Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

by Diana Dempsey

  “You’re sure you left that kitchen door open?” my mother says as I exit the rental and she settles herself in the driver’s seat.

  “Positive. I checked it three times. Now you be careful driving to the hospital. It’s starting to snow.”

  “Me, be careful?” She glowers in my direction. “You, be careful. I won’t be the one sitting alone in that house waiting for a murderer to show up.”

  I have to scamper across two properties to access Damsgard from the rear. I was smart enough to plan my route earlier by conducting a reconnaissance mission through the neighborhood, checking for fences and guard dogs. I let myself in through the side door that opens into the kitchen, re-lock the door, and text Detective Dembek that everyone is out of the house but me. She texts back that two plainclothes officers are keeping watch on Damsgard from an unmarked car.

  I set my phone to silent mode and dash upstairs.

  Our trap is set.

  Now all I have to do is wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I can’t wait on the first floor because Lillian might spy me through a window. So I wait in my bedroom, a good distance from the windows. I boot up my laptop and stare at my suspects spreadsheet until my brain hurts. I resist napping and I resist checking my cell phone to see if Mario has called or texted. (He hasn’t.) I prepare for Lillian’s anticipated arrival by looking up Shakespearean quotes about time and decide that my favorite is: “Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”

  Which must mean boredom and inaction make them drag on. I’m getting ample proof of that today.

  I’m starting to wonder how much longer I can bear it when I hear the satisfying sound of glass shattering downstairs. I bet it’s Lillian announcing her arrival by breaking the new window the hardware store put in on the day of Ingrid’s funeral. It sure seems to be the go-to window at Damsgard for those bent on burglary.

  I allow myself a few seconds just to enjoy being right. I sure called this one! I have to say I’m not really frightened. If cops weren’t watching the house, and if I didn’t have my trusty pepper spray near at hand, I certainly would be. After all, Lillian may well be a killer. But as it is, I’m hyped up but not terrified.

  I don’t move a muscle, though. I am under strict instructions to keep my distance from our perp. I am not to confront her until I’m sure the cops have her well in hand. And they won’t interfere with her activities until she’s had time to get the Erskine in her grasp. After all, they might as well add to her list of transgressions.

  In short order I hear someone shuffling around on the first floor. It’s hard not to get nervous. Even though it doesn’t make sense for Lillian to come upstairs, especially given what she’s here for, I half expect her to appear at the threshold to my room, as if somehow her criminal radar will sense my presence. Or natural curiosity could propel her to mount the staircase, to tour the rooms of the home where she raised her children and conducted her married life.

  I wonder what her plan is. That painting is pretty big. She can’t be planning to just meander up the street with it in the full light of day, can she? Then slide it into her rental car like it’s the sort of thing a person does every day?

  I’m plotting how I myself would steal the Erskine given those constraints when I hear a commotion downstairs. Heavy footfalls pound across the hardwood floor. A man bellows: Stop! Hold it right there! A woman shrieks: No! No! A man orders: Put down the painting!

  That’s my cue. I race from my bedroom down to the first floor, past the dining room that’s once again boasting a shattered front window, to the library. And what do I see but two male officers squaring off against Lillian. As I would expect, she’s clutching the Erskine. Per usual she’s dolled up in her nipped-waist gunmetal gray parka with the shearling trim, her blond hair perfectly coiffed and her makeup tastefully applied. If you forget that she’s brandishing stolen property, you can easily imagine her as the doyenne of Damsgard.

  “You!” she stammers when she sees me. “You drove away!”

  “So I did. But now I’m back.”

  “I can see that.” Her haughtiness seems to be returning so I guess she’s recovered from her initial shock. She stares at me with blue eyes as cold as the December air now coursing through Damsgard.

  “Put down the painting, ma’am,” one officer says. “Then step away from it.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she sniffs. “What an obvious set-up. This travesty will never hold up in a court of law.” She sets down the oil as ordered and brushes her hands as if her biggest problem were dust. The officer who spoke steps forward to move the Erskine further away from her; the other snaps handcuffs on her wrists and recites her Miranda rights.

  When he’s done, I pipe up. “I’m not surprised to see you again today”—I pause for a moment—“Lillian.”

  Her head swivels in my direction. She juts her chin in a show of defiance. “It took you long enough to figure out who I am. Admit it. I’m a better actor than you gave me credit for.”

  “Maybe. But I’m on to you now. And that means you might end up getting charged with something a lot more serious than burglary.”

  “What are you talking about?” She sounds disdainful but the days when I might have bought her act are over.

  “The way you’ve been behaving—lying about your whereabouts, assuming a false identity—I expect Detective Dembek will find enough on you to make a murder charge stick.”

  She’s wearing a fairly thick foundation but I can still see her face pale. “That’s preposterous! Why would I care if Ingrid Svendsen lived or died?”

  I cock my chin at the Erskine. “You came close to being a million dollars richer because she’s dead.”

  “I have more right to that painting than anyone,” Lillian hisses. “I was the one who wanted to buy it in the first place. Erik could study for a thousand years and never recognize a masterpiece.” She looks away. “And I don’t just mean a piece of art, either.”

  “So he didn’t give you your due? Is that why you walked out on him and your children?”

  “My children were adults by the time I left. They could get along just fine on their own. And if Erik had ever understood what the stage meant to me, if he’d ever once supported my talent, maybe I wouldn’t have had to go.”

  She makes a theatrical show of raising her eyes to the ceiling. I bet she’d be throwing out her arms if her hands weren’t cuffed.

  “ ‘If you try to be anyone but yourself,’ ” she cries, “ ‘you will fail. If you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there’s no success like failure.’ ”

  “That doesn’t sound like Shakespeare,” I point out.

  She turns a withering gaze on me. “It’s not, you fool. It’s Bob Dylan.”

  “Whoever it is,” one officer says, “it’s about time we wrap things up here.”

  “Just one minute more,” I say. Then, “You must’ve gotten to know Ingrid at some point, Lillian. After all, you knew about the Freyja shrine in the secret room.”

  The cops glance at each other as if to say: This I’ve got to hear.

  “I told you before, I have friends in Winona,” Lillian says. “Ingrid wasn’t smart enough to do a good job of hiding her goddess worship. In fact, she might have been stupid enough to be proud of it. Fancied herself a warrior goddess or some such thing.”

  “Okay, that’ll do it,” one officer says. “You going to be all right?” he asks me. “Know how to get that window repaired?”

  I assure him that I can handle it from here. The officers begin to lead Lillian away. I bet she won’t step inside Damsgard again for a long, long time.

  “Erik and Ingrid deserved each other,” Lillian adds as she exits stage left. “What neither of them deserved was this house.”

  Somehow it always comes back to Damsgard. I stand in the frigid foyer and call the hardware store that was kind enough to repair the broken window the first time around to request their services yet again. As soon as
possible, I plead. Until then I’ll be walking around the house wearing my plum-colored overcoat. In fact I’ll be wearing my bouclé knit cloche and gloves, too.

  I’m pensive as I put a bowl of soup on to warm. I’m still no closer to knowing who killed Ingrid. Lillian might have done the nefarious deed but I doubt it. Her feelings about Ingrid just don’t seem powerful enough to compel her to commit homicide. What Lillian is passionate about is the Erskine. She wants it either for itself or for the money it could bring her.

  True, the scenario might change if Lillian is in cahoots with Peter. But in that case, why would she have to steal the Erskine? Wouldn’t it be her payoff for participating in the murder? Her son gets the house and she gets the painting?

  As I stir the soup I realize there’s another hugely valuable thing Lillian might gain if she helped Peter murder Ingrid: an improved relationship with her son. And at the very time that he and his wife bring her grandchild into the world. It would be a huge irony if it were homicide that ushered in a new era of filial warmth. But it’s possible.

  The soup is just what the doctor ordered: warm and filling. After I’ve dispatched it, along with a handful of crackers, I go up to my room to brush my teeth and freshen my lipstick. Then I plop down on the bed and send Shanelle and Trixie an update via text. My mother I call. There’s no point texting with her. She’s too grudging a participant. The only response any of us have ever gotten out of her is: Ok.

  She answers from the hospital corridor since she’s been shooed out of Pop’s room so the nurse could conduct a final pre-release checkup. After I relay the day’s events, she wants to know if she can tell Pop what really went down at Damsgard.

  “I don’t see what harm it could do now,” I tell her.

  “He and that Maggie are going to want to come back, too,” she says. “Your father couldn’t get two seats on the flight home tonight so they’re going back tomorrow. I wanted to say, hey, just leave that Maggie behind.”

  I chuckle and shiver at the same time. “Good work keeping that suggestion to yourself, Mom.” Even though I’m on the second floor wearing my coat, cloche, and gloves, I am absolutely freezing. What with the broken window, it must be as cold inside Damsgard as outside. I should probably get a fire going in the living room fireplace and huddle next to it.

  “So are you happy that Lillian showed up today?” my mother wants to know. “It’s what you thought she would do. So you were right about that.”

  “I am pleased I figured that out. At least that.”

  We both fall silent. I know she can tell I’m bummed that I haven’t solved Ingrid’s murder.

  She pipes up. “Remind me again where you found that bank statement that showed the insurance payments?”

  “In the secret room, remember? In the book that wasn’t really a book.”

  “That’s right. So was that the only book that wasn’t really a book?”

  “I think so.” I frown. “I mean, that’s the only one I saw.” Of course, I stopped looking after I found the one.

  “Maybe you should go check in there again,” my mother suggests.

  She doesn’t need to say it twice.

  I race downstairs, access the secret room, and switch on the standing lamp. It takes me a little while but eventually I do spy another “book” that’s a virtual twin of the faux book I found the other day. The only difference is this one is bigger. It has the exact same red-leather cover and fancy gold lettering. This one is titled Higher Power, and like Peace Within there’s no author’s name on the spine.

  For a second I hold it against my chest. If there is any sort of clue inside this “book,” my mother will never, ever let me forget that searching these shelves a second time was her idea. That’s just fine, I decide. If anything here helps me crack this case, I’ll survive never being able to live this down.

  I open up the faux book. And just like its smaller twin, it’s got papers inside.

  Documents, as a matter of fact: a certificate of marriage and a certificate of death.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The marriage certificate is from Hennepin County, Minnesota, wherever that is, and it was issued three years ago. I am astonished to see that the bride was none other than Ingrid Jane Lindvig Harris Svendsen. She married a man I never heard of, a man I had no idea existed, whose name is Joseph Michael Fuchs.

  Even though there are no chairs in the secret room, I have to sit down. So I drop onto the oriental carpet and stare at the documents in my lap. I cannot believe this. Ingrid married again, less than a year after Erik Svendsen died, to some man named Joseph Fuchs.

  How in the world did I investigate this woman’s murder for an entire week and not know that she married again after Erik Svendsen?

  Then again, I’m not sure that Detective Dembek is aware of this. She never breathed a word about it. Maggie didn’t say boo about Ingrid having a third husband, either.

  Matter of fact, I’m only assuming that Joseph Fuchs is Ingrid’s third husband. There could be other Husbands of Ingrid I don’t know about, who preceded Erik Svendsen. I tell you: so often it’s the women who seem the most proper who have the most scandalous lives.

  I rise to my feet and start pacing. I wonder if Ingrid kept this marriage to Joseph Fuchs under wraps for some reason. For one thing, she didn’t take his name. She took the Harris name and obviously the Svendsen name, too, but not Fuchs. Of course that might be explained by the fact that here in Winona the name Svendsen carries a certain prestige. Knowing Ingrid, I would imagine that mattered to her.

  Could this Joseph Fuchs have been an embarrassment somehow? Or maybe Ingrid was lonely and found that embarrassing. She didn’t want to admit she sought the companionship a spouse would provide.

  I turn to the death certificate, issued in Winona County this past August, just months ago. The deceased is Joseph Fuchs, the mystery husband, who died at age sixty.

  Well, I do understand why there was no mention of Joseph in Ingrid’s will. He was already deceased.

  I wonder what he died of. I consult the death certificate again. The cause of death is sort of surprising: “blunt force trauma.” What does that mean, exactly?

  I throw off my coat, cloche, and gloves. It’s amazing. Even though freezing air continues to course through the house, I’m not cold anymore. Right now I don’t even care if the hardware-store guy doesn’t make it here till tomorrow. I guess there’s nothing like startling new information to get your blood pumping.

  I walk out of the secret room into the library and gaze at the Erskine, still propped against the antique desk where the cops left it. It’s starting to get dark out, I realize. The days are so short this time of year.

  I look around me at the stunning library. In this house, I can never get over how one room is more gorgeous than the next. I do know that Ingrid lived here at Damsgard from the day she married Erik Svendsen, so Joseph must’ve lived here, too. I suppose they could’ve had a long-distance marriage, exactly what I contemplated for Jason and me, or one of those marriages you read about where husband and wife live in two separate properties in the same town because they both value their privacy so much. But it seems unlikely.

  Boy, wouldn’t that have irked Peter Svendsen? It’s one thing to have your father’s widow reside in your family’s ancestral home. But if she’s moved on to the extent of marrying another man, wouldn’t it get on your last nerve to have both of them installed in the home you covet? That might’ve given Peter even more motive to want Ingrid dead.

  Then again, I realize, maybe this explains why Ingrid kept the marriage to Joseph Fuchs on the QT, if she did. Maybe there was language in Erik Svendsen’s will that if Ingrid remarried, she’d have to cede Damsgard to Peter. That would make sense.

  I have to call Detective Dembek about this. I race up to my room, where I left my cell phone, and am about to place the call when I hear something unexpected. I stop everything and listen.

  Yes, I just heard it again. Overhead. Creaking floo
rboards.

  Slowly I turn my gaze toward the ceiling. I shouldn’t be hearing that. I’m alone in this house. The others haven’t come back yet. I would have heard them if they had. And Lillian couldn’t have snuck in again because she’s in police custody. There simply cannot be anybody walking around on the third floor.

  Oops, I hear it again. Somebody is definitely walking around on the third floor.

  Or … something is.

  Mario’s description of his shoot at Heffron Hall comes back to me. We kept hearing footfalls on the floor above us even though we were absolutely positive nobody was up there. Not only that, when we checked our videotape we saw that we had captured these filmy white, I don’t know what they are, formations that nobody can explain …

  Remembering that gets my heart pounding. I cannot believe this! Winona must truly be the hottest paranormal vortex in the country. Not only is Heffron Hall haunted, and that house on Cummings Street, and the Historical Society, but Damsgard, too.

  Well, what did I tell Mario? That he had to conquer his fears.

  It’s easier to give that advice than to take it. But I guess I have to go up to that third floor to see what’s what. I’ll take my phone with me on the chance that I can capture yet more “filmy white formations” for Mario’s show. I’ll also take my pepper spray. It worked on a crocodile. Let’s see how it works on a spirit.

  Thus armed, I exit my bedroom and creep up the staircase to the third floor. Around me Damsgard is deathly quiet. And, it must be said, it’s cold as a tomb. My nerve nearly abandons me halfway but I force myself to climb the final flight of stairs.