Heart of Stone (36 page)

There exists a reckless urge in humans to suffer harm when they feel they've been wronged. The injury serves as punishment for the person who has aggrieved us. We comfort ourselves with fantasies of how wretched that person will feel when injury befalls us. But it's like an insurance policy: you have to lose to win. That was the state of my mind as I left Arcadia Lodge that night. My death or mutilation or drowning by rain would be fitting reparation for Isaac's having asked me to leave. I imagined myself set upon by Donald Yarrow as I crossed the woods alone under a dark, violent thunderstorm, and the responsibility would be all Isaac's. Of course I didn't actually want to be attacked, struck by lightning, murdered, or drowned, but anger coupled with pain is a powerful concoction. It can make us take chances.

And so I did.

The woods opened before me like a great muddy maw. I dared fate to put an escaped murderer in my wet path. I wanted the headlines to read that I had been sent away from the party by the host despite strong winds and pelting rains. But nothing happened. I was terrified all right, and soaked to the skin. I thought I heard twigs cracking and a man breathing, but that wasn't possible, given the roar of the storm. I made it back to Cedar Haven, pruney, but without incident. After changing into some dry clothes, I locked myself inside the main cabin and poured a stiff drink. I waited for Lena and Max to return.

I wanted to listen to the radio to change my state of mind, but the weather was wreaking havoc with the reception. Switching the dial back and forth between the Montreal classical music program, which blasted static with each thunderbolt, and a station in Burlington, Vermont, broadcasting the latest news on Donald Yarrow, I managed to make an hour pass. Another drink greased the skids. Then, the glare of headlights lit the room through the window. Aunt Lena and Max. Finally. It was a quarter past eleven.

I rose to meet them at the door and frowned at my bad luck. It wasn't my Dodge at all parked on the grass outside, but Tiny Terwilliger's rumbling shipwreck of a truck instead.

“I was looking for you over at Arcadia,” he said, standing drenched in the doorway.

“What for?” I asked.

Terwilliger gaped at me. “You said you wanted to tell me something. Some new information you had.”

I apologized that I had no beer to offer him, but he waved me off and produced a quart bottle from behind his back. He removed his wet coat and hung it on the rack by the door.

“Snagged this from the good folks over at Arcadia Lodge.” He smiled, holding up the bottle of beer. “So what's the big news?”

I poured myself another drink and lit a cigarette. If I had to spend time in his company, I at least wanted an anesthetic. We sat opposite each other before the fireplace, which I'd lit to fight the chill of the rain.

“I spoke to Jerry Kaufman's little girlfriend today,” I began. “And she put me onto something.”

“What's that?” he asked, swigging directly from the bottle.

“Would you like a glass?”

“No thanks. I'll manage just fine. What did she tell you?”

“That Jerry had an older girlfriend before she met him. A couple of weeks ago. Someone named Mimi.”

“And?”

“And she was thirty years old.”

Terwilliger whistled and cocked his head to one side in what looked like admiration. He smiled, sucked some more beer out of the bottle, then let loose a window-rattling belch.

“Sorry about that,” he said, remembering his good manners. “Better out than in.”

“I also spoke to Jerry's best friend at Camp Orpheus,” I said, suppressing a shudder. “He confirmed that the woman's name was Mimi. He said Jerry used to meet her in a motel here on the lake. I don't know which one, but it wasn't Tom's. I checked. And they met in a hunters' shelter, too.”

“There's a hunters' shack behind Arcadia,” he said. “Isn't that where you found that leather kit?”

“Exactly. I think it's possible they met there, but there are lots of those sheds in the woods.”

“So what else did the girl say?”

“She said Mimi was a musician. A member of the Prospector Lake Chamber Players. Jerry performed with them in a concert two weeks ago in the square in the village.”

“I remember that,” said Terwilliger. “I was there to keep the peace.”

“A rowdy crowd, was it?” I asked with a smirk.

He shook his head. “Bunch of eggheads and old ladies. Dullest concert I ever heard. Except maybe for the one the other night at Arcadia Lodge. Just a lot of tinkling piano and sawing on violins. They had three of those. A small one, a medium, and a large.”

“Yes, I've seen those big ones,” I said. “Hard to hold under your chin.”

Terwilliger frowned at me, perhaps catching a whiff of my sarcasm. But maybe not. “So this kid was getting his jollies with an older gal,” he said. “What's that got to do with him falling off the cliff?”

“Do you remember who played the piano that day in the square?” I asked.

“No.”

“It was one of the women from Arcadia. Simon Abramowitz's wife.”

“Is he the one who gave the John Birch boys such a hard time?”

“That's right. His wife is Miriam. She's the one with the long, black hair.”

“Yeah, I know who you mean. The one with all those curves.”

“The very one,” I said, thinking what a revolting man he was.

“I thought you said the older girlfriend was named Mimi.”

“That's right. Mimi is a common pet name for Miriam.”

“Are you saying her husband got wind of it and pushed the kid off the cliff?” he asked, squinting at me in the low light.

“No, I don't think so.”

“Why not?” he asked. The idea seemed to appeal to him.

“For one thing, it doesn't explain how Karl Merkleson happened to die at the same time in the same place.”

Terwilliger knitted his brow and sipped his beer. “Maybe this Simon fellow pushed the kid over the edge, and Merkleson saw it. So he had to take care of him, too.”

“Did he ask him to strip down to his skivvies first?” I asked. “No, it doesn't add up.”

“Then what's she got to do with all this? I don't get it.”

I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray on the end table. “Miriam was also Karl Merkleson's former lover. I believe he came to Prospector Lake to see her.”

“So both of them?” He laughed. “Wow. She gets around.”

I tried to ignore his mirth at the demise of the two men. “But my point isn't so much that Miriam gets around, but that she finally provides a connection between the two victims.”

The chief interrupted his belly laugh long enough to give my words some thought. Then he threw his head back and glugged down the last of his beer. I couldn't believe my eyes, but he'd choked the life out of the bottle in a matter of minutes.

“So maybe
she
pushed them off the cliff,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He placed the empty quart on the table.

“No, I don't see any reason for her to have done that. But I do believe that her relationship with those two men had something to do with their deaths. Maybe they were fighting over her. But that seems unlikely as well.”

“Why's that?” he asked. “It seems as good an explanation as any.”

“Because Karl Merkleson stripped down to his underwear. Why would he do that unless he wanted to dive off the cliff and didn't have a bathing suit with him?”

“I don't see it as a problem. People do all sorts of strange things. It doesn't bother me at all that he was in his underwear. What else doesn't make sense to you?”

“His shirt.”

“What's that?”

“His shirt. The one that was found in the lake. It's not the kind of shirt a dandy like Karl Merkleson would have worn.”

“Some vacationers found it near his wallet. His driver's license was inside.”

“I just don't believe he would buy shirts at Sears,” I said.

Terwilliger chewed on that for a while. “Did the kid's little girlfriend tell you anything else?” he asked finally.

“Nothing very helpful. But she did say she heard a car screeching on the road just after she left Jerry that morning. Do you think it might be important?”

“Probably not,” he said.

“Maybe the driver saw something.”

Terwilliger shrugged but had no answer. He also had no beer. Eyeing my drink, he licked his lips.

“You may have a drink if you like,” I said. “But you're not drinking from the bottle. There are glasses on the bar.”

“I don't mind if I do,” he said. “Just to wet my whistle.” And he got up to pour himself a tall whiskey.

Poor Aunt Lena. At this rate, she would run out of teacups, chairs, and tumblers by night's end. I had no intention of washing the glass he was slobbering over.

“A love triangle,” said Terwilliger, sitting down again with his drink. “And I thought they were just a couple of queers, committing acts against nature.”

The radio continued to buzz softly from across the room, rain drummed on the roof, and thunder boomed above from time to time. We sat quietly for a while. Then I asked him if he had any insider information on Donald Yarrow that the public didn't know about. He emptied his glass, grimaced, and coughed, eyes watering.

“Strong stuff you drink,” he said. “You're a different kind of gal, aren't you?” I shrugged. “You know, I've grown to kind of like you,” he continued. I was mortified. “You've got spunk. And you're easy on the eyes.”

I groaned. He was pretty drunk.

“About Donald Yarrow?” I prompted.

“The state police have been consulting me on that,” he said, serious all of a sudden. “We know he's here on the lake. Kidnapped a lady from the campgrounds near Tennyson. We're closing in. We'll get him soon.” And he winked at me.

“I had another question for you,” I said at length. “Your witnesses, the man and his son who saw one of the two men fall. You said they heard the impact of one of the bodies on the rocks?”

“That's what they said.”

“How far away were they when they heard it?”

“I don't know,” he said. “Maybe seventy-five yards. A hundred. Why?”

“Because you said the sound took a second or two to reach them. That struck me as strange.”

He leaned forward in his seat to scrutinize me. “What are you getting at?”

I explained the speed of sound to him, outlined some rough calculations, and said I didn't think their story made sense. “If the sound took that long to reach them, they would have been too far from shore to hear anything quieter than a cannon.”

Terwilliger dismissed my concerns. “They never actually said that. I just told you that to get a rise out of you.”

I bristled, which only seemed to amuse him.

“I was annoyed with all your questions,” he said. “You got to admit, it kind of turned your stomach, didn't it?” And he laughed.

He was the worst cop I'd ever met. Lazy and ineffective, disorganized and slow. And smelly to boot. I wanted to throw him out, but I wasn't quite finished.

“I'd like to speak to those witnesses,” I said. “Could you give me their names?”

“Sure,” he said, his laughter dying down. “But they're not here. They left last Sunday and went home. Somewhere in New Jersey or Delaware. I don't remember offhand. But I can get the address if you want.”

“What were their names?”

“John something. I don't think I ever got the son's name.”

“Do you know where they were staying on the lake?”

Terwilliger frowned at me. “Who's running this investigation anyways? Look, I've been patient with you trying to play detective, but it's starting to get on my nerves.”

“You're not exactly winning me over either,” I said, feeling a tirade coming on. It came, like a hurricane, and, after a week of his foul company, I was powerless to still my sharp tongue. “You intrude, overstay your welcome, drink everyone's liquor. You're always drunk, even in the morning. You take private citizens' automobiles for your own use. You belch, you smell, and you ogle women in bathing suits, spy on them when they're sunbathing and minding their own business.”

I paused for breath. Terwilliger just stared at me, eyes wide. Then he smiled. Then he chuckled. Finally he laughed and rose to pour himself another long drink from my bottle of Dewar's.

“I may not be fancy like you,” he said, settling into his seat once more. “I'm just a hick. But I'll let you have your fun at my expense.”

I drew several deep breaths, trying to compose myself. I wasn't there yet. “And one more thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Your trousers are either too loose or too small to contain your gigantic ass. I wish you would correct that immediately.”

He nodded slowly, took a thoughtful sip of his whiskey, and pursed his lips. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I will take your advice under consideration.”

“And maybe you could shave once in a while?” I asked a touch more gently.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, but this has nothing to do with your appearance. Can you tell me where John the witness and his son were staying here on the lake?”

Surely he didn't think I'd forgotten my question.

He chuckled again. “You're all right, Ellie. May I call you Ellie?”

“If I can call you Ralph,” I said.

“My friends call me Tiny.”

Great, I thought. How was I going to manage that without laughing?

“Deal,” I said.

“Well, Ellie, John Gorman—I think that was his name—was camping with his boy somewhere in the woods south of the village. I can show you, but there's nothing there to see.”

“Okay,” I said. “But you'll get me his address? Just in case I want to contact him later on. And I think the state police should interview them.”