“I’m going to. I have about ten pounds’ worth of correspondence to get through first.”

“I mean it, Robert,” Ellingham said more sternly. “The winter will be here soon and you’ll wish you took advantage of days like this.”

The remark was so thick with meaning that Robert had no reply.

“You’re a good man, Robert,” Ellingham said. “I wish you had the happiness in your life that I’ve had in mine. Remember to play. Remember the game. Always remember the game.”

He would remember later that Albert Ellingham didn’t look morose as he said these words. There was more vigor in him, suggesting, perhaps, that he was making a marble monument of his grief. Maybe it was time to resume life. It had been a year since the trial. Maybe it was time.

Robert ignored the order to go out and had a productive afternoon at his desk. He handled calls from New York and the new movie division in Los Angeles. He caught up on correspondence. He barely noticed the passing hours and the creeping dark. His mind felt lighter than it had in some time. Perhaps, he thought, everything might turn around a bit. Perhaps Albert Ellingham would begin to heal. He wasn’t old. He was rich. He was vital. He might marry again, have another family. Perhaps the terrible curse on this place would be dispelled. Perhaps something would be made right again.

At seven thirty, Robert stopped, satisfied at all he had done. There was a tidy stack of completed paperwork. His correspondence tray was empty. It was fully dark and the wind had kicked up. It whistled around the corners of the room and snaked down the chimney.

Robert lit a fire and called for his supper. The cook was always happy to make food for someone who would actually eat, so soon he had a heaping plate of chops and creamed spinach and potatoes. He switched on the radio and settled down at his office table. He was looking forward to the Mercury Theatre program. They had done some very good shows recently, productions of Sherlock Holmes and Around the World in 80 Days. The program was one of the highlights of Robert’s week.

Just as the music played and the announcer said, “We take you now to Grover’s Mills, New Jersey . . .” the telephone rang. Robert put down his napkin, turned down the radio volume, and answered it.

“Robert Mackenzie,” he said, wiping a touch of creamed spinach from the corner of his mouth.

“This is Sergeant Arnold.” His voice was breathless and almost breaking. “Can you confirm, Albert Ellingham, his boat . . . he took the boat out.”

“Yes, hours ago,” Robert replied. “With George Marsh.”

“He hasn’t returned yet?”

“No,” Robert said. “He said he would likely stay in Burlington. What’s going on?”

“There were reports of a boat going down off South Hero . . . ,” the sergeant said. “An explosion . . .”

There was a hollow sound in Robert’s ear, a feeling of falling, of many things converging to a point as he listened to the following words and low drum of the radio and the sound of his own heart echoing through the halls of his body. He would later say that he felt like he was floating up to the ceiling, looking down on the room for a moment.

He would always remember the strange conversation he’d had with Albert Ellingham that day. His Riddle of the Sphinx. The command to enjoy.

It was like Ellingham knew that that was his day to die.

The riddle would run through Robert’s head for the rest of his life, but he never did figure out the solution.

30

IT HAD BEEN A LONG NIGHT.

The residents of Minerva had to stay out of the house while the police went through it. There were some rooms in the Great House reserved for when faculty or guests were snowed in. Janelle and Nate took these. David was in the faculty lounge on the sofa. Stevie sat awake, watchful on the massive staircase for hours and hours, her brain echoing with facts and riddles.

Always on a staircase but never on a stair. But she was always on a stair. All night on a stair.

She watched police and security come in and out, and Charles and Dr. Quinn and the school lawyer. A search was made of the property, but little could be done in the dark. The woods were dark and deep. There was talk of bears but not of moose.

Still, no moose.

A window was found propped open in the basement and a pile of boxes beneath it. Gone, gone, gone. Up the mountain. Down the mountain. Around the mountain. Who knew?

So Stevie sat in the throbbing heart of the Great House, once again the scene of a search in the night. In the wobbling version of reality playing in her tired and overextended brain, Stevie ran through the events of the last few weeks, finally settling on the message she had seen on her wall a few nights before Hayes died. Riddle, riddle, on the wall . . .

So many riddles.

She rubbed her hands over her face and covered it for a while. She nodded off like that for an unknown period of time, until she was awoken by a cup of coffee being held out to her.

“Not sure if you want to sleep like that,” Larry said. “There’s a cot in the security office and more sofas upstairs.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“Sometimes it’s not about what you want.”

Stevie shook her head. “Did you find her?” she asked.

“It’s getting light now. The chopper is coming in.”

“Can I go outside? Get some air?”

Larry rocked back on his heels.

“Just stay right out where I can see you from the front,” he said.

So Stevie took her coffee and sat on the wet grass of the green and stared at the Great House and stopped thinking for a while. Dawn broke over Ellingham Academy in a swirl of rose pink going into a bloodless blue. Stevie watched the newly risen sun come up over the Great House like a celestial game of peekaboo. She wasn’t out there that long before she saw someone else come out the front door.

David made his way over in his easy, loping walk, his hands jammed into his pockets. He dropped down next to her and said nothing.

There is something about early mornings that changes your perceptions subtly. The light is new; no one has put on the defenses of the day. All is reset and not quite real yet.

Whatever had happened between David and Stevie didn’t exist at this moment. Everything was dew and Larry’s instant coffee and the gentle, buttery morning sun.

“Well,” David finally said, “I guess the school’s fucked.”

Stevie took a long sip of the coffee. It was too strong and full of clots of powdered creamer, but it was wakeful.

“One student dead,” David said, looking up at the faint sound of chopping from above. “One student missing, presumed to have murdered him, I guess. This one is going to be hard to spin.”

“Yup,” Stevie said, taking another sip.

The wind was cutting sharply through the mountains like an audible gasp from nature. A helicopter was nearing.

“I guess they’re doing an air search,” David said.

“Yup.”

“You have a lot to say for someone who just busted open her first case. Aren’t you excited? Don’t you get a sheriff’s star?”

Stevie put the coffee cup on the grass. She watched it for a moment to see if it was going to tip over and scald her. It did not.

“Let me just ask you,” Stevie said. “The night that the dry ice went into the tunnel, you said you were with Ellie. You were, right?”