The Deadly Art of Love and Murder

by Linda Crowder

  “Alex practically accused Olivia of stealing his house. What’d they want with you?”

  “Much the same. And that we’d be hearing from their attorney. Not that they have any grounds for action, considering what you found out about the deed.”

  “I feel sorry for them,” said Olivia, joining us.

  “There’s nothing for you to feel sorry about,” I told her. “Where’d they go? Are they staying in town somewhere?”

  “There wasn’t anywhere they could stay,” Mom replied. “We have no place for them and they certainly couldn’t stay at the house. I assume they went back to Juneau with the ferry.”

  My father came out of Mel’s, a high-powered rifle in each hand, which he gave to Bent and Frank. They slid them into slings on the sleds made especially for them.

  “Are we expecting trouble?” asked Olivia.

  “Not this time of year,” he answered, “but it’s better safe than sorry.”

  She looked uncertain, but didn’t ask. As my father said, this time of year was pretty quiet but you might still encounter a bear trying to pack on a few more pounds before hibernation. Later in the season, when small game became scarce, you had to be on your guard for wolves, which hunt in packs and had been known to track snowmobiles. You didn’t want to be out there alone and break down.

  “I’m wondering whether you could help me with something, Mr. King.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Cara and I did a walk-through of the house. It’s pretty bad, but I was wondering how long it would take to make the place livable.”

  “Were you thinking of renting it out next summer?”

  “Or living in it yourself, Dr. Jordan?” asked my mother.

  “I’m not sure so please don’t mention it to anyone. You folks need a doctor and I’ll need a place to set up practice. If it’s possible to fix it up, and if I could do it on a budget––I know everybody thinks doctors are rich but I’m not. I’m sure that’s why Gram left me the house.”

  “I will have that house looking shipshape by––when did you say you’d be coming?”

  “Early June, if it’s possible.”

  “That’s gonna be cutting it tight,” said my father, running his hand through his hair. “Once the cruise ship season starts, things get a little crazy around here.”

  “Nonsense, Robert. We’ll mobilize the whole town if we have to. I promise you, Dr. Jordan, if you’re gracious enough to open a practice here, by June 1 that house will be ready.”

  “YOUR MOTHER’S QUITE the dynamo,” said Olivia as she and I helped Bent and Frank load bedroom furniture onto the sled.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I told her, “but it’s nice to see her using her powers for good. You don’t want to see her when she’s trying to push you in a direction you don’t want to go.”

  “Heart of gold, hands of steel.”

  “Exactly. Would you like to see the rest of the place? Mel and Bent’s cabin’s identical to mine, but my parents’ is a little bigger. It has the only kitchen. When we all lived here, we’d gather for meals and family time, then head off to our separate spaces.”

  “Perfect combination of togetherness and privacy,” she said, trudging behind me through the four foot drifts.

  “It really was. Then Mel and Bent started staying in town, keeping the restaurant open during the winter and it was just my folks and me.”

  “And with the baby coming?”

  “They’re threatening to build a house on a lot they own beside her place. They’d been holding onto it, thinking they’d put in something touristy. Even money says they put in a storefront on the street level and live on the second floor. Maybe they’ll build a bridge connecting it to Mel’s.”

  “I’m sure your sister will appreciate that.”

  “My apartment is looking more and more attractive every day.”

  “You wouldn’t come back out here by yourself if they move to town?”

  “I’d be tempted, but when push comes to shove, I’m not that much of a hermit.”

  We reached the cabin and I stood aside to let her go in first. It was a large A-frame with one build-out on the side that housed the kitchen. On the other side, there was a glass-enclosed sunroom that held the hot-tub. A large living and dining space took up the center of the cabin with a ship’s ladder leading to the loft bedroom.

  “Heaven,” said Olivia, inhaling deeply as she reached the loft and turned to look out the wall of windows. The two small cabins were tucked into the trees at the far side of the clearing and the rest of the view was the woods and the mountains behind them.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “It’s spectacular. I’d never give this up to live in town, even a town as quaint as Coho Bay.”

  “It isn’t town they’re thinking about. It’s the patter of grandbaby feet.”

  “That’s a powerful incentive.”

  Chapter 7

  The morning of Mrs. Nash’s funeral dawned grey and cold, but there was no snow in the forecast. Olivia planned to spend one more night in Coho Bay, then return to Minneapolis to finish her residency. I’d offered to take her to the airport since there wouldn’t be another ferry for a week, but she’d already made arrangements. “There’s no reason for you to put yourself out when Kenny’s going anyway.” I hadn’t been able to argue with logic like that.

  I was standing in my new bedroom, which lacked only paint on the walls to be complete. There was no window because Dad knew I like it dark when I sleep. Not that there was ever much light in the winter, but it would also be warmer without a window and I did love to sleep warm in the wintertime. “I’ll help you cut out a window in the spring,” I told him when he joined me.

  “You don’t have to do that, Kit,” he said, putting an affectionate arm around me.

  “You could sleep an extra half hour if you lived here,” Mom said from the doorway.

  “Nobody’s gonna get any sleep with a baby crying all night,” I countered.

  “The baby will be sleeping through the night by summer.”

  “C’mon, Dad.” I headed downstairs, following my nose to the dining room. I can be every bit as stubborn as Mom and I was not going to sacrifice my independence to gain a little extra sleep. Unless it meant they would forego building a new house next door. I’d sacrifice to save my sister’s sanity.

  After breakfast, we walked over to pick up Olivia. She’d wanted to be alone on her last morning before saying good-bye to her grandmother forever. They waited on the boardwalk while I went around to the apartment. Olivia opened the door before I could knock and pulled me into the entryway for a hug. Her eyes were suspiciously red but she shook her head when I tried to say something. She threw her coat on over the somber black dress she wore and pulled the door shut behind us.

  On the boardwalk, Frank had joined my family, having elected to sleep on his boat again last night. He offered one arm to me and the other to Olivia and we set off for the church. I loved its traditional Russian Orthodox white walls and green roof, with onion domed dormers topped by metal crosses. There was a steeple with a bell, added when the two protestant sects formed their own congregations, but the combination was charming. It was a bigger building than you would expect to find in a town our size so the Russians must have had high hopes when they founded Coho Bay to serve the fishing trade. None of the religious leaders lived in town and Mrs. Nash hadn’t been a member of any of the churches, so Mayor Solokov had agreed to lead the service.

  We sat with Olivia in the front pew, feeling oddly out of place since our family pew was further to the back. It was disconcerting to be so close to the altar and to the satin draped coffin in front of it. I squirmed in my seat, looking around as my friends slowly filled the seats in the sanctuary. Many people had known Mrs. Nash in passing, and she’d been coming up enough years to have earned honorary citizenship so the whole town had turned out. I smiled at Dan as he took a seat across the aisle and a few rows back. He smiled back
at me, but his smile faded when Frank leaned over to me and whispered, “Nice turnout.”

  Olivia sat ram-rod straight, an island of misery in the sea of polite concern. Mel grasped her hand and leaned against her shoulder. Sophie Kakoweth, who manages the Nuntok tribe’s craft shop during the season, took her seat at the organ and began to play the hymn my mother had requested, “Nearer My God, to Thee.” We didn’t know what music Mrs. Nash might have liked so we had chosen hymns we hoped would bring Olivia some comfort. As a tear welled in the corner of Olivia’s eye, I knew we’d chosen well.

  As the music faded, Solokov stepped to the right of the draped coffin. “Let us pray,” he said. Heads bowed as he led us in the same simple prayer that had opened every funeral I’d ever attended. Afterward, he gave a surprisingly moving eulogy, so completely out of character that I knew my Mom had written it for him. It was such a lovely speech I couldn’t fault her it.

  We stood to sing “Rock of Ages.” It was Mel’s favorite and one the congregations had sung so many times the voices were strong and powerful around us, music filling the sanctuary. Olivia’s voice, broken with emotion, blended with mine as we shared a hymnal. My dad talked about meeting Mrs. Nash and her husband the first year they’d come to stay with the Tilamus. He spoke about the close friendship between the two couples and how that friendship had continued after Doc had lost his wife and Mrs. Nash, her husband.

  “That’s a crock. This whole thing is one big, fat lie after another.” Alex Tilamu was standing in the aisle, rocking on his feet as though he were standing on the deck of a ship. Murmurs rose across the congregation, sounding more excited than horrified.

  “Alex, this is neither the time nor the place.” My father’s voice was calm, but the whispering intensified as it hit people who the speaker was.

  Alex swore, causing a few of the older women to gasp. “You’re all sitting here crying and singing for the woman who murdered my mother.”

  Dan stood up and took his arm. “Alex, that’s enough.”

  Alex shook Dan off. “Who the hell are you?” There were more gasps and some nervous tittering.

  Dan took Alex’s arm again, trying to turn him around. “You can tell me all about it outside.”

  Alex shook him off again and steadied himself on a pew. “You can’t shut me up. She killed my mother and then she went home and killed her husband so she could have my father.”

  At that, Olivia jumped up and whirled around, her eyes spitting fire. “Shut up, you lousy drunk! You didn’t know my grandmother. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  That brought us all to our feet, funeral decorum forgotten. Voices raised again, but not in song, as townspeople started to take sides. Frank and Bent helped Dan drag Alex out of the church, while he hurled accusations in language that was making even the younger women gasp. It was nearly half an hour before the uproar began to die down and by then, the dignity of the service had been hopelessly broken. Solokov dismissed the congregation, which filed from the church, past the clinic and into the recreation hall where the ladies groups were serving lunch.

  Only a handful of us stayed. The pall-bearers, part-time city workers dressed in their Sunday best, walked with the coffin out the back door to the cemetery. Mel and I put our arms around Olivia and half-carried her behind them. Those who’d best known Mrs. Nash followed us and by the time we gathered around the grave, the quiet of the cemetery and the sacredness of the ground into which they lowered the coffin restored peace.

  Olivia stood beside the grave for a long while after everyone else had gone. I waited at a respectful distance, giving her space. She crouched down and picked up a handful of dirt, sprinkling it into the grave. Then she looked around her, then took the few steps to look down at the Tilamu graves. She put a hand on each stone and bent her head. She stood one more time by her grandmother’s grave, then walked down the hill to meet me.

  “What are those little houses?” she asked, pointing at doll-house-sized structures that adorned some of the graves. They were of differing shapes and sizes, painted in bright colors and obviously tended with loving hands.

  “Spirit houses. When the Nuntoks bury a loved one, they cover the grave with a woolen blanket, then place a spirit house over the top. It gives their spirit a place to go before they make the journey to the other side.”

  “How lovely.”

  We started back toward the recreation hall. “The spirit houses are built to resemble something meaningful in the person’s life.”

  “Do they take them down once the spirit has had time to make that journey?”

  “No. I think by then, it’s a comfort to those who’ve been left behind. One last show of respect for the person they lost.”

  “Is it only the Nuntoks who do it? Would it be rude or disrespectful for me to put up a spirit house for Gram?”

  “I don’t know whether the Nuntoks would mind, if it was out of love and respect, but I don’t know that anyone’s ever done it.”

  She was thoughtful as we walked but as we approached the hall, she hesitated. “Would it be terrible if I didn’t go inside? I don’t think I can face people.”

  “Nobody believes what Alex said. You could see he was drunk. He was just talking crazy.”

  “What if he’s right?”

  “Olivia! I know you hadn’t known your grandmother long, but she was the sweetest person in the world. She’d never kill anybody.”

  “She killed herself,” said Olivia, “and in the most violent way possible. I’m sure you never dreamed she could do that, and yet she did. We don’t know what else she might have done.”

  I took her arm and waited until her eyes met mine. “Yes we do. Mrs. Tilamu died of cancer. Everybody in Coho Bay saw her suffering. As for Alex, he’s got no call to be accusing anyone. All the time she was sick, he never came to visit her. Not once. He shook the dust off his feet when he moved away and he never came back. There’s no mystery in her death and if Alex is wrong about her, he’s wrong about your grandfather’s death too.”

  “I want to believe that but I never knew my grandfather. I only know what my grandmother told me about his death and she certainly wouldn’t have told me if she killed him.”

  It was too cold to stand outside arguing with her about something neither one of us had first-hand knowledge about. “I’ll talk to Dan, but cancer is the only thing that killed Mrs. T.”

  She nodded and started across lots toward the apartment. Then she stopped and turned to look at me. “Tell your dad to hold off on fixing up the house.”

  My heart sank, but I tried not to let it show. “I’ll let him know.”

  She trudged off through the snow, seemingly heedless of the cold. I was cold just watching her and I was wearing wool slacks with knee-high boots. In the recreation center people were seated at round tables or standing in line at the buffet, talking in subdued tones. By the curious looks people shot me, I had a pretty good idea what they were saying. My fingers fumbled as I tried to unbutton my coat. I looked for my family and saw my mother sitting at a table on the far end of the room, deep in conversation with Mayor Solokov.

  I took a step toward her, but suddenly, I wanted to be anywhere but there. Ignoring my sister, who’d risen when she saw me come in, I turned and ran out. I gasped, desperate to fill lungs that felt like they’d gone flat. I wrapped my arms around a post and pressed my hot face against the cold metal.

  I felt Mel’s arms wrap around me. “Cara, are you all right? Are you sick?” I didn’t answer so she tugged me away from the pole and sat down with me on the step in front of the recreation center. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard. Gabby told me you could relapse.”

  I leaned against her, shaking, and dug for my voice. “I’m okay.”

  I heard the door open. My father squeezed himself onto the step next to us and put his hand on my knee. “Everything all right, honey?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “She’s sick, Daddy” said Mel, putting her ha
nd on my forehead. “She’s burning up.”

  “I’m not sick.” I tried to bat her hand away.

  Dad pulled me to my feet. “Let’s get you home, Kit. Mel, would you ask Olivia to come over and take a look at her as soon as she’s up to it?”

  “Don’t you dare bother her. It’s just the stress of everything hitting me all at once.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I managed to pull away from my father and stand on my own, only a little bit shaky. “I’m sure. It was just too hot in there. I’m fine now.”

  Mel looked unconvinced, but Dad came to my rescue. “You go back inside, Mel. If she asks, tell your mother we decided to go for a walk. Fresh air, that’s what you need. Right, Kit?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I’m not sure she believed us, but she didn’t argue. Dad walked with me to the boardwalk. “Okay, spill,” he said once we were out of earshot.

  “Olivia’s really upset, Dad. Could there be any truth in what Alex said?” I buried my hands in my coat pockets and kicked myself for forgetting my gloves.

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  I stared across at City Hall, wondering what was going on there. I took a step in that direction, but dad pulled me back. “Dan will tell us whatever we need to know. Right now, we’d only be in his way.”

  “How’d Alex get here? I thought Mom said he and his sister took the ferry out yesterday.”

  “Obviously he didn’t.”

  “Why would Alex say a thing like that? He can’t possibly think Olivia will give him the house now.”

  Dad shrugged. “You can’t know what a drunk is thinking. What matters is Mrs. Nash didn’t kill his mother.”

  “That’s what I told Olivia but she’s really shaken.”

  “Barging in there asking Alex a million questions you can bet Dan is already asking isn’t going to help Olivia.”

  “I don’t think Dan is asking any questions.” I nodded to where he had emerged from City Hall and was walking toward us. When he was near enough I didn’t have to shout, I asked, “Why aren’t you asking Alex why he’s trashing Mrs. Nash when she isn’t even here to defend himself?”