“They don’t have Atterley’s killer?”
“As far as I know, they don’t have a clue, much less a suspect. Believe me, I’m not in their confidence.”
“What have you told them about your mission there?”
“Not a goddamned thing. All they want to know is, did you have a fight with him? Were you carrying a gun? Did you shoot him? They don’t have the slightest interest in my life story. Maybe they will someday but not now.”
“Shall I get you a lawyer?”
“Not at this point. Aside from the fact that I found the body, they have no reason to think I had anything to do with his death.”
Fr. Lulfre pondered all this for a while, then said, with the comfortable certainty of someone four thousand miles away, “They can’t keep you there indefinitely.”
“I’ll explain that to them. What’s the hurry?”
“No hurry. It’s just that there’s nothing more to do, so I assumed you’d be eager to get back home.”
I wondered why he thought I needed to have this explained to me but let it go. “I’ll be in touch when I know more,” I said.
“Do you need anything?”
“I’ve got American Express and Visa Gold. How could I need anything?”
“Jared, you’re beginning to alarm me.”
“This has not been a fun time.”
“It will soon be over,” Fr. Lulfre said, and we left it at that.
I showered, dressed, had breakfast, and went for a walk—something I’d never done in this town in broad daylight. It wasn’t a place you could get lost in, it had been designed with too much Teutonic logic for that. By the merest chance, I eventually found myself in the same street as Gustl Meyer’s shop of leftovers and castoffs. The old man looked at me with surprise when I walked in. I asked if he knew what had happened to B, and he said he’d read about it in the paper. I explained that I didn’t have enough German to read the paper, so I didn’t know whether the police had arrested anyone.
“Oh, they won’t find anyone to arrest,” the old man assured me.
“Why is that?”
He shrugged elaborately. “Charles was a man who was bound to be killed.”
He seemed to think this explained it.
Back to the burrow
After lunch I went over
to the theater, hoping Shirin and Michael would be there. They were. So were Frau Hartmann, the American teenager, Bonnie, and the Teitels. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be particularly glad to see me, and no one was. Except for Shirin, who was sitting in B’s chair, everyone was in his or her usual place. Maybe they wanted at least that much continuity. No one was talking.
I sat down and asked them what the prevailing theory was: Who killed B and why?
They looked at me blankly, except for Shirin, who said, “I wouldn’t call it a theory. The prevailing feeling seems to be that B would still be alive if you hadn’t come.”
“I’m glad it’s not a theory. You recognize the fallacy involved—post hoc ergo propter hoc—it happened after, so it happened because. According to this reasoning, marriage is the cause of every divorce.”
“Don’t lecture us, Jared.”
“I won’t lecture you if you won’t saddle me with B’s death.”
“Why do you think he was killed?” This was from Michael.
“I don’t know. The possibilities are too numerous and I have no way of narrowing them down. Obviously a lot of people were upset with what he was saying.”