Jenny tried to swallow over the quiver in her voice. “He sounds so strange, almost rambling. Suppose he does come soon? He could conceivably decide to come back tonight. He knows every inch of this property. He could ski in. He could drive a car we wouldn’t recognize. He could walk in from the riverbank. If he sees anyone around here who doesn’t belong here, that will be the end. You’ve all got to go away. Suppose, oh, God, suppose he sees Caroline’s grave has been disturbed? He’ll know that Arden’s body was found. Don’t you see? You can’t have any publicity. You can’t send out flyers. You can’t have strangers here. The cabin. If he goes to the cabin and sees the broken window… those bits of cloth tacked on the trees…”

Sheriff Gunderson looked from Mark to Dr. Philstrom. “Obviously you both agree. All right. Mark, will you ask Rooney and Clyde to come in here? I’ll get the people from the coroner’s office. They’re still sifting the dirt in the cemetery.”

Rooney was surprisingly composed. Jenny knew that Dr. Philstrom was studying her closely. But Rooney’s concern seemed to be only for Jenny. She hugged her, laid her cheek on Jenny’s. “I know. Oh, my dear, I know.”

Clyde had aged ten years in the past hours. “I’m listing all the property Erich owns,” he said. “I’ll have that for you soon.”

“The painting,” Jenny said. “We’ve got to put that painting back. It was on the long wall in the loft.”

“I left it in the supply closet in the office,” Dr. Philstrom said. “But I think it might be better if Mrs. Toomis would agree to come back and stay in the hospital until this is over.”

“I want to be with Clyde,” Rooney said. “I want to be with Jenny. I’m all right. Don’t you see. I know.”

“Rooney stays with me,” Clyde said flatly.

Sheriff Gunderson walked over to the window. “This place is a mess of footprints and tire tracks,” he said. “What we need is a good snowstorm to cover them. Keep your fingers crossed. There’s one due tonight.”

The storm began in the early evening. Snowflakes fine and rapid bit at the house and barns and fields. The wind blew and scattered the flying flakes, eventually banking them in rapidly growing piles against the trees and buildings.

The next morning, in prayerful gratitude, Jenny observed the glaring whiteness outside. The violated grave would be quilted with snow, the tracks to the cabin obliterated. If Erich came he would not be suspicious; even Erich who could instantly sense a book out of place, a vase moved a quarter of an inch, would have nothing to trigger his awareness of their presence in the cabin.

During the night, pushing their way through the treacherous roads, Sheriff Gunderson and two deputies had come back. One had wired the phones to monitor incoming calls, had given Jenny a walkie-talkie and taught her how to use it. The other had made copies of the papers Clyde pulled from the files, the pages and pages of income tax forms showing the Krueger holdings: deeds, rental contracts, office buildings, warehouses. The originals were back in the files, the copies taken to be pored over by investigators who would then begin to search possible hiding places.

Jenny adamantly refused to allow a policeman to stay in the house. “Erich could open the door and walk in. Suppose he realizes that someone else is here. And he would. You can count on it. I won’t risk it.”

She began keeping track of days with the awareness of seconds turning into minutes, minutes crawling to the quarter hour, the half hour. She had found the cabin on the fifteenth. On the morning of the sixteenth, the grave had been opened and Erich had phoned. The snowstorm ended on the eighteenth. All through Minnesota the cleanup began. The phone lines were down all of the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth. Suppose Erich tried to call? Would he realize that it wasn’t her fault he couldn’t get through. The entire area of Granite Place where the farm was located was harder hit than the rest of the county.

Don’t let him get angry, she prayed. Don’t let him take it out on the girls.

On the morning of the nineteenth she saw Clyde coming to the house. The upright set of his head and chest was gone. He bent forward as he walked the freshly plowed path, his face puckered not so much against the wind as under an invisible burden he seemed to be carrying.

He stepped into the kitchen foyer, stamping his feet to break the cold. “He just called.”

“Erich! Clyde, why didn’t you ring through? Why didn’t you let me talk to him.”

“He didn’t want to talk to you. He just wanted to know if the lines were down around here last night. He asked me whether or not you’ve been out. Miz Krueger, Jenny, he’s uncanny. He told me I sounded funny. I said I didn’t know about that; it’s been pretty busy trying to feed all the cattle in this storm. That seemed to satisfy him. Then he said the other day… Remember when he called right after we found Arden?”

“Yes.”

“He said he’d been thinking about it. He said that I should have been in the office at that time, that the call should have been picked up there first. Jenny, it’s like he’s right here watching us. He seems to know every move we make.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said that I’d gotten Rooney out of the hospital that morning and hadn’t been to the office yet so that it was still on the night setting where it rings in the house. Then he asked me if Mark has been poking around here; that was the way he put it, ‘poking around.’”

“What did you say?”

“I told him Dr. Ivanson had been checking the animals and should I have called Mark instead? He said no.”

“Clyde, did he mention the children?”

“No, ma’am. Just said to tell you he’d be phoning and he wanted you in the house waiting for the call. Jenny, I tried to keep him on so they could maybe trace where he is but he talked so fast and got off so quick.”

Mark phoned every day. “Jenny, I want to see you.”

“Mark, Clyde’s right. He is uncanny. He particularly asked about you. Please, stay away.”

On the afternoon of the twenty-fifth Joe came to the house. “Mrs. Krueger, is Mr. Krueger all right?”

“What do you mean, Joe?”

“He phoned to see how I was feeling. Wanted to know if I’ve been seeing you. I said just the one time I bumped into you. I didn’t say you’d come to our place. You know what I mean. He said he wanted me to come back to work when I’m ready but if I ever came near you or if he ever heard me call you Jenny, he’d shoot me with the same rifle he used to kill my dogs. He said my dogs. That means he did kill the other one too. He sounds crazy. I think it won’t do no good for either you or me if I’m around here. You tell me what to do.”

He sounds crazy. He was openly threatening Joe now. Despair anesthetized Jenny’s terror. “Joe, did you tell anyone about this; did you tell your mother?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t want to get her started.”

“Joe, I beg you, don’t tell anyone about that call. And if Erich phones back, just be very calm and easy with him. Tell him the doctor wants you to wait a few weeks more but don’t tell him you refuse to work. And Joe, for God sake, don’t tell him you’ve seen me again.”

“Jenny, there’s real bad trouble, isn’t there?”

“Yes.” It was useless to deny it.

“Where is he with your girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. Jenny, I swear to God you can trust me.”

“I know I can. And if he phones you again, let me know right away, please.”

“I will.”

“And, Joe… If-I mean he might come back here. If you happen to see him or the car. I need to know at once.”

“You will. Elsa was over at our place for dinner with Uncle Josh. She was talking about you, saying what a lovely person you were.”

“She never acted as though she liked me.”