by Jess Lourey
“You came. I wasn’t sure if you would.” Hallie was in her late forties, and because she was a little short and a lot round, I’d always assumed she’d be nice to hug and smell like fresh-baked cookies up close. Right now, though, the pinched look around her eyes and mouth suggested the only thing she wanted to hug was her pillow and a bottle of Valium.
“I said I would. Now let me in. I’m so cold I can’t feel my liver.” Mrs. Berns pushed her way inside.
“Hi,” I said, holding out my hand. The growl of a car coming to life rumbled from the end of the block, followed by the sound of a windshield being scraped. “I’m Mira. I don’t know if we’ve ever been formally introduced. I’m sorry about your loss.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you for coming. You probably think I’m ridiculous, asking you here to talk about my dad’s shooting. The police are certain it’s an accident.”
The car at the end of the block took off, its tires making a crunching cornflakes sound on the newly fallen snow. I tried to keep my shivering within the myoclonic range. “But you’re not?”
“Where are my manners? Come in and have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?” She closed the door behind me and led us into a grand den stuffed with soporific-looking sofas and velvet-backed chairs. My second fire of the evening crackled in the fireplace, and through the heat-tempered glass shielding the front and the back of the fire, I could see into the room on the other side.
“Brandy,” said Mrs. Berns. “And Mira gave up drinking a month or two ago, but I predict she’ll be back in the bottle soon. Want to start tonight, dear?”
I shot her the stink eye. Her social filter, flimsy under the best of circumstances, must have frozen entirely on the way over. “I’d take some hot chocolate, if you have it.”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
She turned a corner and a light illuminated the glass on the other side of the fireplace. I realized it was the kitchen I was seeing through there. Suddenly, I was dying to explore this majestic house. “How much do you think a place like this costs?” I whispered to Mrs. Berns.
“Less than it would in Minneapolis. You’re going to snoop, aren’t you?”
Bugger that she knew me so well. I’d always struggled to pass a closed door without at least jiggling the knob. If it was unlocked, a peek couldn’t hurt anyone, could it? It was an affliction, but there were worse ones. “No. I need to use the bathroom.”
“Okay. It’s the third door on your left down that hallway. Let me know if you find anything interesting.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and left the warm firelight. The hallway was graced with what I assumed were the original tin ceilings and elaborate crown molding. I stretched my hands as high as they would go, and the ceiling was still seven feet away. The walls were decorated with dark wood chair rails and dozens of family photos. Most of them were of Hallie when she was younger, standing alone or with a dark-haired version of her father and the woman I guessed was her mother. I couldn’t remember if Tom Kicker had been divorced or widowed. I’d ask Mrs. Berns later.
Whenever the three of them were posed together, they looked happy, all sunburned noses and wide smiles. I recognized Minnesota landmarks in many of their photos—the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd, Split Rock lighthouse in Two Harbors—looming behind a grinning Hallie who in the earliest photos was missing teeth. As the photographic timeline progressed, she grew taller and then rounder, and by the end of the line-up, she’d graduated to curled hair, bell bottoms, and the large eyeglasses favored by shop teachers and fans of the Bay City Rollers.
Tom must have snapped most of the photos because he appeared only in a handful, though at the end of the wall, he was front and center in a fishing shot. I recognized Clive. The other two men were strangers to me. The photo appeared about five years old, judging by their clothes and the gray peppering their hair. The four of them stood on a dock, holding a muskie so huge they each had two hands on it. Tom was laughing, mouth open, and the much-older man immediately to his right seemed to be sharing the joke. Clive and the other fellow looked stiff, but it might have been the way the late afternoon light fell on their faces.
I heard Hallie return to Mrs. Berns and pulled myself away from the photos. I really did need to use the bathroom. I hurried to the end of the hall. All the doors on my way were open, so I could see right into an office and a neatly kept spare bedroom on my right and a fabulously oaky and well-stocked private library on my left. I steered into the bathroom and did my business, forgoing opening any of the cabinets. I actually do have a curiosity line that I won’t cross.
My hot cocoa was waiting for me when I returned. “Thank you,” I said, accepting the steaming mug. I dipped my pinkie in the liquid, felt it was exactly the right temperature, and took a big swallow.
I opened my eyes and saw Hallie smiling at me, this time from her eyes. “Good stuff ?”
“You have no idea. This is the first time I’ve been completely warm in hours.”
“I’m glad.” She sat in the love seat at an angle from the sofa. We could all converse with one another comfortably, but she seemed not to know where to start.
Mrs. Berns, however, didn’t suffer from that affliction. “So you think Tom was murdered.”
I choked on my hot chocolate, but Hallie took it in stride. “I do. I know it sounds crazy, which is why I haven’t told anyone but you, and now Mira. It’s just a feeling I can’t shake. Well, that and the fight.”
“Fight?” I asked, against my better judgment.
Hallie nodded and took a deep slug of her drink. It was also in a mug, but I’d wager twenty dollars it wasn’t hot chocolate. “I don’t think they wanted anyone to hear it. I’d stopped in late at the plant last Friday to pick up some work—I’ve been the bookkeeper for twenty years, my first and only job, really—and saw my dad’s truck out front. I was surprised because he was supposed to be hunting with Clive for the weekend. I walked to the main office and was going to go in when I heard the voices. It was Clive and my dad, arguing.”
I placed my empty mug on the end table, wondering if maybe I should have paced myself. I was starting to feel sleepy, like a well-fed kitten. “How do you know it was Clive?”
She shot me a glance I couldn’t read. “Clive has been in my life forever. I’d recognize his voice anywhere.”
“What were they arguing about?” Mrs. Berns asked.
“That’s just it.” Hallie sat forward in her chair, her face haggard. “I don’t know. Clive yelled something about nobody finding out, and my dad said something back, too quiet for me to hear. He wasn’t a yeller, never had been,” she added, almost as a plea. “Then Clive yelled at him to wait just a week. Well, as soon as I realized it was those two, I didn’t want to be a busybody. I left.”
Mrs. Berns arched her eyebrow at me. See, some people choose not to be nosy, it said. I aimed my own eyebrow back. Women who lie in glass cougar dens shouldn’t throw stones, it said.
Hallie sniffled, and we both returned our attention to her. “If I’d known it was the last time I’d have seen my dad, I’d have gone in there. I’d have hugged him and asked what they were fighting about.”
Her words stacked a heavy load on my back. In that moment, I recognized what Hallie was doing and why we were here. She wanted to change the outcome of this story. I’d attempted the same thing when I’d lost my own dad. When someone who is sewn tightly into the fabric of your life dies unexpectedly, you become desperate to rewrite history, to “what if” every moment in the space-time continuum until you’re crazy with misery and guilt. My father had been a sloppy drunk who’d killed himself and two people in another car in a head-on collision. My high school had somehow acquired his crushed Chevy Impala and displayed it on the campus as a cautionary tale. I was forced to walk past it every day of my senior year, and still, given all that he’d put me through, I’d tried to paint him as a misunderstood hero that I could have saved. I imagined it was a
hundred times worse if your dad had been a decent person. Best to reset her compass quick and clean.
“Look,” I said gently. “I know it can be hard to lose someone you care about, but Clive and your dad were good friends. People who know each other well fight, and then they make up. I’m sure that’s what you heard—friends having a meaningless argument. It couldn’t have been that bad if they went hunting together afterward, right?”
She gripped her mug like it held her spare heart, and rose to her feet, her voice trembling. “But that’s it, don’t you see? My dad and Clive have been hunting together for decades. They were pros. Clive knew his way around a gun better than his own hand. There’s no way he’d accidentally shoot my dad. No way. It had to be on purpose.”
“But why?”
She fell back into the chair like a popped balloon. “That’s what I need you to find out.”
Mrs. Berns downed her brandy in a swallow and strode over to Hallie. She put her arm around her. “You’ll have to accept that it may have been an accident, dear. But if it was murder, our Mira here will figure it out.”
“What?”
She glared at me over her shoulder. “You might want to get either your hearing or your vocabulary checked. You seem to not be processing things too well.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I already told Hallie you’d look into it. I’d do it myself if I wasn’t on my way to Sedona.” C-doe-na. She returned to her place next to me on the couch and twisted the vulnerable skin underneath my arm.
“Ouch!” I swatted at her hand. “I’m not a real detective. I’m not even a real librarian.”
“Now, now. You’re a real dick deep down, even if you don’t yet have your license.” Mrs. Berns’ eyes glistened. “Take your future by the reins. Just last week you were telling me you need to get a million hours of apprentice work in before you can be licensed. Hallie already spoke with her lawyer, and he said he’d hire you to investigate this. You get paid, Hallie gets help, and you get closer to being licensed.”
Hallie nodded vigorously.
I sighed. This whole plan would all make perfect sense in a loony bin. I looked at Hallie square. “Hallie, I’m an English grad school drop-out who was promoted to head librarian when her boss disappeared. Everything I know about investigating murders has come from trying to save my skin or reading a book. You sure you wouldn’t rather hire a professional?”
Hallie sat forward, speaking earnestly. “The closest private investigator is in Fargo. He would stand out like a sore thumb around here. I need someone who can ask questions without people being suspicious. I’m now the owner of Battle Sacks, and I have too many employees I’m responsible for. I can’t afford any more negative publicity. Think how it already looks, the owner of an outdoor supply company dying in a hunting accident.”
She had a point, and the more sense she and Mrs. Berns made, the less I liked it. “I need to think about it.”
They let me off at that. We left a sad-eyed Hallie, and Mrs. Berns nagged me for not having heat the whole fourteen blocks to the nursing home. I made sure she made it to her room safely even though the stress of the day caught up with me and hung off my body like a hundred sand bags. I dragged myself back to my car and navigated the icy roads all the way to my mailbox, where I pulled out a stack of bills. I drove down the interminable driveway, plugged in my car, let out my dog, and called Jed to make certain he was safe. He was, and so apologetic that it was difficult to muster up anger. We made plans to get together later in the week.
I possessed barely enough energy to brush my teeth, but a letter on the top of the pile caught my attention. It was from an unfamiliar bank, and it looked official. It could be good news, right? Maybe I’d inherited. Or maybe I owed. I cranked the house’s thermostat to 72 degrees and listened to the click and then hum of it kicking in. The letter stared at me. I brushed my teeth, let the dog back in, ran fresh water for both animals, peeled off my clothes, and hopped into bed.
Who was I kidding? I heaved myself up and went to the letter.
Dear Ms. Miranda James:
This letter is to inform you that your school loan deferment period ended on May 1st. We have had difficulty tracking down your most recent address; as a result, your account is in arrears. This is your last notification before a collection agency is …
I balled up the letter and tossed it toward the basket. It looked like I would be taking on Hallie’s case after all.
Six
Two days later, after I’d dropped Mrs. Berns off at the airport, I called Hallie to say I’d take the case. It was a funny, TV detective thing to say. I assured her that it was unlikely I’d uncover anything, that I might be wasting her time, and that there were easier ways to let go. She listened to it all without changing her mind, and set up a lunch appointment with me and her attorney.
We met over Tator Tot hotdish—special order vegetarian version for me—and dinner rolls at the Turtle Stew, Hallie still appearing shattered by the loss of her father. Her skin had a gray hue, and her hair and eyes were dull. It must have been shock that kept her buoyed the night of the funeral, because she appeared to have aged ten years since that evening. It broke my heart. She continued in her conviction that I take the case, and she didn’t blink when her attorney from the Litchfield Law Firm offered me a $500 retainer. I almost choked on my own spit when I saw the check, but I tried to play it cool. Possibly my wide eyes and muttered, “No way! That’s a lot of cheddar!” gave me away, but then again, we’re always harder on ourselves than the rest of the world is, right? The $500 wouldn’t solve my money jam, but it’d put a nice dent in my back payments.
Hallie’s lawyer informed me that I had complete freedom to handle the case any way I wanted, which made me realize, sadly, that I had no idea how to handle a case. Fortunately, I’d had the foresight to order Private Investigating for Morons for the library at the same time I’d contacted the Minnesota Private Detective and Protective Agent Services Board to look into the state licensure requirements. I vowed internally to rifle through that puppy after lunch. Surely there would be a numbered list outlining the steps to follow when cornering a killer. Even better would be a guide that explained how to convince a woman that her father had died in an accident rather than been murdered, while simultaneously unearthing $500 worth of information for her. I’d keep my fingers crossed. Amid the Turtle Stew’s bustling noontime crowd, we finished our food and small talk before all three going back to work.
The library had been slow this time of year, especially these weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though I’d tried to make it an inviting place to visit. Right before she’d left for Sedona, Mrs. Berns had helped me to decorate the library’s ceiling with snowflakes strung on paperclips and lavish twinkle lights around the doors, windows, and shelves. I loved Christmas lights, and it showed. There were now corners of the library where you could read by the tiny glittering bulbs alone. It made the whole space warm and cozy.
I reviewed my to-do list. I had the Saturday night Love-Your-Library fundraiser to prepare for, an annual after-hours event where the city paid for food and drink to thank our donors. Other than that, my schedule was clear beyond personning the front desk, shelving returned books, and helping the occasional patron stalwart enough to brave the screaming cold that had gripped the town like a thousand icy fishhooks. We were setting record lows, and most people didn’t venture out unless they were forced, myself included. That left plenty of time to get caught up on my newspaper duties and flesh out a strategy for investigating Tom’s death.
I figured I’d start with the easy stuff—the newspaper job. I plunked myself down at the front desk computer and halfheartedly searched for recipes for my “Battle Lake Bites” column featured weekly in the Battle Lake Recall. When Ron, owner and editor of the Recall, had first directed me to discover food representative of Battle Lake back in May, I’d passive aggressively sought out the strangest, Norwegianest recipes I could find, from dee
r pie to turducken. And readers couldn’t get enough of it. Ron had requested that my recipe theme between Thanksgiving and Christmas be holiday-related, and if possible, centered on entertaining. He was hoping for dips and toothpick-in-a-weenie-type magic, I knew this, but I had to give the people what they wanted
My first hit on “weird holiday food” was scrapple, because what can go wrong when you start out cooking with a whole pig’s head? Next was beaver tails, which I liked the sound of until I found out they were the Canadian version of elephant ears and included no actual beaver parts. A half an hour later and still nothing weird enough had jumped out at me.
Disheartened, I spent the rest of the afternoon tending to the rare library patron, reading my Moron’s Guide and taking notes on surveillance and interrogation, and confirming that all was a go for Saturday’s donor-appreciation event. By the end of the day, I had yet to come up with a plan for tackling Hallie’s case. I wished Mrs. Berns was still around so I could bounce ideas off her, but I didn’t want to interrupt her vacation.
Jed would work as a Mrs. Berns stand-in, I thought, as I locked up the library and scurried to my car. I flicked on the portable propane fish house heater in my back seat and cracked the windows so I wouldn’t suffocate. Mrs. Berns had a friend toss it in so she wouldn’t be cold when I drove her to the Cities, and I’d buckled it in the back seat like a fat gray Buddha with a glowing red circle for a head, the whole unit roughly the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet. The heater was designed for a larger space, and even on its lowest setting, gave off enough heat to leave a tan. In fact, we’d had to roll the windows halfway down. By the time we’d pulled into the airport exit, Mrs. Berns was down to a puckered fire-engine red bra, her elastic-waisted slacks, and bare feet. I’d settled for rolling up my sleeves and gathering my hair in a ponytail. The heat was better than frosted windows and freezing fingers, though, and I’d talked Mrs. Berns’ friend into letting me keep it until my car was fixed. Whenever that might be.
