Cooking was one of her passions. He knew that, of course. “It beats the pants off of mine, that’s for sure.” Hers had been installed in the rectory during the reign of the last rector of St. Alban’s, an elderly celibate who had, Clare suspected, lived on TV dinners and casseroles donated by the ladies of the parish. “I’m a little disappointed, though. I expected something grander from a great camp. You know, an Adirondack Victorian extravaganza.”
“The style you’re thinking of’s called haut rustic,” Russ said, emerging from the pantry clutching a jar of blackberry jam. “The old Haudenosaunee had Victorian extravaganza in spades. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a firetrap.”
She leaned on the granite-topped work island. “How do you know?”
“Everybody in Millers Kill knows at least the bare bones of the story. The van der Hoevens were downstaters who made a bundle in the Civil War, and the head of the family liked to hunt. But he liked to do it in comfort. So he dragged his wife and kids and the servants and the dog up here-in those days it was by private rail and boats and portage-pitched a dozen tents, and oversaw the building of Haudenosaunee.” Russ put the jam on the island top and hitched up onto a stool. “At first it was a big, plain log building, styled like the communal hunters’ lodges that were popping up throughout the mountains.”
“Sort of like this building,” Clare said.
“Sort of. Anyway, twenty years later, it was rebuilt in the grand Adirondack style by a van der Hoeven trying to please his pretty young wife. There are pictures in the historical society-I guess the best way to describe it was Swiss chalet meets twig Gothic.”
“Did it work?”
“Did what work?”
“Did he please his young wife?”
“She couldn’t have been that impressed, because she took off for Europe with their son and stayed there for the next few decades.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Well, the son returned from Europe right before the First World War broke out.”
“Good timing.”
“This would have been Eugene’s… let me see… greatgrandfather. Can’t remember his name.”
“You’re really good with all this local history.”
He smiled like a shyly pleased schoolboy. “I did a report on it in high school. Even then, I was into old houses.” Russ had extensively rebuilt his Greek Revival farmhouse.
“That van der Hoeven thought what the place needed was Old World elegance, so he added on turrets and towers and battlements and the like, trying to turn a Swiss-Gothic chalet into a castle. Even in his day, when rich people were building privies shaped like Versailles and carriage houses that looked like the Tower of London, it was considered a great big ugly heap.”
Clare looked around her at the clean lines of the current Haudenosaunee. “Is that when the family built this house?”
“No, that came when Eugene’s grandfather tried to modernize the old building. Evidently the older van der Hoeven wasn’t content to merely build castles. He wanted to live in the Middle Ages.” Russ tapped his temple meaningfully.
“You mean…?”
“No running water, no electricity, no central heating. He actually disconnected the bathrooms that had been state-of-the-art in 1880 and installed drop toilets.”
Clare made a face.
“Yeah. So when his son inherited the place, he decided making the fourteenth century fit for human habitation wasn’t worth the trouble, and he had this house built.”
“What happened to the old camp?”
Russ’s blue eyes clouded over. “It burned down.”
Comprehension dawned. “Is that what happened to Eugene?”
He nodded. “Whoever says money solves all your problems never met the van der Hoevens.”
She was climbing onto the stool kitty-corner from Russ when the letter and pamphlet crinkled inside her pocket.
He scanned the letter and unfolded the brochure. “One of the radical environmentalist groups, right? Like Earth First? Volunteers living in trees, that sort of thing?”
She shook her head. “More like spiking the trees and then blowing up the loggers’ equipment. The Planetary Liberation Army believes in direct action.”
“That’d be pretty direct, yeah.” He read the back of the pamphlet. “I don’t see anything here about the Adirondacks. And I’ve never heard of them operating in our area.” He looked up at her. “Where’d you get these?”
She had thought out her answer when she persuaded Lisa to let her keep the documents. “They were here in the kitchen.” She opened the drawer and tossed the remainder of the pamphlets on the stack of wine crates, just as Lisa had done. “I was opening up drawers, looking for utensils and stuff.” There. Absolute truth. “These are more in the same vein.”
He ruffled through the brochures. “These could be anybody’s.”
“The only people who live here are Eugene and Millie. One of whom is now missing.”
“You think this may have something to do with her disappearance?”
“She gave them money. It’s not like mailing in your annual donation to the Sierra Club. These folks aren’t sending her a preprinted thank-you letter and a calendar.”
He glanced at the paper again. “If she’s the outdoorsy, save-the-earth type, she probably gets solicitations from every group under the sun. Lord knows, my mom does.” Russ’s mother was an environmental activist whose various causes and concerns came close to giving her son an ulcer. “Adirondack Conservancy, Stop the Dredging, Mothers Against Nuclear Waste Disposal-Mom supports ’em all. It doesn’t mean that she’s plotting to blow up Nine Mile Point.”
Clare flipped her hand open. “But what if she were? Millie van der Hoeven, I mean, not your mom.”
He looked at her skeptically. “And this is based on?” He flapped the brochure at her. “One letter inviting her to talk and a diatribe about the evils of development? That doesn’t make her a terrorist.”
“I’m not saying she is. But we have this supposedly woods-wise young woman who goes out for a walk after a late dinner. She’s spent every summer of her life right here in these mountains. And she gets lost? On the same day that she’s supposed to sell her family’s land to a multinational wood products corporation?”
“Which is then signing it over to the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. They’re not going to be clear-cutting the place. They’re going to put a stop to all development. And logging. The PLA people should be doing the happy dance over this. If they know about it.”
She thought about what Lisa had said. About how being lost in the woods could make a convincing alibi. “It may not have anything to do with Haudenosaunee. Or maybe it does. Maybe she didn’t like the idea of selling off to-what’s the name of the company?”
“GWP, Inc.”
“To GWP. Maybe she didn’t trust them to give all the easements or whatever to the conservancy.”
Russ rolled his eyes. “Maybe she’s being held prisoner by the president of GWP, who’s planning on selling her into white slavery after the signing ceremony tonight. Have you seen that picture of her in the hall? She’s quite a babe.”
Clare made a face. “You’re impossible.”
“That’s what Linda says.”
There was a pause. When Clare spoke again, her voice was quiet. “It could be nothing. But someone ought to be aware of it.”
He kept his eyes on the letter as he carefully folded it into thirds. “And now I am.” He held it up. “Mind if I keep it?”
She shook her head. He unsnapped a pocket on the outside of his camo pants and stuffed the papers inside. She tossed open the door to the pantry and snapped the light on. Surprise, surprise, there was an unopened jar of
