Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen

When I got to Vera's house, she was wearing the white jeans and another silk blouse, this one in lime green.Her hair was let down and fell over her shoulders.After I rang the bell, she opened the door and waited for me at the door of her apartment.After a hasty kiss, she ushered me in with a look of concern on her face. "You look exhausted," she said. "Exhausted." "I didn't sleep much last night. After getting up early, I ran outside all day." She dragged me to the bedroom. "You might as well get some sleep right now," she urged me. "Don't you think you should?"

"I'm so stretched out, and I have a lot to do." "Well, at least I can get you a good cup of coffee. I went out today to a yuppie paradise, and there were fifty varieties of coffee beans, each of which was more expensive than the other. I think they set prices by the type of bean, and also It can tell you where it comes from, and what kind of animals live in the place of origin. I bought three kinds of coffee beans, one pound each, and this electric coffee machine. You don’t have to do anything, just wait for the coffee.” "sounds good." "I'll pour you a cup. I've asked the store to grind the beans, and they're trying to sell me a grinder so I can make every cup of coffee the freshest, but I think that's too much of a temperance. "

"I think you're right." "Try it and see what you think." I took a sip and put the glass on the table. "Not bad." I said. "Just okay? Oh, my God, I'm sorry, Matthew. You've had a rough day, haven't you? I'm talking so thoughtlessly. Would you like to sit down? I'll try to keep my mouth shut." "That's all right," I said, "but if you don't mind, I want to make a phone call first. I'll call Warren Heldtek." "Paola's father?" "He should be home by now." "When you call, do you want me to avoid it?"

"No," I said, "you just stay here. You can actually listen to me when I'm on the phone, and I'm going to tell you the same thing later anyway." "As long as you're fine." I nodded, and when I picked up the phone to dial, she was sitting next to me.This time, after a short wait, Mrs. Held Turk came to answer the phone. I said I wanted to find Mr. Held Turk. She said, "Mr. Scudder? He is waiting for your call. Please wait a moment. I'll call him." When Mr. Heldtek came to answer the phone, he sounded like he was trying to pull himself together to talk to me. "Bad news, I'm afraid," I said.

"tell me." "Paola died," I said, "in the second week of July, I can't tell which day it was." "How did it happen?" "She and a boyfriend and another couple spend the weekend on the boat. The man has a speedboat, which is similar to a yacht, and is usually handed over to the city government ferry office for safekeeping. The four of them took the boat to the open sea." "Is it an accident?" "Not exactly," I said, and took a sip of coffee, a very good coffee. "Boats, especially speedboats, are in high demand these days. I don't think I need to tell you, drug smuggling is big business."

"Are the others smuggling drugs?" "No, Paula's partner is a securities analyst, another man works on Wall Street, and his girlfriend runs an art gallery on Amsterdam Avenue. They are all respectable people. There is not even evidence that they have ever used drugs , let alone the drug business.” "I see." "In short, their boats are secretly used for smuggling, and as a result, they become the target of robbers. This kind of piracy-like behavior is becoming more and more common in the Caribbean Sea. The owner of the ship has learned to carry a gun on board, and when encountering other ships Fire if you get too close. There are fewer pirates in the northern waters, but now they are gradually increasing. A gang of pirates pretended that their ship was out of fuel, and approached Paula's ship. Once they got on the ship, they did What pirates usually do, kill everyone and then loot."

"My God," he said. "I'm sorry," I said, "I couldn't have been more polite. From what I could find, the whole thing was very brief, they got on board with guns, and shot them all without wasting a moment. She The pain won't last long, and none of the four of them will." "God be merciful. How could something like this happen in this day and age? Pirates, the kind with gold earrings and prosthetic legs, and, and, with parrots, the kind Elroy Flynn plays in movies, like something that happened in ancient times." "I know." "Was it reported in the papers? I don't recall seeing it."

"No," I said. "There is no official record of this accident." "Who is that man and that other couple?" "I promised others not to reveal it. If you insist on telling me, I will break my promise, but I think it's best not to." "Why? Oh, I can guess." "That man is a married man." "That's what I guessed." "The other couple are also married, but not with each other. So it doesn't do any good to have their names exposed, and their families want to save face." "I can understand," he said.

"If there had been any investigation, whether by the police or the Coast Guard, I would have found out. But this case was closed without an investigation at all." "Why? Because Paula and the others died?" "No, because the pirates died too. They were all killed in a drug deal. It happened a few weeks after the hijacking, otherwise I probably wouldn't have found anything specific. But one of the Someone knew someone on the other side of that drug deal who was willing to tell what he knew, so I learned these things." He asked some more questions, and I answered them all, and I spent the whole day making sense of my story, so I was prepared for the questions he asked.I waited a long time for the last question, I thought he would have asked it sooner, but I think he was very reluctant to ask.

"What about the corpse?" "Thrown overboard." "Buried in the sea," he said.After a moment of silence, he said again: "She has always liked water. She—" His voice was hoarse. "When she was a kid," he said, his voice back to normal, "we would go on vacation by the lake, and you just couldn't keep her from playing in the water. I used to call her the River Rat, and if she was left alone, she would swim for a long time. All day long. She just likes that." He asked me to wait while he told his wife about it.He must have covered the microphone with his hand because I didn't hear anything for several minutes.Then his wife came to answer the phone, "Mr. Scudder? I want to thank you for everything."

"I'm sorry to give you such news, Mrs. Heldtek." "I knew it," she said. "I knew it when it happened. Don't you think? In a way, I think I knew it all along." "maybe." "At least I don't have to worry anymore," she said. "At least now I know where she is." Mr. Heldtek thanked me again on the phone and asked if I still had to pay.I said no need.He asked me if I was sure and I said yes. I hung up and Vera said, "That's a weird story, did you figure it out all day long?" "Last night and this morning. I called him in the morning to tell him it was bad and I wanted to prepare him and his wife before giving him the details." "'Your mother is on the roof.'" I stared at her. "You don't know the story? There was a guy who was on a business trip and his wife called and told him the cat had died, and he blamed his wife, 'How can you be so direct that you might give a person a heart attack. You should be more tactful than just call a guy and tell him straight up that the cat went up on the roof and fell down and died. First you should call and tell him the cat was on the roof. Then call and tell him , people were trying to figure out how to get the cat down, the fire brigade and all came, but it didn't look too good. Then, when you called me for the third time, I was already mentally prepared, you just tell me the cat is dead.'” "I can guess what the result will be." "Of course, because I already said the key sentence first. He received a call from his wife on a business trip. He first said hello, and then his wife said, 'Your mother is on the roof.'" "I think that's what I did, first tell him his daughter was on the roof. Can you follow the whole situation just listening to me on the phone?" "Should be. How did you find out? I thought you were looking for a bad guy who knew Eddie." "I'm." "Then how does it involve Paula?" "Luck. He didn't know about Eddie, but he knew the guys who killed the pirates in the drug deal, and he took me to a guy who I asked the right questions and found out." "Pirates of the High Seas," she said, "sounds like something out of an old movie." "Mr. Heldtek said the same thing." "Opportunity." "what?" "Chance. If you don't find any results in one thing, but in the process of investigation, you accidentally discover the truth of another thing, isn't that the reason?" "In my line of work, this kind of thing happens a lot. But I don't know of a way to describe it." "Well, that's the way it is. And what about her telephone and answering machine? And she took out her clothes and stuff but left her bedding, and why?" "That didn't matter at all. I'm guessing she brought a lot of clothes for the weekend and maybe other stuff in the apartment her boyfriend rented. When Flo Adeline went to her room, she thought it looked empty except for The bedding couldn't see anything else, and then, while the door was unlocked, maybe a tenant took the rest of the stuff, thinking Paula left it on purpose. The answering machine wasn't taken because she thought Paula will come back again. It leaves no clues, but it keeps me chasing the case, and then I give up, only to find the answer, almost by accident, or whatever you want to call it." "Chance. Don't you like this coffee? Too strong?" "Nothing, the coffee is good." "You didn't even drink." I drink it slowly, I've had a big vat of coffee today, it's been a horrible day, but I'm having a good time. "I'm probably not very confident," she said. "I've been drinking decaf instant coffee for months." "Uh, it's much better this time." "I'm very happy. Didn't you find out anything new about Eddie? What secrets does he have in his heart?" "No progress," I said, "but I didn't expect it anyway." "Oh." "Because I already know." "I did not understand." "Really?" I stood up. "I already knew Eddie's secrets and what happened to him. Mrs. Heldtek just told me that she knew her daughter was dead, In a way, she already feels it. I feel it more clearly about Eddie than she does, but I don't want to know. I'm trying not to, and I'm here just to find something to prove what I guess wrong." "Guess what?" "Misunderstood what troubled his conscience. Misguessed how he died." "I thought he died of masturbation asphyxiation." She frowned. "You mean he committed suicide? He actually had a motive for suicide?" "'Your mother's on the roof.'" She glared at me. "I can't put it mildly, Vera. I know what happened and I know why. You killed him."