In Sheep's Clothing

by Rett MacPherson

  “From what? Konrad Nagel was dead by that point.”

  “I know. It makes no sense.”

  “Was she in the 1860 census with Karl and Sven when they lived with the … what were their names?”

  “The Hagglunds,” I said.

  “Yeah, was she listed with them?”

  “No.”

  “Then where was she in the 1860 census? She would have been about a year old.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Not only that, where was she in 1870? She would have been ten, and yet she was not listed with Sven, nor was she listed with her grandfather, Karl Bloomquist.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” she asked again.

  “I mean it, Aunt Sissy. For once in my life, I am really stumped. I guess Sven and Karl could have sent her to live with somebody during that time. While they were purchasing land and trying to set up their own farms. You know, I had a great-grandmother who lived for ten years with a family that wasn’t even related to her. But both of her parents were dead. She had older siblings, but her parents and grandparents were dead, so she went to live with another family. Maybe Karl felt like he and Sven couldn’t take care of her and so they sent her off.”

  “And then when Sven got married, he had somebody who could help him take care of a little girl and brought her back to live with him?”

  “Okay, I buy all that, but why on earth would he report her dead in the first place?”

  Aunt Sissy scratched her head and I stared at the name Emelie Bloomquist on the screen in front of me until my eyes watered and the ancient script blurred.

  “It makes no sense,” I said.

  “You think they were trying to protect Emelie from somebody?” Aunt Sissy asked.

  “Like who?”

  “Like whoever killed her father and her grandfather,” she said.

  My head spun.

  “Maybe that fire was no accident, either. Maybe whoever killed Konrad Nagel and his son, Isaac, was trying to kill Emelie, too.”

  “Are you saying they set the fire for Emelie, and killed Anna and Brigitta in the process?” I asked.

  She nodded her head.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Then why hang Isaac in the barn?”

  “A sick mind trying to warn them?”

  “But why?”

  “For the fun of it,” Aunt Sissy said with a lilt to her voice. Like I was the stupidest person west of the Mississippi.

  “I don’t know,” I said and shook my head. “I’m not convinced the fire and the murders are connected.”

  “Think about it. Whoever killed Konrad and Isaac may not have even realized that Anna was pregnant. Then when they found out, they burned down the Bloomquist house with everybody in it.”

  “Oh, jeez,” I said.

  “It would explain why Anna thought she was in danger. She knew she was going to suffer the same fate as the wolves. Maybe that’s because she knew she was in danger and just didn’t write about it in her diary.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. But in my mind I was thinking about how Anna seemed to know she was in danger. Could it be possible? I shrugged my shoulders and rewound the census microfilm. “We’ll probably never know.”

  “No,” Aunt Sissy said. “I can’t accept that.”

  “Then you play Sherlock Holmes, because I’m about at the end of my rope.”

  Aunt Sissy stared at me with shrewd, disbelieving eyes.

  “I have to leave in a few days,” I said. “You have to accept the fact that I may not solve this.”

  “Well, whatever you can live with,” she said and looked the other way.

  “Oh, Aunt Sissy,” I said. “I don’t know these people, I’m not related to these people. All I’m saying is, if I can’t figure this out, you have to understand.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “I do have to leave in a few days.”

  “Fine,” she said.

  I made some disgruntled sound and put the microfilm roll back on the cart. Then I found the roll that had the early newspapers on it. The Frontier Chronicle featured an article on the murder of Konrad Nagel. I read in silence, while Aunt Sissy sulked beside me.

  “How do you know she was his niece and not Sven’s daughter?” Aunt Sissy said.

  “Well, for one thing, she’s listed as his niece in the census, which also makes sense as to why she was listed after John, even though he was younger. But she would have been born ten years before Sven got married and Marguerite would have only been nine years old when she was born. So she can’t be their daughter. She has to be his niece.”

  She made some clucking noise and I began to read the article on the murder of Parson Nagel.

  Tragedy struck the small frontier town of Olin last week. A pastor at the Lutheran church allowed a stranger entrance to his home, where the stranger partook of dinner, dessert of minced meat pie, and there was evidence that he took a bath as well, though some people think that it could have been the parson who had been interrupted during his bath. The stranger then beat his host to death with an iron poker from the fire.

  Pastor Nagel founded Olin, Minnesota, in 1854, with the construction of the Olin Lutheran Church. Konrad Nagel owned over a thousand acres of land there, from which he donated over three hundred acres for the town square, the church, and the cemetery.

  His daughter, Isabelle Lansdowne, distraught at the news of her father’s demise, collapsed on the floor and did not wake for two days. When she awoke, she found that her only brother had been brutally murdered in a similar fashion. It is thought that the two murders are connected, but townsfolk are being questioned nonetheless.

  At this time the only clues to the murder of Konrad Nagel are the missing poker, which left a fleur-de-lis pattern on the pastor’s body, and witnesses who said the murderer ran from the house cloaked in a blanket and crying. For the murder of Konrad’s son Isaac, there are no clues, save for the same strange markings on his skin. Isaac’s body was found hanging in the barn of a local farmer, Karl Bloomquist. Nobody knows at this time why the body was hung in the barn of Mr. Bloomquist. The Bloomquist family has been questioned and all are severely upset by these events and have no knowledge why somebody would have hung the young Isaac Nagel in their barn.

  I had an idea why Isaac had been hung in the Bloomquist barn. But it all depended on the motive for killing Isaac in the first place. Maybe whoever had killed him happened to kill him as he was going to meet Anna, and so it was just a convenient spot to hang his body. But why the display? And that was exactly what it was, a display. Or they had killed him at his home and brought him out to the Bloomquist barn to hang him, once again as a display or a warning. And if the article was right and both bodies had the same markings, then the two of them were most likely killed by the same person. I was all for Isaac having killed his father in a rage because Konrad wouldn’t give his blessings to Isaac and Anna, or because Konrad refused to let him see Anna. But then … who would have killed Isaac? This way, with both of them having the same markings, they had to have been killed by the same person.

  Who would have wanted both of them dead and then would have wanted to brag about it to the Bloomquists by hanging Isaac’s body in the barn?

  And then, if the fire indeed had been started to kill little Emelie … the only person I could think of who would benefit from all of them being dead would have been Isabelle Lansdowne, Isaac’s one and only sibling.

  “What?” Aunt Sissy said.

  “I don’t know if I can ever prove it, but I think Isabelle Lansdowne killed her father and brother so that she could inherit whatever it was that Konrad had,” I said.

  “But why hang Isaac in the Bloomquist barn?”

  I shrugged. “Unless it was just to thumb her nose at Anna. Maybe she looked at Anna as one of those girls who just wanted the family fortune. You know, trying to marry way above her social status so she could become wealthy when
the parson kicked the bucket,” I said.

  “Yes, but could Isabelle Lansdowne have hung her brother up in a barn? Would she have been strong enough to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe her husband helped her. But she is the only one that we know of who had any reason whatsoever to kill all of them.”

  “And then when she learned that Anna Bloomquist was pregnant…” Aunt Sissy said.

  “She was afraid that Emelie would be able to take her to court to get her share of Konrad’s property,” I said. “Either when she got older, or Anna could have done it for Emelie.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t have DNA testing and stuff back then,” Aunt Sissy said. “Could Emelie have had a shot at getting any of it?”

  “Mmmm, I don’t know. Maybe if enough people knew that Isaac was her father. Basically the whole Bloomquist family. Who knows if Anna told anybody else,” I said. “She could have.”

  “But still, it’s hearsay,” Aunt Sissy argued.

  “I agree,” I said. “But who knows, maybe before Isaac was killed he left some written declaration of paternity. Maybe he confided in his sister.”

  “Desperate people do desperate things.”

  “As I have learned,” I agreed.

  “See? And you said you couldn’t figure it out,” she said.

  “Well, I sure as heck didn’t prove anything. It’s just a theory,” I said.

  “So what’s next?” she asked.

  “I want to see Konrad Nagel’s will. I should have done that before,” I said. “I want to see just what he was worth.”

  “So, back to the courthouse?”

  I glanced at the schoolroom industrial-sized clock. It said three-fifteen. “Yes, we still have time,” I said. “And I need to check on Colin and see what’s going on.”

  I rewound the microfilm and asked the librarian if she could make copies of anything pertaining to the double homicide of Konrad and Isaac Nagel. She said she would check into it for me and inform me of the costs for the search and copies. I gave her my cell-phone number and told her to call me if she came up with anything.

  While I had the phone out, I called the sheriff’s office. “Yes, I’m calling about my stepfather, Colin Brooke, who is being held there. Has anything changed? Are you going to charge him or what?”

  “Please hold” was all the voice said on the other line. By the time a voice came back on, Aunt Sissy and I were at her truck.

  This time it was Sheriff Aberg. “Mrs. O’Shea?”

  “Yes, Sheriff. What’s the status with my stepfather?”

  “I’m releasing him into the custody of Joe Morgan,” he said.

  “My uncle?” I asked and looked at Aunt Sissy. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes. He is not to leave the county.”

  “But … we have to go home. We have jobs to do.”

  “He is not to leave the county until further notice. You and your husband can go home, do your jobs, if you have to. He can fly home later,” he said.

  “But—”

  “Would you rather have him stay here in a cell? Would you rather I press charges?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, be happy with what I’ve offered.”

  “Did you question the person who called 911?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s the whole reason I’m letting him go today. But I still want to keep him close. Forensics will have a lot to tell me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the angle of the entry wound. Your stepfather is very tall. Forensics will be able to tell me if somebody that tall could have made that wound, that sort of thing. Just hold on to your underwear, Mrs. O’Shea.”

  “All right,” I said. I sighed and allowed myself to be relieved. This was looking good for Colin. Thank goodness.

  “Joe’s coming to get him in an hour.”

  “Great,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  I hung up the phone and gave the thumbs-up sign to my aunt. “Uncle Joe’s going to get Colin as we speak.” I explained to her what Sheriff Aberg had said.

  We sped through town, fueled by the glorious sunshine and the good news that I’d just been given about Colin. “Last stop, the courthouse, and then we can go home and relax.”

  Nineteen

  The woman at the courthouse gave us the funniest look. As if she’d experienced déjà vu. We couldn’t possibly be the same desperate-looking females who were just at the courthouse four hours ago. Why would two women come to the courthouse twice on such a glorious day? No, she had to be imagining it. Either that or she was taken aback by my shiner that now was turning sort of Picasso blue.

  I smiled at her and went on back to the room where the last wills and testaments were filed. Konrad Nagel had died in January 1859, and sure enough his will had been probated in that same year. And can I just say that even though wills are a wonderful way to find out information about our forefathers, sometimes the language is so flowery and things are misspelled so badly that it can take a week to figure it all out. And sometimes wills are just plain disappointing. Quite often everything goes to the oldest son, who is to take care of his mother until her death, the end. Those kind really tick me off. I can’t figure out why they bothered having ten kids if only the first one counted.

  But wills can be a great way to find out information, especially if the deceased mentioned all of his children and even listed all of his goods. I found out just how important cows and heifers were while researching my family tree. The first things listed after the land were often I give and bequeath my heifer, Betsy, to my oldest daughter. I’m not lying when I say that I’ve seen wills that list the name of the cow or the horse, but not the daughter.

  Sometimes, especially in the American colonies way back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a will could be the only way to connect a female to her parents. There were no census records back then, and quite often marriage records at the courthouse did not mention the parents’ names if the girl was of age. So a will was sometimes the only way to connect a female ancestor to her parents.

  And far too often, there were no wills at all, and that was just a shame.

  In the case of Konrad Nagel, his will was an interesting document. It seemed that Isaac Nagel, his only son, was to take over the parish of Olin Lutheran Church once his father passed on. And he was to get most of the land. However, two hundred acres had been set aside for Isabelle Lansdowne, along with three books, the family Bible, his sorrel mare, her mother’s spinning wheel, and two bed quilts. He even set aside two dollars each for his three grandchildren—whom he did not name—by Isabelle. Isaac, however, got the house, the church, the wagon and two horses, all of the household possessions, except those already set aside for Isabelle, sixty-three dollars in cash, two oil portraits of Konrad’s parents, and five hundred and fifty-two acres of land, including all the land that surrounded Olin Lake. In the event that Isaac should precede his father in death, everything was to go to Isabelle Nagel Lansdowne. Isaac may not have preceded his father in death, but he died two days later, with no change to the will. Everything went to Isabelle Lansdowne. Everything. So she got not only the two hundred acres of land, but also Isaac’s five-hundred and fifty-two acres. So she ended up with seven hundred plus acres of land.

  Yes, indeed, Konrad Nagel had been well off. I wondered why he made a point of mentioning the two oil portraits of his parents when he had already said that everything in the house was to go to Isaac except the few things set aside for Isabelle. And sixty-three dollars in cash back then was quite a nice little nest egg!

  But the thing that really got me was the land.

  Seven hundred and fifty-two acres of land, including all of the land surrounding Olin Lake. At one time, Konrad Nagel had owned the entire lake and lakefront property. Unbelievable.

  “Well?” Aunt Sissy said. “What does it say?”

  “It says that Isabelle Lansdowne had seven hundred and fifty-two reasons to kill her brother,”
I said.

  “No,” she said. Her eyes grew wide.

  “Well, Konrad was a conscientious father and at least gave his daughter a share of things rather than just giving everything to his only son. But she was to get little when compared to what she actually got once Isaac was out of the way.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Truly.”

  “Can we get a copy of this?”

  “Yes, they’ll copy it for us,” I said. I wondered what Roberta would say if I told her that her ancestor Konrad Nagel might not have been a murderer after all, even though he was still a controlling, dominating jerk, but it was his daughter, also Roberta’s ancestor, who was the killer instead. She’d probably black my other eye. Of course, I couldn’t prove any of it. But she was the only one who had benefited from the deaths of both Konrad and Isaac. The only one.

  Not even Anna would have benefited, since she was not married to Isaac. Emelie possibly could have inherited half of the Nagel estate, if a judge believed she was the daughter of Isaac and if a judge was willing to give her anything. But even so, little two-month-old Emelie could not have killed Konrad or Isaac. And although I believe Anna to have hated Konrad enough to wish him dead, she seemed far too timid in nature to have actually done it. And she would not have killed the love of her life, Isaac. Why would she, even if she was capable of it? With Konrad out of the picture, Isaac was not only free to marry her, she would have lived like a queen. She would have had wealth, security, status, and love.

  It had to be Isabelle. But as I said before, I would never be able to prove it.

  “Come on, let’s get a copy of this and then head home,” I said.

  “Wait, aren’t you going to stop by Mayor Tom’s?” Aunt Sissy asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Well, all the more reason for us to hurry. How will you make it home in time to cook dinner? And Colin is going to be starving!”

  “I put chili in the Crock-Pot before we left.”

  “Oh, good thinking.”

  About a half hour later we pulled up in front of the mayor’s office, with the late evening sun turning everything a golden-orange color. He was about ready to leave when we arrived. Either that or he wanted us to think he was getting ready to leave, so that we wouldn’t stay too long. He cradled his hat in his left hand and his keys in his right. “Oh, Sissy, there you are. Was beginning to think you had forgotten.”