by Ann Yost
“Take a load off,” he said, with a noticeable lack of romance. “We’ve got to figure out some strategy here.” He glanced upwards. “What’s up with the ceiling?”
I explained about the glow-in-the-dark stars.
“I suppose your stepdad put them up for you.”
“Yes,” I said, gazing into his brooding gray eyes. All at once, I had an epiphany, of sorts, about something I should have noticed long ago.
“Why do you always refer to Pops like that?”
“Because he is your stepdad.”
“No, I don’t mean that. With that ironic twist in your tone of voice. You’ve never met the man but you neither like nor trust him. What gives on that?”
He shrugged and winced, again, which threw me off.
“You’re right. I don’t know him. I just don’t have a high opinion of fathers in general.”
“That’s very inclusive of you,” I said. “Now all you have to do is get an attitude about mothers and you’ll have covered most of the adults on the earth.”
He managed to refrain from another shrug because it hurt, but the impulse was written on his face.
“My folks are coming home today and I’d like you to meet them.”
“You sound more like a girl bringing home her boyfriend for the first time than someone on the cusp of divorce.”
I tried to absorb the shot without a visible reaction. I had, after all, asked for it. I went back to my epiphany.
“This isn’t really about my dad, is it? It’s about yours. The man who abandoned Miriam Night Wind all those years ago. Jace, don’t you think it’s time to find some closure on that? You’re in danger of letting it taint your entire life.”
He held my gaze for what must have been about thirty seconds and then he patted the bed again and I sat down.
“I wish,” he said, wincing a bit as he turned toward me, “things were different, Umlaut. But they aren’t.”
I sensed we were finally getting close to the reason for the separation and I was frantic to learn more but I was aware than when the gray eyes turned to slate, it meant the Gone Fishin’ sign was up.
“Let’s go over the suspect list,” he suggested.
I sucked in a breath and started.
“I’ve got three; Arvo, Reid and Matti Murso.”
He flinched a little at the second name but stayed calm.
“Motives?”
“Arvo and Matti Murso loved her and Reid married her. One of them had to be the father of her baby and if it was Arvo, that fact coming out would have ended his marriage. Matti, I think would have married her but she wanted someone more mature so she married Reid. Reid may or may not have loved her and claims he married her for the money.” I looked at the face only inches away from mine and yelped. “OMG!”
“What? Do I have butter on my nose?”
“I forgot about you!”
“Probably not a bad move under the circumstances.”
“No, I mean, Mr. Jussi, down in Hancock, told Elli and me that Jalmer Pelonen wanted you to be a third trustee on Liisa’s trust fund.”
“What the hell?”
“You didn’t know?” He shook his head, his burns forgotten.
“Jalmer Pelonen wrote to Mr. Jussi asking him to add you to the portfolio. The letter got misfiled and Mr. Jussi never acted on it. It doesn’t directly implicate you but it is one more box checked against Reid because it means he knew about the trust fund at least three or four weeks ago.”
Jace’s curse was less politically correct than mine.
“I wonder if Reid knew about the request. Or Liisa.”
“What about Jussi himself? He could have dipped into the trust fund intending to pay it back and then he discovered the girl was getting married and he would be called to account much sooner than expected.”
“It’s a possibility,” I admitted, wondering why I hadn’t thought of that myself. And then I realized why. “Jake Jussi could have installed a bomb on Jalmer’s truck or yours but I don’t see how he could have known Liisa would be home alone at the funeral home on Friday night after the parade. Or that she would be planning to run away with Reid that night. Oh, something else I forgot to tell you. I found her suitcase. It was hidden behind a pot in Pauline Maki’s greenhouse.”
“So the arrow points to Arvo?”
“Not necessarily. Anybody could have hidden it there.”
“God,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “What a frickin’ mess,” he muttered, only he used a different word.
“Jace,” I said, apropos of nothing, “why did you cut your hair?”
He countered instead of answering.
“Why did you cut yours?”
“More efficient,” I said, knowing that he knew it was a lie. We had, during our brief time together, talked about cultural traditions, including the custom of cutting long hair as an expression of grief.
“Same here. More efficient.” He quickly returned to the subject.
“What about women? Weren’t there a couple of mothers who resented Liisa because of her beauty?”
There it was again, the implied indictment of a girl who happened to be pretty.
“Ronja Laplander was mostly angry at Arvo as he was the one who line-jumped Liisa ahead of Astrid for the part of St. Lucy. Diane Hakala was pretty disappointed when Matti abandoned her daughter, Barb, and, yes, I think she did blame Liisa more than the faithless suitor. All’s forgiven now, of course. Barb and Matti are going to get married as planned, and during spring break so they can attend a cheese festival.”
“Sounds like the Hakala woman had the stronger motive.”
“Yes, but she doesn’t have a killer personality. Ronja, on the other hand, would go to the mat for any advantage for her kids.”
We pursued our own thoughts, silently, for a moment and I’ll admit I was distracted by the warmth I could feel from him even though we weren’t touching.
“Doc Laitimaki said Liisa could have been poisoned but that nothing turned up in the tox results.” I was aware of a slight tremor in my voice. “He said he’d need to know what to look for.”
“Maki has access to all kinds of chemicals in his embalming room,” Jace pointed out. All at once a memory jumped into my head. It was the vision of a deep blue flower with petals shaped like the bell of a saxophone.
“Look, Hatti,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. “I’ve got to get off this bed. And fast.”
“Or what?”
“Or this.” He leaned across the inches that separated us and kissed me. It was a soft, lingering kiss without any sexual intent behind it and when it was over, I felt that it had been a good-bye.
An instant after Jace vaulted off the bed the door burst open and Charlie catapulted into the room. She raced across it to grab my arm, heedless of the fact that I was not alone, and I realized she was sobbing.
“The sheriff’s here. He’s come to arrest Reid. Aunt Hatti, you’ve got to do something!”
Jace removed himself from the bed and glared at me.
“You called him, didn’t you? Judge, jury, and executioner. I should have known where your loyalty lay. You talk a good game but when push comes to shove, you’re going to back your Grand Pooh-Bah, every time.”
I felt sick and sad and helpless in the face of his anger. I hadn’t called the sheriff but I’d intended to. And, anyway, the flare-up was just one more sign that all hope was gone. My marriage was over.
Thirty-One
Horace Clump had been sheriff of Copper County for as long as anyone could remember, certainly long enough to have earned the sobriquet “valued institution” or “favorite son.” As it happened, he was called neither.
Clump’s body type had always been egg-shaped, his gourd-shaped head joined to a barrel-shaped body without benefit of a neck. Many hours devoted to doughnuts and pancakes had expanded his girth enough that, by age fifty, he resembled no one so much as Humpty-Dumpty. It was an image reinforced by his waddle-like wa
lk and the suspenders that had long since replaced a belt at his middle.
But neither that nor his bald pate, too-close eyes and loose, liver-colored lips, had impaired his personal life. Clump’s wife RaeAnne and his three surprisingly attractive daughters appeared to be devoted to him.
And, as Pops had pointed out, Clump was no fool. He was physically lazy and penurious but ambitious enough to consolidate his power by pressuring small communities in Copper County to sign contracts with him for law enforcement services. Thus far, Red Jacket had resisted but I knew, and everyone knew, that these murder cases would tip the balance. I knew Pops would be disappointed if that happened on my watch and I sighed. Just one more thing to worry about.
I attempted to be polite to the oval male sprawled in a chair in my kitchen even though he didn’t bother to stand up when I entered the room. Neither did he remove his wide-brimmed sheriff’s hat.
“Good morning, sheriff. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yer sister’s takin’ care of that, Ms. Lehtinen.”
I nodded. I hadn’t really expected him to call me (acting, temporary) chief.
“This here’s Elwood Snow,” he said, jerking his thumb, hitchhiker-like, at the tall, thin individual who had risen from the table. “Elwood’s my deputy.” He pronounced it “depooty.” Elwood was apparently the latest in a revolving door of deputies, a position Lars had once held. Like I said, few people can tolerate Clump for very long.
I glanced at Sofi, who was filling mugs with fresh, fragrant coffee. It was business as usual. A Finnish-American hostess always provided fresh coffee. My mother would have offered coffee to a burglar.
“I’m here to collect Reid Night Wind. I’d ’ppreciate it if you’d call ’im.”
I glanced back at Jace who had followed me into the room.
“Sheriff, have you met Reid’s brother, Jace Night Wind, attorney at law? Jace, this is our sheriff, Horace Clump.”
Clump nodded but stayed sprawled in his seat, his belly mounded, his thumbs twanging his suspenders.
“Night Wind,” he said to Jace, then he turned his gaze to me, a not inconsiderable feat for an individual with no neck. “We’ve had some doings before over this boy.” I remembered Reid’s earlier brushes with the law and tried not to wince.
“I imagine you know that my father thinks a lot of Reid Night Wind,” I said. “And his brother.”
In fact, Pops had never met Jace but I ignored that in order to build a respectable connection for Reid.
“Shoot-a-mile,” Clump said. “Boy met the dead girl at your house, ain’t that right?”
I felt Jace’s long fingers on the back of my neck and figured he wanted me to stop before the hole I was digging for his brother went all the way to China.
“How-do, sheriff,” Jace said. “You got a warrant?”
“Don’t need no warrant for a little chat.”
His laid-back hillbilly act was so good I halfway expected him to produce a stalk of alfalfa and stick it in his mouth.
“Ain’t got a warrant for you, either, Ms. Lehtinen, but I think we need a little pow-wow. How’s come you didn’t give me a buzz as soon as the corpse turned up?”
I couldn’t answer that without implicating Arvo, who was already in this up to the top of his fishing waders. And, anyway, I was in full sympathy with the funeral director and with Jace. Clump clearly intended to nail the low-hanging fruit in this case, i.e. one Reid Night Wind.
As if he’d read my mind, Clump produced a fake smile and said, “This here’s gonna be a slam dunk.”
“He didn’t do it,” Charlie sobbed. “There’s no proof he did.”
Jace didn’t even twitch at the ill-advised comment, but his fingers dug into my shoulder. Clump signaled to Elwood who dug into the back pocket of his brown uniform trousers to pull out a much-folded sheet of paper. The sheriff scowled at him.
“Dad gummit, boy, why’d you have to wrinkle it up?”
The deputy was too new at the job to realize he’d be better off not answering the rhetorical question.
“Had to make it fit in my pocket,” he mumbled.
“Damn fool.” Clump unfolded the paper and held it out to Jace, who stepped forward to take it. “Proof positive yer brother’s a murderer.”
Fear gripped my heart. “What is it?”
Jace, not surprisingly, didn’t answer me. He didn’t hand over the paper, either.
“Marriage license,” Clump said, triumph in his voice and in his piggy eyes. “Shows that Night Wind married the Pelonen girl on December twelfth, the day she was to inherit her money. With her old man dead, he gets the whole enchilada. We’ll be lookin’ at him for that death, too.”
How had Clump found out about the clandestine elopement? Did it matter? How could we save the young man? Then I remembered that it was either him or Arvo and I simply didn’t believe that the man who had been a loving, if eccentric surrogate uncle all my life, could have killed the girl and anguish filled my soul.
Maybe Reid was guilty, after all.
With perfect dramatic timing, Elli arrived trailed by Reid, whose raven hair was still wet from a shower. This time I ignored his devastating good looks and focused only on his youth. His dark eyes looked scared.
It was too much for Charlie. She made a strangled sound and buried her face in her hands.
Reid straightened his shoulders and assumed a bravado I was sure he didn’t feel.
“Lookin’ for me, sheriff?”
The fat man heaved himself up from the chair. “I come to offer you some hospitality at the county’s expense. You’d best bring a toothbrush. You may be with us for some time.”
“He doesn’t have to go,” I said, helplessly.
Clump’s expression revealed an unctuous, faux sympathy.
“I got me a eyewitness.”
Jace, Reid and I all stared at the lawman and my heart sank. Of course, he had an eyewitness. Reid had been at the sauna within minutes of when Liisa Pelonen had died.
“So what if he was there,” I said, semi-hysterically. “He was her husband and she had planned to meet him but she was dead when he got there.”
This time Jace’s gimlet stare was trained on me and I knew why. I’d just handed Clump another three yards toward the first and ten he needed to convict Reid.
“Neighbor lady named Ikola. Got a signed statement from her. She says he shot out of the mortuary like his tail-end was on fire and he was carrying a pink suitcase.”
I felt sick as I contemplated the statement. The Ikolas were our back door neighbors on the other side of the alley. If Grace had been in the upstairs back bedroom tending to her invalid mother-in-law, she could easily have seen the Reid in the Makis’s backyard.
Reid smiled at me.
“I never had the suitcase. Don’t worry, sis. I’ll go along with him and we’ll get this straightened out. I didn’t kill Liisa and no one can prove I did.”
That might have been true in Law and Order or Murder, She Wrote, but in real-life, the prisons were filled with innocent people. If this was a frame-up, someone had done a bang-up job with it.
I tried a last Hail Mary.
“Sheriff, you know the autopsy report concludes that Liisa Pelonen died of heart failure. I fail to see how you can charge anyone with murder when the coroner’s verdict is natural causes.”
No shadow of doubt crossed the sheriff’s jowly face. “Heart failure after a faint due to the shock of bein’ hit on the noggin,” he said. “That still adds up to murder.” He struggled to his feet then spoke to his deputy without bothering to look at him.
“Cuff ‘im, Elwood.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Jace told his brother, then he made a face as if remembering he no longer had a vehicle. I grabbed the keys to the Jeep off the pegboard by the door and threw them to him.
“Thanks,” he said. For some reason, my eyes filled.
After they’d left Elli sized up the despair I was feeling and suggested that she and
I and Sonya and Sofi should meet for lunch.
“Let’s pool our mental resources,” she said. I agreed because I didn’t know what else to do and because I wanted to be left alone. I felt utterly helpless in the face of the heartbreak threatening the Night Wind brothers and I just needed to regroup. After everyone had gone, I poured a fresh cup of coffee and, with Larry curled at my feet, I planted myself in pop’s leather chair and promptly went to sleep.
The doorbell woke me an hour later and, thinking it was Jace, I flew to answer it then banished the flicker of disappointment when I found Max Guthrie on the doorstep, his rugged features reflecting an ill-concealed concern.
“Hey,” he said. “I found myself with some time on my hands.”
I wasn’t fooled. His concern touched me.
“Max, you were up all night.”
“Sleep can wait. I understand we have a real crisis on our hands. What can I do for you, Hatti?”
The offered support, along with the power nap, combined to give me an idea.
“Jace took my Jeep to the jail. How would you like to drive me over to Frog Creek? I want to talk to Doc.”
The gentle snowflakes that kissed our faces as we walked to Max’s truck thickened as he navigated the five miles to Frog Creek. Doc Laitimaki was finished with the official autopsy and I knew Arvo wanted to hold a funeral service this afternoon. Some might have said it was too soon but I thought I understood. Arvo was looking for closure for himself and Pauline.
I just hoped he wouldn’t have to cancel because of the weather.
“Looks like we’re in for a blizzard,” Max said, peering through the frantic windshield wipers. “Visibility is already practically nil.”
We passed my Jeep, parked in front of the sheriff’s office on Main Street.
“Looks like Night Wind is still there with his brother.”
“Is that a good or a bad sign?” I asked, really wanting to know.
“Good. It means Clump can’t string the guy up by the thumbs or try any other questionable interrogation methods. The case against Reid is fairly conclusive, from what you’ve told me.”
“Yep,” I said, my heart sinking. “It seems to me the only way to clear him is going to be finding out who really did it.”
