“After murdering her lover she should be relaxed?” Schmidt demanded at the top of his voice.
Tony and I fell on him and carried him away.
“That’s a libelous statement,” Tony muttered, as we propelled Schmidt up the stairs. “Two libelous statements, in fact.”
“Just one,” I said. “She and Freddy were lovers, all right. But she didn’t kill him. She may not even know he’s dead.”
“Shall we tell her?” Tony asked. We shoved Schmidt into the room and closed the door.
“The less anybody tells anybody, the better off we are,” I said sweepingly.
“That is a premise that can be carried too far,” Schmidt grumbled. “You carry it too far.”
“You know everything I know,” I assured him mendaciously. “But for the love of Mike, don’t blab to Friedl. I’ll be damned if I can figure her out. Does she want us to go or stay? She sure didn’t try to change my mind.”
“She doesn’t know her own mind,” Tony said. “She isn’t the one who is making the decisions.”
I smiled approvingly at him. “You aren’t as naïve as you look.”
“I never said Friedl wasn’t a crook; I said we couldn’t be certain.”
“I’m certain. And,” I continued, before Tony could object, “you’re right about her taking orders from someone else. Too bad we can’t listen in on her phone. I’ll bet she is passing on the latest news right now.”
“Ha,” said Schmidt. “You are again interested. You will not abandon—”
“Dammit, there is nothing to abandon! Oh, the hell with it. I’m off to the cemetery.”
A procession of hotel employees carrying cartons of papers arrived, and Schmidt and I left Tony gloomily contemplating the collection. Schmidt went with me to my room while I got my jacket and backpack; then he followed me downstairs and out of the hotel.
“You are really going only to put flowers on the poor old gentleman’s grave?” he inquired.
“I really am.”
“Not that I can believe you. But if you don’t care if I come, then it means you are not going to do anything I want to do. All the same, Vicky, I will come.”
“You’re a suspicious old goat. Come if you like.”
“No, that is not why. You go alone to this place so far from the village. I will come to protect you.”
The idea of danger hadn’t occurred to me until he mentioned it. I didn’t know whether to scold him for scaring me or kiss him for caring. I kissed him on his bald head and arranged his cap to cover his ears. “You’re a sweetie, Schmidt.”
“I thought I was a suspicious old goat. I would not mind the rest so much if you did not always say ‘old.’”
“‘Old’ doesn’t mean ‘old.’ It means—it’s a term of affectionate…of friendly…oh, never mind, Schmidt. I won’t say it again, I promise. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”
He remained dubious; I had to pretend to see Perlmutter skulking in the distance before he would leave. “I will pursue,” he exclaimed. “In that shop, you say?”
“No, he went up the street—that one. Hurry, Schmidt, before he gets away.”
Off Schmidt scuttled, approximately as inconspicuous as a carnival balloon.
The clear bright skies were being invaded by herds of elephant-sized clouds. Some squatted on the mountains, hiding the high peaks; others moved sluggishly westward, swelling and multiplying. I had not been looking forward to the expedition and the dismal skies didn’t increase my enthusiasm; but I had promised, and there was no sense postponing the job.
However, the idea of a little company had its appeal. I strolled across the square and made my way to the back of the wood shop. Clara was already there, staring at the closed panel with the ineffable air of concentrated expectation at which cats excel, and which seems to say, louder than speech, “If I wait long enough and hope hard enough, the anticipated miracle will occur—the door will open, herring will rain from the heavens, and I will be welcomed with the enthusiastic noises that are only my due.”
It’s sad to see such religious devotion go for nought. I knocked on the door. The cat didn’t look at me, she was concentrating on expectation. After a while I remarked, “He’s not there.”
Clara didn’t believe it. A piercing Siamese wail berated the cruelty of heaven.
Her howls produced no more result than my knocking. Either John was out or he didn’t want to see either of us. The former conclusion seemed more likely, since, as he was well aware, prolonged complaint from the cat might arouse the curiosity of the neighbors.
So much for John. He was never around when you needed him.
The cat followed me down the garden path and along the alley. She stayed close at my heels while I canvassed the shops for wreaths. When I opened the car door, she flowed in and sat down in the passenger seat.
I have driven with cats before, or tried to; most of them like to get into cars, but they do not like to ride in cars. I reached across and rolled down the window on the passenger side, expecting Clara would hop out as soon as I started the engine. She didn’t budge, even when I backed out of the parking space and turned into the street leading to the highway.
The clouds darkened and sagged lower. The cat started to purr.
Well, I had wanted company. Clara wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but she was better than nothing. I hoped.
The main road into and out of Bad Steinbach wasn’t a four-lane superhighway; but it looked like an autobahn compared to the narrow lane into which Müller’s directions led me. It switched back and forth across the slopes of the Hexenhut, winding steadily upward between tall trees whose shadows turned the cloudy day to twilight dusk. I switched on my lights; the twisting of the road sent shadows darting, like sylvan monsters trying to elude the light. The cat kept purring. My skin started to crawl.
The old man had said, “You can’t miss it,” and he was right. Eventually I emerged from the trees onto a brief stretch of level ground—not the summit of the mountain, but a largish ledge, shaped like a half-moon and less than two acres in extent. The road skirted one side of it and then appeared to end, against the open sky. I cleverly deduced that there was a steep descent beyond.
I turned off the road and stopped the engine. In the silence the cat’s hoarse purring seemed uncannily loud.
Straight ahead the mountainside rose, forming a natural wall around the scattered graves. Tall trees marched up in stately parade; above and beyond, a wide swath of treeless white curved around the mountain’s flank and then swung away, out of sight—the ski slope from the summit of the Hexenhut. I had not realized it came so close to the church. I had never skied that stretch, actually, and even if I had, I would have had no reason to observe the church.
It wasn’t much. Perched uneasily on the edge of the drop, where the crumbled remains of a stone wall marked the far edge of the cemetery, it had neither age nor architectural distinction. Not even the usual onion dome, only a stubby broken tower. The windows were boarded up and snow had drifted against the walls.
I opened the car door. The silence was deafening. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the ski lift or the ski lodge atop the mountain. It seemed impossible that less than a mile away there were people laughing and talking and drinking beer.
The place was like a black-and-white photograph; there was no color anywhere, only shades of gray. Nothing moved except the scudding clouds and the tree branches swaying gently in the wind.
Then I saw that I was not the only one to remember the dead at the season of the Redeemer’s birth. A few graves—a pitiful few—were blanketed and trimmed with boughs. The brave red bows and bright berries were like a snatch of song in a charnel house—or whistling in the dark?