He lowered his head, trying to hide the tears that streamed down his face, his shoulders heaving, the deep sobs starting deep inside him and reverberating through his entire body.

  “Please,” he said.

  For the first time since the whole thing had started, Watt turned to Hawes and asked his advice.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I’m a heavy sleeper, too,” Hawes said. “You could blow up the building, and I wouldn’t hear it.”

  On Sunday morning, the church bells rang out over the valley.

  They started in the town of Rawson, and they rang sharp and clear on the mountain air, drifting over the snow and down the valley. He went to the window and pulled up the shade, and listened to the sound of the bells, and remembered his own youth and the Reverend Jeremiah Hawes who had been his father, and the sound of Sunday church bells, and the rolling, sonorous voice of his father delivering the sermon. There had always been logic in his father’s sermons. Hawes had not come away from his childhood background with any abiding religious fervor—but he had come away with a great respect for logic. “To be believed,” his father had told him, “it must be reasonable. And to be reasonable, it must be logical. You could do worse than remembering that, Cotton.”

  There did not seem to be much logic in the killing of Helga Nilson and Maria Fiers, unless there was logic in wanton brutality. He tried to piece together the facts as he looked out over the peaceful valley and listened to the steady tolling of the bells. Behind him, Blanche was curled in sleep, gently breathing, her arms wrapped around the pillow. He did not want to wake her yet, not after what she’d been through last night. So far as he was concerned, the weekend was over; he could not ski with pleasure anymore, not this weekend. He wanted nothing more than to get away from Rawson Mountain, no, that wasn’t quite true. He wanted to find the killer. That was what he wanted more than anything else. Not because he was being paid for the job, not because he wanted to prove to Theodore Watt that maybe big-city detectives did have a little something on the ball—but only because the double murders filled him with a sense of outrage. He could still remember the animal strength of the man who’d attacked him on the mountain, and the thought of that power directed against two helpless young girls angered Hawes beyond all reason.

  Why? he asked himself.

  Where is the logic?

  There was none. No logic in the choice of the victims, and no logic in the choice of the scene. Why would anyone have chosen to kill Helga in broad daylight, on a chair suspended anywhere from six to thirty feet above the ground, using a ski pole as a weapon? A ski pole sharpened to a deadly point, Hawes reminded himself, don’t forget that. This thing didn’t just happen, this was no spur-of-the-moment impulse, this was planned and premeditated, a pure and simple Murder One. Somebody had been in that ski shop the night before the first murder, using a file and then a grinding wheel, sharpening that damn pole, making certain its end could penetrate a heavy ski parka, and a ski sweater, and a heart.

  Then there must have been logic to the choice of locale, Hawes thought. Whoever killed Helga had at least planned far enough ahead to have prepared a weapon the night before. And admitting the existence of a plan, then logic could be presupposed, and it could further be assumed that killing her on the chairlift was a part of the plan—perhaps a very necessary part of it.

  Yes, that’s logic, he thought—except that it’s illogical.

  Behind him, Blanche stirred. He turned to look at her briefly, remembering the horror on her face last night, contrasting it now with her features relaxed in sleep. She had told the story to Watt three times, had told him again and again how she’d found the dead girl.

  Maria Fiers, twenty-one years old, brunette, a native of Montpelier, Vermont. She had begun skiing when she was six years old, had won the woman’s slalom four times running, had been an instructor since she was seventeen. She skated, too, and had been on her high school swimming team, an all-around athlete, a nice girl with a gentle manner and a pleasant smile—dead.

  Why?

  She lived in the room next door to Helga’s, had known Helga for close to a year. She had been nowhere near the chairlift on the day Helga was killed. In fact, she had been teaching a beginner’s class near the T-bar, a good distance from the chairlift. She could not have seen Helga’s murder, nor Helga’s murderer.

  But someone had killed her nonetheless.

  And if there were a plan, and if there were supposed logic to the plan, and if killing Helga on a chair halfway up the mountain was part of that logic, then the death of Maria Fiers was also a part of it.

  But how?

  The hell with it, Hawes thought. I can’t think straight anymore. I want to crack this so badly that I can’t think straight, and that makes me worse than useless. So the thing to do is to get out of here, wake Blanche and tell her to dress and pack, and then pay my bill and get out, back to the city, back to the 87th where death comes more frequently perhaps, and just as brutally—but not as a surprise. I’ll leave this to Theodore Watt, the sheriff who wants to make his own mistakes. I’ll leave it to him and his nimble-fingered deputies, and maybe they’ll bust it wide open, or maybe they won’t, but it’s too much for me, I can’t think straight anymore.

  He went to the bed and woke Blanche, and then he walked over to the main building, anxious to pay his bill and get on his way. Someone was at the piano, practicing scales. Hawes walked past the piano and the fireplace and around the corner to Wollender’s office. He knocked on the door, and waited. There was a slight hesitation on the other side of the door, and then Wollender said, “Yes, come in,” and Hawes turned the knob.

  Everything looked exactly the way it had looked when Hawes checked in on Friday night, an eternity ago. Wollender was sitting behind his desk, a man in his late twenties with dark hair and dark brows pulled low over deep brown eyes. He was wearing a white shirt open at the throat, a bold reindeer-imprinted sweater over it. The plaster cast was still on his right leg, the leg stretched out stiffly in front of him, the foot resting on a low ottoman. Everything looked exactly the same.

  “I want to pay my bill,” Hawes said. “We’re checking out.”

  He stood just inside the door, some fifteen feet from the desk. Wollender’s crutches leaned against the wall near the door. There was a smile on Wollender’s face as he said, “Certainly,” and then opened the bottom drawer of the desk and took out his register and carefully made out a bill. Hawes walked to the desk, added the bill, and then wrote a check. As he waved it in the air to dry the ink, he said, “What were you doing in my room yesterday, Mr. Wollender?”

  “Checking the heat,” Wollender said.

  Hawes nodded. “Here’s your check. Will you mark this bill ‘Paid,’ please?”

  “Be happy to,” Wollender said. He stamped the bill and handed it back to Hawes. For a moment, Hawes had the oddest feeling that something was wrong. The knowledge pushed itself into his mind in the form of an absurd caption: WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? He looked at Wollender, at his hair, and his eyes, and his white shirt, and his reindeer sweater, and his extended leg, and the cast on it, and the ottoman. Something was different. This was not the room, not the picture as it had been on Friday night. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? he thought, and he did not know.

  He took the bill. “Thanks,” he said. “Have you heard any news about the roads?”

  “They’re open all the way to the Thruway. You shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  “Thanks,” Hawes said. He hesitated, staring at Wollender. “My room’s right over the ski shop, you know,” he said.

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “Do you have a key to the shop, Mr. Wollender?”

  Wollender shook his head. “No. The shop is privately owned. It doesn’t belong to the hotel. I believe the proprietor allows the ski instructors to…”

  “But then, you’re a locksmith, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t that what you told me when I checked in? You said you were a locksmith out of season, didn’t you?”

  “Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, I did.” Wollender shifted uneasily in the chair, trying to make his leg comfortable. Hawes looked at the leg again, and then he thought, Damn it, what’s wrong?

  “Maybe you went to my room to listen, Mr. Wollender. Is that possible?”

  “Listen to what?”

  “To the sounds coming from the ski shop below,” Hawes said.

  “Are the sounds that interesting?”

  “In the middle of the night, they are. You can hear all sorts of things in the middle of the night. I’m just beginning to remember all the things I heard.”

  “Oh? What did you hear?”

  “I heard the oil burner clicking, and the toilet flushing, and the Cats going up the mountain, and someone arguing down the hall, and somebody filing and grinding in the ski shop.” He was speaking to Wollender, but not really speaking to him. He was, instead, remembering those midnight voices raised in anger, and remembering that it was only later he had heard the noises in the shop, and gone to the window, and seen the light burning below. And then a curious thing happened. Instead of calling him “Mr. Wollender,” he suddenly called him “Elmer.”

  “Elmer,” he said, “something’s just occurred to me.”

  Elmer. And with the word, something new came into the room. With the word, he was suddenly transported back to the interrogation room at the 87th, where common thieves and criminals were called by their first names, Charlie, and Harry, and Martin, and Joe, and where this familiarity somehow put them on the defensive, somehow rattled them and made them know their questioners weren’t playing games.

  “Elmer,” he said, leaning over the desk, “it’s just occurred to me that since Maria couldn’t have seen anything on the mountain, maybe she was killed because she heard something. And maybe what she heard was the same arguing I heard. Only her room is right next door to Helga’s. And maybe she knew who was arguing.” He hesitated. “That’s pretty logical, don’t you think, Elmer?”

  “I suppose so,” Wollender said pleasantly. “But if you know who killed Maria, why don’t you go to…”

  “I don’t know, Elmer. Do you know?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “Yeah, neither do I, Elmer. All I have is a feeling.”

  “And what’s the feeling?” Wollender asked.

  “That you came to my room to listen, Elmer. To find out how much I had heard the night before Helga was murdered. And maybe you decided I heard too damn much, and maybe that’s why I was attacked on the mountain yesterday.”

  “Please, Mr. Hawes,” Wollender said, and a faint superior smile touched his mouth, and his hand opened limply to indicate the leg in the cast.

  “Sure, sure,” Hawes said. “How could I have been attacked by a man with his leg in a cast, a man who can’t get around without crutches? Sure, Elmer. Don’t think that hasn’t been bugg—” He stopped dead. “Your crutches,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Your crutches! Where the hell are they?”

  For just an instant, the color went out of Wollender’s face. Then, quite calmly, he said, “Right over there. Behind you.”

  Hawes turned and looked at the crutches, leaning against the wall near the door.

  “Fifteen feet from your desk,” he said. “I thought you couldn’t walk without them.”

  “I…I used the furniture to…to get to the desk. I…”

  “You’re lying, Elmer,” Hawes said, and he reached across the desk and pulled Wollender out of the chair.

  “My leg!” Wollender shouted.

  “Your leg, my ass! How long have you been walking on it, Elmer? Was that why you killed her on the mountain? So that…”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!”

  “…so that you’d have a perfect alibi? A man with his leg in a cast couldn’t possibly ride a lift or jump from it, could he? Unless he’d been in and out of that cast for God knows how long!”

  “My leg is broken! I can’t walk!”

  “Can you kill, Elmer?”

  “I didn’t kill her!”

  “Did Maria hear you arguing, Elmer?”

  “No. No…”

  “Then why’d you go after her?”

  “I didn’t!” He tried to pull away from Hawes. “You’re crazy. You’re hurting my leg! Let go of…”

  “I’m crazy? You son of a bitch. I’m crazy? You stuck a ski pole in one girl and twisted a towel around…”

  “I didn’t, I didn’t!”

  “We found the basket from your pole!” Hawes shouted.

  “What basket? I don’t know what…”

  “Your fingerprints are all over it!” he lied.

  “You’re crazy,” Wollender said. “How could I get on the lift? I can’t walk. I broke the leg in two places. One of the bones came right through the skin. I couldn’t get on a lift if I wanted…”

  “The skin,” Hawes said.

  “What?”

  “The skin!” There was a wild look in his eyes now. He pulled Wollender closer to him and yelled, “Where’d she scratch you?”

  “What?”

  He seized the front of Wollender’s shirt with both hands, and then ripped it open. “Where’s the cut, Elmer? On your chest? On your neck?”

  Wollender struggled to get away from him, but Hawes had his head captured in both huge hands now. He twisted Wollender’s face viciously, forced his head forward, pulled back the shirt collar.

  “Let go of me!” Wollender screamed.

  “What’s this, Elmer?” His fingers grasped the adhesive bandage on the back of Wollender’s neck. Angrily, he tore it loose. A healing cut, two inches long and smeared with iodine, ran diagonally from a spot just below Wollender’s hairline.

  “I did that myself,” Wollender said. “I bumped into…”

  “Helga did it,” Hawes said. “When you stabbed her! The sheriff’s got the skin, Elmer. It was under her fingernails.”

  “No,” Wollender said. He shook his head.

  The room was suddenly very still. Both men were exhausted. Hawes kept clinging to the front of Wollender’s shirt, breathing hard, waiting. Wollender kept shaking his head.

  “You want to tell me?”

  Wollender shook his head.

  “How long have you been walking?”

  Wollender shook his head again.

  “Why’d you keep your leg in the cast?”

  Again, Wollender shook his head.

  “You killed two young girls!” Hawes bellowed. He was surprised to find himself trembling. His hand tightened on the shirtfront, the knuckles showing white through his skin. Perhaps Wollender felt the sudden tension, perhaps Wollender knew that in the next instant Hawes would throttle him.

  “All right,” he said. His voice was very low. “All right.”

  “Why’d you keep wearing the cast?”

  “So…so…so she wouldn’t know. So she would think I…I was…was unable to walk. And that way, I could…could watch her. Without her knowing.”

  “Watch who?”

  “Helga. She…She was my girl, you see. I…I loved her, you see.”

  “Yeah, you loved her enough to kill her,” Hawes said.

  “That’s not why I…” He shook his head. “It was because of Kurtz. She kept denying it, but I knew about them. And I warned her. You have to believe that I warned her. And I…I kept the cast on my leg to…to fool her.”

  “When did it come off?” Hawes asked.

  “Last week. The…the doctor took it off right in this room. He did a bivalve, with an electric saw, cut it right down the side. And…and when he was gone, I…I figured I could put the two halves together again, and…and…hold it in place with…with tape. That way, I could watch her. Without her knowing I could get around.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “You know what I saw!”

  “Tell me.”

  “Friday night, she…I…I saw Kurtz leaving the annex. I knew he’d been with her.”

  “He was there to pick up Maria’s skates,” Hawes said. “To sharpen them.”

  “No!” Wollender shouted, and for a moment there was force in his voice, a vocal explosion, fury and power, and Hawes remembered again the brute strength of Wollender’s attack on the mountain. Wollender’s voice died again. “No,” he said softly, “you’re mistaken. He was with Helga. I know. Do you think I’d have killed her if…” His voice caught. His eyes suddenly misted. He turned his head, not looking at Hawes, staring across the room, the tears solidifying his eyes. “When I went up to her room, I warned her,” he said, his voice low. “I told her I had seen him, seen him with my own eyes, and she…she said I was imagining things. And she laughed.” His face went suddenly tight. “She laughed, you see. She…she shouldn’t have laughed.” His eyes filled with tears, had a curiously opaque look. “She shouldn’t have laughed,” he said. “It wasn’t funny. I loved her. It wasn’t funny.”

  “No,” Hawes said wearily. “It wasn’t funny at all.”

  The storm was over.

  The storm that had started suddenly and filled the air with fury was gone. The wind had died after scattering the clouds from the sky. They drove in the warm comfort of the convertible, the sky a clear blue ahead of them, the snow banked on either side of the road.

  The storm was over.

  There were only the remains of its fury now, the hardpacked snow beneath the automobile, and the snow lining the roads, and the snow hanging in the branches of the trees. But now it was over and done, and now there was only the damage to count, and the repairs to be made.

  He sat silently behind the wheel of the car, a big redheaded man who drove effortlessly. His anger was gone, too, like the anger of the storm. There was only a vast sadness inside him.

  “Cotton?” Blanche said.

  “Mmmm?” He did not take his eyes from the road. He watched the winding white ribbon and listened to the crunch of snow beneath his heavy-duty tires, and over that the sound of her voice.

 

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