Faye gave me an impatient sigh. “I have your cell number, and you have mine,” she said.
“Well, I’ll be at the General Sutter Inn in Lititz.”
“Where’s that?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“I thought you were going to Washington.”
“I am, but my appointment’s not until Tuesday. I thought I’d use Monday to get a look at some of Tert’s family’s paintings.”
Faye gave me a strange look. “Does Tert know about your plans?”
“No. I wasn’t sure until recently what my timing was.”
Faye stared at me.
Okay
, I thought,
she doesn’t believe me. But it was sort of true
. I got out of the car and watched them drive away. Then I climbed into my own rental car, which was shaped like a Kaiser roll and about the size of a tennis shoe, scanned the overly simplified map that had been given to me by the rental car agent, fired the ignition, and headed out into the murky air of the East.
I had not been on the East Coast since my last two horrible years of high school, when my mother had insisted that I go east and “get an education.” I had gotten one all right, but not the one she had expected. What I had learned was that I hated everything east of the Mississippi. Everything was the wrong colors, for one—green and brown instead of tan and yellow and red—and entirely too damp, not to mention overpopulated. There seemed to be about one hundred cars per square inch, and the roads were twisty even where there were no mountains to wind through. And all of this had somehow gotten much, much worse in the decades since I had gleefully escaped back to my beloved, dry, empty West.
I jogged around Baltimore on the beltway, then headed northwest on Interstate 83. I rolled past turnoffs for suburbs for quite some miles before the countryside opened up into dense woodlands. At about the state line into Pennsylvania, it opened further into broad, sloping farmlands bordered by the brown fringes of trees not yet in bud. At York, I turned east onto Highway 30.
It grew dark as I crossed the wide expanse of the Susquehanna River and entered Lancaster County. The highway unwound past brightly lit car dealerships and other eyesores. I wondered where the legendary Amish
farmlands were. Just outside of Lancaster, I turned left on Route 501, the Lititz Pike, a narrow, two-lane road that rolled north through small towns and glimpses of cropland. I had chosen Lititz for two reasons: First, it was not far from Lancaster, and therefore presumably close to the Krehbeil family farm; and second, it offered a reasonably cheap place to stay.
The General Sutter Inn proved to be an old brick hotel right smack at the center of town. And when I say old, I mean older than most any structure built by white folks anywhere in the West. The whole of Lititz fairly dripped with early-American cachet. I pulled my little car over at the curb, got out, and took my first lungful of Pennsylvanian air. It smelled of chocolate.
I let myself into the lobby of the hotel. “Are we near the town of Hershey?” I inquired of the innkeeper. “I smell … ah …”
She shook her head as she ran an impression of my credit card. “No, we got our own factory here in Lititz. Wilber Buds. Lots of chocolate factories in this county,” she informed me. “You’re in room three-ten, up two flights and around to the right.” She pointed to the ceiling and made a corkscrew gesture.
I thanked her, hefted my duffel bag, and headed up the stairs. At the second landing, the decor turned from early American antique to garage-sale miscellaneous, and I began to inhale the bouquet of ancient carpeting. I unlocked the door to room 310, dropped my duffel onto the floor, and sat down on the bed. Loneliness descended upon me like cold mist.
I rousted myself out for dinner at the café on the street level of the hotel, where I chomped down a hamburger and fries, but the meal hit my stomach like a rock and pulled me down. Everything seemed to be descending, most of all me.
Back up in the room, I plugged the cell phone into the charging jack, shucked off my clothes, shrugged my way into a giant T-shirt that I wore as a nightgown, and slipped between the sheets. I lay staring into the darkness for about half an hour, listening to the odd car passing in the street below. Just as I was thinking of turning on the light and getting out my notes on pigments, the phone rang.
It was Faye. She whispered, “Em, listen, you can’t go to the Krehbeil farm tomorrow, okay?”
Okay? Then what am I doing here, collecting hotel ghosts?
I sat up and turned on the light. I said, “Oh, so you’re visiting a
relative
, are you? Put Tert on the phone!”
There was a muffled pause as Faye spoke to someone, her hand over the receiver. Then Tert’s voice came on the line. “Good evening, Em.”
“Hi, Tert. Surprise, I’m in Lititz. I have a date to speak with a colleague at the Pennsylvania State Geologic Survey tomorrow to get data for my thesis project. And yes, I’d like to go to your mother’s to see the other paintings. Do you have a problem with that?” Even as I said it, I knew it sounded hopelessly combative.
“In fact I do.” He kept his voice level, but crisply patrician and authoritative. “Your master’s thesis may be a matter of public record, but your errand for me is not.”
“I thought your family knew all about this,” I said, Hector’s drunken voice echoing in my memory. I tried to keep my voice steady, but anger seeped into it. I had delayed telling him of my plans because I did not trust him, but I was not comforted to discover just how correct my assessment had been.
“I do not wish my family to be consulted in this matter,” he said firmly.
“But you said I could see the paintings,” I insisted.
Silence.
I calmed my voice as best I could and said, “They needn’t know that I have any connection with the painting in question. Faye can phone ahead of me, and present me as a friend of hers who is doing a paper for an art history course.”
Cell phones can be damned hard instruments of communication. A lot of subtlety is lost, and sometimes it sounds like the connection is lost when it is not. I had been listening to blankness for several seconds when Faye’s voice came back on the line. She was seething mad. “How dare you pull this stunt?”
“This
stunt
? You knew where I was going. And that’s why Tert knows. You
told
him.”
I heard Faye tell Tert, “Give me a minute,” and then heard a door close. When Faye spoke to me next, she was so angry that she was stuttering. “I try to help you out by getting you a job, and what do you do? You fuck up my social life!”
Help me out? Out what? Out the door?
I loaded my heaviest round and fired. “Faye, what are you doing with a man who lies?”
“What am I doing? Trying to have a life, Em. Because I haven’t had one lately, no thanks to
your
wonderful boyfriend.”
“You blame
Jack
for Tom’s death?”
“Would you rather I blame you? God, Em, he led Tom right into that bullet!” Her voice cracked with pain and rage as she added, “
You
should know, Em!
You
were there!”
The line went dead.
I wanted to say,
I led him there.
I wanted to say,
I’m so sorry. I led Tom to his death, not Jack. Me. My cleverness. My detection of the point of danger. If I had been slower or stupider, Jack might have died instead.
But Jack was alive, and gone, and Faye was a widow. And Sloane had no father. I hated war with all my heart and yet if it would bring Tom back, I would rip my heart from my chest with my own hands and lead the charge into battle naked.
My ears rang with shock. It had never occurred to me that Faye would feel robbed of those last moments of Tom’s life. His death was hideous and still robbed me of sleep; why would she want that trauma? But to her, the scenario was different: He had died far away from her, with his ruined head cradled in someone else’s arms.
I set the phone down very carefully, then turned out the light. I lay down on the bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I did not bother to close my eyes. I knew I would not sleep.
AT DAWN, I GOT UP AND SHOWERED AND DRESSED AND PACKED MY duffel, then checked out of the General Sutter Inn. I did not know if I’d be staying another night in Pennsylvania, and I wanted the option of leaving. I did not know if I was still working for Tert Krehbeil, and I was not sure I cared, but I had cashed his check for three thousand and would continue to work until I had spent every penny of it, or until he said to quit. Life was too short to be bullied by one’s employer.
I headed out in search of a shop that would sell me half a dozen glazed doughnuts and a pint of strong coffee. I was in major need of comfort food, and something that would prop open my eyelids.
I was bone-aching tired. And I was deeply, dangerously angry. In the small hours of the night, I had reasoned the whole mess through one more time, and decided that I had not killed Tom, and neither had Jack. I had not twisted his arm or manipulated him. Tom went into the fight that had hastened his death out of an urge I could neither understand nor remedy. Nevertheless, I had helped Faye through the final weeks of her pregnancy and had nursed her and her child for almost eight long months afterward. I had done it because I felt guilty, yes, but more than that, I had done it because I loved her, and because I had also come to love her child.
I had never admitted it to myself, but I had feared that, given the chance to become a mother, I would fail to care enough. Now I knew that I could, and did. I had never known I could love anyone as I loved that infant.
And Faye had no right to accuse me of sabotaging her social life. In fact, I’d been trying to improve it.
It was bitter icing on my cake of rage that Tert Krehbeil had so breezily promised access to artwork and never meant a word of it. I wanted to see Tert turn on a spit.
I found a strip mall south of town and got what I was looking for, then consulted the local telephone directory. I opened to the
K
’s, and found several Krehbeils. One of them was in Elm, a woman named Deirdre, a name that sounded familiar. Had Hector mentioned a Deirdre? I thought back again to my conversation with him, trying to remember.
Yes, something about a dynasty
. A second number was for Hector himself, no address given, but the exchange listings in the front of the book suggested the number was in Mount Joy. The third number was for William Krehbeil II, also at the Elm address.
Krehbeil Secundus. That must be Tert’s deceased father, and Tert’s mother has kept the number under his name. So, that means two things: Deirdre’s living at the farm and Tert’s full given name is William. Then, did Hector mean Tert when he said, “Precious Willie”?
I brought up a mental image of the check Tert had written to pay my retainer. Had his name been on that check?
No, it bore the name of his business, Krehbeil Gallery, Philadelphia; and his signature was illegible.
I looked at my map. Elm was north of Lititz. Even at this county’s rate of travel—snail’s pace—I could be there within twenty minutes. I looked at my watch. It was just after seven.
I was in such a nasty mood that I was inclined to screw Tert’s project—something I seemed to have a knack for, according to Faye and her social life—and instead just find out what in hell’s name was going on with his family. This information I would serve up to Faye on a platter. I would point out that one of them was a coldhearted liar and another was a drunk, and Faye would apologize to me. Simultaneously I suspected that I was just an overgrown adolescent who should apologize to
her.
Hang on to your anger
, I told myself.
It’ll keep you alert.
Before last night’s blowup, my seat-of-the-pants plan had been to telephone Tert at his office and extract an introduction to his mother so I could see the paintings. Now that I had been told not to go there, I decided I had nothing to lose by contacting her anyway and seeing what happened. But I would wait until eight.
I glanced at my watch again. It was seven-fifteen. If they truly were a true farm family—which I doubted—they would be up already and have half the chores done; but if they were typical Easterners, they were probably
still asleep, or would consider me rude to phone so early. Itching to get started with something—anything—I decided to drive out to the farm and take a look. If I saw people up and about, I’d drop in and introduce myself as Faye’s pal. If they took a pitchfork to me, I’d know she’d phoned ahead. If she hadn’t, and they were amenable, I might get a squint at the paintings and get out of there with little fuss. Not that the paintings would do me any good now—there was no way these people would let me analyze their pigments—but having come all this way to see the artwork, I was damned well going to see it.
As a last point of justification for my mania, I reminded myself that Tert was hiding something, and that I needed to know what that was. I had run into this kind of thing on previous cases, and had learned I could not solve the client’s puzzle without first knowing why the client was lying to me, and what he was trying to hide.
I got into the car and started to drive. North of town, in the soft light of that early-spring morning, I at last viewed the farmlands for which Lancaster County was famous. The patchwork of fields rolled out from either side of the road. They were neatly tended, with crops planted right up to the edge of the pavement, not a hedgerow or boundary fence in sight. The farmhouses were closer together than I was used to in the West, two-stories tall and built of stone. The barns were likewise made of stone up to the second story, where many of them gave over to wood, painted white.
I wondered if some of the farms belonged to the Amish, a people synonymous with Lancaster County’s famous farmlands. Clearly Tert was not of that persuasion, although what I knew of the Amish went about as deep as cardboard: Amish people stayed on the farm. They did not drive automobiles, or use electric lights. I dared say that their ancestors did not take the train into New York City and purchase paintings by Frederic Remington. And they did not own hobby ranches west of Cody, Wyoming. They were “the plain folk” who were “in the world, but not of this world.” They wore unornamented clothing and lived simply, in order to escape temptation. The women made fabulous quilts using solid-color fabrics in fully saturated colors and no white. They were one of a list of Protestant Christian sects that had come over from Europe to escape persecution. They are easily confused with the Mennonites, from whom they had split off, and who have a similar story but drive cars, use white fabrics
in their quilts, and often dress just like “the English.” The Mennonites seemed a more variable group. Were the Krehbeils Mennonites?
It was not a simple matter to find the Krehbeil farm. The map of Pennsylvania I had with me showed only numbered highways, and I was looking for a farm road. Finally I stopped at a filling station and asked directions. Those instructions put me out onto a network of narrow blacktop roads that wound through shallow hills among farms broken up by narrow strips of housing developments featuring two-story mansionettes on quarter-acre spacing. Being ranch raised, it horrified me to see lines of houses backed up against such luscious croplands.
When I at last found the road and the number that matched the Krehbeils’ address, I parked a short distance away and wandered along the verge to take a look.
The day was proving to be quite mild, and the scents of the land rose to meet me. Flights of seed-eating birds and the first spring flowers lightened my heart. Then a car pulled out of the drive and zoomed past me, shattering my idyll. It was driven by a hulking man in his twenties—Then I heard a door slam, and saw a young woman with spiky hair and tattooed ankles slouch down across the lawn, light a cigarette, jump into a beat-up Toyota sedan, jab it into a fast start, and skid it backwards into a smuggler’s turn. She roared up to the pavement and ripped off down the road in the other direction without looking left or right to see if anyone was coming. I wondered who these two were, and whether I indeed had the correct farm. They didn’t have an ounce of the patrician classiness that oozed from Tert Krehbeil.
The brick house was finer than any I had seen in the neighborhood, but the wooden trim was badly in need of paint, except the front door, which was a vivid yellow. It was two stories tall and surrounded on three sides by broad porches that sagged badly, and some of the ornamental woodwork had been broken away. In places, panes of glass were held together with duct tape. The screening on the front door was ripped. But overall, it had an imposing appearance, even in its obvious state of decline. It was a house that once had been quite grand, but was now all but falling down.
The barn was large and finely crafted but the foundation stonework bulged downhill. There were no signs of recent usage. The track that led past it was tall with grasses where it should have been bald from traffic, and there were no splashes of mud along the wall.
I checked and rechecked the address, incredulous that this was the home that had produced Tert Krehbeil.
A sound from the front porch drew my attention back to the house. I saw the front door swing wide, and the feet of an elderly woman appeared, followed by a great wrapping of quilts and then by the rest of her figure seated in a wheelchair. The chair was pushed by a middle-aged woman who moved briskly, even brusquely, making the old woman’s head wobble on her narrow neck as the chair encountered bumps in the porch. She brought the chair to a stop at the sunny end of the porch and moved quickly about it, setting the brakes and stuffing loosened folds of the quilts into place around the older woman. From her pocket, she produced a knit hat and set it on the older woman’s head. This accomplished, she put her fists on her hips and leaned her head toward the white-haired ancient as if scolding her. Then she turned and left her to the morning breezes.
The elderly woman looked like a nestling left behind while its parent searched for food. As the moments passed, her head bobbled with the rhythm of short, panting breaths, and she slowly tilted farther and farther forward in her chair.
Robins hopped across the lawn in search of food. I could not believe from the outward appearance of the property that these people had a fortune in Western art on the premises. Had Tert invented the story of the family treasure? I struggled with conflicting emotions: I wanted to see the paintings and yet I did not want to meet these women. I wanted to know enough about them to justify my unease around Tert and yet did not want to become involved in the unpleasantness of their circumstances and manner.
I was just preparing to flip a coin between leaving and heading up to the house to ask when something happened that precluded any other action: The elderly woman fell out of her chair.
I rushed up the driveway toward the house, leapt up over the steps and across the boards, went down on both knees in front of her, and felt her ancient neck for a pulse. At my touch, her eyes opened and began rolling around. Tiny grunts emanated from her throat.
“Are you all right?” I asked, foolishly. It was clear that she was not. Her skin was sallow and fit her like crumpled tissue paper, and her breath—even in the open air of an early-spring morning—stank of internal rot. Even after I helped her replace her glasses, her pale eyes did not focus on
me, and were milky but charged with surprise. I put my hands under her head, felt for dampness and found none.
Good
, I decided,
at least she’s not bleeding
. “Are you in pain?” I asked.
“Ah … ah … always, my dear,” she said. “Always. Getting old is not without its trials. But don’t worry about me.”
Don’t worry?
I took her frail old hands in mine and again felt for her pulse. It was faint and rapid. Her fingers were long and narrow, very elegant, but just as Hector had said, they were ruined by painful-looking scars along the cuticles. “Can you stay like this a moment?” I asked. “I’ll run and get your daughter.”
“Deirdre? No, don’t trouble her. She’s so overworked, poor dear.”
I was certain now that I had the right house, but I didn’t know if Mrs. Krehbeil was displaying shock or just dementia. I said, “I’d offer to put you back in your chair, ma’am, but I don’t know what your situation is. You might have injuries. I’ll go fetch your daughter.”
I rose and hurried to the front entrance and knocked on the screen door. No answer came. The inner door stood ajar, so I put my face to the opening and shouted, “Hello? Excuse me, but your mother has fallen from her chair!” Still no answer. I peeked inside. A gray tabby cat the color of Tert Krehbeil’s eyes scowled at me from a broad, gray sofa. The room was decorated with jarringly bad paintings, sentimental renderings of dripping foliage and turgid millponds, not museum-quality masterworks of Western action scenes.
I glanced back toward the fallen woman. The quilts still moved up and down with her frail attempts to breathe. She was not making perfect sense, but she seemed reasonably stable.
But I’ve got to do something,
I decided.
There was a cordless telephone lying on a table just inside the door. I decided to dodge in and grab it and dial 911.
I opened the door and stepped inside. “Hello!” I shouted again. “Help! The lady on the front porch has fallen!” I took several more steps and called again, then listened.
From the far end of the house, I heard a muffled, “Shit!” and then footsteps. The sound approached none too quickly. Finally the middle-aged woman whom I presumed to be Deirdre appeared at the far end of the central hall. When she spotted me, she said, “What is it?” none too kindly.