Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

by Diana Dempsey

  “I bet it’s in Charlotte!” Trixie squeals. “Can you believe it? Just when I’m moving away!”

  “Jason and I have never moved anywhere. We’ve both lived in Cleveland all our lives. And now—” Tears rise to my eyes.

  Shanelle rubs my leg. “Girl, you can’t stop change.”

  Trixie hands me a tissue. I blow my nose. Between the tears and the congestion, I’m a snot-ridden mess. After a while I can talk again. “I kind of got used to our being separated while he was in pit school, you know? And of course I’ve been traveling for Ms. America. But this is different. This isn’t a short-term thing. It’s—”

  “Open-ended,” Shanelle supplies.

  “I think you’d have to move with him,” Trixie says. “You can’t let a husband move away from you and expect everything to be A-OK.”

  Shanelle arches her brows. “Especially not a husband who looks like yours.”

  “You should see the men of pit-crews calendar,” I say. “He did make the cover.”

  That elicits another round of whoops and hollers. We pledge to visit the Giant W to buy a few copies the second it’s not unseemly to return to the scene of the crime for such a self-indulgent purpose.

  “So does Jason want to take the job or not?” Shanelle wants to know.

  “He says he’s still deciding but I think he’s already decided.”

  “Meaning yes,” Trixie says.

  “He has to let Zach—that’s the driver—know next week.” I rise to look out the window and see my father shoveling again. I wonder what stress he’s trying to work off. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for Jason, so much more exciting than being a plain-old mechanic. But it means we’d have to sell the house and uproot Rachel and move away from my parents. And I’d have to give up my job, too.” I’m the personal assistant to a senior executive at an energy company back in Cleveland and my boss gives me tons of leeway to meet my Ms. America obligations. It would be very hard to match that flexibility anyplace else. I turn around and throw up my hands. “But the bottom line is I can’t stand in Jason’s way. I’m pursuing my dreams. I have to let him pursue his.”

  It’s so ironic. I’m the one who pushed Jason to go to pit school when I won Ms. America and scored all that prize money. Now it’s lit a fire under him, which I’ve always wanted but never expected. I guess I figured Jason would go to pit school and have a good time there and then we’d return to our normal lives. Now I’m having trouble grappling with Jason the High-Performing Husband. I wonder why. Maybe I’ve gotten a little too comfortable being the one who gets all the attention.

  If that’s true, I don’t like what it says about me.

  Trixie is asking about Rachel’s reaction to all this when we’re interrupted by a knock on my door. It’s Maggie. “I called the funeral home,” she reports. “The woman who runs it is waiting for us.” She glances at her watch. “We should’ve gotten there earlier. They’ve been open for an hour already.”

  “Did you find the will?” I ask.

  “No, but I did find the name of Ingrid’s lawyer. I’ve called her, too.”

  We three queens promise to be ready in fifteen minutes. My bet is Maggie will be ready in ten. Pop is clearly relieved that Maggie excused him from this excursion. He says if he stays at Damsgard he can let in the cops, who are supposed to come by again today. That is true but I think there’s something else going on. Despite his career as a cop, my father has never been good at facing life’s harsher realities. Of which death is the harshest. And that’s one topic you can’t avoid at the funeral home.

  I’ve just decided to pair my black turtleneck with crimson-colored skinny pants featuring a muted brocade print when my cell rings. “Hey, mom,” I answer.

  “You’ve got a cold!” she shrieks. “When did you get sick? Probably the minute you got off the plane. I told you they had germs in Minnesota.”

  My mother is not happy that I agreed to visit the home state of Pop’s reviled lady friend. If she got her wish, I’d write off the entire upper Midwest. “I got sick yesterday. But that’s not the big news.” I lower my voice. “Maggie’s sister was murdered during the Giant W opening ceremony.”

  “Did that Maggie do it?”

  I hesitate a beat too long.

  “I knew it! I could tell she was bad news from that time she ran up to me in the pickle aisle.”

  “Mom—”

  “Your father always had a fascination with sickos. Just like you’re developing, young lady. But in my opinion getting all lovey-dovey with one is taking it too far.”

  “We don’t know that Maggie did it.”

  “How many other suspects do you have?” When I can’t name a single one, she continues. “I gotta go. Bennie talked some woman into buying a Pontiac Grand Am with ninety thousand miles. Can you believe that? He could sell a nun a ticket to paradise. I’ll talk to you later. By the way, Rachel is fine but she still doesn’t want to fill out any college applications.”

  That’s another source of tension in my life. I can’t go into it now because I’m already in enough of a state.

  Fifteen minutes later I find myself in front of the Lang Funeral Home. It is an unremarkable two-story redbrick building but the mortician herself is a surprise from tip to tail. That is, unless you’ve met a Goth mortician before.

  Galena Lang, whom I’d guess to be in her mid-fifties, greets us wearing a midi-length black knit dress with a lace-up front, a brown corset belt, and Victorian ankle boots. Her eye shadow and nail varnish are charcoal gray, her skin is ivory, and her long blond hair is accented by indigo streaks.

  “So sorry for your loss,” she tells Maggie in a cigarette voice as she ushers us into her dimly lit office. We settle onto plump sofas upholstered with subdued plaid fabric. Boxes of Kleenex can be found on every horizontal surface. Framed hand-embroidered sayings about death hang on the walls. A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own – Thomas Mann. And they die an equal death: the idler and the man of mighty deeds – Homer. I would have to agree with both those sentiments.

  We accept hazelnut-flavored coffee and Galena settles in with a Black Cherry soda. “What a unique name you have,” Trixie says. “Your parents must be creative people.”

  “Not hardly. They named my brother Joe. Me they named after the township we lived in, about two hundred miles west of here.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” Shanelle says, “how did you get into this line of work?” Shanelle’s been hinting she might be interested in a change of career. From beauty queen to funeral director would be a leap but she does have the application of pancake makeup down pat.

  “It was my husband’s family business,” Galena tells us. “He’s gone now, too.”

  Somehow we’ve managed to circle back to the topic of Death. “Do you have any idea what you’d like for your sister?” Galena asks Maggie.

  “I was thinking something simple,” Maggie replies.

  “My most popular option is the two thousand dollar special. That includes a wake, with the deceased in a nice casket of your choosing. After that we switch to a cardboard box for cremation or burial.”

  “I’m not sure we need a wake,” Maggie says. “Or a fancy casket. We Lindvigs have always had simple tastes. How much would it be if we start with a cardboard box?”

  Galena scribbles on a pad of paper and produces a lower price.

  “Does that include embalming?” Maggie wants to know. “Because I don’t think we need embalming. That would slow things down, too, right?”

  “There’s always cremation,” Galena offers. “Would you consider that?”

  “That depends. How much does it cost and how soon can you do it?”

  Shanelle, Trixie, and I exchange a look. When Maggie said she wanted “simple,” I guess what she really meant was “cheap” and “fast.” Maybe she didn’t want my father to come to the funeral home because she didn’t want him to witness her so blatantly trying to hasten her sister’s sendoff.
/>   Galena produces a few more prices but Maggie remains dissatisfied. “Any way we could get it lower?”

  Before Maggie inquires about the Dumpster option, I pipe up. I’m not Ingrid Svendsen’s biggest fan but somehow I feel the need to prop up her side. “Wouldn’t a wake be customary for a prominent citizen like your sister, Maggie?”

  Maggie ponders that. “We are the daughters of a judge.”

  Shanelle picks up the thread. “Probably lots of folks will want to pay their respects.”

  “I don’t think that many will,” Maggie says. “My sister wasn’t easy to get along with. Plus I don’t want this to take forever. Waiting won’t make it any easier,” she repeats in what is rapidly becoming her catch line of the day.

  “Perhaps we might have a few moments alone,” I suggest to Galena.

  She rises. “I got a pending. I’ll go check on it.”

  As is typical for me, I plunge right in. “You understand you won’t be paying out of your own pocket for Ingrid’s funeral, right, Maggie? Her estate will cover the costs.”

  Maggie blinks at me. “But I’m her only living relative. So her estate is coming to me. So basically it is me who’s going to pay for it.”

  It’s hard to know how to respond to that. Nevertheless Trixie takes a stab at it. “I know for me, I’d feel better in the long run if I gave my sister a proper sendoff.”

  “Well, maybe, but I don’t think my sister would do that for me. Besides, Ingrid always had it so easy. She always got whatever she wanted. Husbands, houses, you name it. I had to work outside the home but she never had to. So now things will even out a little bit. That seems fair, doesn’t it?”

  Galena knocks on the door and pokes her head inside the office. “My pending’s hanging by a thread so I’d like to wrap things up here. You made any decisions?”

  Maggie rises to her feet. “Maybe you can answer one last question for me. When do they usually read the will? Before or after the funeral?”

  “After. Your sister is being autopsied today so I expect to take delivery tonight.”

  I close my eyes. Galena makes Ingrid sound like a SubZero.

  “Then I think we should skip the wake and do the funeral the day after tomorrow,” Maggie ordains. “In the morning. And read the will in the afternoon. After all, waiting won’t make it any easier.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “We don’t usually do this in the middle of the day,” Trixie reminds me.

  We’re back at Damsgard and I’m pulling the cork out of a bottle of sauvignon blanc. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” I ogle our takeout lunch. It’s a Minnesota specialty: turkey, mushroom, and wild rice soup, served with a toasted slice of baguette smothered in melted gruyère cheese. Comfort food if ever I’ve seen it. And boy, do I need both that and the nectar of the gods. For one thing, even though I’ve medicated myself with every cold remedy in the book, my congestion is worse. For another, Maggie’s irreverent display at the funeral home only added to my fear that she might’ve been the one to put Ingrid on the noon express to heaven’s door.

  “Let’s be fancy and eat in the dining room,” Shanelle suggests. “I especially like the decorations in there.”

  Not only is Shanelle crazy for snow globes—there’s a collection atop the credenza—but little Santas line the narrow wainscot cap.

  We serve our meal on the Lenox Holiday pattern china and settle around the mahogany dining table. Beneath the glittering chandelier Trixie raises her crystal wineglass in a toast. “To Ingrid Svendsen. May she rest in peace.”

  “And may Happy figure out why she’s resting so soon,” Shanelle mutters.

  “I need more suspects. I can’t focus entirely on Maggie.” I sip from my wineglass. “And for that I need to know more about Ingrid’s life.”

  “Maybe you can get Maggie to open up about her,” Trixie says.

  I taste my soup, which proves to be delectable. “I have to get Pop to open up about Maggie, too. That’ll be tricky if he senses I’m suspicious of her.”

  “Just how serious are those two?” Trixie wants to know.

  “Maggie’s angling for a proposal.” I set down my spoon. I can’t eat while I discuss this deeply disturbing topic. “Last weekend when Rachel went to Maggie’s salon, Maggie said flat out she was hoping to find a diamond ring from Pop under the Christmas tree.”

  “That’s how my friend Roseanne got engaged,” Trixie says.

  “Christmas and Valentine’s Day,” Shanelle says, “the two most popular times for a man to propose.”

  “Throw in New Year’s Eve and you’ve got the trifecta.” My proposal came not on a holiday but when the home pregnancy test came up positive.

  “We could talk to the neighbors about both Lindvig sisters,” Shanelle suggests. “Winona might be small enough that everybody knows everybody’s business.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I say. “We could also search the house for clues.” The cops did that while we were at the funeral home. I need to call Detective Dembek to ask if they found anything.

  “We should be searching the house right now, when Maggie isn’t here,” Trixie whispers. “Because I don’t think she’d take kindly to it.”

  “We best eat up then,” Shanelle says, and our spoons increase their speed between bowl and mouth.

  We’re slurping in silence when the doorbell rings. I can’t help it. My heart leaps because my first thought is: this could be Mario!

  I know. That’s not good for a woman who’s married to Jason. But if you knew Mario the way I know Mario, I bet you’d have the same reaction.

  It’s not Mario. In fact it’s not a man at all. It’s a slim, attractive blond I’d guess to be in her late sixties. Actually, she sort of resembles Ingrid. She’s wearing a snazzy nipped-waist parka in gunmetal gray with what I believe to be genuine shearling around the hood and cuffs. Beside her trousered legs stands a trendy brown-leather spinner and matching satchel.

  “I came the instant I heard!” she cries and pushes forcefully past me into the foyer, hauling her luggage inside with her. She pivots to face me again. “And you are?” she demands.

  Usually it’s the newcomer who has to identify herself but apparently this well-turned-out female isn’t shy. “I’m Happy Pennington and these are my friends Shanelle Walker and Trixie Barnett.”

  She eyes us for a moment then throws back her head and theatrically swings out her left arm. “ ‘To me, fair friend, you can never be old, for as you were when first your eye I eyed, such seems your beauty still!’ ”

  “Shakespeare?” I guess.

  “Of course ‘tis the bard! Sonnet 104. About the passage and ravages of time. Which you three have yet to suffer.” She gives me a penetrating onceover. “How did you come to know Ingrid? I never heard her mention you.”

  “I’m a family friend,” I lie. “Shanelle, Trixie, and I came to Winona to participate in the Giant W opening ceremony. I’m sorry but I didn’t catch your name?”

  She looks shocked that I have to ask. “I’m Priscilla Pembroke! Surely you’ve heard of me.”

  I’m too polite to reply that I have not. “I gather you don’t live in Winona?”

  “I live in Manhattan.” She says it as if living anywhere else would be preposterous. “You would have had to know Ingrid only for a minute or two to hear her speak of me. We were as close as two friends can be. And now”—Priscilla staggers then lays her palm against her forehead—“she’s gone! ‘Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come!’ ” She lowers her head and gives me an expectant look. “Julius Caesar, of course. Act two, scene two, page two.”

  “So … you’re an actress?” Shanelle guesses.

  She hurls a glare like a hate bomb in Shanelle’s direction. “I am an ac-TOR! I will not be limited to female roles. I can play anything: man, woman, or beast.” She grabs the handle of her spinner. “I’ll show myself to my room.”

  I race to bar her from proceeding upstairs. “Priscilla, you’ll have to wait f
or Ingrid’s sister to get back before you do that.”

  Her nostrils flare. “You cannot seriously mean to keep me from a home I know as well as my own.”

  “It’s not up to me. Maggie is Ingrid’s closest relative and you’ll have to speak to her.”

  It’s only after Shanelle and Trixie flank me in a show of solidarity that Priscilla backs down. “I’ll prove to all of you how intimately I know Ingrid,” she huffs. “In fact, even though she swore me to secrecy, I will tell you where her shrine is.”

  “She has a shrine?” Trixie says.

  “To the goddess Freyja!” This time Priscilla throws out both arms. “The name means lady. She is one of the pre-eminent goddesses of the Norse pantheon. A high-ranking member of the tribe of deities known as the Vanir.”

  Trixie’s features twist in confusion. “Why would Ingrid have a shrine to this Freyja?”

  “Because she was a worshipper! Like so many women drawn to Freyja’s wisdom and her pursuit of passionate fulfillment in life. I believe no heathen goddess is so loved, and so misunderstood, as Freyja. She is incredibly complex.” Priscilla eyes us dubiously. “Too complex for many to understand.”

  I watch Trixie’s eyes widen with every word Priscilla utters. Pantheon. Tribe. Vanir.

  Heathen.

  “Are you a worshipper, too?” Shanelle wants to know.

  Priscilla lowers her voice. “I have been known to participate in the honor rituals. They’re celebrated every Friday the 13th.”

  That’s coming around again in just a few days. “All right,” I say. “Show us Ingrid’s shrine.” This I’ve got to see.

  With a triumphant spin, Priscilla makes a beeline for the library. Either she’s a fantastic actress or she really does know her way around Damsgard. This is yet another spectacular room with gorgeous floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a formidable antique desk with elaborate carvings. The Christmas tree in the corner is bedecked with red ornaments and ribbons; Santas perch on the steps of the rolling bookshelf ladder; and holiday stockings dangle from the fireplace mantel.

  “I don’t see a shrine in here,” Shanelle says.