Mystery. Part 22

Shocked and outraged noises came from the back seat.

Jerry smiled at him, reminding Tom of the gla.s.sy eyes and needle teeth of the mounted fish in the Grand Forks airport. Was this how you stirred things up? Tom felt his face grow warm. It seemed to him that he was fading from view beneath the weight of Jerry's smile.

Jerry turned back to the road and drove into a tunnel of dark green. They had not pa.s.sed or met another car since leaving the airport. A large white sign proclaimed the existence somewhere back in the woods of the WHITE BEAR NORTHERN INN & LODGINGS WHITE BEAR NORTHERN INN & LODGINGS. A polar bear with a red napkin around its neck tipped a top hat.

"Oh, the White Bear!" said Mrs. Spence. "Is the food still so wonderful at the White Bear?"

"We generally eat in the compound," Jerry said.

"Lately, I've been wondering about what happened to the dog," Tom said.

The little scars beneath Jerry's mouth tightened as if the st.i.tches had been pulled taut. His lips moved, and the eye drifted toward Tom.

"What?" Tom said.

"The dog died," Jerry said in a barely audible voice.

"Oh, it can be a blessing when an old dog pa.s.ses away," said Mrs. Spence. "You hate to see them suffer."

Eventually they pa.s.sed a small brown sign with the words EAGLE LAKE-PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPa.s.sING-NO SOLICITATIONS EAGLE LAKE-PRIVATE PROPERTY-NO TRESPa.s.sING-NO SOLICITATIONS burned into the wood in ornate curving letters, and Jerry turned the car onto a b.u.mpy narrow track between tall pines and oaks. burned into the wood in ornate curving letters, and Jerry turned the car onto a b.u.mpy narrow track between tall pines and oaks.

"Did I fall asleep?"

"Yes, Daddy," Sarah said.

Boughs sc.r.a.ped the top of the car.

"Don't you love that it looks so secluded?" asked Mrs. Spence. The question was addressed to no one in particular, and no one answered it. "I love it, that it looks so secluded."

On either side of the car, the gaps between the pines and leafy oaks showed endless ranks of trees stretching upward and extending into endless, random, overgrown forest; sunlight slanted down to strike the trunks and make shimmering pools on the soft ground. Squirrels darted along branches and birds swooped beneath the canopy of green. The car went into shadow around a slight bend in the road, past a clearing with a long wooden bench strewn with dry grey leaves; then past a long row of mailboxes on a metal pipe. Tom glimpsed familiar names on the mailboxes: Thielman, R. Redwing, G. Redwing, D. Redwing, Spence, R. Deepdale, Jacobs, Langenheim, von Heilitz.

A crow cawed off in the woods, and leaves pattered down on the top of the car. Golden light flashed into the windshield, and the trees before them suddenly seemed spindly; then the trees parted and Tom saw a long expanse of deep blue beneath him, and a wake spreading out behind a motorboat just entering the path of the sun on the water. Tall solid buildings stood at wide intervals around the lake, each with a wide wooden dock protruding into the smooth glimmering water. On the broad terrace of a large multileveled structure with rows of high windows and several smaller terraces a waiter in a white coat carried a tray past a towel-sized pool toward a gentleman, a tiny pink pear supine on the bright yellow pad of a lounger. Next to that building, tall pilings like those around a stockade walled off the Redwing compound. A slim figure on a horse came into view from behind one of the lodges and pa.s.sed out of sight behind a stand of fir trees.

"Buddy's out in his boat," Sarah said.

"And Neil Langenheim's getting pickled at the club," said her mother.

"Who's that with Buddy?" Sarah asked.

"His friend Kip," Jerry said. "Kip Carson. From Arizona. He's the one that stayed, when I took the other kids to Grand Forks."

"I wonder if Fritz is here," Tom said.

"Fritz Redwing?" Jerry shook his head. "He ain't here yet-him and his family come up in about two weeks. This is early. Lots of people ain't here yet. A bunch of the lodges are still empty. Even the compound's kinda empty."

The slim rider on the chestnut horse appeared between tall oaks on a trail extending past the rear of the lodges on the far side of the lake, then disappeared again behind a narrow lodge. Jerry steered the Lincoln slowly downhill toward the lake.

"Who is that on the horse?" Tom asked.

"Samantha Jacobs," said Mrs. Spence.

"Looked like Cissy Harbinger to me," said Mr. Spence.

"The Jacobses went to France. They won't be here at all this summer, the way I hear it. And Cissy Harbinger got married to some mechanic or something," Jerry said. "Her parents took her to Europe. They won't be here until maybe September."

"So who was that on the horse, since you know everything?" asked Mrs. Spence.

"Barbara Deane," Jerry said. "See, she'd come out now because almost n.o.body's around."

"Oh, Barbara Deane," said Mrs. Spence, sounding a bit doubtful as to this name.

Tom had straightened up to look for her next appearance, but the straight slim figure on the chestnut horse did not show herself again.

Jerry drove the Lincoln down to the bottom of the track and came out into the open at a place where the road divided at the narrow, marshy north end of the lake. The car rolled to a stop facing the water. The Spences lowered their power windows, and the buzzing of the motorboat, executing a wide, sweeping turn down at the wide end of the kidney-shaped lake, came to them across half a mile of water like the racket of a motorcycle on a quiet night. "Where d'you want to go first?" Jerry asked.

"I want to get out of this car before we go another inch," inch," said Mrs. Spence. "I'm sure this seat is still said Mrs. Spence. "I'm sure this seat is still wet." wet." She opened her door and climbed out and began twisting around to try to look at the seat of her miniskirt. She opened her door and climbed out and began twisting around to try to look at the seat of her miniskirt.

Tom got out on the loose mossy soil that led down to the marshy ground at the narrow end of the lake. The air smelled of pine needles and fresh water. For several yards, lathery green sc.u.m broken by reeds covered the lake's surface. He walked nearer the water, and the ground squelched beneath his feet. He could just see the tops of green-and-white striped umbrellas on the wide terrace of the clubhouse. The rest of the buildings stood around the long lake, their weathered grey wooden facades almost invisible behind the thick trees that surrounded them. A redwood lodge with clean modern lines at the far end of the lake perched on a treeless lawn like a green scoop out of the forest.

"So that's the club," Tom said, pointing across twenty yards of reedy water to the structure with all the windows. "And that's the Redwing compound." Over the tops of the tall stakes that enclosed the compound, the upper stories of several large wooden buildings could be seen.

"Next is our place," Sarah said.

Smaller than the others, Anton Goetz's old lodge was dwarfed by the large oaks and firs that surrounded it. A weathered veranda faced the lake on its second floor. "Then comes Glen Upshaw's, where you'll be," said Mrs. Spence. His grandfather's lodge was nearly twice the size of the Spences', and seemed to loom-like his grandfather-out of the surrounding trees while being concealed by them. Two bay windows and a ma.s.sive dock protruded from the lake side of the lodge. Otherwise, only its grey roof was visible through the trees.

"Next is that abortion of Roddy Deepdale's," said Mrs. Spence. This was the redwood-and-gla.s.s building on the treeless expanse of lake front beside his grandfather's property. It looked even more aggressively contemporary from water level than from the hillside. "I don't know why he was allowed to put that up. He can do what he likes in Deepdale Estates, but here...well, you can certainly tell he was never a part of old Eagle Lake. Or old Mill Walk, either."

"Neither were we, Mother," Sarah said.

"On the other side of that eyesore, coming back this way on the south side of the lake, are the Thielmans, the Langenheims, the Harbingers, and the Jacobses." Ranging in size between the ma.s.siveness of his grandfather's lodge and the relative pet.i.teness of Sarah's but of the same weathered wood, with proportionate docks and balconies on the lake, all but the Langenheim lodge were shuttered and empty.

On that side of the lake, just before the north end began to narrow and turn marshy, sited roughly opposite the wooded s.p.a.ce between the clubhouse and the Redwing compound, stood a tall narrow building with a long front porch facing the hillside and a short, businesslike dock and stubby veranda barely wide enough for a couple of chairs and a round table. All of it seemed in need of fresh paint. This building, too, had been shuttered.

Tom asked about this lodge. "Oh, our other eyesore," said Mrs. Spence. "Really, I'd rather see that one torn down than Roddy's monstrosity."

"Who owns it?" Sarah said. "I've never seen anyone there."

Mr. Spence said, "I tried to buy that place, but the owner wouldn't even return my calls. Guy named-"

"Von Heilitz," Tom said, suddenly realizing. "Lamont von Heilitz. He lives across the street from us."

"Oh, look, Buddy sees us." Mrs. Spence jumped up and down and waved. The motorboat was noisily tearing up the length of the lake and, standing up behind the wheel, squat, black-haired Buddy Redwing made violent, meaningless gestures with his arms. He sounded a klaxon, and birds fled the trees. He gave a n.a.z.i salute, sounded the klaxon again, then cut the wheel sharply and heeled the boat over, nearly shipping water, and pointed at the walls of the compound. His companion, whose shoulder-length blond hair streamed out behind him, did not move or respond to Buddy's antics in any way.

"Why, that's a girl in that boat with Buddy." Mrs. Spence put her hands on her hips, having undergone another sudden mood swing.

"Nah, that's Kip," Jerry said. "Good old Kip Carson, Buddy's buddy."

Buddy drew the speedboat up to the central Redwing dock, and Mrs. Spence avidly watched him jump out of the boat and lash a rope around a post. Buddy's soft belly hung out over his baggy black bathing trunks. His legs were short, thick, and bowed. Buddy leaned out over the rocking boat, extended a thick arm, and pulled his friend up on the dock. Kip Carson was naked and sunburned a bright red on his narrow shoulders. He tossed back his hair and reeled up the dock toward a stockade door. Buddy made drinking motions with his right hand, then trotted after his friend.

"Kip is a hippie, I guess they call it," Jerry said.

Mrs. Spence announced that Buddy had invited Sarah for a drink at the compound, so they would drop her off first. Jerry could leave the rest of them at the Spences' lodge, and Tom could carry his bags to his grandfather's place. She got back in the car, and pulled the short skirt firmly down as far as it would go. "I'm sure it doesn't matter what high-spirited boys do when they're alone together," Mrs. Spence said. "Buddy and his friend are practically stranded up here. That young man must be the only company the Redwings have in that big compound."

"Nah, there's an old lady," Jerry said. "But Buddy and Kip pretty much run by themselves. They shot a hole in the bar mirror at the White Bear two nights ago." He drove onto the road circling around the west side of the lake, and soon they were pa.s.sing the empty parking lot of the clubhouse.

"I wonder who their other guest could be. We must know her."

"Ralph and Mrs. Redwing call her Aunt Kate," Jerry said. "She's a Redwing, but she lives in Atlanta."

"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Spence. "We know her, dear."

"I don't," said Mr. Spence.

The Lincoln drew up beside the front gates of the Redwing compound, and Mr. Spence labored out of the car to let Sarah out. "Come back to our place when you and Buddy have said your h.e.l.los," Sarah's mother called. "We'll all have dinner with Ralph and Katinka tonight, I'm sure."

"Tom, too," Sarah said.

"Tom has things to do. We won't impose invitations on him."

Jerry pulled away as Sarah waved, and the car wound through the trees to the Spences' lodge.

"Of course we know Aunt Kate," Mrs. Spence said to her husband. "She's the one who was married to Jonathan. They lived in Atlanta. She's-she'd be-somewhere in her seventies now, and her maiden name-see, I even know that that-her maiden name was-it was-"

"Duffield," Tom said.

"See!" she cried. "Even he knows it was Duffield!"

Jerry dropped them in front of the porch of the Spence lodge and turned around on the seat to back down the narrow lake road to the compound. The Spences fumbled with bags and keys and moved up on their dusty porch with perfunctory good-byes to Tom, and he carried his two cases down through the trees to his grandfather's lodge.

Four twenty-foot-long steps of big mortared fieldstones capped with a layer of concrete led up to Glendenning Upshaw's covered porch. Tom carried his heavy bags through wicker furniture and rapped on the screen door. To his right, he could see the point at which the trees abruptly stopped and gave way to Roddy Deepdale's shaved lawn. Light bounced off one of the windows in the long, angular Deepdale lodge.

The door opened to a vast dim s.p.a.ce shot with cloudy streaks of light. "So you're here," said a tall young woman in black who stepped backwards immediately. "You're Glen's grandson? Tom Pasmore?"

Tom nodded. The woman shifted to look behind him, and the impression of her youthfulness vanished. There were grey streaks in her smooth hair and deep vertical lines in her cheeks. She was startlingly good-looking, despite her age. "I'm Barbara Deane," she said, and stood up straight to face him-for an instant, Tom felt that she was trying to see how he responded to her name. She wore a black silk blouse with a double strand of pearls and a close-fitting black skirt. These clothes neither called attention to nor disguised the natural curves of her body, which seemed to match some other, younger face. "Why don't you get your bags inside, and I'll show you your room. This is your first time here, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tom said, and carried his suitcases inside.

"We have two rooms on this level, this sitting room, and the study that leads out to the deck and the pier. The kitchen is back through the arch, and everything is in working order. Florrie Truehart came in to clean this morning, and it's all shipshape."

The walls and floor were of hardwood gone grey and dim with age. Antlers and mounted fish hung on the walls. Large colorless cushions softened the handmade furniture. A round walnut table and six round-back chairs took up a separate area near the kitchen. Big windows, streaky with dust, overlooking the lake admitted dim shafts of light. Two other windows looked out on the porch. Tom was sure that sheets had been taken off the furniture only that morning. "Well," said the woman beside him, "we did our best. The place will get to look a little livelier after you've been here a while."

"Mrs. Truehart is still the cleaning woman? I thought she'd be-"

"Miss Truehart. Florrie. Her brother is the mailman for this district." She began to move toward a wide wooden staircase covered with a dull red Indian carpet, and once again seemed like two people to Tom, a strong vital young woman and an autocratic older one.

"When does the mail come, by the way?" Tom had picked up his bags and followed her up the stairs.

She looked at him over her shoulder. "I think it's put in the boxes sometime around four o'clock. Why? Are you expecting something?"

"I thought I'd write some people while I was here."

She nodded as if she thought this point was worth remembering, and led him the rest of the way up the stairs. "The bedrooms are on this floor. I'm keeping some things in the front bedroom, so I've given you the larger of the other two. There's a bathroom right outside the door. Would you like help with those bags? I should have asked before."

Sweating, Tom set them both down and shook his head.

"Men," Barbara Deane said, and came near to him and lifted the larger of his two bags without any sign of effort.

His bedroom was at the back of the house and smelled like wax and lemon oil. The dark narrow planking of the walls and floor glistened. Barbara Deane lifted the big case onto the single bed covered with a faded Indian blanket, and Tom grimaced and put his beside it. He went to a windowed door in the exterior wall and looked out on a narrow wooden balcony nearly overgrown by a ma.s.sive oak. "Your mother used this room," she said.

Forty years before, his mother had looked out this window and seen Anton Goetz running toward his lodge through the woods. Now he could not even see the ground.

He turned from the window. Barbara Deane was sitting on the bed beside his suitcases, looking at him. The black skirt came just to her knees, suggesting legs that would have looked better beneath a miniskirt than Mrs. Spence's. She pulled the edge of the skirt over the tops of her knees, and Tom blushed. "The lake's very quiet now. I prefer it like this, but it might be dull for you."

Tom sat on a spindly chair next to a small square table with an inlaid chessboard on its surface.

"Are you a friend of Buddy Redwing's?"

"I don't really know him. He's four or five years older than me."

"It's disconcerting-you look much older than you really are."

"Hard life," he said, but she did not answer his smile. "Do you live here all year-round?"

"I come to the lodge three or four days a week. The rest of the time I spend in a house I own in the town." She looked around the room as if she were inspecting it for dust. "What do you know about me?" She kept her eyes on the bare shining planks of the wall opposite the bed.

"Well, I know you were my midwife, or my mother's midwife, or however you say it."

She glanced sideways at him, and brushed an elegant strand of hair away from her eye.

"And I know you were one of the witnesses at my parents' wedding."

"And?"

"And I guess I knew that you took care of this place for my grandfather."

"And that's all?"

"Well, I know you ride," Tom said. "When we drove in this afternoon, we saw you riding between the lodges."

"I usually go riding early in the mornings," she said. "But there was a lot to be done in here, so I had to put it off. In fact, I just finished changing when you knocked on the door." She gave the ghostly sketch of a smile, and smoothed her skirt down over her thighs. "We will be here together at least part of every week, and I want you to know that my privacy is important to me. My room is out of bounds to you-"

"Of course," Tom said.

"I stay out of the way of people from Mill Walk, and I expect them to return the favor."