Out on the Cutting Edge

"No. Because the pirates themselves are dead. They were all shot down in a dope deal that went sour. It happened a couple of weeks after the piracy, and otherwise I very likely would never have found out anything substantial. But someone I met who knew people on the other end of that dope deal felt free to talk about what he knew, and I got as much of the story as I did."

He had a few more questions and I answered them. I'd had all day to get my story right, so I was prepared for the questions he raised. The last question took a long time coming; I'd expected it early on, but I guess he was reluctant to ask it.

"And the bodies?"

"Overboard."

"Burial at sea," he said. He was silent for a moment, and then he said, "She always loved the water.

When she—" and his voice broke. "When she was a little girl," he said, back in control again, "we spent our summers at the lake, and you couldn't get her out of the water. I called her a water rat, she would swim all day if we let her. She loved it."

He asked if I would hold on while he passed on what I'd reported to his wife. He must have covered the mouthpiece with his hand because I didn't hear anything at all for several minutes. Then she came on and said, "Mr. Scudder? I want to thank you for all you've done."

"I'm sorry to bring you this kind of news, Mrs. Hoeldtke."

"I must have known," she said. "I must have known ever since it happened. Don't you think so? On some level, I think I must have known all along."

"Perhaps."

"At least I don't have to worry anymore," she said. "At least now I know where she is."

Hoeldtke came on again to thank me, and to ask if he owed me money. I told him he didn't. He asked if I was sure of that and I said I was.

I hung up, and Willa said, "That was quite a story. You found out all that today?"

"Last night and this morning. I called him this morning to let him know it looked bad. I wanted to let him prepare himself and his wife before I gave him the details."

" 'Your mother is on the roof.' "

I looked at her.

"You don't know that story? A man's on a business trip and his wife calls him and tells him the cat is dead. And he has a fit. 'How can you say something flat out like that, you could give a person a heart attack. What you have to do is break it to a person gently. You don't call up and say in one breath that the cat climbed up on the roof and fell off and died. First you call up and tell me the cat is on the roof.

Then you call a second time and say people are trying to get the cat down, the Fire Department and all, but it doesn't look good. Then, by the time you call me a third time, I've prepared myself. Then you can tell me the cat is dead.' "

"I think I can see where this is going."

"Of course, because I led off with the punch line. He goes on a business trip and he gets another phone call from his wife, and he says hello, how are you, what's new, and she says, 'Your mother is on the roof.' "

"I guess that's what I was doing. Telling him his daughter was on the roof. Were you able to follow the whole thing by hearing one side of the conversation?"

"I think so. How did you find all this out? I thought you went looking for a crook who used to know Eddie."

"I did."

"How did that lead to Paula?"

"Luck. He didn't know anything about Eddie, but he knew people who took off the pirates in a dope deal. He put me on to somebody, and I asked the right questions, and I learned what I had to learn."

"Pirates on the open sea," she said. "It sounds like something out of an old movie."

"That's what Hoeldtke said."

"Serendipity."

"How's that?"

"Serendipity. Isn't that what you call it when you look for one thing and find something else?"

"It happens all the time in the kind of work I do. But I didn't know there was a word for it."

"Well, there is. What about all that business with her phone and answering machine? And all her clothes and things moved out, but the bed linens left."

"None of it amounted to anything. My guess is she took a lot of her clothes along on the weekend, and probably had other things stowed at an apartment her boyfriend was maintaining. When Flo Edderling went into her room, it looked empty to her, with nothing much visible except for the bedclothing. Then,

while the room was open, one of the other tenants probably appropriated whatever was left, thinking that Paula had left it behind on purpose. The answering machine was left on because she thought she was coming back. None of it turned out to be a clue to anything, but it kept me playing with the case, and then I lucked out and found the solution almost by accident. Or whatever you called it."

"Serendipity. Don't you like the coffee? Is it too strong?"

"There is no such thing. And it's fine."

"You're not drinking it."

"I'm sipping it. I've had gallons of coffee already today, it's been that kind of a day. But I'm enjoying it."

"I guess I don't have too much confidence in it," she said. "After all those months of instant decaf."

"Well, this is a big improvement."