She was thinking of Mack. She was feeling the weight of what had happened: that she had lost her closest friend in Tanacross, and one of the closest friends she had ever had. And she had lost him tragically. Brutally.
“His goddamn brains . . .” Daniel had said. “His goddamn brains . . .”
Again and again, she let herself imagine it. She forced herself. She saw Mack’s ruined face. She heard his screaming. She saw Alfred’s wild eyes. She saw pools of blood. She heard the dull smack of metal hitting bone.
Had something like that happened over cards? No. It had been over her, though she couldn’t guess the reason. I was protecting you, Alfred had said, and that may have been the truth as he saw it, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Elisabeth was sure of that. She was missing something. For now, the picture wasn’t clear.
But the simple fact remained: It was she who had let him stay in Tanacross. Whatever Alfred’s motive, she was at the center of this. And in that way she was guilty. Because of her, Mack was gone. And for that, she cried.
But as much as she felt guilt and grief, Elisabeth felt shame in equal measure. Because over and over, no matter how concertedly she tried to think of Mack, she thought of her sister even more. Mack was dead, yet he wasn’t even the foremost person in her thoughts. How could he be?
After all, Alfred was involved in her sister’s disappearance. She knew it through and through. She felt it like heat, and already her mind was racing with what involved could mean. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t forgetful, not when it came to that summer. For twenty years, she had lived with the clues. The medals. The dagger. The money. The plan to run away. An older man—a German, no less. Involved could mean anything, but when it came to Alfred Seidel and her sister’s disappearance, it meant one of two things: Either Alfred knew the person who took her, or he was the one who had done the taking. After twenty years of nothing, she was one step closer to finding her sister, and she’d be damned if she didn’t get closer still.
And wasn’t that marvelous? Bitterly, shamefully marvelous? Sorrow, guilt, joy, disgrace: She felt it all, until at last she was lying silently in the dark, staring up at the black-and-white-tiled ceiling in a state of exhausted bewilderment. Then, a knock on the door.
“Mrs. Pfautz,” a voice said. “The detective is ready for you.”
His name was Sam York. Briefly, she had spoken with him in Tanacross, but they had ridden different planes to Fairbanks: York and Alfred—and Mack—had been in one plane, and Elisabeth and two deputies had been in another. After a short drive from Ladd Army Airfield, York and Alfred had disappeared into the depths of the station, and Elisabeth was offered the cot.
Now she sat in York’s office. The room was a hurricane of papers, manila folders, and notes tacked to the walls. On his desk sat an old-fashioned candlestick phone, flanked by a steel coffeepot and an ashtray blooming with dozens of cigarette butts. York sat behind his desk, and Elisabeth stared at him in a daze. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and the sun was blasting through the windows.
Lanky and narrow shouldered, it was easy to see the man that York had once been. Lithe. Lean. A man like a lightweight boxer—quick on his feet but also clever, the kind of man whose slightest movement was artful and cunning. But at this middle point of his life, age had started overtaking him. He had a bulbous, oval belly and a roll of stubble-covered fat beneath his chin, additions still so new that he was clearly unadjusted to their presence on his body. When he moved, he lumbered; when he sat, he fidgeted. Whatever sense of canniness he’d once possessed was now replaced with an almost painful appearance of unease.
“Sorry you’ve been waiting so long,” York said. “Busy night.”
“You mean morning.”
“Yes,” York said, glancing at the window. “I guess I do.”
“Do you always work through the early morning?”
“Just in the summer.” He shrugged. “What’s the point of sleeping?”
He could have smiled, but he didn’t. He wasn’t joking. He looked down at the papers in front of him, a sprawl of typewritten loose-leaf and handwritten notes torn out from a pad.
“What did Alfred tell you?” Elisabeth said.
York was quiet for a second. “Can you be more specific?”
“What did Alfred tell you about the murder?”
“We can get to that in a minute,” York said, picking up a pencil, “but first I was hoping you’d help me get a few things straight. Standard procedure, you know.” He smiled, faintly, and he flipped open a new page in his notebook. “For starters, I understand that Mr. Seidel had been visiting you.”
“Not visiting, but he was staying with us, yes.”
“I don’t follow. You mean he—”
“Our house has a guest room,” Elisabeth said, “and I felt obligated to help him. I wish I hadn’t. Obviously.”
“Help him how?”
“He said he needed sleep. He said he was exhausted.”
York was scribbling rapidly. “Why didn’t he stay with someone else?”
“My husband works for the OIA. Our house is owned by the government. It’s the school, and it’s our home, and it’s also a—” She couldn’t find the right word. “It’s not a hotel, exactly. It’s not like we charge any money for the room. But it’s the place in town where visitors stay. Government visitors. And he asked to stay.”
And so I let him, she almost added, but Elisabeth stopped herself short. She couldn’t bring herself to say those words. She felt sick even thinking them. She had let this happen, and she could have stopped it had she tried. It wasn’t the first time she had let something horrible come to pass. First her sister, and now—
No, don’t think like that. Don’t get caught up. Think about what you can do. Where you can go from here. Jacqueline. Alfred knew about Jacqueline. Think of that. Go forward.
“And when did Mr. Seidel arrive?” York said.
“Tuesday.”
“Was he agitated at all?”
“No. I told you, he was tired. He slept.” Then Alfred’s voice came back to her. You really didn’t hear it? Just a moment ago. Just outside. “Well,” she said, “actually, he woke up briefly in the middle of the night. He had some sort of nightmare. He thought he heard someone knocking on the door. But then he went back to sleep.”
“And the following day . . .”
“He worked on his plane. Repairs.” She crossed her legs. “Don’t you already know all this?”
“Just trying to make sure I have everything right,” York said, glancing up at her for the briefest moment. “And Mr. Sanford helped him with his plane?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Seidel ever talk about Mr. Sanford? How did they know each other?”
“They didn’t. And, no, there was no talk about Mack. Not to me.”
“And what about the war?”
“What about it?”
York looked up. “Did Mr. Seidel talk about the war in Europe?”
“No,” Elisabeth said, “but he told us about his service in the Great War. He told us”—she cocked her head—“he said some strange things.”
“But did he mention anything about the war today?”
“No.”
York scribbled. “What about politics? Did he talk about politics?”
“What does this have to do with Mack?”
“I’m just doing my job,” York said. “I’m trying to understand.”
“Understand what?”
York went on with his scribbling. “If Mr. Seidel’s politics or heritage have anything to do with what happened.”
“Why in the world would that be the case?”
“Again, I’m just doing my job. I’m trying to cover all the bases.”
“And that’s wonderful, thank you,” Elisabeth said, “but can you answer my question now?”<
br />
Still scribbling. “About what?”
“What did Alfred tell you?”
“A number of things.”
“Did he tell you why he did it?”
Now, finally, York set his pencil down, and he sat back in his chair. “Yes. He told me they fought over a game of cards.”
“Do you believe that?”
He thought for a moment, frowning. “I suppose I do, yes.”
“Then why are you asking questions about the war?”
“Procedure,” York said. “Due diligence.”
“Well, you’re asking the wrong questions. I can tell you that. You’re stuck on the wrong topic.”
“All right, Mrs. Pfautz,” York said, lifting his pencil again. “Why do you think Alfred murdered Mr. Sanford?”
“I don’t know why he did it. That’s your job, remember?”
“May I ask why you’re being so difficult?”
Exhaustion. Frustration. Twenty years of missing answers. But she only blinked, sighing, and she tried to remove the bite in her voice. “He’s not telling the truth,” Elisabeth said. “There’s something more going on, and it hasn’t got anything to do with the war. Did he tell you about my sister?”
“Yes, he did.”
“And what did he say?”
“He implicated himself in your sister’s disappearance.” York shuffled through his papers. “Jacqueline Metzger, was it? Lititz, Pennsylvania?”
“Yes,” Elisabeth said. “But it wasn’t just a disappearance. She was taken.”
“By who?”
“Someone she knew,” Elisabeth said. “Someone she thought was her friend.” And I let it happen. I made it happen. But Elisabeth gritted her teeth and pushed those thoughts away. Look forward, not back. Move. Make things right. “She had come to know someone, and I don’t know exactly who that someone was. But he’s the one who took her.”
“That’s not what it says here.”
“What does it say?”
York set one finger on a page, his hand moving in time as he read. “That no one was ever charged. That no arrests were made. Searchers found nothing. That Miss Metzger disappeared.”
“Children don’t disappear,” Elisabeth said. “Children are taken, and my sister was taken, and Alfred knows something about that. Maybe everything.”
“You’re saying—”
“I’m saying he was involved. He either took her himself, or he knows the person who did. One of those two. He was involved. He was there.”
York bobbed his head, flipping through papers. “That’s actually why we’ve had you waiting so long, Mrs. Pfautz. We’ve been making some calls. We’ve been in touch with the Lancaster County Police Department, and with a few other folks, too. Time zones can be convenient sometimes.” He scratched the side of his head. “But I’m still confused: What all does your sister’s disappearance have to do with Mr. Sanford’s murder?”
“I don’t know,” Elisabeth said. “That’s something you’ll have to tell me. “
Now Sam York leaned his full weight back in his chair. It creaked, springs stretching as it went, and York made a steeple with his hands. His eyes turned down, and suddenly it showed how tired he was.
“Mr. Seidel had nothing to do with your sister,” York said.
The room felt very small, and very quiet. She could hear her own heartbeat. She could smell the stink of Sam York’s breath. She felt dizzy. “What?”
“With a thing like this,” York said, “we look into immigration records. Just an hour ago I was on the phone with New York. Your sister went missing in 1921, correct?”
Her silence confirmed it.
“Well, Mr. Seidel immigrated to the United States in 1929, so he couldn’t have been responsible for that.”
“Involved,” Elisabeth said. “He told me involved. I don’t care what year he came over. He could have been visiting. He could have had relatives in the area. He could have been going by a different name. Something. He was involved.”
“He’s toying with you,” York said in his own version of the teacher’s voice, stern and uncompromising, the chilly voice of authority. “I’m going on sixteen years in this job, and I know it when I see it. You might be surprised, but people do this all the time. They like to be big shots. They do something that’ll send them up the creek, and so they figure, ‘Why not? I’ll tack some other stuff on top.’ Murder, rape”—he gestured at the papers on his desk—“missing kids. These things are trophies to them. Badges of honor. And if they know they’re getting sent away forever, they try to collect as many as they can.”
“That’s not true. . . .”
“Just because a guy says he did something doesn’t mean he actually did it.”
And the plain simplicity of that made her pause. York was right: She was making a leap. For a time, her sister’s disappearance had been talked about in every corner of southeastern Pennsylvania. Her photograph had cycled through newspapers, post offices, courthouses, and telephone poles. Alfred could have seen her picture on their walls in Tanacross and recognized Jacqueline from years before. He was a murderer, and perhaps he was a liar, too. Maybe it was all as simple as that.
But it wasn’t. There was something here. Something more. How did she know? Instinct. Her deepest core. But what drove her certainty was a force even greater than that. I bet you dream about her, Alfred had said. Don’t you? I dream about her, too. That wasn’t just Alfred talking. It was the universe, and it was her sister. Elisabeth believed him about his dreaming, and she believed in the connection between her dreams and his. Her sister was speaking to them both, bringing them together.
But she couldn’t tell York that, could she? Elisabeth imagined his smile—a wry, pitying grin. Thinly veiled loathing. She had seen that smile from John, from strangers, from countless other men. Always men. And she would see it from York if she said a thing like that.
“All I’m asking,” Elisabeth told him, “is that you look into this. All I’m asking is that you do your job.”
“I do my job every day, Mrs. Pfautz, and I’ll keep on doing it until it’s done. I’m sorry about what you’ve been through. I really am. And of course I’ll look into this, but I’m telling you now that I’m not going to find anything.”
There was no use in going on. She was wasting her time. Elisabeth stood, and she started for the door.
“Every effort will be made to investigate Mr. Seidel’s claim,” York said. “But I’m just being realistic. I’m telling you what I think.”
She turned. “He said he was involved. He confessed. What else would you call that?”
“Fine,” York said, “and I confess to the murder of Thelma Todd. Me, and about a hundred other guys who have never even set foot in California. See? Someone confessing a crime doesn’t mean it’s a true confession. It might just mean they’re an asshole looking for laughs.” He blinked. “Pardon the language.”
“But this isn’t Thelma Todd,” Elisabeth said. “This is my sister, and this is a man who—”
“I’ll say it again,” York told her. “We’re going to look into it. I never said we wouldn’t. But the guy isn’t telling us anything more about your sister, and I’m guessing that’s not going to change. But we’ll see. We’ll keep trying with him, and we’ll look into it on our end, too. What more do you want me to do?”
“Nothing,” Elisabeth said. “This has all been very helpful,” and she opened the door and let it slam shut behind her.
She already knew where this would take them: nowhere. York would get nothing more out of Alfred, and he would get nothing from an investigation, whatever that meant. Her sister’s disappearance was twenty years gone. If the police in Lititz couldn’t find anything at the time it happened, there was no way that police halfway around the world would find something two decades after the fact, all the more if they doubt
ed Alfred’s involvement in the first place.
But York was wrong about Alfred. His instinct wasn’t as keen as hers, not when it came to her sister. Nobody’s was. Alfred was involved, and Elisabeth was going to find out exactly how, and exactly what he knew. Bursting through the station doors and standing in the bright Alaskan sun, Elisabeth felt as if her entire life had been leading to this moment. Every dream she had ever had about Jacqueline, every inchoate feeling that had told her, Yes, your sister’s alive, had been leading squarely to Alfred Seidel. She had failed her sister once before. She had made this happen, and she had carried the guilt of that like a stone in her stomach. It haunted her. It ruined her.
But now she would make amends. She wouldn’t fail Jacqueline again. She had been waiting for Alfred Seidel since she was eleven years old, and now he was here. She was going to find out how he had been involved, and then she was going to find her sister. Elisabeth stood in the sunlight for a long while. She closed her eyes, but she had never felt so awake.
CHAPTER 11
You expect an excuse. You expect the answer—somehow, for some reason—to be No, he doesn’t want to meet you. But then, as you and Jacqueline are walking to Black’s Market for flour and milk, your sister takes you by the arm and steers you north.
“Now you’ll see he isn’t strange,” she says, pulling you close and whispering, though there isn’t any need to whisper. The afternoon is bright and busy and oblivious. “Just be nice, okay?”
You’re surprised, really. Astonished by the detour. But then something else, too: You’re excited. You’re nervous, of course, but mostly you’re excited—fear and anxiety and adventure boiling together in your stomach. Your head feels light, and you can’t help but smile.
“This is marvelous,” you say, not intending to sound so much like Jacqueline. Or maybe you are. Your sister smiles back, and the two of you walk a little faster.
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