“You knew Jeanine Thielman?”
“There’s a lot I’m not supposed to talk about. So I don’t.”
“Why aren’t you supposed to talk about Jeanine Thielman?” Tom asked.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Gloria said, and sounded more adult and awake. “But I could tell her things.”
Tom asked, “How old were you when your mother died?”
“Four. I didn’t really understand what happened for a long time—I thought she went away to make me feel bad. I thought she wanted to punish me.”
“Mom, why would she want to do that?”
She cracked her eyes open, and her puffy face looked childish and sly. “Because I was bad. Because of my secrets.” For a moment, Tom thought that the slyness was like a pat of butter in her mouth. “Sometimes Jeanine would come and talk to me. And hold me. And I talked to her. I hoped she would be my new Mommy. I really did!”
“I always wondered how my grandmother died,” Tom said. “Nobody ever talked about it.”
“To me either!” Gloria said. “You can’t tell a little kid something like that.”
“Something like what?”
“She killed herself.” Gloria said this flatly, without any emotion at all. “I wasn’t supposed to know. I don’t think Daddy even wanted me to know she was dead, you know. You know Daddy. Pretty soon he was acting like there never was any Mommy. There was just the two of us. Her and her’s Da.” She pulled the covers around herself more tightly, and the magazines still on the bed moved up with them. “There was just her and her’s Da, and that was all there ever was. Because he loved her, really, and she loved him. And she knew everything that happened.”
She slid deeper into the bed. “But it was all a long time ago. Jeanine was angry, and then a man killed her and put her in the lake too. I heard him shooting—I heard the shots in my bedroom. Pop! Pop! Pop! And I went through the house and out on the veranda and saw a man running through the woods. I started to cry, and I couldn’t find Daddy, and I guess I went to sleep, because when I woke up he was there. And I told him what I saw, and he took me to Barbara Deane’s house. So I’d be safe.”
“You mean he took you to Miami.”
“No—first he took me to Barbara Deane’s house, in the village, and I was there a little while. A few days. And he went back to the lake, to look for Jeanine, and then he came back, and then we went to Miami.”
“I don’t understand—”
She closed her eyes. “I didn’t like Barbara Deane. She never talked to me. She wasn’t nice.”
She was silent for a long time, breathing deeply. “I’ll be better tomorrow.”
He stood up and went to the side of her bed. Her eyelids fluttered. He bent down to kiss her. When his lips touched her forehead, she shuddered and mumbled, “Don’t.”
In the study, Victor Pasmore lay tilted back in his recliner, asleep before the blaring television. A cigarette that was only a column of ash burned in the ashtray, sending up a thin line of smoke.
Tom went to the front door and let himself out into the cool night. Chinks of light showed through Lamont von Heilitz’s curtains.
“You’re upset,” said Mr. von Heilitz as soon as he saw Tom on his doorstep. “Hurry on inside, and let me get a better look at you.”
Tom moved through the door with what felt like the last of his energy and leaned against a file cabinet. The Shadow inserted a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and squinted at Tom as he inhaled. “You look absolutely ragged, Tom. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee, and then I want you to tell me all about it.”
Tom straightened up and rubbed his face. “Being here makes me feel better,” he said. “I heard so much today—listened to so much—and it’s all sort of spinning around in my head. I can’t figure it out—I can’t get it straight.”
“I’d better take care of you,” von Heilitz said. “You sound a little overloaded.” He led Tom back through the enormous room to his kitchen, took out two cups and saucers, and poured coffee from an old black pot that had been bubbling on a gas range, also black, that must have belonged to his parents. Tom liked the entire kitchen, with its wainscoting, hanging lamps, and old-fashioned sinks and high wooden shelves and mellow, clean wooden floorboards.
The old man said, “In honor of the occasion, I think we could add a little something to the coffee, don’t you?”
He took a bottle of cognac from another shelf, and tipped a little into each cup.
“What occasion?” Tom asked.
“Your being here.” He handed Tom one of the cups, and smiled at him.
Tom sipped the hot, delicious mixture, and felt the tension drain from him. “I didn’t know that you knew Hattie Bascombe.”
“Hattie Bascombe is one of the most extraordinary people on this island. That you know about our friendship means that you must have seen her today! But I’m not going to keep you in the kitchen. Let’s go into the other room and hear about what has you so worked up.”
Tom sprawled back on the old leather couch, and put his feet up on the coffee table covered with books. Von Heilitz said, “One minute,” and put a record on his gleaming stereo equipment. Tom braced himself for more Mahler, but a warm, smoky tenor saxophone began playing one of Miss Ellinghausen’s tunes, “But Not For Me,” and Tom thought that it sounded just like the way the coffee and brandy tasted: and then he recognized it.
“That’s Blue Rose,” he said. “My mother has that record.”
“Glenroy Breakstone’s best record. It’s what we ought to listen to, tonight.” Tom looked at him with a mixture of pain and confusion, and von Heilitz said, “This state you’re in—I know it’s a terrible condition, but I think it means you’re almost there. Events are almost moving by themselves now, and it’s because of you.” He sat down across from Tom, and drank from his cup. “Another man was murdered today—murdered because he talked too much, among other reasons.”
“That policeman,” Tom said.
“He was a loose end. They couldn’t trust him, so they got rid of him. They’d do the same to me, and to you too, if they knew about us. We have to be very careful from now on, you know.”
“Did you know that my grandmother committed suicide?” Tom asked. Von Heilitz paused with his cup halfway to his mouth. “It’s like … it was a shock, but it wasn’t. And you lied to me!” Tom burst out. “My grandfather couldn’t have seen the Thielmans’ dock from his balcony! It doesn’t face the water, it faces the woods! So why did you say that? Why does everybody tell me so many lies? And why is my mother so helpless! How could my grandfather dump her at someone’s house and go back to Eagle Lake by himself?” Tom let out a long sigh that was nearly a sob. He covered his face with his hands, then lowered them. “I’m sorry. I’m thinking about four or five things at once.”
“I didn’t lie to you. I just didn’t tell you everything—there are a couple of things I didn’t know then, and a few I still don’t know.” He waited a moment. “When do you go to Eagle Lake?”
“The day after tomorrow.” When von Heilitz looked up sharply, he said, “It was just worked out. That’s why my grandfather called. I’m going on the Redwing plane.”
“Well, well.” The old man crossed his legs and leaned back into his chair. “Tell me what happened to you today.”
Tom looked across the table, and was met by a smile of pure understanding.
He told him everything. About the hospital and David Natchez and the dead man and Dr. Milton; about his “excursion” to the old slave quarter and Maxwell’s Heaven; about seeing Fulton Bishop glide through the court like a hungry snake; about Nancy Vetiver and what Michael Mendenhall had said; Dr. Milton in the pony trap; his father’s drunken hostility and the visit from Ralph Redwing; about the call from his grandfather; his mother in her bedroom, remembering Eagle Lake and her childhood.