"Came home from where?" Qwilleran asked with a display of innocence. "From college?"
"No, he was, uh... David came home and went into; the bank with his father, but Harley spent a year in the east before he came home."
Qwilleran ordered another Squunk water and then leisurely inquired what Harley was doing in the east.
Gary's black eyes roamed the room. "The family didn't want anybody to know, and people made a lot of wild guesses, but Harley told me the truth. When you get out there on the lake with a blue sky full of sail and only the whisper of a breeze, it's easy to talk. It's like going to a shrink. That was before things turned sour between us, you know. I promised to keep mum about it."
Qwilleran sipped his drink and glanced idly at the backbar with its nineteenth-century carvings and turnings and beveled mirrors.
Gary said, "I didn't say anything about it when the police were here. After the murder they were talking to everybody that knew him."
Qwilleran said, "Do you think Harley's secret mission may have had some bearing on the murder?"
Gary shrugged. "Who knows? I'm no detective."
"Personally," Qwilleran said in his best confidential manner, "I'm not convinced the Chipmunk kids were responsible for the crime, and I think we should do everything we can to bring the real criminals to justice. At the moment I'm wondering if Harley made enemies during his year away from home. Did he get mixed up in gambling or drugs?"
"Nothing like that," said the barkeeper. "I could tell you, I suppose. It doesn't make any difference now that he's dead, and his folks are dead."
Qwilleran's mournfully sympathetic eyes were fixed on Gary's shifting black ones.
Gary said, "But I'd be crazy to tell a reporter. I know you're writing for the paper. Are you digging up some dirt about the Fitches?"
"Nothing of the kind! I'm concerned because Carol and Larry Lanspeak are good people, and I hate to see their boy falsely linked to the murder."
Gary was silent and thoughtful as he wiped the bar for the twentieth time. He glanced around the room and lowered his voice. "Harley's folks said he was traveling out of the country. The thing of it is... he was doing time."
"He was in jail?"
"In prison - somewhere in the east."
"On what charge?"
"Criminal negligence. Car accident. A girl was killed."
"Did Harley tell you this?" Qwilleran asked.
"We were still friendly then, and he wanted to get it off his chest, I guess. It's tough living with a secret in a tight little place like Moose County."
"And there's always the chance that someone from outside will come into town and reveal it."
"Or some skunk of a newspaper reporter will dig it up and make trouble."
"Please!" Qwilleran protested.
"Maybe I shouldn't have told you."
"In the first place, I don't consider myself a skunk of a reporter, Gary, and in the second place, my only concern is to find a clue to the identity of the killer - or killers."
"Can you make anything out of it - the way it stands now?"
"One possibility comes immediately to mind," Qwilleran said. "The victim's family may have thought Harley paid too small a price for his negligence. They obviously knew he was affluent. So they came gunning for him. An eye for an eye... and a little jewel robbery on the side. I understand the Fitch jewels are missing."
"If you talk to anybody about it," Gary said, "don't get me involved. I can't afford to stick my neck out. When you have a bar license, you know, you have to walk on eggs."
"Don't worry," Qwilleran said. "I protect my sources. Actually, I suspect the police already know about Harley's prison term, but I'm glad you told me... It is a far, far better thing that you do than you have ever done - to paraphrase a favorite author of mine."
"That's from an old movie," Gary said.
"Ronald Colman said it. Dickens wrote it."
The barkeeper became affable. "Do you sail?"
"You're looking at a one hundred-percent landlubber."
"Any time you want to go out, let me know. There's nothing like sailing."
"Thanks for the invitation. What's my tab? I've got to be going."
"On the house."
"Thanks again." Qwilleran slid off the bar stool and then turned back to the bar. "Did anyone ever tell you, Gary, that you look like a pirate?"
The barkeeper grinned. "The thing of it is, I'm descended from one. Ever hear of Pratt the Pirate? Operated in the Great Lakes in the 1800s. He was hanged."
On the way out of the cafe Qwilleran gave the black bear a formal salute. Then he sauntered out of the hotel, pleased with the information he had gleaned. He ambled to the parking lot, unaware that he was being followed. As he unlocked the car door he was startled by the shadow of someone behind him. He turned quickly.
The man standing there was the blond barfly with the star sapphire and the melancholy mood. "Remember me?" he asked sullenly.
"Pete? Is that you? You startled me."
"Wanted to talk to you," the paperhanger said.
"Sure." When Pete made no move to begin, Qwilleran said, "Your car or mine?"
"I walked. I live near here."
"Okay. Hop in." They settled in the front seat, Pete slumped in an attitude of despair. "What's bothering you, fella?"
"Can't get her off my mind."
"Belle?" Pete nodded.
"It will take time to get over that horrible incident," Qwilleran said, going into the sympathy routine that he did so well. "I understand your grief, and it's healthy to grieve. It's something you have to muddle through, one day at a time, in order to go on living." He was in good form, he thought, and he felt genuinely sorry for this hulk of a man whose tears were beginning to trickle down his face.
"I lost her twice," Pete said. "Once when he stole her away from me... and once when he got her murdered. I always thought she'd come back to me some day, but now..."
"The shooting wasn't Harley's fault," Qwilleran reminded him. "Both of them lost their lives."
"Three of them," Pete said.
"Three?"
"The baby"
"That's right. I had almost forgotten that Belle was pregnant."
"It was my kid."
Qwilleran was not sure he had heard correctly.
"That was my kid!" Pete repeated in a loud and angry voice.
"Are you telling me that you were sleeping with Belle after her marriage?"
"She came to me," Pete said with a glimmer of pride. "She said he wasn't doing her any good. She said he couldn't do anything."
Qwilleran was silent. His fund of sympathetic sentiments was not equipped for this particular situation.
"I'd do anything to get the killer," said Pete, snapping out of his dejected mood. "I heard you talking in the bar. I'd do anything to get him!"
"Then tell me anything you know-anyone you suspect. Frankly, it might save your hide. You're in a sticky situation. Were you doing any work for Harley and Belle at the time of the murder?"
"Papering a bedroom for a nursery."
"Were you working that day?"
"Just finishing up."
"What time did you leave?"
"About five."
"Was Harley there?"
"She said he was out sailing, He did a lot of sailing. He had a boat berthed at Brrr - a twenty-seven-footer."
"Who was with him? Do you know?"
Pete shook his head. "He used to go out with Gary from the Booze. Then Gary got his own boat, and Harley stopped coming into the bar. I saw him at the Shipwreck Tavern a coupla times, though- with a woman."
Qwilleran remembered Mildred's tarot cards. A deceitful woman involved! "Do you know who she was?"
Pete shrugged. "I didn't pay that much attention."