Mystery

Less than an hour later Tom was back in the lodge alone, waiting. When Lamont von Heilitz had learned that Tom wanted to return to the lodge to meet Sarah Spence, he had reluctantly let him go, with the promise that he would be waiting outside at one. Mrs. Truehart had gone to bed, and he and the old man had talked in soft voices about themselves, reliving their history. The conversation about Jeanine Thielman and Anton Goetz would have to wait, von Heilitz said, there were too many details to iron out, too many pieces of information to dovetail—there was a lot of it he still did not understand, and understanding would take more time than they had. “We have at least five hours in the air,” he told Tom. “Tim Truehart is flying us to Minneapolis, where we get our plane to Mill Walk. There’ll be time. When we land at David Redwing field, we should have everything worked out.”

“Just tell me the name,” Tom had pleaded.

Von Heilitz smiled and walked him to the door. “I want you to tell me the name.”

So, too restless to sit down, too nervous about Jerry Hasek to turn on any lights, Tom waited for Sarah, hoping that she had not already tried to find him at the lodge. In the end, he slipped outside and waited behind an oak tree set back from the track between her lodge and his.

He heard the sound of her feet landing softly on the beaten earth, but did not come out from behind the tree until he saw her white shirt glimmer in the darkness. Her face and arms, already tanned, looked very dark against the shirt and the darker blond of her hair. She was walking quickly, and by the time he stepped out on the track she was nearly abreast of him.

“Oh!”

“It’s me,” he said softly.

“You scared me.” She came nearer, seeming to sift through the darkness, and touched the front of his shirt.

“You scared me too. I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“My double life takes up a lot of time—I had to go to the White Bear with Buddy and watch him get drunk.”

Tom remembered Buddy rubbing her back, and her own hand resting on Buddy’s. “I wish you didn’t have to have this double life of yours.”

She stepped closer to him. “You seem so jumpy. Is it about me, or this afternoon? You shouldn’t be insecure about me, Tom, and I think Jerry and his friends ran off. Ralph couldn’t find them after dinner.”

“Nappy got arrested,” Tom said. “Maybe they did take off. But it probably isn’t that. I’m going back to Mill Walk tonight. A lot of stuff is happening, and I just found out—well, I just learned something very important about myself. I feel kind of overloaded.”

“Tonight? How soon tonight?”

“In about an hour.”

She looked at him steadily. “Then let’s go inside.”

She put her arm around his waist, and together they began walking toward the almost invisible lodge. “How are you getting back? There aren’t any planes at night.”

“We’re going to Minneapolis,” he said.

“We?”

“Me and someone else. The Chief of Police has a little plane, and he’s taking us there.”

She tilted her head and looked up at him as they walked along.

“It’s Lamont von Heilitz, but Sarah, you can’t tell anybody he was here. This is serious. Nobody can know.”

“Do you think I talk about the things you tell me?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” he said.

Her arms folded around him, and her face tilted toward his—made half of night and darkness. Her face filled his eyes. He kissed her, and it was like kissing the night. Sometimes she did talk about the things he told her, and sometimes he wondered, and to her these were the same, because they were both exciting. Like being engaged to be engaged; you got things both ways.

“Are we going to go into your lodge, or are we just going to stand out here?”

“Let’s go in,” he said.

He led her up the steps, let her in, and locked the door behind them.

He sensed more than saw her turning toward him. “Nobody ever locks their doors up north.”

“Nobody but me.”

“My father isn’t going to come looking for us.”

“It isn’t your father I’m worried about.”

She found his cheek with her hand. “Where are the lights? I can’t even see you in here.”

“We don’t need lights,” he said. “Just follow me.”

“In the dark?”

“I like being in the dark.” He was going to say something else, but saw her teeth flash in the darkness and reached for her. His hand fell on her hip. “I just found out that I’m not who I thought I was.”

“You never were who you thought you were.”

“Maybe nobody was who I thought they were.”

“Maybee-ee,” she half-sang, half-whispered, and stepped closer into his grasp. “Am I following you somewhere?”

He took her hand and led her around the furniture toward the staircase in the dark. “Here,” he said, and put her hand on the bottom of the banister. Then he clamped his arm around her waist, and slowly took the stairs with her. In the deep blackness, it felt like falling in reverse.

She stopped moving at the top of the stairs, and whispered, “The handrail disappeared.”

Tom nudged her to the left, where faint light from the window showed the dark shape of a doorway. They moved together down the shadowy hallway. Tom leaned over the doorknob and noiselessly pulled the door toward him.

There was just enough dim light in the room to reveal the bed and the table. Black leaves flattened against the window. Sarah’s arms were around his neck as soon as he closed the door. He smelled tobacco smoke in her hair.