Mystery

“I guess I’m all right.” He brushed the sparkling shred of glass off his wrist, then looked out at the still lake and the light in the Langenheims’ lodge.

“Tell me what happened,” his grandfather said.

“Somebody shot through the window,” Tom said.

“Are you hit?”

“No. I don’t think so. No. I’m just, ah, I’m just—I don’t know.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“No. There’s nobody out there.”

“Are you sure about what happened?”

“I’m not sure about anything,” Tom said. “Somebody almost shot me. The lamp blew up. Part of the window’s broken.”

“I’ll tell you what happened. Men from the town sometimes prowl through the woods, seeing if they can get an out of season deer. I remember hearing a lot of gunshots, up there. Hunters.”

Tom remembered Lamont von Heilitz saying something similar, that first night in his house.

“Hunters,” he said.

“One of them got off a wild shot. They’ll be long gone by now. How do you feel now?”

“Kind of shaky.”

“But you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason to call the police, unless you think you have to. After all, not much damage was done. The hunters will be halfway to the village by now. And the police up there never were much good.”

“Somebody shot at me!” Tom said. “You don’t think I should call the police?”

“I’m just trying to protect you. There’s a whole history you don’t know about, Tom.” His grandfather was breathing heavily, and his voice was slow and heavy. “As you proved by going to see Sam Hamilton.”

“Chet Hamilton,” Tom said. “His son.”

“Chet Hamilton! I don’t care! You’re not listening to me!” His grandfather’s voice had turned ragged. “It’s not like Mill Walk—the police are not on your side up there.”

Tom almost laughed. Everything was upside down.

“Did you hear me?” his grandfather asked.

“I’m going to call the police now.”

“Call me back when they leave,” his grandfather said, and hung up.

Tom replaced the receiver and stood up by inches, looking out of the window as he did so. His bottom ached from the fall. He rubbed the sore place, and then righted the chair and sat on it. The head of the lamp lolled toward him, and a small ragged hole perforated the shade. He touched the hole, and then looked down sideways at the juncture of the floor and the wall. Without the light, he could see only shadows where the bullet must have stopped. He wanted to turn on the other lamp in the room, but his legs would not let him get out of the chair. His blood made a tidal sound in his ears. Tom tilted the chair and looked up into the lamp. The bulb had disappeared, and the twisted socket canted over like a broken neck.

His grandfather had saved his life.

Then he could stand again, and he pushed himself away from the desk and turned on the lamp across the room. One small windowpane was broken, and the top of the lamp beside the desk lolled like a broken flower. A glitter of broken glass lay across the desk. Tom turned on the deck lights with the switch inside the back door, and the window lit up and the lake disappeared. He went back to the desk and looked down—he thought he would find a smashed hole, broken boards, and shattered molding, but at first saw nothing at all, and then only something that looked like a shadow, and then at last a neat hole in the wooden wall, eight or nine inches above the molding.

In ten minutes someone knocked at the front door. Tom peered out and saw the blond policeman who had arrested the drunk on Main Street. “Mr. Pasmore?” he said. His police car had been pulled up in front of the lodge, and all its lights were turned off—Tom had expected a siren and flashing lights. “You’re the person who called? I’m Officer Spychalla.”

Tom stepped back and let him in.

“I understand you had some trouble. Show me where it happened, and then I’ll take some information.” Spychalla looked as if he were straining out of his uniform, stretching the dark blue cloth and the taut black leather. His belt creaked when he moved.

He gave the office a quick inspection, made some notes in a small ringbound notebook, and asked, “Where were you sitting at the time of the incident?”

“At the desk, talking on the telephone,” Tom said.

Spychalla nodded, walked around the desk, looked at the lamp and the bullet hole, and then went out on the deck to see the window from the outside. He came back and made more notes. “There was only the single shot?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Spychalla raised his eyebrows and flipped to a new page in his notebook. “You’re from Mill Walk? What are your age and occupation?”

“Officer, don’t you think you should send some men up into the woods, and see if you can find who shot at me?”

“Your full-time residence is on the island of Mill Walk? What are your age and occupation?” His jaw was as square as a box, and the point of the pencil above the clean sheet of paper was perfectly sharp.

“I live on Mill Walk, I’m seventeen, I’m a student.”

Spychalla raised his eyebrows again. “Date of birth?”

“Is that going to help you?” Spychalla waited with his pencil in his hand, and Tom gave his birth date.