on Friday around five o'clock.”

Isaac mulled over the news. I tried to cozy up to him, but his mind was elsewhere.

“Tell me something,” I said after a while. “How well do you know Gayle Morton?”

It took the better part of an hour for Isaac to admit that he indeed knew Karl's wife better than he was letting on. I assured him that it meant nothing to me if he'd found her attractive, as long as he wasn't still longing after her. I told him half smiling that he was not my first indiscretion. Finally he hung his head and told me the story.

After Miriam's trip to Los Angeles, Isaac took a train across the country and looked up his old friend. Karl was relaxed with him. They had dinner together then lunch the next day, and Isaac thought he'd made progress toward roping in the prodigal son. To clinch the deal, Isaac thought it would be a good idea to convince Gayle to meet the Arcadians and become one of the old gang.

“Did Karl know about your meeting with his wife?” I asked.

Isaac shook his head. “He never would have agreed.”

“Why's that?”

Isaac skirted my question and told me instead that he'd met Gayle Morton at the Beverly Hills Hotel for tea. An hour later they drove to Hollywood and checked into a seedy motel on Sunset Boulevard for a roll in the hay. Gayle knew too many people at the Beverly Hills Hotel and feared discovery. Isaac said he would never forget his shame or the name of the place: the Sunset Motor Inn and Resort. Sounded like a grand place.

“I swear to you, Ellie, she tricked me,” he said. “She said she'd seen a gossipy friend in the lobby at the Beverly Hills Hotel and didn't want Karl, Charles, to know she'd been talking to me.”

“You don't have to explain to me,” I said.

“But I do. She had me follow her until she pulled into the Sunset Motor Inn and Resort. I thought that was strange, but I needed to talk to her. The next thing I knew, we were . . .”

I didn't want to hear another word. I couldn't have cared less that he'd slept with some woman. Any woman. Many women. It didn't matter. What bothered me was that he'd slept with his old friend's wife. I was wrestling with that when he told me that it wasn't as bad as I thought.

“Gayle said she and Karl had an agreement. An arrangement. He went his way, and she went hers. No strings.”

I put a finger to his lips, silencing him finally. If the Mortons had an agreement, good for them. I only wished Isaac hadn't become a party to it. And failing that, I wished he would shut up. My finger did the trick. Perhaps he thought I was jealous, and I was happy to let him think that. He could think whatever he liked, as long as he left that story buried in the past.

“What do you think she wanted here?” I asked, bringing him back to the sordid present.

“Karl hit it big about a year and a half ago,” said Isaac. “He'd gone out to Los Angeles to get into the movie business. Since his family was so active in the theater, he figured it was the logical next step for him. He thought he could out-write anyone in Hollywood, including Orson Welles and Ring Lardner Jr. He got his start in the film business with Gayle's father, who was a fairly successful producer of Martian movies, but he didn't get anywhere fast. Then Karl and his father-in-law agreed to part company, and Karl scored a huge movie deal. He wrote the script for another one of those biblical pictures. Then he got a producer's credit on a Natalie Wood movie. He was suddenly A-list hot stuff.”

“And let me guess. He wanted a divorce?”

“Bingo.”

“So was Gayle here to save her marriage or rekindle an old romance with someone else?” I asked.

Isaac waved a hand to indicate impatience. “I was a minor diversion for Gayle,” he said. “She was after bigger game. She wanted a rich guy, not an egg-head math teacher from New York.”

“So you think she was here to get her man back?” I said. Isaac nodded.

I considered the news. Isaac's version of events didn't rule out any of the odd movements back and forth between two motels. Maybe she had indeed come to the Adirondacks to save her failing marriage. I thought it was a curious choice to bring Daddy along on such a quest, but who knew what kind of relationship they'd had? There was still nothing that pointed to anything but an accidental death, especially given the presence of the young boy on the rocks with Karl. What possible connection could he have had with the Mortons?

Still, I am a curious gal. I craved information about all things. And since we were talking about Karl Merkleson, I had more questions.