A Yarn Over Murder

by Ann Yost

  “I hope you will remember that when we talk to your brother.”

  His face cleared in surprise and he nodded.

  “How did the Makis explain that Liisa was fully dressed and, apparently, on her way out?”

  “They didn’t. They didn’t know. Until a few minutes ago nobody knew she was planning to leave town with Reid Night Wind.”

  Jace shook his head. “Somebody knew. Somebody wanted her dead and decided to set him up as the killer.”

  “That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “Is it? There’s too much inside knowledge, Hatti. How many people knew she had a sore throat and wouldn’t attend the smorgasbord? Add to that, who knew the Makis would leave her home alone? Who knew that she was scared of something and intending to run away as soon as Arvo Makis back was turned? Where’s the suitcase? Where’s her purse?”

  I gazed at him steadily as the answer presented itself. Only one person knew all of that. Only Reid Night Wind. He looked away but said, “he had no reason to kill her.”

  “Jace,” I said, gently, trying to protect him as much as I could. “Reid did have a motive. Sonya Stillwater, the local midwife, examined her body this afternoon.” There was no easy way to say it so I just blurted it out.

  “Liisa was pregnant.”

  The muttered oath contained so much anguish that Larry got up from his kitchen bed, padded across the floor and put his chin on Jace’s knee.

  Just for an instant, I wished I could do the same.

  Fourteen

  An hour later I stretched out on my childhood bed and stared up at my glow-in-the-dark stars and wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

  It wasn’t so much the investigation of Liisa Pelonen’s suspicious death, although that’s where it had started. It was this new complication that had my stomach twisting in knots.

  “Dress in layers tomorrow,” Jace had said, on his way out the door. “And bring whatever food you’ve got. And a bottle of water. I’ll take care of the sleeping bags.”

  “The what??”

  He’d turned to smile at me, the grim expression erased if only for a moment.

  “It’s a six-hour hike up and back and impossible to do in the dark. We’ll come back in the morning.”

  “What?”

  “You know, Umlaut,” he said, his finger lightly brushing my cheek, “Either your vocabulary has regressed or you’re afraid of spending the night with me. I’m not going to ravish you, you know.”

  I knew that. He’d made it clear, a year ago, he no longer wanted me.

  “It isn’t that. I don’t like camping, especially in the winter.”

  “We’re not going to be outside. The cabin has a fireplace and besides, we’ll have a chaperone, remember?”

  I clamped down on the urge to argue. There really was no choice if I wanted to interview Reid Night Wind before this whole thing got handed over to Sheriff Clump and I did want to. Jace was right in believing the lawman would make short work of Reid. It seemed to me the kid was guilty, dead to rights, but I wanted him to have a chance to prove his innocence. I had to go.

  “One other thing,” he’d said, as he opened the back door and started to head toward his grandfather’s truck. “That guy that was here tonight.”

  “Max?”

  He nodded. “What’s the deal with him?”

  I’d been tempted to say that Max and I were embroiled in a hot and heavy affair. There would have been some satisfaction in showing Jace that I’d moved on, and, in fact, there was a chance that Max was my future. But he wasn’t my present. Not in that way and I found I couldn’t lie.

  “He’s got a law enforcement background and I wanted to talk to him about the case so I invited him over.”

  “What about the wine?”

  I shrugged and answered as honestly as I could.

  “We’re friends. Maybe a bit more. I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”

  “It is if you intend to talk to him about my brother.”

  I cocked my head to one side.

  “What happened to I’m-a-sworn-officer-of-the-court and I-want-to-find-the-truth?”

  He scowled. “Still stands. I’ll find it. And without help from your boyfriend.”

  His voice had gotten louder and I replied in kind.

  “Max isn’t my boyfriend.”

  And Jace, as he often did, got in the last shouted word.

  “Good!”

  I smiled into the darkness as I remembered but the amusement didn’t last long.

  “What was I thinking,” I asked Larry, who was curled around my feet. “I must be out of my mind.”

  With the prospect of spending a day and a night with my ex to say nothing of the responsibility for finding out what had happened to Liisa Pelonen, I didn’t think I’d be able to relax enough to sleep but before I knew it Betty Ann’s chirp sounded in my ear:

  “Good morning, Keweenaians! Rise and Shine! Today is the perfect time to trek out to the woods to search for your tree!”

  Just for a moment, before I fully regained my senses, I pretended it was an ordinary December Sunday and that my husband and I were headed out to the wilderness, not to interview a suspect in a murder investigation but to cut down our own Christmas tree.

  Reality hit with Betty Ann’s next words.

  “Take a bottle of water and a compass. You don’t want to spend a night on Bald Mountain.”

  I threw my legs over the side of the bed, got to my feet and tried to summon some Sisu, which is a highly prized Finnish concept of inner strength. Nowhere in Luther’s Small Catechism, as my mom would say, did it promise that life would be easy, only that it was important to address it with dignity and a moral code. I had a job to do and I intended to stiffen my spine and get on with it.

  As soon as I had some coffee.

  I dressed in layers of long underwear, flannel-lined jeans, heavy socks, a gray turtleneck and an ancient forest-green sweatshirt that had once belonged to my ex-brother-in-law, Lars. It read, Eh, B, C, a play on the Yooper tendency to end a sentence with the meaningless syllable, eh. I’d chosen it because I wanted to make clear to Jace that I was not getting dolled up for him. Also, because I hadn’t done laundry in a while.

  Using the same logic, I bypassed mascara and eyeliner, applied just enough strawberry lipgloss to keep my lips from chapping and ran a brush through my spiky hair. I coaxed Larry to accompany me through the snow to the Leaping Deer with the promise of syrup-drenched pannukakku.

  The crowd had thinned out. Neither Sofi nor Sonya were there. Mrs. Moilanen and Diane Hakala helped Elli and me serve the smorgasbord and it wasn’t until I spotted Arvo dining with the guests from Lansing, that I realized Pauline wasn’t there, either.

  “Is Pauline all right?” I asked Arvo, when I got a chance to talk to him alone.

  He shook his head. “She’s taking it very hard, Hatti-girl. She says it’s her fault. I encouraged her to stay in the greenhouse this morning. It is her happy place.” I nodded. “Listen, Pauly and I are going to take the guests up to Copper Harbor this morning then, this afternoon, they will catch flights back down south. (South is shorthand for the mitten part of the state.) After that, you and I will talk, eh?”

  By mid-afternoon, I expected to be half way up a mountain.

  “Arvo, you said I could have until the end of the weekend to investigate. I want to hold you to that.”

  He shook his head, as though thinking.

  “We will be in enough trouble, Henrikki, for holding out so long.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him about Reid. Heck, I didn’t want it to be Reid. But there were so many signs that pointed to him and I wanted some answers before Sheriff Clump got involved.

  “I have a lead,” I said. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Just keep it under wraps until then, okay?”

  I could tell he didn’t want to. The horror had subsided a little and now he was just a sad, surrogate dad with an unresolved situation and a body in hi
s mortuary.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Tomorrow. Bright and early. First thing.”

  I wouldn’t be back until afternoon but there was no way I was going to get into that.

  “Thank you,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  It didn’t occur to me until he had walked off that I’d just blown my opportunity to avoid an overnight trek with Jace and, because I am fundamentally honest with myself, I acknowledged that a part of me—the impulsive, risk-taking part of me that had married a man I’d known less than a week—wanted to go.

  I shoved my arms into my parka and found Elli in the dining room brushing crumbs off the tablecloth.

  “Listen, can you keep Larry overnight for me?”

  “Sure,” she said, then she stopped what she was doing and looked up. “Overnight? Is this part of the investigation?”

  I was glad I’d found a moment the previous night to tell her about Liisa.

  “Yep.”

  My cousin studied my face with her guileless blue eyes and I found myself telling her the surprising story of Jace’s return and his brother’s involvement.

  “Holy moly, Hatti,” she said. “Do you think it’s a good idea to go into the mountains with him?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t have a choice.”

  Her delicate features were twisted in concern for me.

  “I could go in your place.”

  It was an idea and not a bad one. Elli would not come back home in an emotional body bag after spending time with Jace. And she’d know what questions to ask Reid, as well as I.

  “Thanks, anyway,” I said. “I want to go.”

  She gave me a worried half smile.

  “I know. That’s what worries me.”

  Jace was lounging against the railing on my parents’ front porch. He reminded me of a lean, hungry jungle cat who’d strayed into the snow belt and I felt my heart slam against my ribs. Dang. Maybe Ellie was right. Maybe this was a mistake.

  He never took his eyes off me as I waded through the foot of snow and my heart pumped harder. Was he thinking about how much he’d missed me? Had he changed his mind about us? What would I do if he asked me to get back together with him? What would I do if he didn’t?

  I decided to call him out.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Your walk,” he replied. “It’s a kind of glide, isn’t it? That the best way to get through knee-deep snow?”

  He was interested in the mechanics of navigating the snow? Well, I’d asked.

  “Yep,” I said. He nodded.

  “We’ll take the pickup.”

  “Fine.” I said, suddenly exhausted. “Just let me get my backpack.”

  I hadn’t heard him follow me inside, but when I hoisted the pack up off the kitchen table it flew out of my arms and found its way onto Jace’s back.

  “I can carry it,” I protested. He just grinned at me.

  “Save your strength. Where’s the dog?”

  Not only did he think I couldn’t carry my own things, he thought I’d neglected to make arrangements for Larry.

  “At a spa. He signed up for a massage and a colon cleanse. The works.”

  “No need to be sarcastic, Umlaut. I didn’t mean to second guess you. Seems I’ve developed some dictatorial habits since I’ve been responsible for everything at work and at home.”

  And whose choice was that I wanted to ask, but there was no need. He seemed to read my mind and the half-smile dropped off his face.

  The pick up was composed of two colors, white and rust, but the engine started at once and the heat worked. We belted up and I scanned the horizon as he turned it around in the alley and headed out to Tamarack Street toward M-41 going west.

  “Coast clear?”

  “What?”

  “You seem jumpy, like you don’t want any of your friends to see you with me.”

  “I think we should get one thing straight right from the get-go. This is a fact-finding mission, nothing more, nothing less. It isn’t personal.”

  He turned left and then right.

  “You should know by now, Umlaut, that everything between you and me is personal. Even a murder investigation.”

  I ignored the first part of the comment and focused on the second part.

  “You think it was murder, too, then?”

  “Hell, yeah. A carefully planned, well-thought-out execution, complete with a prime suspect.”

  “But why? Why would anyone target a teenaged girl?”

  “Money.”

  “But Liisa didn’t have any money. Neither does her natural father who lives in a remote cabin out near Ahmeek. I suppose it’s possible that Arvo could have written her into his will but he’s still a relatively young man. And he’s healthy. That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Greed is the most common motivation for murder,” Jace insisted.

  “What about jealousy and revenge?”

  He shrugged. “She was a teenager.”

  I thought about Ronja Laplander and her soul-deep disappointment in the St. Lucy pick. And I thought about Diane Hakala who had expected her daughter to get married after graduation.

  “Teens have feelings as strong as ours,” I pointed out. “Sometimes stronger. And they haven’t yet learned that time eases disappointments.”

  He shot me a quick glance.

  “Did that work for you?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  He must have heard something in my voice because his tone softened.

  “I’m sorry, Hatti. Have I failed to tell you that? I’m sorry about everything that happened between us.”

  The apology was small comfort against the grief of loss I’d grappled with for the past year and I couldn’t bring myself to be gracious.

  “Whatever,” I muttered.

  Jace drove in silence for a moment. I hoped he was re-living (and regretting) his actions of that grim December day in D.C. It turned out, he was not.

  “So who was jealous of the girl?”

  I wanted to scream but, for once, I controlled my impulse and focused on the topic at hand. I told him about the Laplanders and Arvo’s highhanded decision and I told him about Barb Hakala and her break up from Matti Murso.

  “Mind you,” I finished, “I do not think any of them were responsible for Liisa’s death. Aside from the fact that Diane, Barb, and Astrid were at the dance, they are all upstanding members of St. Heikki’s. None of them would kill except in self-defense.”

  “What about Astrid’s mother?”

  “Ronja? She helped out at the smorgasbord then, I assume, she went home.”

  “To brood about the unfairness of the St. Lucy pick? Or to do something about it?”

  “I’m sure Armas Laplander can provide an alibi for his wife,” I said, stiffly.

  “Right. Anybody ever tell you an alibi is suspect when it comes from a spouse?”

  “Well, maybe you’d believe Ronja’s four daughters.”

  “That isn’t the point, Umlaut.” He didn’t sound angry. “You have to look at everybody who had any sort of a motive.”

  “You’re just trying to save your brother’s skin.”

  “That, too.”

  I was silent for a minute.

  “Jace, I should tell you that Arvo is ready to turn this whole thing over to Sheriff Clump. He’s normally a very law-abiding person and I think his conscience is bothering him.”

  His lips tightened, so I sought something comforting to say.

  “The sheriff won’t know about Liisa’s connection to Reid, you know.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Nothing is more efficient in a small town than the grapevine. You were probably the last to know about my brother’s connection to the deceased.”

  The bitterness in his voice caught at my heart.

  “Was that how it was on the rez?”

  He nodded. “No secrets.”

  How painful that must have been for a boy with a mother like Miriam.

&nbs
p; “The good news was that I never got caught for shoplifting. Now I believe that people would step up to pay for milk or bread or cereal.”

  “That was kind.”

  He said nothing and I thought about how frightened and guilt-stricken he must have been every time he stole something, even though he got away with it.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” he said, after a minute. “I never felt guilty.” He glanced over at me. “Just like I don’t feel guilty about whisking you into the mountains to spend the night with me.”

  It wasn’t so much the words as the amusement in his voice. Rage boiled inside me and exploded.

  “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “I want to go back. I was doing this as a favor for you, Jace. You can spend a night on the mountain with Sheriff Clump instead.”

  “What did I say?”

  I could feel the heat in my cheeks and I knew they were bright red.

  “Are you kidding? You were flirting with me. Flirting! That’s so inappropriate.”

  “You’re right,” he said, finally. “I wasn’t thinking about the separation. It just seemed like old times, you know? I’ve missed you, Hatti.”

  “Huh.”

  He drove in silence for another mile.

  “If you want me to turn around, I will.”

  “No. This was bound to be awkward.”

  “I’d have said so, too. The thing is, it feels natural being together again.” He caught my eye again and there was no humor in the gaze. Instead, it was bleak.

  “Somehow,” he added, “that’s worse.”

  I knew what he meant.

  The drifting flakes began to gather strength as we headed down the interstate. The grassy fields and stands of pine trees were covered from a previous snowfall but the newly plowed pavement started to disappear under the white stuff.

  “What about the girl’s father? Where does he fit in the picture?”

  I settled into telling Jace about Jalmer Pelonen, his cabin and his annual fishing trip.

  “He’s lived around here a long time, but no one seems to know him except Einar, my shop assistant. Liisa lived with him until last summer and only moved to Red Jacket because her high school was down to like five or ten kids per class and the district couldn’t afford to keep it open. The other kids are at the high school in Lake Linden but Liisa wanted to attend Copper County High School because of the music program. She was a singer.”