by Annie Knox
Harvey raised his eyebrows and bobbled his head like he was weighing the pros and cons. “Darling, if it makes you happy, I say let’s do it.”
The three of us feasted on Harvey’s amazing scrambled eggs—apparently the secret ingredients were mountains of butter and rivers of heavy cream, bacon (both fake and real), sourdough toast, and a fruit salad of strawberries and cantaloupe in some sort of light, minty syrup. As I chewed, I idly tried to come up with an excuse for Harvey to stay on in Merryville and cook for me every day. And then I idly tried to imagine just how many pounds I could gain eating Harvey’s fare.
“Harvey said you’re going to church.”
Ingrid nodded. “I’d say that I want to go to say an extra prayer for Daniel Colona, but it would be a lie. I want to go to hang out with all those Methodist biddies and find out what I’ve missed over the past few months.”
At least she was honest.
“Do you have a few minutes to help me out downstairs before you have to go?”
She glanced at the clock on my stove. “Absolutely. I don’t have to leave for another half hour or so.”
Ingrid practically skipped down the stairs when she followed me to the shop after breakfast. Sean and Rena and I had our trek to Badger Lake all planned out, but I had about half an hour before we left, just like Ingrid, so I figured we’d work on making the big display cabinet in the middle of the store more springlike.
“What do you think, Ingrid? Should we go with gauzy pastels or brighter spring colors like crocus purple and daffodil yellow?”
Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Why would you even ask? You know what I’m going to say.”
“Right. Bright colors.”
Ingrid popped into the barkery and came back with a huge vase of lilacs, the bouquets and smaller vases from her wedding consolidated into a single vessel. She set the overflowing vase on the display case and took a step or two back. “Definitely bright colors.”
Looking at her beautiful wedding flowers, already starting to wilt, I felt myself tear up. “Ingrid, I am so, so sorry that you couldn’t get married. It’s completely unfair.”
Ingrid looked me square in the eyes. “Hey. Do you see me crying or moping around?”
“No. But you’re Ingrid. You never cry or mope around.”
She laughed. “That’s not entirely true. I’ve had my down days before. But this isn’t one of them. I’m sorry that poor man died, and I wish Harvey and I were an old married couple already. But the bottom line is that I’m surrounded by good friends, I have Harvey at my side, and we already have a new plan for a wedding in just a week.”
Most people thought of Ingrid as a tough old broad. They weren’t wrong. But she could whip up a silver lining for any cloud that came her way. She grouched a lot, but she was also surprisingly optimistic.
Ingrid pulled me into a brusque hug and then set about pulling together the brightest of the wares I had on display, putting together little outfits for our specially made dog and cat mannequins (each carved and painted picket-fence white by Chimpy Lassiter, a local woodworker whose intricately carved bedsteads and dining tables were a hot commodity among the hipster crowd in Minneapolis).
I swiped the dampness from my eyes and joined in. We had already put together a hot pink tutu with a ridiculously cute Daisy Duke halter top and picked out a dozen of the most flamboyant collars in my inventory when there was a knock on the door.
I spun around, expecting to find Sean waiting on the doorstep—after all, Rena had her own key—but I was stunned to see Jane Porter.
I glanced at Ingrid. She had pulled herself up to her full height and had wiped all expression clean off her face. My friend had suddenly become a totem pole.
Jane knocked again, and I bustled over to answer. I only cracked the door enough to wedge my own body in the opening.
Jane wore a cloak the color of ripe strawberries over a pale blue dress. Her feet were encased in a pair of low heels that matched the dress to perfection, and the feathered hat perched on her snowy head mirrored the cloak’s vibrant red.
At first glance, her pale skin and wide blue eyes made her look like a china doll. But even in the kind light of morning, Jane was showing her age. The powder that coated her cheeks rode unevenly across her wrinkles and made her skin look more papery than flawless. She’d built a Hadrian’s Wall of lip liner to prevent the savage red of her lipstick from overrunning her white, white skin.
The march of time had taken its toll, but she was still a pretty woman. I guessed that in her day she would have been a great model for a sailor’s pinup tattoo, all exaggerated curves and lush femininity.
“Good morning, Jane. I’m afraid you’ve caught us a little off guard. We don’t open until noon on Sundays.”
“Oh no, dear. I didn’t come to shop. I was hoping to chat with Ingrid.”
I didn’t know Jane Porter well. She was Lutheran; I was Methodist. She lived in Quail Run, an upscale housing complex; I lived in a downtown apartment. I’d heard she had an enormous cage full of lovebirds, but I didn’t really sell to the bird crowd. Short story, our lives rarely overlapped.
Still, I’d heard Dolly mention Jane’s cutting wit at the canasta tables, and I knew the history between Ingrid and Jane. Maybe Jane’s intentions were pure, but for all I knew, she had come to rub Ingrid’s nose in her failed wedding. And I couldn’t let that happen.
I shot a quick glance back at Ingrid, who gave her head a tiny shake.
“Gee, Jane. I still can’t help you. Ingrid isn’t available at the moment.”
Jane closed her eyes, revealing wobbly black eyeliner.
“Dear, your door is made of glass. I can see her standing behind you.”
I felt heat licking up my cheeks. “Well, yes. But she isn’t actually available.”
Jane’s ruby lips thinned in a tight smile. “What you mean is that she isn’t available for me.”
“Oh, no, of course . . . I mean . . .”
She held up a calming hand. “Don’t worry, dear. I don’t blame Ingrid, and I certainly don’t blame you. I meant to give this to Ingrid before her wedding, but never seemed to find the right time.” She flicked the kiss lock on her black patent handbag and pulled out a flat rectangular package wrapped in pink polka-dot paper. “Would you mind giving it to her now? Tell her to call me if she wants to.”
I took the package from hands that trembled ever so slightly. She snapped closed the lock on her purse and made her way down my steps before climbing into a burgundy Lincoln and driving away.
I closed the door slowly and turned to face Ingrid. Her expression was grim. She nodded toward the package in my hands. “That for me?”
I nodded, and held it out to her.
She shook her head. “I don’t want anything from that woman.”
I looked from the package to Ingrid and back again. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, but I saw a twinge of uncertainty in her eyes. She had to be burning with curiosity just like I was.
“Well, then, what should I do with it?” I asked, starting to make my way to the trash can we kept behind the front display counter.
“Oh, here,” Ingrid blustered, shoving her hand out to take the package. I handed it to her, and she ripped open the paper . . .
And gasped.
“What is it?” I asked, growing worried by the wavering emotions on Ingrid’s face. All I could tell was that she was holding a picture frame in a white-knuckled grip. I couldn’t imagine what the picture could be that would upset her so.
She handed the picture to me, as much to get it out of her hands as to show me what it was. I turned the frame around so it was upright and saw a picture of a man. The tones of the picture were washed-out, suggesting it was old, maybe from the sixties or seventies. The man himself looked to be middle-aged, hair thinning on top even as it brushed
his collar below. He was handsome, with strong features and a firm, square jaw, broad shoulders and a trim physique. In the photo, he was staring off into the distance, his mouth turned up in a smile of quiet joy.
I tried to place him. He was vaguely familiar, but since the picture seemed to outdate me, if I knew this man, he was much, much older.
“It’s Arnold,” Ingrid offered. “I’ve never seen that picture before. Jane must have taken it.”
I felt a little sick. I wished I could dial back time about five minutes and throw the package in the trash without even showing it to Ingrid.
“Why would she give you such a thing?” I asked.
“I don’t know. To hurt me, I guess. Maybe to remind me that she wooed my husband. Maybe to suggest she could do it again. I have no idea what goes on in that woman’s head, and I certainly don’t want to.”
“I’m sorry, Ingrid.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be. I’ve spent the better part of thirty-five years putting that period of my life in the past, and I’ll be gosh darned if Jane Porter is going to send me back there with a single picture. What I have now is what matters, and what I have is the love of a very good man.”
“That doesn’t mean that you have to be immune to Jane Porter’s meanness.”
Ingrid nodded and drew in a deep breath. “You’re right. I think it’s time I headed to church. Maybe the good Lord can squash my impulse to drive out to Quail Run and punch Jane Porter in the kisser.”
I watched her leave, her pocketbook tucked under her arm. She held her head high and she talked tough, but I could still see the sadness of that old wound hanging over her head.
CHAPTER
Seven
Rena, Sean, and I must have made quite a sight as we traipsed down Maple Avenue. Rena walked Daisy, who was doing the sniffing dance with Hetty Tucker’s greyhound (soon-to-be groom-hound), Romeo. Sean struggled to keep hold of the antsy greyhound while still tugging along his own lethargic basset hound, Blackstone. And, of course, my Packer was leaping in crazy twirls trying to get everyone’s attention at once. The dogs were all so interested in one another that we moved at a snail’s pace down Maple, past Dakota Park, through the historic Birch Mound neighborhood, and eventually up Walking Bird Lane to Badger Lake and the old Soaring Eagles Adventure Camp.
By the time we approached the site where Hal Olson was building his vacation community, I think the humans were all ready to drop the leashes and let the dogs fend for themselves. Sean had taken to cursing under his breath, tiny Rena—whose stride was so much shorter than the rest of ours—was panting softly, and I was clenching my teeth in annoyance.
“Dogs! Enough!” I said, trying to inject my tone with as much steel as I possibly could.
Surprisingly, all four mutts turned their faces up to mine with comical expressions of wide-eyed wonder, as though they’d forgotten there were people involved in this walk at all.
We all stood there, a frozen tableau, getting our respective minds back on track.
“Well,” Sean said, “what now?”
“I don’t know,” Rena responded. “I guess we look around.”
“For what?”
Rena and I shrugged in tandem.
“Ahh,” Sean said with a little laugh. “Like Justice Stewart on obscenity: we’ll know it when we see it.”
Rena and I looked at each other. She frowned and raised her hands in the universal expression for “What the heck?” I frowned and shrugged in the universal expression for “I have no idea.”
Sean started to laugh, and his laughter grew until he’d plopped down to sit on the ground, Blackstone crawling into his lap as if on cue. “Lord love a duck,” he said. “We have absolutely no reason to be here, do we? I mean, what could we possibly find that is at all relevant to Daniel’s murder just by meandering around the work site?”
“Maybe nothing,” I conceded, “but you never know. We’re talking about Hal Olson here. Not exactly a master criminal. He’s a manipulative womanizer who plays fast and loose with ethical norms, but he’s not very discreet about his exploits.”
“But that’s exactly it. Hal is not a master criminal. How could he be responsible for Daniel’s murder? Heck, Hal wasn’t even at the party.”
“One step at a time,” I said. “I just know that if we figure out what Daniel was writing his story on, we’ll figure out why he was killed . . . and then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to who killed him.”
Sean heaved a sigh. “All right, then, let’s see what there is to see.”
Leading the dogs, who were now much more subdued, we skirted the fence surrounding the construction site and picked our way through the debris to see what Hal was building.
I knew they were building condos, but the terrible sameness of all the units hit me only when I saw them in person. I suddenly understood Richard Greene’s frustration that these cookie-cutter buildings would obscure the view of the lake from every other point along the shoreline.
“Hmmm,” Sean muttered.
“What?”
“Most of the people who can afford waterfront property like this expect high quality. This house wrap they’re using is the most cut-rate stuff on the market.”
Rena stopped in her tracks, her Doc Martens kicking up a little cloud of dust. “How on earth do you know that?”
Sean smiled like the cat who ate the canary. “I’m a man of many talents.”
“Right.”
“Oh, fine. My cousin Bubba runs a construction company just outside of Oxford. When I was doing my undergrad at Ole Miss, I worked summers and weekends for him. I remember him talking about this particular brand of house wrap and how one of his competitors was using it. It allowed the other guy to come in with lower bids, but Bubba wouldn’t touch the stuff. Said it was a rip-off.”
“Doesn’t really surprise me,” I chimed in. “Hal can squeeze a dollar until it squeals. Maybe that’s how the Brainerd contractor was able to underbid Steve, because he plans to use substandard materials.”
“True,” Sean said, turning his head to survey the delicate curve of Badger Lake’s shoreline, “but what a waste to erect shoddy condos on this beautiful property.”
We wandered through the huddle of buildings, each the same as the last.
“Given how much work they have to do to finish these out, they don’t seem to have many building materials lying around. I would expect huge stacks of shingles and bags of plaster, not to mention an earthmover or two to clear out that last section of property.” He pointed to the far end of the old camp, where stakes were set in the ground indicating new builds, but the land was still covered in low brambles and mounds of dirt.
“So what does that mean?” I asked.
“Well, it makes me even more curious about what Daniel was doing out here. It doesn’t look like there’s that much work going on. Nothing to watch.”
We completed our tour of the property, finding nothing else of interest, and were just about to give up and start the long walk home when a voice called out from the trailer parked right by the water’s edge.
“No trespassing.” The voice was little more than a growl, so gravelly it was difficult to understand. “I gotta gun.” That statement was punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a round sliding into the chamber of a pump-action shotgun.
The three of us turned around slowly. There, in the trailer’s open doorway, stood a woman in a purple flowered muumuu, a cigarette dangling from her coral-painted lips, and her weapon leveled right at the three of us.
“Son of a—” Sean muttered beneath his breath. “I knew you two would find a way to get killed.”
I shushed him softly, trying not to agitate the woman who could blow us all away with a twitch of her finger.
Rena raised her hands in a sign of surrender. “Dee Dee? Dee Dee Lahti?”
> “Yeah. Who’re you?”
“It’s Rena Hamilton.”
Dee Dee cracked a laugh, the sound like the rasp of sandpaper over raw wood. “Dang, girl, I didn’t recognize you with your hair that color. Last time I saw you, it was kind of a teal.”
Rena had a pretty distinctive look. Apart from barely clearing five feet, she had a ladder of earrings marching up her lobes, a studded collar around her neck, an old Ramones T-shirt hanging off one shoulder, and enough black eyeliner to write out a novel. No matter what color her hair happened to be, it was hard to mistake her for anyone other than who she was.
“Right,” Rena replied. “I think that was last Veterans Day. I brought Dad to the party at the VFW and you were there with Kevin.”
I had never had the pleasure of meeting either Dee Dee or Kevin Lahti, but the couple had quite a reputation. Dee Dee was Merryville’s resident crazy dog lady. She and Kevin lived in a little house on the edge of town, where Dee Dee kept at least a dozen dogs. She was known for her ratted bleached-blond hair, the circles of brilliant lipstick she used to outline her mouth, and the endless stream of Parliaments hanging from her mouth, often with a precarious inch-long column of ash shivering at the end.
In short, Dee Dee was crazy, but—the shotgun aside—basically harmless.
Her husband, Kevin, on the other hand, was as dangerous as an angry badger. He’d done a couple of stints in Stillwater for aggravated robbery and made his money off the books, leading hunting, fishing, and canoeing expeditions. He was too rough around the edges to appeal to Merryville’s tourist crowd, and his knowledge of the wilderness was a little too “real” for the tourists’ neatly tailored bird-watching trips. Still, somehow he was keeping body and soul together.
“Who you with, Rena?” Dee Dee squinted her eyes as she tried to make us out, a note of suspicion lingering in her voice.
“These are my friends Izzy McHale and Sean Tucker.”
“McHale? You related to Edie and Clem McHale who taught there at Eisenhower High?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m their second daughter.”
