Kane.”
“We have no evidence. No body.”
“Have you looked?”
“Why should we?”
“Have you been in touch with Malcolm Hunter?”
Straehle said: “This is not a police state, Forbes.” He looked regretful for a moment, as if he wished it were. “We have no jurisdiction over the comings and goings of anyone not a known criminal.”
“Hunter has been charged by Kane’s wife with a criminal act. A slight case of murder.”
“Are you working for Hunter?” Straehle asked.
“His brother hired me.”
Straehle tried to smile. It was too much for him. “Jan Hunter has no money. He lives on an allowance Malcolm doles out to him, perhaps simply to keep him in club funds and theater tickets in New York. Jan Hunter is of no consequence.”
“But Malcolm is?”
“In Omega, yes.”
“Can he get away with murder?”
Straehle stood up. The pigeons fluttered off the window ledge. His voice was savage. “Forbes, I checked up on you this morning. You’re a snooper, hired by a weak-minded man who sees ogres under every bush. I am perfectly capable of handling anything that needs attention here. I advise you to forget about the matter and go home.”
“Has Alex Kane any family?”
Straehle looked surprised. “No. Just his wife.”
“So nobody really misses him, is that it?”
“You son of a bitch,” Straehle grated. “Are you looking for trouble?”
“My job is to find Hunter. Maybe he doesn’t want to be found. When I locate him, I’m supposed to help him. Maybe he doesn’t want to be helped. Everybody in Omega seems ready to fall over each other in their willingness to lend Mal Hunter a hand. Maybe I’m wasting my time. For my money, I’d rather be working for Alex Kane, sight unseen. But I’m getting paid for this, and I intend to follow it through. Is that clear, Mr. Straehle?”
“Get out of my office.”
Barney said: “You’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later. You’re going to have to help me find Alex Kane and Malcolm Hunter.”
Straehle’s mouth drained white, puckered. “Do you want me to put you under arrest right now?”
“On what charge?”
“I can think of several, easily enough.”
“And have Peterman, Klassen, Smith, Woolley and Smith on your neck?” Barney asked. This was a bluff. He knew that at the slightest hint of legal difficulty, he would be cut adrift and disowned. He said: “I think you’re covering something. I think you’re sheltering Malcolm Hunter, because he owns you, body and soul, like he seems to own everybody up here.”
“And he owns you,” Straehle sneered. “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”
“Up to a point.”
“With Mal Hunter, you go all the way with him, or you go down the drain. Which is exactly why you ought to be making tracks for the railroad station, Forbes. Go back to town and tell that soft-headed Jan Hunter that Mal won’t thank him for interfering.”
“Then I get no help from you?” Barney asked.
“You get the boot, snooper.”
“Well, thanks for your courtesy,” Barney said.
He went out.
The door slammed violently behind him.
Barney walked thoughtfully across the square, with its bench-warmers and pigeons and squirrels. The fat man and the nervous man appeared behind him. They looked unhappy about their job. He was angry enough to double back and confront them, but it would be interesting to give them rope. He walked on with his thoughts, frowning in the hot sun.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. He found a garage and was sent from there to a Chevrolet agency and rented a small tan coupe, two years old. He took his time inspecting it. The fat man stood wearily in the shade of an awning across the road; the young, nervous one disappeared. When Barney thought he had given them enough time, he closed the deal and drove north out of Omega.
He followed the shore of the lake. The asphalt road became gravel, then a simple dirt trail that wound along the pine-clad peninsulas that thrust green fingers into the aching blue water. Now and then he glimpsed a panoramic view down the length of the lake, south to the hotel. There were rustic cottages along the waterfront, with here and there a more pretentious summer home. The air seemed kissed with wine.
Behind him, in the dust of his rented car, a green sedan clung doggedly to his trail. In it were the fat man and the nervous man.
Lily would have liked Omega, Barney thought. He remembered how she had looked in a sharkskin bathing suit, golden skin glowing with health, her red mouth laughing, her gray eyes soft and gentle. The twist of pain in him was as sharp as it had ever been. It had been a dream, a fantasy, that house on the Sound, everything new and crisp, even the shining new car, that damned new car....
Stop it, he told himself.
He came at last to where the sign said Arrow Cove and turned into a rutted road that led directly to the lake shore. The other car followed, then dropped out of sight.
Alex Kane’s place was a rustic lodge, with a screened porch overlooking the lake, a small dock, and another shed building down on the rocks with a luncheonette sign on it. Barney tried to remember what he had been told about Kane—a Korean war veteran, a native of Omega, who had saved his pay, received the Bronze Star and a cluster for gallantry, came home, married the town tart, and set himself up in business, catering to the boaters on the lake in summer and hunters in the fall.
The luncheonette was closed now. No vacationers in canoes or outboards crowded the dock for a coke and hamburger. Barney got out of the car, careful not to slam the door. He heard the swift trickle of water from a stream that fell white over the rock ledge behind the house and foamed into the lake. A bluebird made a flash of color against green cedars. The sky was like a crystal bubble. A squirrel scolded him as he walked to the house.
A radio crooned from beyond the screened door. Barney let himself silently into a pine-paneled kitchen where the unwashed dishes were piled high in the sink. Ashtrays overflowed with carmine-tipped cigarettes. Field mice had nibbled at a flour bag and caused a small stream of white to spill over the counter. The radio played on. He held his hand out to stop the screened door from slamming, then crossed the tiled floor.
The living room was comfortable, with large windows facing the lake for most of the wall, then yielding to a screened porch. The mountains looked unreal, far out there. On the paneled wall was a crude oil painting hung over the fieldstone fireplace. The hearth overflowed with ashes that nobody had bothered to clean up. There were bright Indian blankets over the couch. A lamp lay toppled that also had proved too much bother for someone to straighten. The empty liquor
