“Such as one of this year’s first-time visitors?”
“…I don’t know what you mean.”
I related my conversation with Nils on the lake. “Did he say anything to you along those lines?”
Small headshake. “He could be secretive, Nils could. Fifty-seven years, and still he kept his little secrets.”
“Do you have any idea what he meant by a fisherman not being what he seemed to be?”
“A criminal of some kind, I suppose. Hiding out.”
“Why would a criminal come to Deep Mountain Lake to hide out?”
“I can’t imagine that one would. But Nils… well, all his years in law enforcement were uneventful. He never once used his gun, you know. He wouldn’t admit it, but I think he always dreamed of capturing a wanted man, a dangerous fugitive. Being a hero.” She blinked rapidly several times as she spoke the last. If it was a struggle against a new rush of tears, she won it with an effort. “Foolish. He was always a hero to me.”
Those words weren’t really for my ears; they were a verbalization of what she was feeling inside. I let a few seconds pass before I said, “There are four first-timers here now, Callie, including me. Did Nils say anything to you about the others, in any context?”
“I’m sorry, my mind isn’t clear. What are their names?”
“Jacob Strayhorn is one.”
“Strayhorn. Yes, I met him. Strange man. Like the little boy who pulled wings off flies, grown up. Nils said he wouldn’t trust that man as far as he could throw him.”
“Was there any specific reason he said that?”
“Strayhorn’s eyes. Something about his eyes.”
I said, “Hal Cantrell? He’s another.”
Her lips moved, repeating the name silently to herself. “I don’t know him,” she said at length. “At least, I don’t remember the name.”
“Real estate broker from Pacifica. Talkative and sly, but friendly enough.”
“I don’t believe I’ve met him. Or that Nils mentioned his name. But my memory…”
“I understand. Dyce, Fred Dyce?”
“Oh, yes, the surly one. Nils had words with him when he first arrived.”
“An argument, you mean?”
“About fishing.”
“In general, or—?”
“He said Dyce was a blowhard who pretended to be an expert but had gotten all his knowledge from books. Nils hated that type of person.”
“A man who isn’t what he claims to be.”
“Well, yes, that’s right.”
“Did Nils accuse him of it to his face?”
“Oh yes. He never minced words.”
“What was Dyce’s reaction?”
“The usual with that sort. Bluster and obscenities.”
“Were there any other run-ins between them?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did Nils mention Dyce’s name yesterday or last night?”
“No.” She watched me steadily for a time. “You think that what happened wasn’t an accident.”
It was a statement, not a question, and it caught me unprepared. I was trying to frame a response when she said, “Don’t keep anything from me, please.”
“I won’t, Callie. The truth is, I don’t know. It could’ve been just that, a tragic accident.”
“Mack Judson said there was no doubt of it. The deputies who came by seemed to feel the same. Why don’t you agree?”
“No specific reason,” I said uncomfortably. “A feeling, that’s all. A kind of hunch.”
“Suspicious. You’re another like Nils.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you—”
“Upset me? My Lord, if his death wasn’t an accident, if that man Dyce or one of the others… I want to know it. I have to know. Someone has to find out.”
I nodded. “Someone will.”
“You. That is why you came here, isn’t it? Why you’ve been asking so many questions?”
“Not exactly. I’m not in a position to conduct an official investigation.”
“Not even if you were hired to?”
“By you, Callie? No. I don’t do business that way.”
“An unofficial investigation, then. For my sake and for Nils’s. You didn’t know him well, but he was a good man. A good man—”
She broke off at the sound of a car arriving in a hurried squeal of brakes. “That will be Ellen,” she said after a moment. “Our daughter. Don’t mind her if she carries on. She’s very high-strung.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I sat like a lump as a woman’s voice rose querulously out front.
Callie leaned toward me, her eyes fire-bright, and tapped my knee with a bony forefinger. “Find out,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Please. Find out!”
From the notebooks of Donald Michael Latimer
Mon., July 1–1:30 P.M.
I didn’t want to kill the old man. Last thing I wanted to happen, somebody to die up here before Dixon shows and pieces of Mr. Prosecutor go flying through the air. But what choice did I have? Damn Osterfart, he didn’t even give me a chance to take him out my way, with a bomb, destructive device, boobytrap designed for a meddling old bastard like him.
Knock knock, and there he was. Like to talk to you, he said, hard-eyed, mind if I come in? and before I could say anything, react to stop him, he was inside. Looking around the way cops do, acting like he owned the place. I’d covered up the table before I went to the door, but the jar of marbles, the tools, my notebooks made lumps and shapes and he could see the carton and the bubble wrap on the floor.
What’re you building there? he said.
Not building anything, I said.
No? he said, and the way he said it, I knew he’d been snooping around outside, looking through the window. The shade was down, but there might’ve been just enough of a gap. What’s under the sheet? he said.
Trout flies, I said. It was the only thing I could think of. I tie my own flies, I said.
That so? he said. Mind if I have a look?
Rather you didn’t, I said. What do you want, I said, this time of night?
His eyes shifted to my binoculars hanging from the back of one of the chairs. Saw you out on the lake, she said, anchored over on the north shore watching cabins through those glasses. On more than one occasion, he said. Seems you spend more time looking than you do fishing, he said.
I tried to bluff him, make him believe he was imagining things. He wouldn’t bluff. Shrewd old bugger knew something was up and he’d keep picking at it, picking at it until he found out what it was.
His eyes were back on the lumps and shapes, the carton and bubble wrap. Let’s have a look at those flies of yours, he said, and he started over there and I knew I’d have to kill him, right then and there, no dicking around. I picked up a chunk of firewood from the basket and he was just lifting a corner of the sheet, bending forward to look underneath, when I eased up behind him. He never knew what hit him. He pulled the sheet half off the table when he fell, knocked off a screwdriver and the soldering iron, thump, thump, and then the big Thump when he landed. A quick look was all I needed. Skull cracked, blood oozing but not for long. One dead Osternosy.
So then I had his scrawny corpse to deal with. Had anybody seen him come here? I took a quick look outside. Nobody around. And I didn’t see his pickup. Parked it in those trees where we found it today, cat-footed over here to see what he could see. Ostersneaky.
Back inside I thought it all over carefully, weighing my options. Not good, any way you sliced it. (Sliced options? Hah! You can slice an onion, but you can’t slice an option.) Make him disappear completely or make it look like an accident, those were the only two that made any sense. Wait until late, take him out in the woods somewhere and bury him, nobody’d ever find his grave except animals and bugs — easiest and safest way. But when he turned up missing there’d be search parties, county cops tramping all over the area for days. The more cops and people around, the bigger the hazard to me and the less likely Dixon does what he’s supposed to do when he finally hauls his ass up here from the city. Everything has to seem normal when he shows, more or less normal anyway.