The Lighthouse

She blinked at Sinclair, realizing she’d lost the thread of his questioning. He was a chubby man dressed in a gray tweed jacket and gray slacks; his mustache was the only distinctive feature in an otherwise bland face, and that only because it grew more fully on the right side than on the left. He seemed sensitive to the defect, because periodically he stroked the sparser side-as if it were a defenseless animal in need of comforting. To the casual observer, his appearance might have been deceptively reassuring, but her artist’s eye picked out the determined ridges of muscle around his mouth, the sharp intelligence concealed beneath the bland exterior and thick dark-rimmed glasses. When he’d questioned them after the murder of the hitchhiker, she had recognized and been made wary by those qualities. After close to an hour with him this morning, she had come to regard him as a man who would be a dangerous adversary.

She cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t hear what you said.”

His mouth twitched reprovingly; he patted the left side of his mustache as if it were responsible for the twitch and he wanted to calm it. “I said that I’d like to go over the chronology of events another time, to make sure I have everything straight.”

“All right.”

Sinclair looked down at the notepad he’d been writing on. “Now, Mrs. Ryerson, you say you couldn’t sleep, so you got up early and went for a walk?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Was there any particular reason for your sleeplessness?”

“No. I was just… restless. Things on my mind.”

Sinclair cocked his head interrogatively.

“The book my husband and I are working on,” she said.

“Ah, yes. A history of North American lighthouses, isn’t it?”

“Yes. He’s writing it and I’m illustrating it.”

Sinclair nodded. “What time did you leave on your walk?”

“Close to seven.”

“And your husband was asleep at the time?”

“He was, yes.”

“Mr. Ryerson,” Sinclair said to Jan, “were you aware your wife had gone out?”

“No. I’m a very sound sleeper.”

“And you were stilj asleep when she came back and told you what she’d found?”

“Yes.”

Again Sinclair consulted his notepad, allowing the silence to build. Jan was also looking at it, as if trying to read what the detective had written there. Then his gaze flicked up and over to Alix. There was a vague glassy quality to them, she thought, as if they were filmed with a thin layer of ice. But Sinclair wouldn’t have noted that. Or had he?

The questioning continued. Why had Alix walked so far this morning? Because she’d wanted to exercise. What had made her notice Mandy’s bicycle? Why had she gone as far as that circle of pines looking for the girl? On and on, some of the questions asked more than once, in subtly different guises. Then he shifted gears and asked again about the trouble they’d been having here at the light. Alix had explained it once, holding nothing back; it would have been foolish not to, and it diverted suspicion away from Jan, perhaps to where it actually belonged.

“Mr. Ryerson,” Sinclair asked, “why didn’t you call us when these things started happening-the polluted well, the rats in the pantry?”

“What could you have done without proof of who was responsible? What can you do now?”

“Talk to Mr. Novotny, for one thing. Surely you could see the value in at least filing a report.”

“I suppose so.”

“I think we might have done that today,” Alix said quickly. “Even if this terrible new thing hadn’t happened.”

“Mandy Bamett’s murder, you mean?”

“My finding her body. Yes.”

“But that is why you told me about the incidents?”

“Well, we didn’t want to hold anything back,” she said, “anything that might be important. Mandy’s death could be related to what Mitch Novotny has been doing to us, couldn’t it?”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. But her father is a friend of Novotny’s. It’s possible he was involved in those malicious acts against us.”

Sinclair made a note but said nothing.

Alix went on. “And the girl was on her way to see me last night. She said on the phone she needed to talk to me. I don’t see what else she could have wanted to talk about except the harassment; there was no other connection between us.”

“You think she wanted to tell you who was responsible? Or something else?”

“I just don’t know.”

Sinclair stroked his lopsided mustache. “You can be sure we’ll look into that possibility, Mrs. Ryerson. Among others. Meanwhile, I think it would be a good idea if you and your husband filed a report on the incidents as soon as possible.”

“Yes. Whatever you say.”

“Mr. Ryerson? Do you agree?”

Jan nodded. “Yes, all right.”

More questions. On and on, until the sound of his voice began to grate on Alix’s nerves. She continued to watch Jan closely, to see if he was starting to weaken under the constant barrage of questions. But he seemed the same as he had at the beginning, with his fear still masked beneath his calm exterior, just as Sinclair’s bulldog tenacity was masked beneath his calm exterior.