“He held her captive. He kept her under lock and key.” Alfred turned his head, and his cheek glowed icy blue against the light coming through the window. “And as far as what he did to her, you don’t want to hear me say it, but you know well enough what he did.”
Her hands were quaking in her lap. She clutched them beneath the table.
“What is his name?” she said.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t—”
“You can,” Elisabeth said, snapping at him. “You can tell me everything, but you’re yanking me around instead. You’re torturing me. You’re leading—”
“I know, I know,” Alfred said, holding up his palms, “and I’m sorry, but you need to stay calm, Elisabeth. You need to trust me.”
“Why should I? Why should I believe any of this? Do you know what the police think? They think you’re a huckster. They don’t believe your confession. They think you’re toying with me.”
“I’m sure they do,” Alfred said.
“The compass. Tell me how you had it.”
“I bought it,” Alfred said. “After the war, I flew crop-dusting planes in Lancaster County, and I bought it from your father. He was—”
“What year?”
“What year was what?”
“What year did you buy the compass from my father?”
“I don’t know exactly. Probably sometime in ’nineteen or ’twenty, not long after I—”
“Your immigration record says you came here in 1929,” Elisabeth said flatly. “So now tell me why I should trust anything you say.”
Alfred slumped forward, narrowing his eyes. “My record says what?”
“It says,” she repeated, “that you came here from Germany in 1929, ten years after my sister disappeared.”
“That’s plainly wrong. That’s a mistake.”
“The police don’t think it is.”
“The police,” Alfred said, turning now in his seat, crossing one jaunty leg over the other, “should not be dealt with. I already told you that. Don’t listen to a word they say, Elisabeth. They’re the hucksters. They have their own agenda. All they want is to corrupt you. They want to split us apart. This is very important. You cannot speak with them about these matters or trust them in the least. They want—”
“So if your immigration record is wrong, when did you come over?”
“The summer of 1919,” Alfred said, “and that’s God’s honest truth. I flew crop-dusting planes in Lancaster County. I knew your father well. I’d call us friends, even. Frequently I saw him at Kohler’s Haus on Juniper Lane. Do you remember that place? A restaurant and contraband tavern. Augie Kohler owned it. Your father and I met there, and some months later I bought a number of tools and instruments from him, the compass among them.”
Yes, she was familiar with Kohler’s Haus on Juniper Lane. During her childhood, it had been a Lititz institution, and it was openly known—among adults, among children, even among the police—as one of the few places to buy a glass of beer, despite the ban on alcohol. And she remembered Augie Kohler vividly: a sweet, heavyset old man with an ages-old burn on his face, a patch of puckered skin around his lips that made him look as if he was always chewing something sour. The whole town had mourned him when he finally passed away when Elisabeth was in high school, and his restaurant closed immediately thereafter. Viktor Kohler, his only son, lived in Des Moines and had no interest in carrying on the family business. Still, knowing just how popular Kohler’s Haus had been, Elisabeth had reached out to Viktor in Iowa.
“Seidel?” he had said. “Was he a fat man? Blond haired?”
No, not blond, but he could have been fat, for all she knew. And then Viktor had sighed. He worked as a sales-and-loan manager at a bank, and she had felt then how beneath him this phone call was, how beneath him and how completely uninterested he was in anything she had to say.
“My father knew a lot of people, Mrs. Pfautz,” he had told her, “and he probably knew this fellow Seidel, but I can’t say for sure. Now, is there anything else?”
“And my father,” she said to Alfred now, “did he know the man who took my sister?”
“I believe he did,” Alfred said. “Lititz is hardly a large place.”
“And this man,” she said. She couldn’t let it go. She wouldn’t. “What did he look like?”
“Elisabeth—”
“You have to tell me something more.”
“I can’t.”
“Then tell me why you can’t. Tell me that, at least.”
“Please, Elisabeth—”
“You can’t control me like this,” she said, and now she stood. With a clattering slam, she pushed her chair beneath the table. “If what you want is my company, if what you want so desperately is my unrelenting attention, then here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to walk out of this room and never come back unless you give me something more. The man who took my sister. Tell me about him.”
Alfred hung his head. “He’s a fellow German.”
“Everyone is German. Tell me something more.”
“He’s my age. Mid-forties.”
“Does he have relatives in Lititz?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Does he have friends?”
“Unlikely,” Alfred said. “He kept to himself.”
“And what is his name?”
“Elisabeth—”
“Where does he live? In Pennsylvania?”
Alfred studied her. “No.”
“Then where?”
“Please, sit back down—”
“What does he do for a living? How did he know my sister? Did he know me, too?”
“I’ve already told you, you have to trust that I—”
“But you still haven’t told me why I should trust you.” She hovered over him, bracing her arms on the table. She wasn’t scared anymore. An energy palpitated all around her, and in its current she felt fearless. Not invincible, certainly. Not beyond harm. It was just that she no longer cared about what harm might come to her. If Alfred snapped and strangled her atop this very table, what difference would it make? This—her sister, finding out about her sister—was all that mattered to her now.
But Alfred was unintimidated. He stared back at her with the shimmering eyes of a madman, a killer, a prophet.
“You should trust me,” he said, “because I’m the only one who really loves you.” He let that settle in the air, and then he went on. “Your husband, your family, your Indians, even Margaret. What do you really mean to them? Have you asked yourself that? I don’t blame you if you haven’t, because the answer is difficult to bear. To your husband, you’re a servant. To your family, you’re a footnote. An orphaned child. And Margaret? There’s love there, perhaps, but how does a child’s love compare to a parent’s? It’s nothing.” He swept one hand through the air as if batting away a fly. “It’s primordial. It’s vacuous love. It’s as meaningful as a baby’s clutching. Strictly instinctive. But my love—” He sat straighter, looking up at her, and Elisabeth didn’t shy away. Across the table, they were speaking so close that they almost touched. “My love is the truest love you’ve ever had.” Alfred moved even closer. “The truest, that is, since your sister’s.” He sat back. “Now, aren’t you going to ask about my gift to you?”
She eased away.
“My gift,” Alfred said. “Our exchange. You kept your end of the bargain, visiting me here today, and now I’m going to keep mine.”
But before he had a chance to continue, the door to the visitation room swung open and a guard stepped inside, a mousy young man who couldn’t have been older than twenty. On cue, Alfred stood.
“Wait—” Elisabeth said.
“I’m sorry,” the guard told her, “but it’s already a q
uarter till six. Dinner’s almost over.” He walked to the table. Alfred extended his arms, and the guard reached for a pair of handcuffs that hung on his belt. “We have very strict mealtimes,” he said, and for a moment he looked as though he would say something more, but then he simply clasped the handcuffs around Alfred’s wrists.
“I’m sorry we’ve run out of time,” Alfred said, jostling as the guard tightened the cuffs, “but let me say that I still enjoyed this immensely.”
“We’re not done yet—”
“Relax,” Alfred told her, and he smiled. “I’m not shortchanging you.” With the guard lightly pressing at his back, Alfred reached into one pocket of his pants, his hands moving in unison though only the right grasped at the pocket’s contents. He pulled out a small beige envelope—the kind that a greeting card might come in—and, turning to the side, he laid it flat on the table. “This,” he said, “is my thanks to you,” and again he smiled. “Stay in touch, darling.”
Then he was gone, walking with the guard out of the room and down the hallway beyond. Elisabeth waited for their footsteps to recede completely before she stepped forward and reached for the envelope. It was unsealed, and she could feel that the envelope was old, its paper not beige—not originally—but rather yellowed with age. It contained a single photograph: a picture of Jacqueline.
She stood outdoors. The sun shined brightly. Overgrown grass reached up to her knees. Behind her, a cherry tree shined in the daylight, exploding so brilliantly that its unpicked fruit glowed like a cluster of stars. Jacqueline wore a plain white dress and stared straight at the camera, unsmiling but not angry. She just looked calm. Composed. Her arms hung loosely at her sides, and her fingers were curled very slightly. Elisabeth stood with the photo for what felt like whole minutes—motionless, her hands pulling the picture as taut as the skin of a drum—though it took only one glance for her to realize that this was a photo she had never seen before, one in which Jacqueline looked not eleven but thirteen or fourteen, at least.
CHAPTER 24
You are alone. You sit on the top stair of the front stoop, and you wait for your sister to return. You try to stay calm. You close your eyes and listen. You study your breath.
But it’s difficult to concentrate. You’re thinking of Jacob. Again and again, your mind starts racing, and you hear your sister’s warning. He’s coming over to get his things back. He’ll be here any moment. You can feel it. You brace yourself for a confrontation, and you wish that your father were here to protect you. From what? From everything. Jacob and so much more. You hug your knees against your chest and wish that this would all go away. You close your eyes, forcing back tears, and you try not to feel so alone.
Then, suddenly, you aren’t. You hear soft footsteps on the grass, and the chilly shadow of a figure passes over you. But when you open your eyes, it isn’t Jacob or Jacqueline who’s standing on the lawn. It’s your father. He holds a small paper bag in one hand, and he slips the other hand into his pocket. He smiles.
“Just the girl I was looking for,” he says. He walks forward. Takes a seat beside you on the stoop. “Nice evening, isn’t it? Good time for a walk.”
“Yes.”
You should tell him. You should talk to him. Now. Finally. Tell him what’s happening. But the words aren’t coming. Your tongue feels thick and fat, and you’re quiet. You swallow. Bow your head. You’re glad that your father is here, but now that he is, you wish that you could disappear. You wish that you could go upstairs, climb in bed, and go to sleep.
“You know,” your father says, “I always wanted daughters.”
You look up at him.
“Some people think that’s odd,” he says. “Most men want sons. They want little copies of themselves.” He puffs up his chest in a mocking imitation, squaring his shoulders and sitting straighter. “They want strong hands for the farm. They want more of what’s in the mirror.” He slouches, waving one hand through the air. Pff. “Fits to that,” he says. “I wanted daughters, and I always knew that’s what I’d get. Honestly. I knew it.” He smiles, and then he touches your cheek as if rubbing away a splotch of food. “Of course, I didn’t know I’d get two, not at the same time, but that suited me very well.”
For a while, the two of you are silent. How long has your sister been gone? Twenty minutes? Thirty? It’s nearly seven o’clock. What could be taking her so long? But the yard is empty, and there’s no sight of her coming up the road in the distance. You stare down at your feet. Your palms still burn from your work with the hammer, and you can feel how the web between your thumb and index finger will soon blister and break.
Tell him, you think. Just tell him, but your father’s voice comes before you can speak.
“I have something for you,” he says. He opens the paper bag and removes a silver chain held together with a clasp. It shines in the early evening light like a trickle of floating water. “I wasn’t at the hardware store,” he says. “I was at the jewelry store. I bought a pair of chains because I’ve made you something. You and Jacqueline both.” He pauses for a second, waiting for your reaction. His face drops. “Try to contain your excitement, please.”
“I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s just—” But that’s all you can manage for now.
Your father doesn’t sense your anxiety, or perhaps he mistakes it for something else. He waves one hand again, brushing the awkwardness away.
“You’ll be pleased to know,” he says, “that I spoke with your aunt about this, and she told me it’s very nice. Elegant, she said. I hope you’ll agree.”
With two fingers, he reaches into his shirt pocket and retrieves a silver locket, an oval of metal the size of an almond shell. He strings the chain through the locket’s hoop, and then he holds out the necklace for you to take.
It’s beautiful. More beautiful than the stolen cigarette case or the medals or anything else you’ve ever seen. Polished to a dazzling shine, its face is decorated with a hairline etching of a tree. Its roots mirror its tangled branches, and in this way the tree is a reflection of itself, a study in symmetry. This time next week, overcome with grief, you’ll hurl the locket into the Susquehanna River. But for now, it’s here. You hold the locket in your hand, and it’s marvelous and beautiful and new. A treasure.
“Open it,” your father says.
There’s a picture of Jacqueline inside. It’s a portrait from last summer, when your father took you and your sister to a photography studio in Lancaster. Jacqueline wears a dark dress with a lacy pinafore, and her hair is curled into ringlets. She stares straight into the camera, and she doesn’t smile.
“I made one for your sister, too,” your father says. From his shirt pocket he retrieves a second locket, one with the same etching of the double-image tree. Snapping the locket open, he shows you the portrait inside: a photograph of you, identical in style and composition to the photograph of your sister. “At first,” he says, stringing the other chain through the locket’s hoop, “I was going to put portraits of your mother inside. But the more I thought of it, the more I liked this better.” He clasps the chain and then palms the locket, staring down at your picture in the middle of his hand. “Your mother is gone,” he says. “What’s the point of carrying her around on your neck?” He looks at you. “But your sister,” he says. “You’ll always have your sister.”
You’re breathing harder now. Your shoulders ache. The locket is like a burning coal in your hand. Already, you know that something is wrong. Already, you know that your life has changed. But it’s only a feeling—a gathering premonition of dread—and you watch your father in a kind of daze. A shaking, terrible daze.
“I don’t like it when the two of you fight,” he says. “I don’t know what’s going on, and it’s not my business to know, but I hope you resolve it soon.” His hand closes around the locket, and it clicks shut in his palm. He sets his elbows on either knee, and he stares out across the yard. “Think
about it,” he says, dropping Jacqueline’s necklace into his shirt pocket. “Your sister will know you longer than anyone else. I’ve known you since you were born, but someday you’ll outlive me. I’ll be gone, Else, but you’ll still have your sister. And the years will march on, and you’ll have a husband and children and grandchildren, but none of them will ever know you for as long as your own sister. She’ll be your oldest friend. Your friend since the moment you were born. That’s why siblings are so special.”
And now you’re crying. Softly, silently, tears are streaming down your face, and you lower your head to your knees. Your father puts his hand on your back and rubs your shoulders.
“It’s you and her, Else. I know you know that, and I know your troubles now are only in passing, but it’s good to remind you sometimes. It’s you and her. You’re a team. I told your sister the same thing earlier this afternoon.”
Then something happens. The air seems to settle and cool, and your father’s hand pauses against your back. Everything has changed, and now he’s sensing it, too. He draws back his hand, and he’s quiet. He’s watching you. Thinking. Feeling.
“Where is your sister?” he says. You can hear the concern in his voice, his first revelation that something is terribly wrong. And when you don’t answer, his voice hardens, and he leans in closer. “Else,” he says. “Where is Jacqueline?”
The Brenners’ woods. The ravine south of town. The quarry off Penn Valley Road. In a few days, they’ll search them all, every man and trained hound in Lititz scouring the terrain like threshers cutting through a field.
But they’ll never find her, and they’ll never find the cigarette case or the dagger or the satchel. They’ll search Jacob’s house, too, but the house—even now—is empty. It’s owned by an elderly couple named Diehl, and they’ll explain that they had it leased to a man named Cullum who was months behind on his rent. Was he German? No, he had come from Georgia, or perhaps Mississippi. They’ll say they’ve never heard of anyone named Jacob Joseph, and despite your sister’s warning, no one will come to the house that night.
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