by Lourey, Jess
Reluctantly, I turned off the water, wrapped a towel around my hair and another under my arms, and treaded softly to the kitchen, trying not to slip in my own footprints. I snatched the phone just before the machine got it.
“Hello.”
Silence.
“Hello?” I strained my ears. Was that crying I heard in the background? “Hello, this is Mira James. Do you need help?”
“Naw, hold on.” The female voice had a distinct twang, a cross between Southern and inner-city. “Timothy, you get your sister a bottle, you hear? I’m on the phone.”
I stood, water dripping off me and pooling at my feet. I held the towel closed over my chest and balanced the phone in the nook of my shoulder so I had a free hand to crank up the thermostat. Sixty-two degrees is great when you’re saving energy but brutal when you’re wet and there’s snow outside.
“Yeah, this Mira James?”
“Yup.” I refrained from adding still on the end of my sentence. The baby’s wail grew louder in the background.
“This is Taunita House. You called me yesterday? Left a message looking for Maurice Jackson?”
My heart picked up, and I looked around the kitchen for a pen and paper. “You’re in Chicago?”
“That’s where I live, but I’m actually in Minnesota now. I’m trying to track Maurice down. His kids want to see him. So do I.”
I paused with my hand halfway to the notepad magnetized to the side of the fridge. I gulped, feeling like I’d just swallowed a cold rock. I had made the connection, but at what cost? Maurice had kids, at least two. And a girlfriend, who apparently had no idea he was dead. “Maurice Jackson is your boyfriend? Can you describe him?”
I heard the shrug over the phone line. “About five-ten, hundred forty-five pounds. Skinny sucker, skinnier than me. Turns twenty-three in February. Kept his hair trimmed short, earring in his left ear. Was wearing a green Land’s End parka I bought him for Christmas when he left. He took off three weeks ago to look up some old relatives in Minnesota, he said. He hasn’t called in two days, though, and his work leave has about dried up. It’s time for him to stop this nonsense and come home, but since he clearly doesn’t have the sense for that, I’m coming to get him.”
The rock dropped into my stomach. That described the Maurice I’d helped at the library—and whose corpse I’d skated over—to a T.
“Have you tried all his friends?”
“I have. And now I’m trying you. In your message you said you were looking for him, too. Why?”
The crying in the background had stopped. Now I heard a giggle. “How many kids do you and Maurice have?”
“Two,” she said impatiently. “Timothy is three years. Alessa was born last year Christmas. Maurice said it was his present for me. I told him he better get me something that makes less noise next holiday.” She laughed ruefully, then her voice grew serious. “I miss him. Have you seen him?”
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ram the truth into her ear with her kids laughing in the background. I told her the version that I could bear. “I live in Battle Lake, northwest of the Cities? Maurice came into the library where I work last week. He left his Chicago library card, and I was hoping to track him down.”
“Well, that’s some service,” she said wryly. “If he stops by again, tell him Taunita and the babies want him to call, okay?”
“Will do,” I said, feeling like a monster for not coming clean. I kept that feeling with me as I finished getting ready that morning, and it was hung so thickly over me that I almost walked out of the house without noticing my plants. Something was off with them.
It took a lot of squinting before I realized what it was: they looked healthier than they ever had.
Twenty-Four
The parking spot immediately in front of the Fortune Café was open, which was the first good thing that had happened since I’d woken up. I steered my Toyota snugly between a Ford and a Chevy pickup, one rusty and the other spanking new but road-splattered and sporting a Ducks Unlimited sticker in the rear window. A handful of people on the street took mincing steps as they went about their day, trying their hardest to stay upright as the two previous days’ brief thaw—warmer during the day, freezing at night—had turned the sidewalks into treacherous frozen sheets. I chose to not lift my feet off the ground, instead skating over the top of the greenish-black ice.
When I pulled open the door to the Café, I was immediately awash in the warm scent of freshly ground dark roast and cinnamon scones, and the happy burble of gathering people. Buddy Holly was crooning softly in the background. I yanked off my mittens, tapped the winter off my boots, and got in line. I didn’t recognize any of the half-dozen or so people sprinkled around the main room, though I spotted
Bernie Nordman, co-owner of Ace Hardware, make her way into the computer/library/board game back room with a steaming mug in one hand and what appeared to be a cherry Danish in the other. My stomach growled so loud that the woman in front of me turned and flashed a smile.
I grinned back, embarrassed. When my turn came, I knew exactly what I wanted. “Everything bagel, toasted, with Greek olive cream cheese and a slice of fresh tomato, a large green tea with honey and soy milk, and maybe a cherry Danish for later?”
“Hi to you, too,” Nancy said, grinning. She owned the Café along with her partner, Sidney. Sid was not a people person by nature but was a brilliant pastry chef and kept mainly to the kitchen. Nancy was friendly and never seemed to become stressed, no matter how many people were in line. She’d helped me through a tough patch in July, and we’d been fast friends ever since. “You must be hungry.”
I blushed for the second time in under four minutes. “Sorry. You seem so busy. I didn’t want to waste your time with chit-chat.”
“Like talk about a police chief who was shot, or a mayor with a strange new business, for example?”
I pointed my chin at the gorgeous row of plants lining her front window. “You obviously don’t need Kennie’s help. I’ve never seen your plants look better.”
“Kennie was here,” Nancy said, sounding as incredulous as I felt. “I think that’s why they look so good. Maybe she finally found her thing.”
I was surprised to feel another pang of jealousy. Gardening had been my thing. I loved digging my hands into the dirt in the summer, dropping seeds into the thick black earth, watering them, mulching them, petting the soft shoots when they first popped up. Weeding was my meditation. Come winter, I’d started a mini-greenhouse herb garden in the back bedroom, which I’d intentionally hidden from Kennie. I felt the jealousy sprout and took a deep, deliberate breath. Really, what was to be envious about? The more love the plants received, the better.
“Maybe,” I said agreeably. Well, almost agreeably. Okay, I was still pissy.
Nancy continued to talk as she poured the hot water into the travel mug I’d brought and popped the two halves of my bagel into the toaster. “Know anything about Gary?”
“Kennie said he’s getting out of the hospital today, but she didn’t know anything about who might have shot him.”
“As uptight as he can be, it’ll be nice to have him back, what with all the robberies.” She ducked her head into the counter fridge and came out with a tub of cream cheese.
“Robberies?” My stomach growled again. The Fortune’s cream cheese was amazing, the perfect blend of creaminess accented with salty slices of green and black olives.
Nancy nodded. “Empty cabins around the lake. Whoever is doing it is taking TVs and computers, some kitchen appliances if they look valuable, I guess. They’re not damaging the cabins except for the new one that went up on the north side of Silver Lake. Almost over in your neck of the woods. They trashed that one.”
I knew the area well. I’d had a run-in with a scalped corpse there a few months back. The memory made me shudder.
Nancy glanced at me sympa
thetically, as if she were reading my mind. She slid the wax paper–wrapped bagel into a small brown bag, and stacked a cherry Danish and a lemon Danish on top of that, another thin sheet of wax paper separating the two. She winked. “For lunch.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the bag and sliding her a five. The food was ridiculously inexpensive. “Wait! I almost forgot. I owe Curtis some treats. Can you make up a bag for me to take to the Sunset?”
Another five dollars later, I was out the door with two bags in one hand and my travel mug filled with steaming tea in the other. I was in the process of transferring it all to one hand so I could open the Fortune’s door with the other when it swung open. In walked Mrs. Berns.
“I have had just about the most terrible day of my life,” she said to me, as if she’d expected me to be standing exactly where I was.
“What happened?” I looked her up and down, checking for an injury or torn clothing.
She scowled. “Is that any of your business?”
“What? You just … forget it.” I would have thrown my hands in the air if they weren’t so full. Something was clearly still off with Mrs. Berns, and she was going to tell me in her own sweet time. “Are you coming to work today?”
She stretched her arms. “Doesn’t sound too exciting. What else can you offer?”
I sighed. “I’m touring the new microbrewery in Swederland as soon as I close the library. It’s part of a small case from Litchfield.”
“Now you’re cooking with Crisco! Pick me up at five o’clock.”
She held the door open for me as I eased out and mostly slid to my car. I balanced the bag and the tea on the Toyota’s roof and brought them in with me as soon as I had the door open. I let my car reheat while I devoured half my bagel, loving the chewiness of the fresh-baked roll, the cream cheese oozing out the sides, the sharp earthiness of the tomato the perfect foil for it all. The second half was polished off before I reached the nursing home. I ran the treats into a grateful Curtis then pulled into the library parking lot fifteen minutes early.
All in all, I’d had worse mornings. At least, I had until I saw Bad Brad standing outside the library door, hands in pockets, head hung like a dog on the way to the vet.
Twenty-Five
Rather than speak to Bad Brad, I acted as if he wasn’t there at all. He followed me into the library like a droopy shadow and stuck close to my side as I went about my duties. It got so I almost forgot he was there, until he chose to speak.
“Have you looked at her Facebook page?”
“Whose?” Of course I knew who he was talking about.
“My girlfriend’s.”
“Why would I look at your girlfriend’s Facebook page?”
“I thought you’d change your mind about the conflict of interest and help me out.”
“Nope.”
I turned on the front desk computer and stepped from behind the counter to switch on the public computers. When I returned to the front, I saw Brad was standing at my desktop, clicking away.
“What are you doing? You can’t be on that.”
His shoulders dropped lower, if that was possible. He pointed at the screen. “See for yourself.”
I sighed. “If I look at your girlfriend’s Facebook page, will you leave?”
“Yes.”
I dragged my feet around the counter and stood beside him. A blue-rimmed page was pulled up on the computer. It featured a headshot of a pretty blonde. A lake panorama was spread out behind her head. Her name, according to the page, was Samantha Lehmkuhl. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s the problem.” He pointed to a white box under her photo that declared her birthday and that she was female. “Why doesn’t it say she’s in a relationship?”
I squinted at the screen. “It’s supposed to say that?”
“It can, if the person chooses to make that part of their status.”
Wow. I did not like this new world where there were so many more ways to be bonkers. My brain flitted through some possibilities. A person could break up with you on Facebook, and the whole world would know before you did. And after the break-up, you could return to your ex’s page and check out what they were up to, maybe see if they’d moved on before you had. It was enough to make a person sick. Thank goodness I had dependable, sane, loyal Johnny. The thought of him sent a delicious wave across my nerve ends. Man, that boy was good-looking. And an amazing kisser who also smelled clean, laughed at my jokes, and cleaned up after himself. Why hadn’t I immediately rescheduled our Sunday night interrupted date? I added him to my mental to-do list.
“Are you hot?” Brad asked, studying me. “Your face is all red.”
I flushed deeper. Last spring, it had taken him two weeks to notice I’d moved to Battle Lake, but here he was being all Amazing Kreskin with my arousal state. “I think I’m allergic to Facebook.”
He minimized the window. “Will you take the case? Please, Mira. For me. I love this woman.”
I had a million retorts to that, but none I could summon in the face of his obviously heartbroken state. “Fine,” I muttered.
“Thank you!” He bundled me into his arms and kissed the top of my head. “I owe you one. Whatever you need, you just tell me.”
“I need you to leave so I can get some work done.”
“Great! All these books make me nervous, anyhow. What if people see me in a library?”
“That will surely set their tongues a-wagging,” I said dryly. “Now, be off. I’ll be in touch if I find anything.”
“You’re a good person, Mira,” he said, before the door closed pneumatically behind him.
I watched him disappear around a corner. I had zero romantic feelings for him, but maybe we could be friends. His case would have to wait, though. I pulled out my Cold Case file and retrieved the letter supposedly written by Orpheus Jackson from my pocket and smoothed it on my desk.
18 January 1865
Dear Loretta:
I wish I could write with better news. In Minnesota, they do not believe the messages I bring. I do not think I can stay here. I pack my bags to return home tomorrow. Should anything happen to me, look to the tunnel of justice.
With a heart that beats only for you,
Orpheus Jackson
I had a hunch that if Maurice hadn’t been related to Orpheus, he at least believed he was. Was this somehow connected to the relatives Maurice had told Taunita he was coming to Minnesota to find? On a hunch, I strode back to the local shelf where Maurice had spent many hours the week before his death. I paged through all the references, looking for notes or dog-ears, and tipped them all sideways hoping something would fall out. Nothing.
But my Cold Case file was thin, and I sensed there was a connection—real or imagined—between Maurice and Orpheus, so I began researching Orpheus. Using the search terms Orpheus Jackson and 1800s, I didn’t come up with a thing. When on a hunch I threw Barnaby Offerdahl into the mix, though, I was brought to a full article on the Battle of Honey Hill, a Civil War battle fought in South Carolina on November 30, 1864. O. Jackson was listed as a freeman from the north serving in the 54th Massachusetts, and B. Offerdahl as a landowner in the 1st Minnesota Artillery Battery. The battle was a failed expedition under Major General John P. Hatch. The Confederates were too well-entrenched to rout, and the Union lost 89 men, with 629 wounded and 28 missing.
The date on Orpheus’s letter suggested he was one of the Union survivors, but was this the battle that had killed Barnaby, and if so, what did that have to do with Orpheus, and why was he in Minnesota in 1865? Was he bearing a message from Barnaby? And what could this message possibly have to do with Maurice, nearly 150 years later? I had more questions than answers. To save myself the headache of carrying them spinning in my head, I wrote them down and shoved them into my Cold Case folder before moving on to Operation Offerdahl and the search for
a present-day member of the family.
I returned to my database and set a wider search for Eric, looking for anyone who shared the surname. There were tens of thousands of Offerdahls, but when I narrowed it to Minnesota, there were far fewer. When I narrowed it even further, to criminal history, I found a Gregory and Patrice Offerdahl. A quick call to Curtis verified that had been the name of Eric’s parents. They were both mostly crime-free except for a line of bounced checks following them all the way to Phoenix, Arizona. My records showed Patrice had died four years earlier, and that Gregory still owned seven prime lakefront acres abutting or near the Prospect House, but little else. Gregory was seventy-eight and currently resided at 1923 Orangetree Lane, Phoenix, Arizona. I printed out the records and got to work running the library.
My morning passed in a blink. I finished four special orders, including tracking down and ordering a nonfiction book on abominable snowmen and another on tapping into your psychic ability. I watered the plants and dusted their leaves, wondering if I should have Kennie visit as a favor to a snake plant that was looking yellow and tragic around the edges. I showed an elderly man how to access the Internet and watched happily as he began researching his family tree. For lunch, I slammed both Danishes and promised myself I’d start working out just as soon as nature joined my team and melted the rest of the snow.
The afternoon was spent preparing the library’s February budget, helping patrons check out books, planning activities for next week’s children’s hour, answering emails requesting use of the library’s public meeting room, and updating the library website. By the time closing rolled around, I felt like I’d run a marathon. I did a last walkthrough of the stacks to make sure I’d shooed everyone out and no surprises had been left behind before running across town to pick up Mrs. Berns. I was hoping we could make it to O’Callaghan’s for the six o’clock tour.
My car idled outside her apartment building. I honked, hoping to save myself a trip into the cold air. I fumbled with the radio knob while I waited, hoping as I always did for something more than country or Journey. I settled on “Saturday in the Park.” My car was too old for a CD player, and I didn’t have the heart to carry mixed tapes with me. I took what I could get.
