The Maine Massacre Read Free Page B

pattern.
    "Beautiful country you have here, Mr. Tammart."
    "Yes, sir. You can call me Reggie if you like. Beautiful country indeed, sir, but when the snow covers the ground there isn't much to do except hunting and logging."
    "Is that what you do?"
    "I am Janet Wash's gardener, sir, amongst other things. I only hunt woodchucks because they ruin the gardens, but they're asleep in their holes now."
    "So you are 'logging'?" The commissaris didn't know what the word meant, but he thought the man would tell him. He had been trained not to show his ignorance but to let others fill him in, through their answers to his carefully planned questions.
    "Yes. Janet has woodstoves, she doesn't believe in oil. The stoves in the house go through a quarter of a cord a day and then there are the barrel stoves in the garage and the cabins. I have twenty cords out, but we'll need a lot more if the winter goes on like this."
    "You do all that on your own?"
    "No, sir, I have some help."
    Reggie spoke in a slow drawl, pondering his words. His friendliness was close to politeness, not the open cordial approach of the pilots and the hunters. Not an easy opponent, the commissaris thought as he slid into the back seat of the car. But the man wasn't an opponent, of course. He thought of his objective in coming to America. All he had to do was sell his brother-in-law's estate. The face of Suzanne's dead husband formed itself in his memory. He hadn't known the man well, but they had met a few times, when Opdijk was in Amsterdam on leave, or on business. A blunt man with a red face, not at all the polished banker he was supposed to be. A man who drank a lot and who told coarse but not unfunny jokes. The commissaris didn't think he had ever bothered to find out what Opdijk's position in the bank was. Ah, he remembered now, Opdijk had been an accountant, with a university degree. An expert on financial strategy. An inner-circle job most likely, checking computer charts in a room on the top floor of some New York skyscraper. An unlikely match for sad Suzanne. He also remembered what Suzanne had done during her short vacations in Amsterdam. She had bought antique chinaware in little stores, one piece at a time, after endless deliberation. Opdijk probably held her on a short leash. Well, anyway, the man was dead now. He wondered if Suzanne minded very much. She only seemed eager to get back to Holland. Perhaps Opdijk's death was a release for her.
    He mistook the blurred shape in the corner of the back seat for a bundle of blankets so that the sudden words startled him.
    "I am glad to see you are all in one piece. That little plane is a real bone rattler, don't you think?" A careful, pleasantly slow voice, as cool and firm as the hand that reached out for him and which he held for a moment as he lowered himself onto the seat and found a place for his cane.
    "Not at all, madam. I liked the plane, and the pilots know their job."
    "Good. And you had a clear sky."
    "Yes, and a wonderful view. It was very good of you to drive my sister to the airport and to meet me here, but you shouldn't have put yourself out. There were some gentlemen on the plane who offered me a ride to town."
    The long slender hand touched Reggie's shoulder. "Friends of ours, dear?"
    Reggie had the car in gear and the commissaris saw the pines slip away while the car turned into what seemed to be a bumpy country lane. Suzanne was in the front passenger seat, turned around and peering at him. He smiled encouragingly.
    "Not friends, Janet, acquaintances. The two Boston businessmen who bought that camp on Bartlett's Bay. They've come for the deer again."
    The refined voice acquired an icy edge. "The deer, of course, the hunting season. Every year I forget and every year there they are again, with their horrible red hats and orange jackets and coarse faces and dirty hands and their cartons of beer and their big cannons, banging away at the poor things. How many did they get last year,