Heart of Stone (21 page)

“I'm not aware that Jerry was fond of diving,” said Lester at length. “He was never interested in swimming beyond the occasional dip on a hot afternoon.”

“That's one of the details I'm struggling to reconcile,” I said. “I know that Jerry met someone not too far from the cliff early that same morning. You told me yourself he was due back at camp for breakfast at seven thirty. But he fell to his death hours later. What did Jerry do from seven a.m. to noon?”

“You're asking me? I had no idea he was missing until the police came to tell me.”

I sat in silent thought for a half minute, trying to imagine what the young man could have done in the five-plus hours between his tryst with Emily Grierson and his ill-fated leap from Baxter's Rock.

“Do you think I might speak to some of Jerry's friends here at the camp?” I asked.

Lester refused, claiming the boys and girls were already upset over their friend's death. He wasn't going to make matters worse by subjecting them to a nosy busybody's prying questions.

“How about a couple of the counselors?” I asked, miffed by his characterization of me as a nosy busybody, even though it was an accurate assessment. I was shown the door for my trouble.

The lunch bell rang. The little prodigies, having blown the last of the spittle out of their trombones and sucked the life from their oboe reeds, had stashed their instruments in their cases and run off to feed their faces. Norris Lester, too, must have been hungry for the franks and beans they were serving in the cafeteria, for he scurried away, surely thinking his secretary, Pete, would escort me off camp property.

I found myself unchaperoned outside Lester's office. Never one to miss an opportunity, I wandered across the main compound, past a totem pole of sorts with mimeographed announcements stapled over the faces of the lower figures. There was a dance scheduled for Friday. The motif was Puccini's
La Fanciulla del West
. I could just picture it: a hundred backward boys too shy to ask a hundred forward girls to dance.

I surveyed the buildings. All pine boards and whitewash with forest green highlights on the door and window frames. The cafeteria, full of campers and counselors, sat on the northwest side of the compound. The library faced it from the opposite end, the southeast. There were rows of dormitories to the west and a great concert hall to the east. Some enterprising camper had managed to climb up twenty feet and remove the “I” from “Recital Hall,” leaving “REC TAL HALL” in its place. I got a good chuckle out of that, wondering if Norris Lester had noticed the theft yet.

The dormitories were wide open and unsupervised at lunch. I determined that the boys' cabins were on the left side of the long path, and the girls' were on the right. Furthermore, I figured that the cabins labeled Chipmunk and Squirrel were probably for the younger boys, while the Bear and Eagle lodges were for older boys. I thought Jerry Kaufman was probably a Bear or an Eagle. I slipped inside the Bear Lodge.

A schedule of events was tacked to the wall, listing a variety of activities starting with July 30: move-in day. I heard a cough inside the dormitory and discovered a young man lying in his bunk, hands folded behind his head as he stared into space.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I must be in the wrong place.”

“Who are you?” asked the boy, sitting up. He was fourteen or fifteen, skinny, with curly hair and pimples.

“Mr. Lester sent me to check on the . . . um, ceiling fans,” I lied.

“Go ahead,” he said, lying back on his bed and resuming the communion with his deepest thoughts.

I gazed up at the ceiling. There were no fans.

“Did you know Jerry Kaufman?” I asked as innocently as I knew how. The boy sat up again.

“Not really,” he said. “Why do you ask? Is he the guy who stole the ceiling fans?”

“Mr. Lester asked me to find out a little more about him,” I said, blushing at my gaffe. This kid was sharp. “He wants to make sure no one else is planning to dive off that cliff.”

The boy chuckled and lay back down. “Lester the Jester? What an idiot. No one's going to jump off that cliff. We're musicians here, not daredevils.”

“What about Jerry?” I asked.

“Lester didn't send you here, did he?”

I gave his question some quick thought. The kid wouldn't have time to go check with the director, so I could continue with my story. But he clearly didn't like Norris Lester. Neither did I, for that matter.

“You're right,” I said, playing my hunch. “He just threw me out of his office for asking questions.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, he kicked me out of lunch for a week for having a smart mouth. You're in good company.”

“So what about Jerry?” I repeated, now that we were confederates.

“What about him?”

“Was he the type who liked to take chances? Maybe like diving off Baxter's Rock?”

“The word going around is that he might have slipped, but no way was he trying to dive. We heard he was fully dressed. T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. Who goes for a swim like that?”

“You have a point. What else are people saying?”

The kid shrugged. “Not much. Someone from his bunk said he went out every day at six and came back in time for breakfast at seven thirty.”

“So it was strange that the day he died he was out for six hours.”

“Maybe not,” said the kid. “Maybe he fell off the cliff earlier than that other guy.”

That was interesting. I hadn't considered it. Terwilliger had said his witnesses saw one of them jump. Or had he? They'd heard a scream then turned to see one man in midair. I made a mental note to double-check with the chief.

“Has there been any talk that Jerry knew that other man who died?” I asked.

He shook his head. I sensed he had no more information for me.

“My name's Ellie,” I said, taking a step closer to his bed. “I'm staying at Cedar Haven, about a mile north of the village on Jordan Street.”

He sat up again, a toothy grin smeared over his face. He looked me up and down quite thoroughly. “Is that an invitation?”

I sighed. What was it about adolescent boys and me? Moths to my flame.

“I can see why Mr. Lester kicked you out of the cafeteria. You do have a smart mouth. No, it's not an invitation. I wanted to ask you to do a little digging for me. As a favor.”

“What do I get out of it?” he asked.

“I'll give you two dollars if you can scare up some good information about Jerry.”

“I'd rather have a quart of beer,” he said. “Or a date.”

“I'm not buying you beer. Let's start with the two dollars, and we'll see if sparks fly between us later.”

He shrugged and said okay. He could use the two bucks to bribe some older kid to buy him beer in the village.

“I'm Herbie,” he said as he bestowed me the honor of standing up and shaking my hand. “No last names. I don't want to get involved if you're up to no good.”

“Deal,” I said, happy not to give him my surname either.

“But I can't just get out of camp whenever I want. You'll have to wait till Saturday night.”

“I can't wait that long.”

“See, sparks flying already,” he said. Little charmer.

“I assume you'll still be cooling your heels here tomorrow at lunch? I'll stop by at twelve thirty and meet you here. Try to get me something by then.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The day was bright. The wind and rain of the previous night had passed, and the August sun was back in the saddle. It was only half past noon, but Wednesday promised to be an exhausting day. I was supposed to be on vacation, yet I was chasing a story that was surely just an accident. Yes, there were a few details about the diving deaths that didn't make sense. But what did I think had happened? Had the two men been pushed off the cliff? Was this a case of double suicide? Had they struggled atop Baxter's Rock and caused each other to fall? Had they been engaged in “acts against nature,” as Terwilliger maintained, and taken things a step too far? I didn't believe any of those scenarios. So why was I wasting time poking my nose into this tragedy? I thought about those questions as I drove back toward Cedar Haven. I acknowledged my obsessive devotion to clearing up remainders and riddles. It's the same reason I'm unable to leave a crossword puzzle unfinished or a missing sock unfound. I promised myself I would stop as soon as I heard back from my little boyfriend, Herbie. I was finished with this useless digging. Then I passed Aunt Lena's dock and pulled over. I grabbed my camera and climbed out of the car.

After stepping into the old rowboat tied to the dock, taking care not to tip it over, I unknotted the rope and pushed off.

I'm no great sailor, but I can swing a pair of oars. Having rowed around the point, I maneuvered carefully through the mouth of Baxter's Cove where Karl Merkleson and Jerry Kaufman had died. I managed to avoid the rocks and soon reached the narrow shale beach. What was I doing here? I wasn't sure. But I wanted to visit the site again and look around at my leisure.

The first thing I noticed was the white paint on the rocks. The outlines of two bodies. The state police had chosen paint over chalk to preserve the scene, perhaps because of the water that splashed onto the beach. I retrieved my camera from its case and started shooting pictures. I needed to adjust the shutter speed to get usable images of the outlines since the surrounding rocks sheltered much of the beach from direct sunlight. Trying to duplicate the angles and distances I'd shot four days earlier when the bodies had been on gruesome display for me, I also took care to measure the distance between the men. Jerry had landed about two and a half shoe lengths (size six and a half) away from the wall. I wondered if he had scraped against the rocks of the cliffs on his final descent. That was too awful to think about, so I put it out of my mind. Karl had hit the ground approximately seven shoe lengths from the water's edge. Esther Merkleson had put the idea into my head to get an exact positioning, though I couldn't imagine what I would use the measurements for. I asked myself again why I was obsessing over an accident.

I walked the entire length and breadth of the rocky beach, searching for any clue that might have been left behind. I hoped to find Karl's wallet or his shirt, but the place was too small to hide such large objects. There was a rusted beer cap, some twigs, and lots of pine needles. Bird droppings, released from a great height if the explosive patterns on the ground were any indication, dotted the rocks every few feet. Looking to Baxter's Rock above, I could see gulls nesting in the crooks of the wall.

There was nothing to see here. I drew a deep breath of clean Adirondack air and looked to the east, past the cove to the lake. Chief Terwilliger had said that his witnesses didn't see the bodies hit the ground. I could see the surface of the lake, of course, but there were plenty of high rocks guarding the entrance to the cove that would have blocked most views from the other side. It all made sense. I shrugged. So why was I on the beach searching for odds and ends? Just another manifestation of my obsession to finish things off? Most certainly. I should give it up, but I knew I was determined to keep scratching until something bled.

It was nearly two when I drove back to the village and parked my car on the side of Lake Road in front of Palmer Square. The popcorn vendor, stationed nearby, perked up when he saw me climb out of my car. I think he was hoping for his first sale of the day. He deflated when I passed him by, making a beeline for the Tommy Grierson Crusade table across the square.

The pastor was there in his linen suit, which blazed white in the bright sun. As I came closer, I noticed the fraying around the cuffs and lapels, and the elbows were browner than whiter. His hair, however, remained in perfect trim despite its length and thickness.

“Good morning, Miss . . .” he said, inviting me to remind him of my name.

“Stone,” I said. “Good morning to you, Reverend Grierson.”

He nodded, clearly thrown by my reappearance. I felt sure he wanted never to see me again. He wasn't getting his wish this day.

“I wanted to know how Emily was doing,” I said.

“She's fine,” said Grierson.

“I don't see her here today. I hope she's coping with the shock.”

“The Lord provides comfort in difficult times,” he said, barely looking me in the eye. “I shall tell her you inquired after her well-being.”

“Actually I need to speak to her. Do you think that would be possible?”

He frowned and ran a hand through his silvery mane. He blustered like a horse before telling me no.

“I wouldn't ask, but Emily may know more about the man who died along with Jerry Kaufman.”

“Certainly not,” said the preacher. “Emily barely knew the Jewish boy. And she didn't know the other man.”

“You can't be sure of that,” I said. “I'll only take a minute. Please. The dead man's mother is desperate for information. Won't you help?”