Heart of Stone (23 page)

Aunt Lena and Max must have gone out on a groceries or booze run. I invited the Kaufmans inside and made some tea.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said once we'd sat down in the parlor.

Mrs. Kaufman started to sob, and her husband consoled her. I bit my lower lip. I had no words to help them. All I could do was give them time. After a few minutes, Mr. Kaufman wiped his eyes and began.

“We're understandably devastated by the loss of our son. You'll have to excuse our emotion.”

“Please don't apologize,” I said.

“We know that you were present shortly after Jerry died and took the photographs. We don't want to see them, of course. We've seen his body anyway.” He paused to mop some new tears from his cheeks.

“If there's any way I can help you and your wife . . .” I said.

“That awful man,” he began, “the chief of police said you were moved by Jerry's death. He told us that you said some kind of prayer over him and wept.”

“That's not exactly true. I didn't recite any prayers, though I did touch his shoulder in a feeble attempt to comfort him. He was a beautiful boy.”

“That's why we've come. To thank you for your care and respect of his body. It was a beautiful thing to do for him.”

My throat tightened, a sure indication that I was about to cry. I told the Kaufmans that it was nothing, that I'd felt powerless and useless in the circumstances.

“It may sound strange to you, but we feel you helped him in the moment of his death, or shortly after. And that gives us more peace than you can imagine.”

Now I was weeping. I could manage no speech. The Kaufmans approached me and wrapped their arms around me. I couldn't explain why Jerry's death affected me in such a powerful way. Of course a young life snuffed out is tragic and sad, but I hadn't known him. The gratitude offered to me by his parents surely heightened the intensity of my response, but there was a deeper, unknown reason that I could not identify. If the sharing of sorrow provides catharsis, it does so by first tightening the stranglehold of the pain, like a garrote around the neck, before finally breaking its grip and allowing solace to take root. While reporting the story of the disappearance and death of a young girl the previous January, I'd experienced the relief that shared mourning provides. It was a pathway to healing that I'd denied myself in the deaths of my brother and my mother and my father. I'd suffered each of those losses alone, never opening my heart to the grief and comfort of others. Now, in the embrace of the grateful parents of a boy upon whom I'd bestowed a fleeting and futile gesture of compassion, I was moved by the healing power of commiseration.

At length we composed ourselves and managed to share a sad smile. Rose Kaufman asked me if I knew anything about her son, the boy with whom I now shared an eternal bond in her heart.

“I know that he played the violin and piano,” I said. “And that he was a fine tennis player.”

“That we knew,” said Harold Kaufman, patting my hand. “But did you know he was selected among all the students at Orpheus to play the violin in a special concert in the village square with some local musicians? Adults.” He said the last word with great pride, as if it connoted quality and gravitas. “They played Mozart and Schubert. That was Sunday the thirteenth. Rose and I came up to watch. Jerry was wonderful.”

I tried to appear suitably disappointed at having missed the concert. Harold and Rose fell silent. Their moods darkened again.

“Did you know that he wanted to learn the zither?” I asked.

“The zither?” they said in unison. Harold said no, they'd had no idea. Then they smiled at each other.

“And he had a girl.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I ran the film I'd shot in the cove that afternoon through Max's developer and hung the negatives to dry overnight. Then I joined Lena and Max for cocktails.

The evening's radio program included Elgar's
From the South
and Mendelssohn's
Scottish Symphony
, accompanied by two rounds of drinks and canapés. Lena and Max had driven all the way to Fort Ticonderoga to restock the bar. They'd presented me with a fifth of White Label and the admonition that I was due to leave Sunday, and that should hold me until then. I did not share their confidence.

After the CBC, Aunt Lena searched for news of Donald Yarrow. The sightings seemed to indicate that he had grown tired of the Adirondacks' mosquitoes and pushed off to parts unknown. One unsubstantiated report put the escaped murderer in Mexico.

“That's welcome news,” said Max.

“How could he have been seen in Paradox yesterday and today he's in Mexico?” I asked.

“Very simple, my dear,” said Max, savoring the last drops of his gin and tonic. “The airplane. The latest in high-speed travel.”

Aunt Lena laughed and took his empty glass. “So Donald Yarrow waltzed into an airport and bought a ticket to Mexico City?”

“That is the substance of my thesis, yes.”

“Where did he get the airfare? And the passport?” she asked, handing him a fresh drink.

“Mere trifles for a seasoned criminal like Donald Yarrow,” he said, waving his free hand. “Surely he was working with confederates who provided him with the necessary instruments and papers. I shouldn't be surprised if he hadn't already changed his appearance. Plastic surgery in Tijuana and a suntan in Cozumel.”

“Tijuana and Cozumel are on different coasts,” I pointed out.

Max took a healthy swig of his G and T and smacked his lips. “Again, my dear, the airplane. Pay attention. A mastermind like Donald Yarrow would have no problem surmounting such mundane obstacles.”

“Mundane obstacles?” I asked. “You mean like time and space?”

After dinner I excused myself and went to my cabin to freshen up. Moments later I was debating whether to take my car to Arcadia Lodge or go on foot. I wanted to see Isaac. And I wanted to look Simon in the eye as I took a seat in the Great Lodge, preferably in the armchair next to Jakob Eisenstadt. Given my recent run-ins with my mysterious harasser, though, I should have taken the safer route in my car. But I had other concerns. Aunt Lena was already onto my assignations, and I didn't much appreciate her knowing what naughtiness I was getting up to. She would certainly hear my Dodge roaring to life if I took the car. So I decided to brave the risk and run through the four hundred yards of woods to reach Isaac.

With an eye to evading my shadow, I took a different path through the woods, leaving Aunt Lena's camp fifty yards farther north and circling around to the southwest. The same old fears pounded in my heart as I dashed through the forest, but this time there was no rain, no lightning or thunder, to magnify my terror. And I carried a flashlight, which gave me a small measure of confidence that I'd lacked on previous nights.

My new route took me on an upward slope across a stream about forty yards behind Arcadia Lodge. I swept the landscape with my flashlight, making sure the path was clear. And that was when I spotted the hut off in the distance, at least a hundred yards farther up the hill. It looked like a hunters' shelter. There were so many in those parts. It wasn't hunting season, of course, so I didn't expect to find anyone inside. In fact I had no intention of looking to see if anyone was inside or even near the shack. I pictured the mysterious man who'd been tracking me enjoying an after-dinner drink inside, his feet propped up on an ottoman as he plotted new ways to corner me alone in the woods.

I arrived at Arcadia without incident. The gang had finished supper and was lounging in the Great Lodge. Simon and David were reading, and Miriam was playing scales with great speed and vigor on the piano. Then, without warning, she launched into a gentle, rolling version of Liszt's “Liebestraum.” Ruth and Rachel were nowhere in sight, but Isaac and Audrey were sitting together across the room in a shadowy corner. I nearly turned around and left, but Simon called out to me.

“There you are, Ellie,” he said. “Come in and have a drink with us.”

What was he up to? The smile he'd directed at me seemed genuine, but I trusted him only as much as I would a smiling crocodile. I did want a drink, though.

I upped the ante in Simon's little game; I breezed over to his chair, bent down, and kissed him on the cheek. He nearly choked, but no one besides me noticed.

“Please, Mimi,” he barked at his wife. “Stop that saccharine Liszt and join us for some civilized conversation. Or play some Prokofiev or Stravinsky or Shostakovich. Anything but that Tin Pan Alley schlock.”

Liszt was not my favorite composer, but I would hardly categorize his music as Tin Pan Alley.

I waved hello to the crowd and made my way over to the bar. The bottle of White Label hadn't given up the ghost yet, but it had reached the autumn of its years. I threw a glance to my left and noticed a glass of whiskey sitting on the pine end table next to Audrey. I emptied the rest of the bottle into a glass of my own just as Lothario sidled up to me. He wrapped a casual arm around my shoulder and kissed my ear.

“Is that the end of the Dewar's?” he asked. “I didn't realize we were running low.”

“It's okay,” I said, reaching into my purse and producing the unopened fifth that Aunt Lena and Max had given me that afternoon. I also had Mrs. Merkleson's contact sheets and my flashlight inside. “I've learned to take care of myself.”

I plopped the bottle on the table and turned to survey the room. Miriam had stopped playing, but she'd remained on the piano bench, leaning an elbow on the fall board and staring at nothing in particular.

Esther Merkleson entered the Great Lodge with little Leon trotting along a few steps behind her. She made a beeline for me at the bar.

“Ellie, why haven't you brought me the photographs as I asked?” she demanded once we'd repaired to a quiet corner of the lodge.

“I tried to find you this afternoon, but you weren't here,” I said.

“Why didn't you leave them?”

“I didn't want anyone to snoop through them,” I said as I retrieved the envelope from my purse. “These photographs should be private. I'm sure you'll agree.”

She took the envelope and tucked it under her arm. “Yes, of course. Now did you make any progress today? Have you found any connection between Karl and the Kaufman boy?”

“Not yet, but I have a source at the Orpheus camp making inquiries for me. I'm meeting him tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said with her customary bob of the head. “I'm taking my son's body to Albany tomorrow for an autopsy. I will return Saturday. We will talk then.”

“An autopsy?”

“I don't trust these bumpkins up here. And I want to know exactly what happened to Karl.”

“You still suspect Gayle and her father had a hand in this?”

“Of course,” she said. “Nothing has changed.”

Esther Merkleson swept out of the Great Lodge. I watched her go, thinking what a remarkably brave woman she was. A woman of extreme talent and strength, she'd swallowed her share of grief and tragedy over the years without asking for pity. She'd lost a daughter, a husband, and now a son. But she stood tall and firm, facing her tragedies with the dignity of a queen. Hers was a horrible fate: to outlive her entire family. I knew exactly how horrible; I was serving the same sentence.

I migrated back to the drinks table to get that whiskey that I wanted now more than ever. The others all gravitated to the bar. I was popular this night.

“What did she say?” asked Isaac.

“I don't want to talk about it,” I said. “Poor woman.”

“We loved him, too,” said David.

“I know.” I took that first stinging sip of whiskey. God, that was good. “But you all have each other. She has no one.”

Once I'd fortified my spirits with my first glass of spirits, I managed to put Esther Merkleson out of my mind. Scotch always improves my mood. Personality in a bottle, I'm fond of saying. So when Isaac asked me if I had any news of Gayle, I teased him just a bit.

“Not from me. But how about you? Didn't you stop by her motel to chat about Karl?” I said, a wicked gleam in my eye.

To tell the truth, I couldn't say for sure that there was a wicked gleam in my eye, but that was the effect I'd intended. Isaac blanched a little at the recollection of his confession. I touched his arm and told him I was only kidding. He relaxed and assumed his typical, charming ease. Amazing how he could turn it off and on so effortlessly.

Isaac's father, Jakob, hobbled into the hall a few minutes later. The mood was the best it had been in days, in part due to Simon's sudden cordiality. Between heated debates about music and poets, the Arcadians tackled politics and changing mores, but steered clear of talk of Karl Merkleson. Simon, for one, was vocal about the forward behavior of twenty-one-year-old girls. He maintained that the female of the species was better suited for housework and reproduction, instead of provoking adult males with revealing swimsuits on the beaches and tight dresses on the dance floors of America.

“Personally, I don't know how we girls resist a man in swimming trunks,” I said. “It leaves far less to the imagination than a girl's bathing suit.”

“Bravo, Ellie,” said Isaac. “It's about time a girl admitted we're irresistible.”

“What if a girl wants more than housework?” asked Rachel, who'd come in at her father's side.

“Please, Rachel,” said Simon with a chuckle. “Not the career talk again. Some women manage to rise to respectable positions in the world. Even build careers. But those are not good odds. Most women are not cut out for work.”

“They should just stay twenty-one and beautiful forever?” I asked.

Simon nodded. Neither Isaac nor David could summon the indignation to contradict him. I'd given them their chance; now I was going to bear the standard.

“What do you think, Audrey?” I asked. “Are you happy just to raise a family and cook their suppers?”