“Yeah.”
He kept on. It was my fault. I knew Old Knockle talked a lot.
“Old man Givens got so tired of making that trip down to the valley and then over to the river, he had 'em put in some sort of cable car when they was ffxin' up the railroad about 1890 or so. So he could just go straight on down. His wife used to use it, too, to go to Chicago. For culture. Yep, the train stopped right there, if the flag at the stop was up. Had their very own car on the siding. Named the stop Givens' Switch, just for them. Really rich.” He chuckled. “Called the cable car Givens' Railroad, up here in Freiberg.”
That got my attention. I leaned well forward. “What happened to the cable car?”
“I don't truly know,” he said. “I seem to remember hearin' that they'd replaced it with something, but if I ever heard what, I forgot it by now. There's nothin' there now, I can tell you that. We were all over that hillside yesterday.” He smiled, and got up to get another cookie. “Don't get yourself all excited, Carl. Want another cookie?”
“Sure.” While he got them, I was thinking that, while the cable car might not be there, there surely had to have been a path down the bluff at that point. Had to be. Maybe trees had grown over it, but leveled ground could enable a faster passage…
He sat back down and handed me my cookie. “You know, did you see those big bolts in the wall, upstairs on the second floor?”
“What? Uh, no, no I didn't.”
“You know,” he said, “that big old house was built in two parts. Halves. The north side was built first. They added a matching south side some ten years after the north side was ffnished. Secured the two halves together with big railroad shafts and bolts. Just like the courthouse in Maitland.”
I'd seen the bolts in the courthouse. “Oh, yeah, the big bolts.”
“The ones in the house are covered by big lizards.” He thought a second. “No, dragons.”
“Gargoyles?”
“Yeah. That's it.”
Now he had me going. “How did you know they were bolts, then? Was that common?”
“Coulda been, but I seen some of the blueprints for the house, at the historical society.”
“Oh.” Blueprints. “Here in Freiberg?”
“Oh, no, nope. Not here. Over in Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, where the family moved. When they had too much money to spend here,” he said with a grin. “It's all donated to their historical society over there.”
“In Wisconsin… that makes sense,” I said. It did. It also made sense that it was out of my jurisdiction and I wanted to see it. “When did you see that?”
“The blueprints? Oh,” he said, “maybe ten, fifteen years back, I think. When Emma and I went in to Madison for her mother's funeral. Maybe twelve?” He nodded vigorously. “Twelve. Yep, twelve. We took a swing down to the lake afterward, you know. Might as well get some use out of the mileage, see.”
“Absolutely.” Luck smiles sometimes.
“I see that the crew from the Mansion came,” he said.
“Yep.”
“You think they're weird, Carl?”
“No weirder than anybody else.”
“Some of 'em seem nice. But I don't know why they dress like that. Just to make people look?”
“Making a statement. Nothing else.”
“I think they do it just to aggravate people.” He stared across the room to where Toby and Kevin were still talking to the girls. “The darkhaired kid with the thing through his nose, see him? That's what I mean.”
“Pretty harmless, I think. Really. Remember, not too long ago, burning the campus down? The sixties and seventies?”
“Yeah.”
“Which you rather have? That, or these kids?” I suppressed a smile. “Or, back in your day, the agitators who wanted to go against the King?”
He looked at me squarely. “You ain't too big for me to whip.”
I almost missed what he said, because my eye had settled on the figure of William Chester, standing near the coffin. I drew Knockle's attention to him.
“What's he doing here?”
Old Knockle stared for a second. “Oh. Uh, well, I know what you said, but he had the bond money right with him, and since I had to bring him back up this way, and I was comin' right here anyway, I thought it'd be okay if I left him in the car.” He cleared his throat. “Looks like he got out.”
“That it does.”
“I'm really sorry, Carl. He said he'd stay in the car.”
“I just bet he did.” I didn't want to draw too much attention to Chester, but for two cents I would have just walked up and knocked the idiot over the head.
After taking some of the sting out for Knockle by getting him another cookie, I went looking for Hester. I saw her two rooms away, but before I could get to her, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Byng, in uniform. He looked very concerned.
“Carl, you got a second?” he asked in a low voice.
“Sure.”
He motioned me toward the hall, and I followed.
“I got a call from Harry,” he said. “They got a missing persons report on Alicia Meyer. She's been having a real rough time over her boyfriend and all, a'course. She was at a friend's house over in Conception County last night. They went out to eat at Gourmet Georges'. She went to the john, never came back. Guess her friends spent most of the night lookin' for her. Can't find her. She's just disappeared.”
“What time, any idea?”
“Not sure, but it had to be before one A.M. That's when Gourmet Georges' closes for the night.”
“So, like what? Somebody snatched her right out of the women's room?” That was spooky.
“Oh, no. No, I forgot. Her car was gone, too. Like she just drove off.”
That put a completely different complexion on the case. I was relieved. “Ah. So, maybe she just wants to get away for a while?”
“It's not like her, they say.”
“They always say that, don't they? I mean, if it was like her, they wouldn't have reported it.”
He let that sink in. “Well, sure.”
“I'll bet Harry finds her before supper,” I said.
“Hope so,” he said. He looked around. “Lamar's here? I really ought to express myself to him before I leave.”
“Good idea.” I pointed out the receiving line. “Don't forget to sign the register.”
I found Hester in another anteroom, talking with the funeral director and two older gentlemen I recognized as teachers from Freiberg High. I motioned, and she got away fairly quickly. I told her, quickly and quietly, about the cable car, and about the blueprints. I also mentioned William Chester. She'd already seen him.
“I hope he's not here for the reason I think he is,” she said very quietly.
“Pardon?”
“I hope he's not here hunting,” she said, a little louder.
“Yeah.”
Just as I was about to mention Alicia Meyer taking off, we were interrupted by one of Edie's three classmates.
“Excuse me, are you Deputy Houseman?” She was about five-ten, slender, brown hair and eyes, maybe twenty-five or so.
“Yes.”
“Hello, I'm sorry to bother you, but my name is Darcy Becker, and I knew Edie, and the sheriff just said that I should be talking with you.” She seemed very confident, self-assured, and sophisticated. Polished. As Old Knockle would have said, you could tell she'd been away.
Since Lamar had handed her off, I was fairly certain that she'd approached him with something important about the case. Something he thought we should hear, and something he figured he shouldn't.
“Nice to meet you. This,” I said, gesturing toward Hester, “is Special Agent Gorse of the Iowa DCI.”
“Hello,” said Hester.
“Oh. Are you, well, working together? About this?”
“I'd suggest,” said Hester, “that we might step outside.”
The media were out there. We ended up moving out through the kitchen, past the preparation and, if necessary, autopsy room; and ended up in the garage between two parked hearses. It was a little gloomy, but it was private as hell.
“So, Lamar said you should talk to me?”
“Yes,” she said. “He said that this… well, I thought that since Edie had, well, taken her own life… I thought I might know why. The sheriff said I should talk to you right away.”