The Best of the Best American Mystery Stories

by Otto Penzler

  It was then too dark to read and I’d lost interest in the wine. I was sitting there, arms folded tight against my chest, trying hard to breathe. The noise got louder and I gave up and retreated into the house, where the heavy thump-thump of the bass followed me in. If I’d had a boat I could have gone out and asked them politely to turn it down, but that would have meant talking with people and putting myself in the way, and I didn’t want to do that.

  Instead, I went upstairs to my bedroom and shut the door and windows. Still, that thump-thump shook the beams of the house. I lay down with a pillow wrapped about my head and tried not to think of what was in the basement.

  Later that night I got up for a drink of water, and there was still noise and music. I walked out onto the porch and could see movement on the lake and hear laughter. On a tree near the dock was a spotlight that the previous owners had installed and which I had rarely used. I flipped on the switch. Some shouts and shrieks. Two powerboats, tied together, had drifted close to my shore. The light caught a young muscular man with a fierce black mustache standing on the stern of his powerboat and urinating into the lake. His half a dozen companions, male and female, yelled and cursed in my direction. The boats started up and two men and a young woman stumbled to the side of one and dropped their bathing suits, exposing their buttocks. A couple others gave me a one-fingered salute, and there was a shower of bottles and cans tossed over the side as they sped away.

  I spent the next hour on the porch, staring into the darkness.

  The next day I made two phone calls, to the town hall and the police department of Nansen. I made gentle and polite inquiries and got the same answers from each office. There was no local or state law about boats coming to within a certain distance of shore. There was no law forbidding boats from mooring together. Nansen being such a small town, there was also no noise ordinance.

  Home sweet home.

  On my next visit Ron was wearing a bow tie, and we discussed necktie fashions before we got into the business at hand. He said, “Still having sleeping problems?”

  I smiled. “No, not at all.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s fall,” I said. “The tourists have gone home, most of the cottages along the lake have been boarded up and nobody takes out boats anymore. It’s so quiet at night I can hear the house creak and settle.”

  “That’s good, that’s really good,” Ron said, and I changed the subject. A half-hour later, I was heading back to Nansen, thinking about my latest white lie. Well, it wasn’t really a lie. More of an oversight.

  I hadn’t told Ron about the hang-up phone calls. Or how trash had twice been dumped in my driveway. Or how a week ago, when I was shopping, I had come back to find a bullet hole through one of my windows. Maybe it had been a hunting accident. Hunting season hadn’t started, but I knew that for some of the workingmen in this town, it didn’t matter when the state allowed them to do their shooting.

  I had cleaned up the driveway, shrugged off the phone calls, and cut away brush and saplings around the house, to eliminate any hiding spots for . . . hunters.

  Still, I could sit out on the dock, a blanket around my legs and a mug of tea in my hand, watching the sun set in the distance, the reddish pink highlighting the strong yellows, oranges, and reds of the fall foliage. The water was a slate gray, and though I missed the loons, the smell of the leaves and the tang of woodsmoke from my chimney seemed to settle in just fine.

  As it grew colder, I began to go into town for breakfast every few days. The center of Nansen could be featured in a documentary on New Hampshire small towns. Around the green common with its Civil War statue are a bank, a real estate office, a hardware store, two gas stations, a general store, and a small strip of service places with everything from a plumber to video rentals and Gretchen’s Kitchen. At Gretchen’s I read the paper while letting the mornings drift by. I listened to the old-timers at the counter pontificate on the ills of the state, nation, and world, and watched harried workers fly in to grab a quick meal. Eventually, a waitress named Sandy took some interest in me.

  She was about twenty years younger than I, with raven hair, a wide smile, and a pleasing body that filled out her regulation pink uniform. After a couple weeks of flirting and generous tips on my part, I asked her out, and when she said yes, I went to my pickup truck and burst out laughing. A real date. I couldn’t remember the last time I had had a real date.

  The first date was dinner a couple of towns over, in Montcalm, the second was dinner and a movie outside Manchester, and the third was dinner at my house, which was supposed to end with a rented movie in the living room but instead ended up in the bedroom. Along the way I learned that Sandy had always lived in Nansen, was divorced with two young boys, and was saving her money so she could go back to school and become a legal aide. “If you think I’m going to keep slinging hash and waiting for Billy to send his support check, then you’re a damn fool,” she said on our first date.

  After a bedroom interlude that surprised me with its intensity, we sat on the enclosed porch. I opened a window for Sandy, who needed a smoke. The house was warm and I had on a pair of shorts; she had wrapped a towel around her torso. I sprawled in an easy chair while she sat on the couch, feet in my lap. Both of us had glasses of wine and I felt comfortable and tingling. Sandy glanced at me as she worked on her cigarette. I’d left the lights off and lit a couple of candles, and in the hazy yellow light, I could see the small tattoo of a unicorn on her right shoulder.

  Sandy looked at me and asked, “What were you doing when you was in the government?”

  “Traveled a lot and ate bad food.”

  “No, really,” she said. “I want a straight answer.”

  Well, I thought, as straight as I can be. I said, “I was a consultant, to foreign armies. Sometimes they needed help with certain weapons or training techniques. That was my job.”

  “Were you good?”

  Too good, I thought. “I did all right.”

  “You’ve got a few scars there.”

  “That I do.”

  She shrugged, took a lazy puff off her cigarette. “I’ve seen worse.”

  I wasn’t sure where this was headed. Then she said, “When are you going to be leaving?”

  Confused, I asked her, “You mean, tonight?”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, when are you leaving Nansen and going back home?”

  I looked around the porch and said, “This is my home.”

  She gave me a slight smile, like a teacher correcting a fumbling but eager student. “No, it’s not. This place was built by the Gerrish family. It’s the Gerrish place. You’re from away, and this ain’t your home.”

  I tried to smile, though my mood was slipping. “Well, I beg to disagree.”

  She said nothing for a moment, just studied the trail of smoke from her cigarette. Then she said, “Some people in town don’t like you. They think you’re uppity, a guy that don’t belong here.”

  I began to find it quite cool on the porch. “What kind of people?”

  “The Garr brothers. Jerry Tompkins. Kit Broderick. A few others. Guys in town. They don’t particularly like you.”

  “I don’t particularly care,” I shot back.

  A small shrug as she stubbed out her cigarette. “You will.”

  The night crumbled some more after that, and the next morning, while sitting in the corner at Gretchen’s, I was ignored by Sandy. One of the older waitresses served me, and my coffee arrived in a cup stained with lipstick, the bacon was charred black, and the eggs were cold. I got the message. I started making breakfast at home, sitting alone on the porch, watching the leaves fall and days grow shorter.

  I wondered if Sandy was on her own or if she had been scouting out enemy territory on someone’s behalf.

  At my December visit, I surprised myself by telling Ron about something that had been bothering me.

  “It’s the snow,” I said, leaning forward, hands clasped between my legs. “It’s going to
start snowing soon. And I’ve always hated the snow, especially since . . .”

  “Since when?”

  “Since something I did once,” I said. “In Serbia.”

  “Go on,” he said, fingers making a tent in front of his face.

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  Ron tilted his head quizzically. “You know I have the clearances.”

  I cleared my throat, my eyes burning a bit. “I know. It’s just that it’s . . . Ever see blood on snow, at night?”

  I had his attention. “No,” he said, “no, I haven’t.”

  “It steams at first, since it’s so warm,” I said. “And then it gets real dark, almost black. Dark snow, if you can believe it. It’s something that stays with you, always.”

  He looked steadily at me for a moment, then said, “Do you want to talk about it some more?”

  “No.”

  I spent all of one gray afternoon in my office cubbyhole, trying to get a new computer up and running. When at last I went downstairs for a quick drink, I looked outside and there they were, big snowflakes lazily drifting to the ground. Forgetting about the drink, I went out to the porch and looked at the pure whiteness of everything, of the snow covering the bare limbs, the shrubbery, and the frozen lake. I stood there and hugged myself, admiring the softly accumulating blanket of white and feeling lucky.

  Two days after the snowstorm I was out on the frozen waters of Lake Marie, breathing hard and sweating and enjoying every second of it. The day before I had driven into Manchester to a sporting goods store and had come out with a pair of cross-country skis. The air was crisp and still, and the sky was a blue so deep I half-expected to see brushstrokes. From the lake, I looked back at my home and liked what I saw. The white paint and plain construction made me smile for no particular reason. I heard not a single sound, except for the faint drone of a distant airplane. Before me someone had placed signs and orange ropes in the snow, covering an oval area at the center of the lake. Each sign said the same thing: DANGER! THIN ICE! I remembered the old-timers at Gretchen’s Kitchen telling a story about a hidden spring coming up through the lake bottom, or some damn thing, that made ice at the center of the lake thin, even in the coldest weather. I got cold and it was time to go home.

  About halfway back to the house is where it happened.

  At first it was a quiet sound, and I thought that it was another airplane. Then the noise got louder and louder, and separated, becoming distinct. Snowmobiles, several of them. I turned and they came speeding out of the woods, tossing up great rooster tails of snow and ice. They were headed straight for me. I turned away and kept up a steady pace, trying to ignore the growing loudness of the approaching engines. An itchy feeling crawled up my spine to the base of my head, and the noise exploded in pitch as they raced by me.

  Even over the loudness of the engines I could make out the yells as the snowmobiles roared by, hurling snow in my direction. There were two people to each machine and they didn’t look human. Each was dressed in a bulky jump suit, heavy boots, and a padded helmet. They raced by and, sure enough, circled around and came back at me. This time I flinched. This time, too, a couple of empty beer cans were thrown my way.

  By the third pass, I was getting closer to my house. I thought it was almost over when one of the snowmobiles broke free from the pack and raced across about fifty feet in front of me. The driver turned so that the machine was blocking me and sat there, racing the throttle. Then he pulled off his helmet, showing an angry face and thick mustache, and I recognized him as the man on the powerboat a few months earlier. He handed his helmet to his passenger, stepped off the snowmobile, and unzipped his jump suit. It took only a moment as he marked the snow in a long, steaming stream, and there was laughter from the others as he got back on the machine and sped away. I skied over the soiled snow and took my time climbing up the snow-covered shore. I entered my home, carrying my skis and poles like weapons over my shoulder.

  That night, and every night afterward, they came back, breaking the winter stillness with the throbbing sounds of engines, laughter, drunken shouts, and music from portable stereos. Each morning I cleared away their debris and scuffed fresh snow over the stains. In the quiet of my house, I found myself constantly on edge, listening, waiting for the noise to suddenly return and break up the day. Phone calls to the police department and town hall confirmed what I already knew: Except for maybe littering, no ordinances or laws were being broken.

  On one particularly loud night, I broke a promise to myself and went to the tiny, damp cellar to unlock the green metal case holding a pistol-shaped device. I went back upstairs to the enclosed porch, and with the lights off, I switched on the night-vision scope and looked at the scene below me. Six snowmobiles were parked in a circle on the snow-covered ice, and in the center, a fire had been made. Figures stumbled around in the snow, talking and laughing. Stereos had been set up on the seats of two of the snowmobiles, and the loud music with its bass thump-thump-thump echoed across the flat ice. Lake Marie is one of the largest bodies of water in this part of the country, but the camp was set up right below my windows.

  I watched for a while as they partied. Two of the black-suited figures started wrestling in the snow. More shouts and laughter, and then the fight broke up and someone turned the stereos even louder. Thump-thump-thump.

  I switched off the nightscope, returned it to its case in the cellar, and went to bed. Even with foam rubber plugs in my ears, the bass noise reverberated inside my skull. I put the pillow across my face and tried to ignore the sure knowledge that this would continue all winter, the noise and the littering and the aggravation, and when the spring came, they would turn in their snowmobiles for boats, and they’d be back, all summer long.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  At the next session with Ron, we talked about the weather until he pierced me with his gaze and said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  I went through half a dozen rehearsals of what to tell him, and then skated to the edge of the truth and said, “I’m having a hard time adjusting, that’s all.”

  “Adjusting to what?”

  “To my home,” I said, my hands clasped before me. “I never thought I would say this, but I’m really beginning to get settled, for the first time in my life. You ever been in the military, Ron?”

  “No, but I know—”

  I held up my hand. “Yes, I know what you’re going to say. You’ve worked as a consultant, but you’ve never been one of us, Ron. Never. You can’t know what it’s like, constantly being ordered to uproot yourself and go halfway across the world to a new place with a different language, customs, and weather, all within a week. You never settle in, never really get into a place you call home.”

  He swiveled a bit in his black leather chair. “But that’s different now?”

  “It sure is,” I said.

  There was a pause as we looked at each other, and Ron said, “But something is going on.”

  “Something is.”

  “Tell me.”

  And then I knew I wouldn’t. A fire wall had already been set up between Ron and the details of what was going on back at my home. If I let him know what was really happening, I knew that he would make a report, and within the week I’d be ordered to go somewhere else. If I’d been younger and not so dependent on a monthly check, I would have put up a fight.

  But now, no more fighting. I looked past Ron and said, “An adjustment problem, I guess.”

  “Adjusting to civilian life?”

  “More than that,” I said. “Adjusting to Nansen. It’s a great little town, but . . . I feel like an outsider.”

  “That’s to be expected.”

  “Sure, but I still don’t like it. I know it will take some time, but . . . well, I get the odd looks, the quiet little comments, the cold shoulders.”

  Ron seemed to choose his words carefully. “Is that proving to be a serious problem?”

  Not even a moment of hesitation as I lied: “No, not at all.”


  “And what do you plan on doing?”

  An innocent shrug. “Not much. Just try to fit in, try to be a good neighbor.”

  “That’s all?”

  I nodded firmly. “That’s all.”

  It took a bit of research, but eventually I managed to put a name to the face of the mustached man who had pissed on my territory. Jerry Tompkins. Floor supervisor for a computer firm outside Manchester, married with three kids, an avid boater, snowmobiler, hunter, and all-around guy. His family had been in Nansen for generations, and his dad was one of the three selectmen who ran the town. Using a couple of old skills, I tracked him down one dark afternoon and pulled my truck next to his in the snowy parking lot of a tavern on the outskirts of Nansen. The tavern was called Peter’s Pub and its windows were barred and blacked out.

  I stepped out of my truck and called to him as he walked to the entrance of the pub. He turned and glared at me. “What?”

  “You’re Jerry Tompkins, aren’t you.”

  “Sure am,” he said, hands in the pockets of his dark-green parka. “And you’re the fella that’s living up in the old Gerrish place.”

  “Yes, and I’d like to talk with you for a second.”

  His face was rough, like he had spent a lot of time outdoors in the wind and rain and an equal amount indoors, with cigarette smoke and loud country music. He rocked back on his heels with a little smile and said, “Go ahead. You got your second.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Tell you what, Jerry, I’m looking for something.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m looking for a treaty.”

  He nodded, squinting his eyes. “What kind of treaty?”