by Jess Lourey
“You bet I will!” And he returned to the barn. I tried to shake my leg lover, but he had a good grip. I dragged him to my car, leaned over and pulled the kitty out of my wheel well, and peeled the dog off as I got inside. I closed the door and checked for wet spots on my pants. Give me an arrogant, aloof cat any day. I wondered how long a creature had to go without real sex before a stiff leg came across like a pinup. I hoped it took at least a year, because it was looking like I was in for a dry spell myself.
My next stop was Karl’s house. Skinvold had told me what I had expected. Jeff was no longer interested in the Jorgenson land at the time of his death. He had been killed because of jealousy, and I needed to drill Karl to find out more about the person who had called him earlier in the week impersonating a Trillings rep. That caller was Jeff’s killer. I was sure of it.
Karl’s house was a neat little clapboard two-story over by the Battle Lake Public School. I hoped he and his wife would be up this early. I drove by twice, parked out front, and got out. Karl’s Chevy pickup was in the driveway, and a light was on in what I figured was the kitchen. I had never actually been in Karl’s house before. We didn’t have that kind of friendship.
I walked up his orderly walk, taking in the absence of kids’ toys. Karl really seemed like the kind of guy who should have at least two kids. I’d have to ask him what was up with that. I pushed the doorbell and waited. Karl appeared promptly, wearing sweats and tennis shoes. His hair was tousled, but his eyes were bright. “Morning, Mira! Come on in. Can I get you coffee? Tea?”
I walked through the door he held open for me and looked around. It was exactly like I had expected—fancy country decorations on knickknack shelves, comfy flowered furniture, and plenty of doilies.
“Come into the kitchen.”
I followed him to the next room and found myself in Martha Stewart’s dreamland. Everything was blue, white, or blue-and-white checked. The few containers on the counter were lined up and clean, and the only dish to be seen was a coffee cup that had been scoured and was drying in the rack in the sink. I think I now knew what kind of wife Karl had.
“I hope I’m not waking you, Karl. Is your wife still asleep?”
“You betcha. She’s always been a night owl, and I’m the early riser. ‘Dear Abby’ says we can make it work, though.” He smiled. “What do you say to some coffee?
“I’d love some tea if you have it. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
Karl kept his back to me while he busied himself with tea. “What’s that, Mira?”
“Trillings isn’t interested in the Jorgensen land. Jeff found some petroglyphs out there and wasn’t going to recommend building. He was looking into the Skinvold land.”
Karl turned to me. “I knew about Jeff’s interest in the Skinvold land. He told me that when he called last Sunday afternoon. But Mira, like I told you, a Trillings rep called on Wednesday to tell me to get the paperwork ready. Where are you getting your information?”
“Lots of places. How do you know it was really a Trillings rep? Couldn’t anyone have called and pretended to work for Trillings? Couldn’t Jeff’s killer, for example, have called?”
Karl got a concerned look in his eyes and sat across from me. He put his warm hand on mine. “Mira, I know you’re shook up by this. The whole town is, and you got a little closer to Jeff in the couple days he was here than the rest of us had a chance to. But I don’t think there is some big conspiracy here. Why would someone impersonate a Trillings representative? It would be a very short time before I’d call the company with questions about the sale. That lie wouldn’t hold up long, and what would be the point?”
I pulled my hand away stubbornly. “The point is that it would be a distraction from the real murderer’s motive. What did the rep sound like? Did he say anything unusual?”
Karl opened his mouth and closed it again. He looked out the window and then back at me, a look of parental resignation in his eyes. “He didn’t sound familiar, if that’s what you’re asking. He had a regular man’s voice, a little deeper than average, and he talked like his lips were tight, like he measured every word. Typical eastern accountant type.”
Tight lips and measured words. A perfect description of the local chief of police. “Did he give a name?”
“Yes, a Tim something or the other. Do you want me to go into work to get it for you?”
“No thanks, Karl. You could do me a favor and get a copy of Mrs. Jorgensen’s will, though. I have a bet to settle.”
“That’s not public information, Mira.”
“I just need a peek, Karl. I’ll stop by the bank in a couple hours. You’re a great help!” I kissed the balding top of his head and was out the door before he could argue.
I was home in seven minutes flat and on the phone to Trillings not long thereafter, glad I had gotten the number off the Internet. Too bad they were closed on a Saturday, though the robotic female voice on the machine encouraged me to try back Monday during regular business hours. I didn’t have that long.
I tapped my foot impatiently, then remembered the original “Call Trillings v.p.” note I had found in Jeff’s field book when I’d discovered it under my bed. I scrambled to my bedroom, found the tin I had stored the loose pages in, and whipped through them until I came up with the phone number. I dialed it immediately, hoping against hope that it was a direct line, or better yet, a cell number. Luck favored me. I had reached the Trillings vice president on his cell. When I explained who I was and why I was calling, he was understanding and said they were all saddened by Jeff’s death. He confirmed what I already knew, which was that no representative had called the First National Bank in Battle Lake since early April.
The company had only received one short note from Jeff since the time he arrived in Battle Lake. The vice president read the message Jeff had e-mailed one week ago today in lieu of the report he was supposed to send to Trillings. It said, “Jorgensen’s land won’t work—looking for other options in area. Have a great idea to make this work, but need a last bit of research. Expect report Monday.”
The next the company heard, Jeff was dead. The vice president and I exchanged sympathies, and I hung up and went to pet Tiger Pop. That usually helped me to concentrate. He purred as I stroked his calico fur and scratched at the base of his ears, and my head began to clear. I had already crossed Kennie off my list of suspects because she really had cared about Jeff. That left Lartel, on account of pure weirdness, and Gary Wohnt, due to jealousy. From Karl’s description of the Trillings rep impersonator’s voice, Wohnt was my number one candidate. But why pretend to work for Trillings and call Karl? Why not just murder Jeff? And why put his body in the library? That sounded like something purely irrational and creepy, AKA Lartel McManus.
A call to Lartel’s travel agent in Minneapolis would tell me whether the man was really in Mexico. If he was, Gary Wohnt was going down, once I could figure out how to pin all this on him. My brain was full again, so I got myself ready for work and headed back to town to begin the first day of the rest of my life.
Fortunately, the travel agency was open on Saturdays. My phone call took only a minute. I had found the number listed in the Rolodex I had borrowed off Lartel’s desk. Once I explained who I was and that a close member of Lartel’s family had died and I needed to contact him, the agent was happy to help. She confirmed that Lartel had bought the tickets to Mexico, but she did not know if he had actually gotten on the flight or checked into his hotel. She said she would look into it and get back to me. I hunkered down for an excruciating wait.
The library was busy, and my mind was energized by anticipation. Today, I would find out who had killed Jeff Wilson. I finished the article on Jeff, all but the ending, and spent the morning alternating between crabby/hyper and manic/helpful. Before I knew it, it was noon. I emptied the library and hung the Out to Lunch sign on the door. I had no intention of leaving my post lest I miss the travel agent’s call, but I did want some quiet time to eat chips and think. On
my way back to my desk, the front door donged, and I realized I had forgotten to lock it.
“We’re closed,” I said, turning to see who had come in. My stomach flipped when I saw it was Professor Jake. Damn. I had forgotten about our lunch date, made via e-mail.
“Hi, Mira! Ready for lunch?” His thick-lashed black eyes sparkled, and he looked so hopeful. I hated hurting nice people’s feelings only slightly less than I hated leading on nice people.
“Um, Jake, there’s been a little misunderstanding.”
His face fell far and quick. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time he had received this speech.
He cleared his throat and stopped me from continuing. “I understand. I really do. This can be an uncomfortable thing to talk about. I assumed from your e-mail that it wouldn’t be a problem, but . . .”
He trailed off. The flutter in my throat told me this was not the conversation I had planned in my head. Professor Jake had obviously revealed something about himself in an e-mail that had never gotten past Gina, my evil matchmaker. The professor’s apologetic and depressed manner told me he thought it was a dump-worthy secret. My curiosity overrode my better judgment.
“Yeah, well, you know, things like that can be really surprising.” I figured if I played dumb, he would tell me what he thought I already knew, and it would let me off the hook. How often is it that life makes it easy to dump someone nice? This day was going well for me, and it was early.
“I understand. I thought I would gamble that you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”
“Believe me, I certainly do.”
“Yup.” This was like pulling teeth. “So what reaction do you usually get when you tell people that?”
“It really depends.”
Gawd. “So what for you is the hardest part of telling someone?”
“Their reaction.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Well, Mira, it was nice meeting you. I felt really comfortable around you, and I’m sorry this isn’t going to work out.” Jake shook my hand and turned to go. He shook hands like a girl. I looked into his eyes. He had eyes like a girl. I replayed our date. He talked about dieting like a girl. No. Way. I took a stab.
“Jake, what did your name used to be?”
“What? Oh. Jessica. But I always made people call me Jake, even when I was little. I knew I was male from day one, so the hormones and surgery just set things to rights.”
Super. A post-operative transsexual, living in the Midwest, attracted to me. I felt worse for him than I had when I had to dump him. Geez. Then I started to feel deceived on a biological level, like a dog caught humping a raccoon. I didn’t have a lot of hard and fast rules for a good date, but at least one of us had to have a factory-standard penis. This dating wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Score another point for the vibrator industry.
He started to look away. “Like I said, Mira, you’re neat. Really neat. I just thought I’d take a gamble.”
I watched him walk away, all six feet of him looking manly from behind, when it clicked for me. It clicked so loud that Jake even turned questioningly on his way out. I waved him on. I suddenly knew who killed Jeff, beyond a doubt. “Neat. Really neat.” I said it under my breath, over and over again. “Just thought I’d take a gamble. Really neat. Like Jeff’s body. Neat and clean, on the library floor.”
Jake let himself out, and I saw my hands were trembling. Lartel’s house had been really neat. Too neat. And the high-maintenance plants in his home, the kind that needed to be watered every other day, were thriving when I had snuck into his house. Really neat. Just thought I’d take a gamble. The irony was, Curtis Poling had practically handed me Jeff’s murderer on a silver filleting knife a couple days ago, and I had been too blind to see it.
The phone rang rudely in the stillness of the library. I glanced over at the caller ID on the handset and saw it was a 612 area code. The Twin Cities. I didn’t recognize the number, but it could be the travel agent. I calmed my hands as best I could, grabbing the phone a nanosecond before the machine got it.
“Mira. Lartel. I’m at the airport.”
My heart pounded in my ears like it used to when I was in track and waiting for the gun to start the hundred-yard dash. I recognized Lartel’s clipped speech, but his voice seemed a lifetime away. “What?”
“I’m in Minneapolis. I got called back early. I’ll be at the library tomorrow. You should meet me there at nine o’clock to catch me up.”
“Tomorrow? That’s Sunday?”
“Nine a.m.” Click.
I stared at the window in the phone and watched the call length counter continue to reckon the seconds. I pushed the end button to turn it off and sat down in my captain’s chair. I looked at the dappling of the sun outside the library window. Lartel was somewhere in the 612 area code, which meant he would be in Battle Lake in under three hours.
I looked at the wall clock. 12:37. I had until 3:00 for sure to get to Lartel’s house and find the proof. I turned off all the lights, changed the message on the answering machine in case someone called to see why the library wasn’t open on a Saturday afternoon, shut down the computer, grabbed my coat, and was out the door by 12:42.
I never intended to cross the threshold of Lartel’s house again. That first visit had been enough for me. But I knew from the caller ID that Lartel wasn’t in the county, so I was out of harm’s way for at least two more hours. When I drove up to his tidy farmhouse, I felt ill. My body and mind reminded me of the drive to the hospital to hear the official story on my dad. He had only been dead for a couple hours, and the meeting was a comedy of gruesome errors as the police officers and doctors tried to figure out if his body was identifiable. They decided it wasn’t. It was scorched beyond recognition. They sent my stoic mom and my quiet self away to plan the funeral. The last time I would ever be with my dad’s whole body had been the morning before, when I said I wished my mom would divorce him so I wouldn’t have to see him and his drunk face ever again. That whole life of mine was surreal and timeless, and I watched it from well outside my body.
That familiar detachment was with me as the Toyota and I crunched into Lartel’s driveway. It didn’t look like anyone was around, but fear still punctured my skin like spears of ice, infecting my heart and filling my veins, bringing me back into my body and the moment. I couldn’t turn back now, though. I hadn’t found what I was looking for in Lartel’s office, so the answers to my questions were in that house.
Adrenaline forced my legs out of my car and to the front door of Lartel’s house. Everything appeared as I had left it two nights before, except now it was all washed in garish daylight. I retrieved the key from under the faux rock. Like a sleepwalker, I inserted it in the lock and pressed the door open.
“Hello?”
Reverberations of silence answered me. I forced myself inside and eased the door closed. The whispered warnings of the house started up immediately. “Do you really want to do this twice?” it asked me.
“You know, I really don’t,” I answered. I knew what creepiness lay here. I was actually turning to leave when I saw a manila file folder with a black tab on the kitchen table. That hadn’t been there two nights ago. I tiptoed over and touched the smooth and cool paper. My curiosity got the better of me. I let the bright light of daytime soothe me.
At first glance, it was obvious the thick file contained a lot of bank matters. I studied the papers, feeling like a recovering alcoholic at a bar—a bar that gives you a free drink in exchange for your sobriety chips. I couldn’t stop reading. It took me a couple pages before I realized I was looking at the deed to the Jorgensen land. It seemed innocuous and wasn’t what I had come for. The next document was pay dirt: Ella Jorgensen’s will. Curtis told me it had the answers, and I’m sure he had told Jeff the same thing.
The will named First National Bank executor of the Jorgensen estate, with Karl Syverson as acting representative. If there was an outstanding mortgage at the time of
Mrs. Jorgensen’s death, the bank was to pay it off in installments with proceeds from her CDs. When the CDs reached their minimum investment period, the bank was to cash them in, pay off any remaining mortgage, and hand the rest over to the Department of Natural Resources. The DNR would use the money and land to construct a wildlife refuge. My head swelled like a sponge in a bathtub.
I flipped open the last item in the folder, Mrs. Jorgensen’s investment portfolio. Fortunately, it was hick-friendly and I could make enough sense of it to see that Mrs. Jorgensen’s investments had been gradually withdrawn at stiff penalties over the seven years since she had died. There were no more CDs. That would explain why both Karl and Jeff had said the property was in arrears. That left no income with which to pay the mortgage, which clarified why the property was now up for sale even though Mrs. Jorgensen had made crystal clear in the will that she wanted the land donated, not sold.
My mind flashed me a picture of the casino letter I had found among Lartel’s things at the library. Karl owed the Shooting Star Casino $59,000 in gambling debts, and I had assumed that Lartel was blackmailing Karl with this knowledge. I had been wrong. Karl had robbed the estate to pay his gambling debt. When there was no more money left, he put the land up for sale. Jeff must have demanded the will, so Karl had killed Jeff rather than ruin the life he had meticulously built in Battle Lake.
“I was going to make a clean start,” he said softly, his voice high, almost womanlike. “I was going to sell the land and pay off my debt. Then I would be done with it. I could start over.”
My intestines constricted, and my face stuck in mid-blink. I couldn’t turn around. Although I had had enough clues relating to the Jorgensen estate to point to Karl as the killer, I had been too caught up in our friendship to even consider him in that light. He was kind and welcoming to me when I first came to town and had always been a good listener and lunch buddy.
His kind front had blinded me, until my conversation with Professor Jake had triggered a convergence of clues. Jeff’s body had been spotless, its clothes changed, with a book placed precisely over his eyes. Karl, the neat freak of Battle Lake, couldn’t make a mess even when he was murdering.
