“Where exactly is Shingo?” I asked her, in the same manner.
“In Milwaukee, on Masterton Avenue.”
“Do the Schumanns live in Milwaukee?” I asked more normally.
“No, of course not,” she said. “They live here. Up on Lake Drive.”
We took our leave of Mary and her muffins, not because I had gained enough information-I hadn’t-but because I felt that she was just as likely to tell the Schumanns about us, and our questions, as she was willing to tell us about them. Discretion, I thought, was not one of her strong points.
The city of Delafield, the village, had numerous shops full of stuff that one has no good use for but just has to have anyway. We visited each in turn and marveled at the decorative glass and china, the novelty sculptures, the storage boxes of every size, shape and decoration, the homemade greeting cards and the rest. There was a lovely shop with racks of old-fashioned-looking signs, one with fancy notebooks and another with legend-embroidered cushions for every conceivable occasion, and more. There were toys for boys and toys for girls, and lots of toys for their parents too. Delafield was a stocking-stuffer’s paradise. Not that it was cheap. Caroline’s credit card took quite a battering, as she bought far too much to easily get into her suitcase for the flight home. Presents, she explained, for her family, although we both knew that she wanted it all for herself.
Everywhere we went, I managed to bring the Schumanns into the conversation. In the embroidered-cushion store, the lady appeared to be almost in tears over them.
“Such nice people,” she said. “Very generous. They have done so much for the local community. Mrs. Schumann is always coming in here. She’s bought no end of my cushions. It’s so sad.”
“About Mr. Schumann’s injuries?” I prompted.
“Yes,” she said. “And all those other people killed in England. They all lived around here, you know. We used to see them all the time.”
“Terrible,” I said, sympathizing.
“And we’re all dreadfully worried about the future,” she went on.
“About what, exactly?” I asked her.
“About the factory,” she said.
“What about it?” I prompted again.
“It’s not doing so well,” she said. “They laid off a third of the workers last November. Devastating, it was, just before the holidays and all. Something about the Chinese selling tractors for half the price that we could make them for here. There’s talk in the town of the whole plant closing. My husband works there, and my son. I don’t know what we’ll do in these parts if they close down.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “And then that disaster happens in England, and poor Mr. Schumann and the others…” She tailed off, unable to continue.
The 2,000 Guineas excursion had obviously been a last-ditch effort to try to find a new market for the ailing giant. The resulting carnage, with the loss of key personnel, might prove to be the final nail in the company’s coffin.
“Is there much unemployment around here?” I asked her.
“No, not at the moment,” she said. “But three thousand still work at the tractor factory. No small community can absorb that number laid off at once. Many of them will have to leave and go to Milwaukee to make beer or motorcycles.”
“Beer or motorcycles?” I asked. It seemed a strange combination.
“Miller beer and Harley-Davidsons,” she said. “Both are made in Milwaukee.”
“And how far away is that?” I said.
“About thirty miles.”
“Maybe they will be able to continue living here and commute,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “It won’t be so bad.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, clearly not believing it.
“I wonder what will happen to the Schumanns,” I said during a pause.
“Don’t you worry about them,” she said. “They’ve got lots of money. Just built themselves a new house. More like a mansion. It’s never the bosses who end up broke. They’ll make sure they get their bonuses and pensions sorted before the plant closes. You watch.”
She obviously wasn’t as keen on the Schumanns as she had originally implied. After her husband and son are laid off, I thought, she probably won’t have a good word left for anyone to do with Delafield Industries, Inc.
Only one person we spoke to knew of MaryLou Fordham. It was the man in the novelty sculpture shop.
“Nice legs,” he’d said with a knowing smile. I had smiled back at him, but it was not her legs that I remembered. It was the lack of them.
WE DROVE slowly along Lake Drive, staring at each of the impressive residences. This was millionaires’ row for Delafield. Each house sat in the center of its own large garden, with impressive fences, walls and gates to keep out the unwanted. From the road, it wasn’t very easy to see the buildings due to the many pine trees and the bountiful rhododendrons, but Caroline and I had previously driven over to the far side of the lake and had looked back to identify the Schumann home. As the cushion lady had said, it was quite a mansion: a modern, three-story house in gray stone with a red roof, set above a sweeping, well-tended lawn that ran down to the water and a dock, complete with boat.
Was this the home of the true target of the Newmarket bombing? Was this the home of a victim, or a villain? Was this the home of a friend, or a foe?
Only one way to find out, I thought, and I pushed the button on the intercom beside the eight-foot-high wrought-iron security gates.
16
D orothy Schumann was a slight woman. Although she was not more than five foot eight, she looked taller due to her slender shape. She had long, thin hands that were ghostly white, seemingly almost transparent, and they shook slightly as she rested them in her lap. Caroline and I and Mrs. Schumann sat on green-and-white sofas in her drawing room, the view down to the lake as spectacular as I had imagined.
“So you met my Rolf in England,” said Mrs. Schumann.
“Yes,” I said. “At Newmarket racetrack.”
“On the day of the bomb?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I was at the lunch.”
She looked at me closely. “You were very lucky, then.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I explained to her that I was staying in Chicago on business and had decided to come and see how Rolf was doing, now that he was home.
“How kind,” she said somewhat despondently. “But Rolf is not home here. He’s still in the hospital in Milwaukee having treatment.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I had heard that he was well enough to go home.”
“He was well enough to be flown back last week,” she said. “But I’m afraid he’s not very well at all.” She was having difficulty holding herself together. “He has some kind of brain damage.” She swallowed. “He just sits there, staring into space. He doesn’t even seem to recognize me. The doctors don’t seem to know if he will ever recover.” She shook with sobs. “What am I going to do?”
Caroline went across to the sofa where Mrs. Schumann was and sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Dorothy said. She took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes, smearing her makeup and causing her to cry even more.
“Come on,” said Caroline. “Let’s go and sort you out.”
Caroline almost pulled Mrs. Schumann to her feet and guided her gently into the master bedroom suite, which, like in many modern American homes, was on the ground floor.
I looked around the drawing room. There were masses of family photographs in silver frames sitting on a table near the window. I looked at the pictures of Rolf Schumann in happier times, many with a much-healthier-looking Dorothy at his side. There were also images of him at dinners in black tie, and at a building site in a bright yellow hard hat and muddy steel-tipped boots. There were two of him dressed for polo, one of him mounted, smiling broadly, with his mallet in the air, and another dismounted, receiving a silver trophy from a man who even I recognized as a senior American politician with presidential aspirations.