“It’s all right,” she said, and they stepped into the foyer. She lead the way into a living room that resembled one Winter lived in for a period in his life, white stucco and windows that opened out onto a balcony, which already looked searing hot in the morning sun. The balcony door stood open, and Winter saw an empty cast-iron table beneath an umbrella.
She was wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts that were wide and long and looked comfortable. Summer wear, even though it was almost September.
Tomorrow I’ll wear shorts again, Winter noted. There’s no way to cloak yourself anyway. He thought about his sister, who’d called yesterday and invited him over again. He didn’t know why. He’d call her back when he had the time.
“I suppose I ought to offer you coffee or something, but I’d like to know what this is about first,” Andrea Maltzer said.
They asked her what she had been doing at Delsjo Lake. When do you mean? They were as specific as they dared be. Then? She had wandered off awhile after Peter left. Why? She needed to think, and Winter heard Angela’s voice.
Andrea Maltzer had needed to think over why she was seeing a married man “on the sly,” as she put it. Taking his car would have been “compromising.” That was the word she used. She sat in it for a while and then went over to the cafe and waited for the cab she’d called on her cell phone. They took down all the details, and she shook her head when they asked if she had a receipt-which would have been off the books anyway, if she’d had it. They could check up on that phone call. Winter believed her. People did strange things and perfectly natural things all at the same time. Scratch von Holten, maybe. Fine by me. Winter asked if she’d noticed anything whatsoever while she was sitting there.
“When I was alone? After Peter was gone?”
“Yes.” He could then ask about what they had done together, if they had paid much attention to their surroundings. “It’s important that you think about it. Anything at all could be of help.”
“I can put on some coffee while I think about it.”
“Before you do that,” Ringmar cut in, “could you tell us where you’ve been for the last few days?”
“Here,” she said. “And one other place, but mostly here, I think.”
“We’ve been trying to reach you,” Ringmar said.
“I didn’t want anyone to reach me,” she said. “I unplugged the answering machine and switched that off.” She nodded at the cell phone on the living room table. “And I haven’t read the paper or listened to the radio. Or watched TV.”
“What for?”
“I thought I explained that.”
“Didn’t you hear the doorbell?”
“No. I must have been out then.”
“You didn’t get any messages from anyone?”
“Peter came by and slid an envelope under the door, but I threw it away.”
“What did he write?”
“I don’t know. I threw it away unopened.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. It went out with the trash, in case you’re wondering.”
Winter nodded. It wasn’t hard for someone to stay out of sight if they wanted to. It was even their right.
“I had a few vacation days left.”
Winter nodded again. He wanted to leave, but they weren’t done yet.
“Anything else you’d like to know?” she asked when neither Winter nor Ringmar spoke.
“What you saw, if you saw anything,” Winter said.
“I was going to think about that in the kitchen,” she said.
“That’s right,” Winter said.
He looked around after she left the room. Two framed photographs stood on a paint-stripped cabinet. No picture of Peter von Holten. One of them was of a wedding couple, possibly her parents-the picture looked like it had been taken thirty years ago. Classic matrimonial attire though. No sign of flirting with that era’s flower power.
The other photo was a black-and-white outdoor scene with no people in it-a house somewhere in the archipelago. The house might have been red and it was situated a short distance above a rocky shoreline. He could make out portions of an out-of-focus jetty in the foreground. There were no clouds behind the house. To the left was a sign warning of an underwater cable. There was a stonework stairway, as if carved from the rock, leading from the jetty up to the house.
He recognized it. He had seen this cabin himself, from the sea. You could sail around the promontory to the left and into an inlet three hundred yards farther on and hike up a hill lined with wind-battered juniper trees. Just behind the hill, on the lee side, was another house, which had belonged to his parents when he was a kid. He was twelve when they sold it, and he had sailed past it a few times since then but rarely gone ashore. He missed it now.
Andrea Maltzer had returned to the room and saw him in front of the photo. She said the name of the island.
“I thought it looked familiar,” Winter said. “My parents had a house there, but that was a long time ago.”
“My parents bought the place a few years back.”
“I guess that explains why I didn’t recognize you,” Winter said, and turned around. A tray stood on the table, and she had sat down and was eyeing him strangely. “I mean, there were no little kids there back then.”
She smiled but said nothing. Winter sat opposite her. She gestured toward the tray and Ringmar did the honors. Winter suddenly felt impatient, even more restless than usual. The photograph from the island had affected him. There was no room in his head for personal memories right now. Something had led him here too. He didn’t believe in coincidences, never had. Many crimes were solved by chance, or what might be referred to as coincidences, but Winter didn’t believe in them. There was a purpose. Chance had a purpose.
“That’s my refuge,” she said. “That’s where I am when I’m not here. Like yesterday.”
“Do you remember anything from the night we’re talking about?” Ringmar asked.
“I remember that I saw a boat,” she said. “Out on the lake.”
“A boat,” Ringmar repeated.
“A white boat or beige. Plastic, I assume.”
“Was it far out?”
“It was a ways out on the lake. I saw it when I climbed out of the car-when I decided that I’d borrowed Peter’s car for the last time.”
“Describe exactly what you saw,” Winter said. “As best you can.”
“Like I said. A boat out on the water that appeared to be lying pretty still. I didn’t hear anything. No motor.”
“Did you see an outboard motor on it?”
“No. But if there had been an outboard, I wouldn’t have seen it in the dark anyway.” She put down her cup.
“No sound of rowing? You heard nothing?”
“No. But I could see that there was someone sitting in the boat.”
“Some
“It looked that way.”
“You’re not sure?”
“It was too dark to be sure.”
“Would you recognize the boat if you saw it again?”
“Well, I don’t know. But I remember the shape of it, the size more or less.”
“What did you do then?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long did you stand there?”
“Five minutes maybe. I guess I didn’t think much about it; people go out fishing at night too, don’t they?”
