“Only enough to destroy her career.” Marc spoke hotly, forgetting his reporter’s facade.
“She destroyed it herself, young man, by taking part in those Communist activities. But we couldn’t prove she’d ever given them money, or been a party member, so we let her go. I told Calvin he had another day to give me some real names, and he came back in the morning-with that letter.”
“That was enough? Why did you let Mr. Bayard off the hook?” Marc sounded bewildered, as bewildered as I felt.
“It’s there in the document, young man. I don’t want to discuss it.” The tape ended soon after that, with Marc thanking Olin, and the apartment door shutting behind him. I ran the tape to the end, but there wasn’t anything else on it.
Geraldine and I stared at each other in the dark car.
“Your young man went to Renee after that, didn’t he?” Geraldine said. “Marc was careful; he wouldn’t publish anything without checking the whole story,” I agreed sadly. “If he hadn’t been such a good journalist, he wouldn’t have died.”
CHAPTER 52
At one-thirty in the morning, we finally reached Eagle River. Nothing was open, not a gas station, not even a hamburger stand. I wished I’d bought food back at the truck stop instead of the thin coffee, which had burned a hole in my stomach-and now was making me desperate for a bathroom.
Eagle River is a little resort town. It comes to life in the summer when Chicagoans by the thousands move up to their summer homes. Some return in the winter for snowmobiling, but in mid-March everything was shut up tightly as the locals rested between waves of outsiders. If we couldn’t find the lodge on our own, we’d have to wait until morning. We might even have to sleep in the car-noile of the motels we passed showed any lights.
Geraldine was dismayed by the strip malls lining the highway. “All of this is so new! When I came here with Calvin, none of these monstrous sterile stores existed.”
“Do you think you can find the lodge with the landmarks so changed?” I was testy. “If you can’t, we’re in trouble.”
“Not so impatient, young woman. I only need to get my bearings. Look at that map. There should be a forest northeast of town.”
“The Nicolet National Forest, yes.”
“Is that what they call `the North Woods’ these days? You need to find a road into the forest that goes past Elk Horn Lake.”
I studied the map. The lake was about three miles northeast of the forest’s edge. I drove north through the town, found a county road east, and made my way under the canopy of giant sycamores and pines.
In the dark, with the snow, the forest felt cold and menacing, the wild woods of fairy tales, where writhing trees held demons. The little Saturn skittered on the unplowed surface. I got out to check the road, to make sure we hadn’t slipped off it-and to crouch shivering in a ditch to relieve myself.
No tire tracks lay ahead of us. Catherine, if she had come this way, had a four-hour start; the snow would have covered her tracks. But what about Renee? How long would it take the master organizer to work out where her granddaughter would flee for refuge?
After half an hour of hard driving, I spied a sign covered in snow. I climbed out again. It pointed to Elk Horn Lake. When I told Geraldine, she shut her eyes, rebuilding landmarks in her mind. I was to take the second turning north.
Grimly hoping that more roads hadn’t been added since she was last here, I took the second turn to the north. The snow had stopped, but the wind kept whipping the tree branches in their tormented dance. My arms ached; I could hardly bear to keep them on the steering wheel, and the muscle in my left shoulder began to throb, just below the level of unmanageable pain.
After two miles, when I thought I couldn’t drive another yard, I saw the sign. Grand Nicolet Lodge, one-quarter mile. When I told Geraldine, she smiled in triumph. She’d been right-I couldn’t have found it without her.
A heavy chain slung between two posts blocked the entrance to the turnoff. The lodge was open from May 1 through November 30, a sign on the chain explained, giving a phone number to call for reservations. If Catherine and Benji were here, they could have taken the Range Rover around the pillars. In fact, they probably had-a bush on the left looked recently mangled-but the Saturn wasn’t built for that kind of driving.
Under its headlights, my fingers thick with cold, I worked my picks into the padlock. Geraldine came out to watch: she had never seen a
professional lock breaker at work and wanted the experience, even though she slid in the snow and was saved from falling only by crashing against one of the pillars.
The padlock wasn’t a sophisticated one, fortunately, or I could never have undone it in the cold. When I’d driven the car through the entrance, I pulled the chain across the road again. If Renee was behind me, that might slow her down-for thirty seconds.
I cut my lights and crept forward, driving with my left hand while I warmed my right fingers under the heating vent. We slipped and slid a quarter mile, until the lodge loomed suddenly in front of us, a giant timbered shape blotting out trees and sky. Geraldine directed me to its left, where the drive led to outbuildings and the cottage. The Saturn stuck briefly in the snow, then bucked forward.
At the rear of the lodge, Geraldine pointed out where the rear walls could be unhinged and opened: they had done that to create an impromptu stage for the famous 1948 benefit. The audience had sat on chairs and blankets in the yard.
We crept onward to a barn which served now as a garage and equipment shed. Beyond the barn lay Elk Horn Lake, black showing through white as the wind whipped the snow cover away from it. In a clearing on the shore stood a stone house. Compared to Larchmont Hall and the lodge behind us, I suppose you could call it a cottage, but it was about twice the size of the bungalow I’d grown up in.
Geraldine handed me the keys she’d brought with her. “The big one used to open this barn. If not, you’ll find your way in, I daresay.”
To my amazement-and relief-the lock hadn’t been changed in fifty years. I slid the doors open, glad now of the wind: it blew snow into my eyes and mouth, but its moan through the trees blocked the noise I was making.
I let out a small woof of relief inside the barn stood a white Range Rover. It had a fresh deep scrape on its right side where Catherine had misjudged the clearance around the pillar, but she was here.
I drove Geraldine as close to the cottage as I could. She climbed out, absurd for the setting in her nylons and heels and Hermes handbag, but still possessing a touching dignity. Before she left the car, she told me what she remembered of the cottage’s layout: the main rooms faced the lake. We would be entering through the kitchen. To the right was the dining room, and beyond it a living room that ran the length of the house. A staircase rose from the living room to the bedrooms above.
I backed the Saturn into the barn, shutting the door but leaving it unlocked in case we needed to get away in a hurry. When I rejoined her, I told Geraldine to stay behind me on the way in.
“I need both hands free to deal with whatever lies on the far side of this door. And I’m going to have my gun out, so don’t run into my back.” She handed me the key. Like the barn door, the lock here hadn’t been changed, either. It was an old dead bolt, which slid back with a snap. Taking my gun in my right hand, I went into a crouch, turned the knob and slid inside.