Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

by Diana Dempsey

  “I agree. And that’s good because being well-dressed always gives me confidence,” Trixie says.

  Spoken like a true beauty queen.

  “We’ll be watching you from the rental car just up the street from the boat landing,” Mario assures her. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “I won’t. In fact I’m kind of excited!” Her hazel eyes shine.

  Trixie gets in the Mercedes and drives off. We wait a few minutes then take a different route to park in our prearranged spot. Mario cuts the engine. We see the Mercedes parked ahead, and Trixie waiting by the boat landing, her breath fogging in the frigid air.

  “I’m kind of excited, too,” I murmur. “This is like a stakeout.”

  A few minutes pass before a nondescript Japanese sedan parks behind the Mercedes. A huskily built man in a parka and wool cap emerges and greets Trixie at the boat landing. We watch her hand over the wad of cash stashed in her pocket. Hubble doesn’t bother to count the bills.

  “He must think Ingrid’s good for it,” I whisper.

  Hubble and Trixie engage in an animated conversation. Every once in a while Hubble glances around as if to make sure no one is observing the tête-à-tête. I always freeze in place when he does that. At one point Trixie’s mouth gapes as if she just heard something shocking.

  “I am dying to know what he just told her,” Shanelle says.

  Then Hubble pulls out his wallet and hands Trixie something.

  “Good,” Mario mutters. “I think she just got his business card.”

  That was part of her mission, too. We want to be able to contact Hubble again.

  Finally the two amble back to their cars and shake hands before parting. We don’t budge until both have driven off, then return to Damsgard via a circuitous route.

  We find Trixie in her bedroom as prearranged, since it’s probably best at this point to keep everything on the QT. Read: keep my mother out of it. Trixie’s skin is still pink from the cold and her hazel eyes still shine with excitement.

  “What did you find out?” I whisper.

  Trixie takes a deep breath. “Mr. Hubble said he thinks Galena might be doing something illegal.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Might be doing something illegal?” I hope I didn’t shell out three hundred smackers for “might” be. “What’s the illegal thing he thinks Galena’s doing? And how is he going to prove it?”

  “He doesn’t know what the illegal thing is,” Trixie says. “Or how he’d prove it.”

  I shake my head, visualizing my money swirling down a drain.

  “Hear me out,” Trixie says. “Mr. Hubble told me he found out that Galena nearly filed for bankruptcy back in the fall then all of a sudden she had enough money to go on a trip to England to attend some Goth festival.”

  “I wonder if she went for Whitby Goth Weekend.” Now that he hasn’t seen a ghost in a while, Mario’s typical self-possession has returned. “I saw something on TV about that. It’s gotten to be a pretty big deal. Thousands of people go, from all over the world. Not just Goths, either. Steampunks, metallers, bikers, whatever.”

  “Anyway,” Trixie goes on, “if she’s almost bankrupt, how did Galena get the money to go to Europe? Mr. Hubble says he’s close to finding out more, if Ingrid is interested. I told him she’d let him know.”

  “Hubble’s information isn’t good enough to justify another payment,” I say. “Plus he seems too loud and boisterous to be a real P.I.”

  “He is one all the same,” Trixie says. “He used to be a policeman but he told me he can make better money this way.”

  He sure can. Thanks to me, he’s three hundred dollars richer. “What did he tell you about why Ingrid hired him?”

  “All he would say was that Ingrid told him Galena was trouble. That’s the word he said she used. ‘Trouble.’ ”

  “When did she hire him?” Shanelle wants to know.

  “About a month and a half ago,” Trixie reports.

  “So obviously there was bad blood between Galena and Ingrid but we still don’t know the source of it,” I say. “It had to have been pretty serious if Ingrid went to the trouble and expense to hire a P.I.” Now that I’ve seen his business card, I know for sure that Hubble is a private investigator.

  “Why didn’t Ingrid just have Mr. Hubble come here to Damsgard for their meetings?” Trixie says. “She lives alone. No one would have been the wiser.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want him to see how rich she is,” Shanelle says. “She probably figured his fee would go up if he knew.”

  That’s not a problem I’ve ever had.

  Trixie grimaces. “I felt bad when Mr. Hubble told me he hoped Ingrid felt better soon. I knew that wasn’t going to happen.”

  We’re all silent as we ponder Ingrid’s sad fate. Then I pipe up again. “Hiring Hubble to investigate Galena Lang is another thing Ingrid was keeping secret. There’s a pretty long list now.”

  “True,” Shanelle says. “Secret number two: that she worshipped the heathen goddess Freyja. Number three: that she didn’t own Damsgard.”

  “Really?” Mario says.

  “That’s what Ingrid’s stepson Peter Svendsen claims,” I say. “We don’t know it for a fact yet. We’ll find out tomorrow when the will is read.” I am really looking forward to that. I have high hopes that it will be a revealing moment.

  As we say our good nights, I realize I soon may be adding Galena’s name to my suspects list. She might have had a motive for murder. Clearly there was recent conflict between her and Ingrid if Ingrid hired Hubble to investigate Galena just six weeks ago.

  I walk Mario downstairs to the front door. I won’t see him again until late tomorrow because he has shoots lined up all day. I wonder if Winona’s ghosts have gotten the memo.

  He steps outside. “It’s hard to believe this house is missing any Christmas decorations but you know what I can’t find? Mistletoe.” He winks at me as he heads down the snowy path to the sidewalk. “And believe me, I’ve looked.”

  That gets me shivering again. But this time there’s no ghost in sight.

  It’s only after I’m ready for bed that I remember to text Priscilla Pembroke about conducting one of the Friday-the-13th rituals for Freyja tomorrow evening here at Damsgard. She replies instantly that she would be honored to preside and will bring all the necessary accouterments.

  Then another idea occurs to me. Will you be coming to Damsgard earlier in the day for the reading of Ingrid’s will?

  Perhaps, she replies. The dear always did say she would leave me something.

  I’m slipping downstairs to get a glass of water when I hear voices coming from the room Pop and Maggie are sharing. Since Maggie is among my suspects, the tone is agitated, and I am shameless, I tiptoe close to their door to eavesdrop.

  “Why shouldn’t I have asked her?” Maggie demands. “She’s my sister!”

  Low muttering sounds, which must come from my father.

  “She had more than she knew what to do with,” Maggie asserts. “And Donovan and I are the only family she had left. She was a skinflint, is what she was.”

  My father must’ve moved closer to the door because now I hear him clearly. “She had a point, that after all these years of working you should have something to retire on.”

  “Easy for you to say! You have a pension from the police department. You don’t get one of those when you run your own business. Plus you know I never got any help from Donovan’s father.” Silence, then in a superior tone: “And after tomorrow when I finally get what I deserve, maybe it’ll be me who doesn’t want to get married, not you.”

  I wait a bit longer but that’s the end of that conversation. I’d say the two of them retired for the night in less than perfect harmony. That’s fine with me.

  I hasten to complete my water run. And even though as I return upstairs the Nyquil is beginning to take effect, I am not too addled to grasp the meaning of what I just overheard. To wit: Maggie asked Ingrid for money to help
her retire; Ingrid said no; Maggie was seriously irked but she’s over it now because she believes that tomorrow, after the reading of Ingrid’s will, she’ll get her long overdue payday.

  Seems to me Ingrid’s death came at a pretty convenient time for Maggie. And there’s good news in all of this for me: in mere hours Maggie may be so rich she’ll no longer have a financial incentive to marry Pop.

  Something else may be working in my favor. I perceive the two of them have been out of sync ever since Maggie admitted she stole an inflatable fruitcake from the Giant W. That sort of thing wouldn’t sit well with Pop. It doesn’t sit well with me, either. And I still think her crime spree may have extended beyond theft to murder.

  The next morning I rise to an early alarm. I don’t want to miss the chance for a few minutes alone with Pop and I know the best time to catch him is first thing over coffee. Indeed I come upon him alone in the kitchen in his pajamas and robe, sniffing Mom’s fruitcake. He’s unwrapped some of the cellophane and is holding it up to his nose. He looks enraptured, and having eaten Mom’s fruitcake I understand why. I wish she were awake to witness this display.

  I pad into the kitchen in my jammies and slippers. “Morning, Pop.” I give him a nuzzle. “I’ll make the coffee. Maggie still asleep?”

  He looks sheepish as he rewraps the fruitcake. “If she doesn’t have to get to the salon, she’s not an early riser.”

  I busy myself with the coffeepot. “What did you two do yesterday in Minneapolis?”

  He settles at the table in the nook. “I don’t want to tell you because you’re going to think what you thought before. That she doesn’t care what happened to her sister.”

  I spoon ground coffee into the filter. Maggie probably wanted to go shopping for home décor items. And yes, that would be my assessment.

  “That’s a lot of hooey,” he adds.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear you two last night,” I lie. “Talking about Ingrid refusing to give Maggie money so she could retire.”

  His face flushes. “That’s none of your business.”

  I pour water into the coffeepot. “When did they have that conversation?”

  “I’m pleading the fifth.”

  Meaning: either the night before Ingrid was shot or the morning of the very day.

  “Ingrid should’ve had more sympathy for Maggie,” Pop goes on. “For Donovan, too. Ingrid never understood how hard it was for Maggie to raise Donovan all on her own. She didn’t understand anything about being a mother.”

  I turn on the coffeepot then pivot to face my father. “Those sound like Maggie’s words, Pop. Not yours.”

  He juts his chin. “It’s true all the same.”

  “I know it can’t have been easy being Ingrid’s sister. I only knew her for a day but it was obvious that she could be hard to get along with. But Maggie’s attitude still bothers me.”

  “You know what bothers me? How you look when you’re around Mario.”

  “We’re not talking about Mario.”

  “Maybe we should be. You’re a married woman, my girl.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Maybe not yet. But you’ve thought about it. And that’s a sin.”

  Technically I don’t think it is but I’m not up on the nuances. I turn back around to watch the coffee percolate. It gives me something to do as I debate whether or not to confide in my father.

  Even if Pop’s advice is sometimes a bit conservative for my taste, it’s still pretty solid. And I could use some wisdom. So I plunge ahead. “You’re right, Pop. There is something going on between Mario and me. And it’s not going away.” I see I’ve got his full attention. “I’m going to tell you something but I need you to keep it to yourself.”

  “You don’t want me to tell your mother.”

  “She’d go ballistic if she heard this.” My father is silent as I explain about Jason’s job offer. I pour us each a mug of java and join him at the table. The white lace angels on the Christmas tree listen to my predicament with impassive faces. “So the bottom line is Jason is trying to decide if he wants to take the job and I’m trying to decide if I’ll move with him to Charlotte if he does.”

  My father looks stunned. “You mean you might not? A wife’s place is beside her husband.”

  “Problem is that even though it’s ridiculous at my age, it scares me to move away from Cleveland. I’ve lived there all my life. You’re there, and Mom’s there, and all my friends except for Trixie and Shanelle. Plus my job is great and they give me so much flexibility. It is true that after Rachel graduates she won’t be in Cleveland anymore. She’ll be who knows where.” I have to collect myself after I say that so I don’t start bawling. “I mean, I love all the travel I do for Ms. America but I like being home, too. And home has always been only one place for me.”

  “What does Mario have to do with all this?” my father wants to know. “Because he’s got nothing to do with Cleveland.”

  “He’s just so darn handsome and sexy and successful and exciting! He’s sort of unreal. And he’s like the road not taken, Pop. Mario is all the boys I never dated and all the opportunities I never had because I got pregnant and got married at age seventeen.”

  “And because of that you’ve got a wonderful daughter and a wonderful husband.”

  “And I love both of them with all my heart. But all of a sudden my daughter is grown up and about to leave home and my husband isn’t the only man I have feelings for.”

  There. I said it. And even though it makes me a terrible wife, I can’t help wanting to know what might happen with Mario. I don’t want to give him up. I’m far enough gone that I don’t even want to give up the fantasy of Mario.

  “Mario has feelings for you, too, my beauty. I can see it.” My father’s eyes moisten. “Of course, how can he help himself?”

  Now there’s no way I can stop the tears. “Oh, Pop! I’m just so confused.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  My father bundles me in a hug. It’s such a release just to have a good cry. Especially without makeup on so there’s no cosmetic repair I’ll have to do afterward.

  Eventually I cry myself out. I blow my nose and wipe my eyes and down more coffee and even though I’m as deeply conflicted as ever, I do feel better. “I don’t want you to make any rash decisions either, Pop.”

  “You mean where Maggie’s concerned.” He looks out the window at the rear garden, where weak sunlight is revealing a fresh layer of snow. “She is pretty traditional so I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that she’s so fixed on getting married.”

  “Even if she is, you don’t have to be.”

  “I know that, my beauty.” He rubs my leg. “Your old pop didn’t live all these years without learning a thing or two.”

  Something occurred to me first thing this morning. “You know, Pop, Maggie might find out this afternoon that she’ll inherit Damsgard. If that happens, won’t she want to move here to Winona? It’s where she grew up, it’s a lovely community, this house is gorgeous—”

  “And she has a business in Cleveland. And a son there, too.”

  “But if she had the money to retire from her business, she would. And Donovan would probably go where she goes.” Since he lives with her now and “works” at her salon. “And she would want you to move with her, I know she would.” Pop would be tempted, too, especially if Rachel, Jason, and I all move. Pop’s condo doesn’t compare to Damsgard. And moving to Winona would be a fresh start for him, which might look pretty darn attractive.

  That would leave Mom with no family in Cleveland. Though I suppose after their divorce, Pop doesn’t really qualify as “family” for her anymore.

  My father shakes his head. “Don’t do what your mother does. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  I do make that mistake. I take a deep breath and try to tamp down my anxiety. “And of course there’s the whole other thing. I really am worried that Maggie—”

  He raises a hand to forestall me. “I
don’t want to hear another word about that. Maggie might not be grieving like you want her to but she had nothing to do with what happened to her sister. Are we clear on that?”

  “Fine. Okay.” Not that this erases Maggie from my suspects list.

  “You want a piece of advice from your old pop? Do what I do when I need to talk something out. Go talk to a priest.”

  My skepticism must show on my face.

  He goes on. “I know your mother always says priests have no business counseling people about marriage because they’ve never been married themselves. But sometimes they know more than you think they do.” He points to the ceiling. “Because they’re getting inspiration from the man upstairs.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Unlike my parents I’m a lapsed Catholic, but it’s true that I always find comfort when I step inside a church.

  A short while later as I’m donning the same charcoal-gray dress I wore the prior night—it’s the only funeral-appropriate outfit I brought here to Winona—I get a call from Detective Dembek.

  “Good morning, dear,” she says. “I thought you might be interested in seeing the photos the Winona Post photographer took at the Giant W opening.”

  “Oh, I am! Is there anybody in the photos that your department didn’t test for gunshot residue?”

  “A few people. There are still some we can’t identify, both in the photos and in the surveillance video from outside the store.”

  We agree to meet before Ingrid’s service. I finish dressing and make for the Lutheran church, which turns out to be a lovely, simple structure of beige stone with exceptionally gorgeous stained-glass windows.

  “Winona is the stained-glass capital of the country, you know.” Detective Dembek is wearing the same camel-colored walker coat she sported at the crime scene. She escorts me through snow flurries to her black-and-white, parked a few blocks away so we’re not seen together by anyone arriving early for the funeral. We both judge it better that no one know we’re in cahoots. “As a matter of fact,” she goes on, “stained glass is how the Svendsen family made their money. Some years ago the son Peter took over the business from his father.”