I expected nothing less, though it would’ve been pleasant if a member of my own family expressed an interest or a hint of caring about Hank, but that was just wishful thinking.
The only thing I knew to do was flee Raymond’s presence as fast as I could.
CHAPTER 8
I rang the doorbell on Professor Strand’s door not two minutes after leaving Raymond’s house. I could hear the phone already ringing inside. The stoop had dried from the rain, but the leaves of a potted geranium still bore water drops.
I hesitated to press the doorbell again after hearing the phone ring on persistently, but I felt I had no choice. I wanted to reach Professor Strand before Raymond did.
But in the end, it turned out that the professor was not at home. I stood at the door for another five minutes, listening impatiently to the phone screaming to be picked up. I should have asked Calla for a couple of cigarettes, or stopped and bought some of my own, but I hadn’t. I could use some calming down. Raymond was as frustrating as ever, and if I had it to do all over again, I would never have shown up at his door in the first place.
From there I drove to the campus’s administrator’s office to find out if the professor was teaching a class. He wasn’t, I was told by a snippy woman outside the dean’s office. Professor Strand had a class scheduled later in the afternoon, and when I pressed I was told that no one in the office knew where the professor was, nor was it a concern.
It seemed that I had no choice but to wait for a couple of hours or to head back home. I decided to go home—with a couple of stops in between.
Once I got back in the truck, I sat there for a second, letting everything Raymond told me settle in. I reached in my purse, pulled out my notebook, and scribbled down some more notes: the name of the book Raymond had used and the fact that Hilo had not told me about the theft were my main topics.
Satisfied that I wouldn’t forget anything, I drove off the university campus without looking back. My discomfort of the place had only been reinforced.
I stopped at the payphone outside the Rexall again, only this time I called Calla at the library. I knew I should have driven straight home, but I had another nagging feeling in my stomach, like I’d missed something this time, not so much that there was anything wrong.
As always, Calla answered the phone. “Library, how may I help you?”
“Hi, Calla, this is Marjorie. I need you to check on something for me.”
“Sure thing, what do you need?”
“Can you check on a book, The Book of Norse Symbols, for me? The author’s name is Larrson. Two Rs. I don’t think you have it there. At least I didn’t come across it earlier. Could you see if you’ve ever had it? What the publishing history is?”
“All right. Hold on, Marjorie.”
I heard her put the receiver down and walk away, so I closed my eyes and tried to gather my thoughts, tried to justify why I was questioning my cousin’s actions and words—other than it was normal, since I held him in such low esteem and didn’t trust him at all.
The fact that Raymond had not allowed me to see the book he quoted did not surprise me. He just seemed especially guarded. I didn’t want to think that he was involved in any of this, but he knew more about the amulet than I did. He knew that it might have been stolen when I didn’t.
“Marjorie?”
“Yes?”
“I can’t find anything on this title. It doesn’t look like there’s anything that’s ever been published by a Larrson concerning Norse symbols, at least with the records that I have access to. Are you sure you gave me the correct information? Maybe it was with a small publisher and not listed.”
“Yes, Calla, I’m absolutely sure the information is correct. Wait, Raymond said it was published in 1901. He was very proud that it was a first edition, a rare book.”
“That would explain it. My records only go back forty-one years. I’ll call over to the university library and see what I can find out. Do you ever call them?”
“Only as a last resort,” I said, more truthfully than I wanted to.
“They don’t all look down their nose at everybody who’s not like them, Marjorie. They appreciate curious people like yourself. The university is a vast resource that you shouldn’t avoid.”
I took a deep breath. Not only had I been chastised by mother’s ghost and Raymond since I left home, now Calla had joined the fray. The day was going from bad to worse. “I’ll keep that in mind, Calla. Would you be a dear and call them for me? I have a few more stops to make before going home to Hank.”
The line hissed and crackled, and Calla remained silent for a long breath. “Sure, Marjorie, I can do that.”
“Okay, thanks, I appreciate it.” I was ready to hang up.
“Marjorie?” Calla said.
“Yes?”
“Did you say something to Herbert to upset him?”
“No. No, of course not. Not that I know of. Why?”
“I saw him talking to you, then went looking for him after you left, and I couldn’t find him. He never leaves during the day without telling me, Marjorie.”
I took a deep breath. “He wanted to tell me about Lida’s cousin that he was in the war with. Herbert said he ‘was just like him.’ Do you know what that means?”
“No,” Calla said. “Affected maybe? Shell-shocked? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m a little worried about him. I always know where he is, and he always knows where I am.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him as I drive out of town. If something comes up, call me at home. I’ll be there in a little while.”
“All right.”
“Calla?” I said. It was my turn to ask a question.
“Yes?”
“You don’t think Herbert has anything to do with the Knudsens’ murders do you?”
Calla didn’t answer straight away, but when she did, her tone had lost all of its warmth. “No. Herbert Frakes wouldn’t hurt a fly. Good-bye, Marjorie.”
With that, she hung up the phone. More like slammed it down and left the phone dead in my ear. All I could do was stare at the receiver with my mouth agape for the longest time.
I finally hung it up, straightened my shoulders, and pushed out of the phone booth intent on stopping by the police station to see if Hilo was there. I wanted to ask him if the amulet I had in my possession really had been stolen, and if so why in the heck hadn’t he told me? But I stopped in my tracks.
The green Chevy sedan was parked across the street.
It was empty as far as I could tell. There was no sign of the newspaper reader anywhere, even though the car was parked in front of the Western Auto store. The big red letters on the front of the blonde brick building were usually a source of comfort; it was a place to go to first in search of a myriad of needs. It was more than an automobile parts store; Hank bought his shotgun and the .22 there, along with most of the tools he kept neatly in the garage section of the first barn. The other two barns were used for housing what animals we kept, equipment, and hay bale storage.
A tremor of fear rolled up my spine as I looked up and down 1st Avenue. Most of the cars and trucks I saw were subdued colors: blacks, grays, and dark green like our Studebaker truck. There were a few yellows and reds. One of those, a little red rear-engine Chevrolet Corvair drove by, sounding odd, drawing my attention for a second because of the puttering of the engine and the size of it, not the color. That car would’ve fit in one of our pig stalls; it looked like a death trap to me.
Hamish Martin’s 1960 buttercup yellow Plymouth Fury convertible sat in front of his insurance office with the top up. The car drew attention wherever it went—just like Hamish, with his wide loud ties. Most folks in these parts were simple and modest in their tastes, but the modern world was getting more colorful and loud, so I figured there’d come a day when the insurance salesman’s car would become normal, and the sedate black sedans of the past would become quaint.
Still, the green Chevy stood out—at least to me. I looked
up and down the street again and saw nothing out of place, then chastised myself, again, for being paranoid, nervous.
But, I was on a unusual mission, and it had been a difficult afternoon. I had an odd, perhaps stolen, amulet in my purse. My cousin had left me unsettled, and he had given me a reason to question Hilo, a man that I had always trusted implicitly. Calla was upset with me because she couldn’t find Herbert Frakes. Two of my closest friends had been murdered in a horrible, horrible way, and my heart was breaking for their two sons, who must have been lost in a way they had never counted on. I longed to see both of the boys and hold them as tight as possible.
Before I knew it, a tear streamed down my cheek. It was all too much. I should have told Hilo no. Taken the pies over to the Knudsens’ place and given the boys as much comfort as possible, then gone home to Hank and buried myself in my work. That’s what I always did when things went bad. Work. It was the salve for most of the wounds I had ever encountered.
The tears didn’t stop. They just cascaded more readily—and for whatever the reason, it didn’t bother me that I was standing on the sidewalk doing so. Any other day I would have been mortified.
I should have been home working. My deadline for Sir Nigel’s book was getting closer every day, and I was in town on a fool’s errand, engaged in something I was wholly unprepared for.
“Pull yourself together, Marjorie,” I said to myself. “You’re stronger than this.” It was my mother’s voice, urging me on. I knew that and wasn’t the least bit angry about it.
I dug into my purse, pulled out my handkerchief, wiped my eyes, looked up and down the street one last time to see normal life pulsing all around me, then looked over to the green Chevy.
“You’re just imagining things, Marjorie,” I said in a whisper. “Go on, go home where you belong.”
I took a deep breath, pulled myself together, and headed toward the truck, but just as I got to the door, I decided to make a quick detour into the Rexall.
I hurried inside the drugstore, looked around to see if there was anyone inside that I knew, then made my way to the counter.
I had visited the Rexall more since Hank’s accident than I had in my entire life. Gregor Landdow was the pharmacist, and he’d been there since the dawn of time. I glanced over to the drug counter and saw him standing there like always, his head down, counting out pills or reading up on some newfangled cure that the doctors were touting. I didn’t know how he kept up with it all. But he was one of the few people I knew who used and appreciated well-written indexes. He told me so every time I saw him.
The counter girl was new, and I was happy about that. I didn’t know her or her family, and she didn’t seem to recognize me. “May I help you?” she asked. She was probably just out of high school and looked bored to tears.
“A pack of Salems, please.”
The girl was a little taller than me and wore bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner, and her hair looked like a beehive had been sat on top of her head. It looked like a lot of work to me.
“Just one?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
She bent down, pulled a pack from underneath the counter, and handed it to me on the way up. I was sure her hair was going to tip over, but it didn’t. “Twenty-seven cents, please,” she said, as she punched the numbers into the cash register and hit a button that thrust the drawer open with a loud ding.
I looked around unconsciously, hoping that the ding hadn’t drawn any attention. I dug into my change purse as quick as I could, found a quarter and two pennies, and handed them to her in as smooth an exchange as I could muster. I felt like a teenaged girl doing something wrong. I’m sure it showed on my face. I just wanted to get out of there as quick as I could.
I stuffed the cigarettes in the secret place in my purse, next to the amulet, and started to walk off.
“Don’t you want your receipt, Mrs. Trumaine?” the counter girl said.
The sound of my name stopped me in my tracks. I was halfway to the door. I turned around and took a second look at the girl. She still didn’t look familiar. I must have known her family somehow. “Do I know you?”
The store was empty, with the exception of Gregor Landdow. He hadn’t moved from his spot or bothered to look up.
The girl shrugged. “I’m Betty Walsh.”
The Walsh name kind of rang a bell. The old folks had a farm out South Heart way that nearly stretched all the way to the Montana state line. But I thought the family had sold the place a while back. Maybe the kids had moved into town. That happened. Or they went on down the road to Bismarck or Fargo, sometimes to Minneapolis or Denver.
I shrugged. “I’m sorry,” I said. I really wanted to be on my way, but I didn’t want to be rude, and I was curious how she knew who I was. “I don’t recognize you.”
The girl nodded. “I used to date Jaeger Knudsen in high school. I was out to your place a couple of times. Mostly, I just sat in the truck while him and Peter baled hay, or unloaded it.”
I nodded, looked at her closely, and tried to imagine her young face without makeup. “Yes, of course,” I lied. I still couldn’t place her. I doubted if Jaeger ever introduced her to me. He was the silent one of the two. Peter would prate on and on about the phase of the moon, the state of the weather, pork belly futures, whatever he’d put in his head that day. Truth be told, Peter was my favorite. He had a curious mind and loved to learn. Jaeger was always in a dark mood, it seemed, but was the harder worker of the two.
“We broke up about six months ago,” Betty Walsh said. “He was so jealous, I could barely ask for the fella down at the Sunoco Station to check my oil.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting her. I needed to get home and she looked prepared to launch into a sordid tirade that I had no interest in hearing. “It was good to see you, dear.” I turned to leave again.
No one had come into the Rexall since I had, and I was grateful for that.
“I was sorry to hear what happened to his parents,” Betty said, stopping me again. “He fought with them all of the time.”
I didn’t take that too seriously, except she had made a point to bring it up. Teenage boys arguing with their parents was common. There was nothing unusual about that.
“I’m sure Jaeger is stricken,” I said. “It’s such a tragedy. They were both fine people.”
Betty twirled a stray strand of hair that had fallen from the beehive. “If you say so.”
I was about to ask her what she meant by that, but the bell over the door jingled, announcing someone coming in. I glanced over to see a hunched-over old man, intent on making his way to see Gregor Landdow. In a town of ten thousand it was impossible to know everyone.
“It was good to see you, Betty. I’m sure I’ll see you at the funeral.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mrs. Trumaine. Everyone in town’ll be there,” Betty Walsh said with a broad smile on her face.
CHAPTER 9
The green Chevy was gone when I walked back to my truck. I looked long and broad for it, but there was no sign of the car at all. I shook my head. I was being silly.
Now I had something else to consider, and that was the state of mind that I would find Peter and Jaeger in. Betty Walsh had watered a seed about Jaeger that certainly needed my attention, but Hilo had said that the boys weren’t suspects in the murders of their parents, though he hadn’t ruled them out completely.
I could barely bring myself to think ill of Jaeger, that the boy could actually do something as horrific as cutting his own mother’s throat. He had been such a help on our farm, especially after Hank had become bedridden and unable to make the daily decisions around the farm that needed to be made.
Jaeger was a natural manager. He excelled at seeing things through to the end. Diligent and calculating, he was cut from a similar cloth as Hank. But Jaeger lacked patience and tact. He was demanding and hard, especially on Peter.
Betty Walsh was right. Jaeger had a quick temper. I had seen
him fly off the handle frequently over the years, but I always marked that up to his youth, his inexperience.
The truth was, I knew very little about Jaeger’s emotional life, his real relationship with his parents, or how he saw the world. He was a closed book, eager to take on a task, and a hard worker if I had ever seen one, but never very open about how he felt about things—even the weather or the future—unlike Peter and Hank, who were poets in their own ways. None of those things added up, at least in my mind, to point to Jaeger as a cold-blooded killer.
Just the thought of the boys and their sad situation left me feeling emptier than I already did. Somehow, that just seemed impossible. I was wrung out, my tear ducts fallow, but my stomach still churned with an uneasiness that was hard to place.
I decided to let Hilo do the police work, let him figure out if either of the boys needed to be looked at closer, even though I was still sour with him.
The shadow of doubt about Jaeger still lingered in my mind. I hoped I would be able to look him in the eye with love and comfort when I saw him next. With that thought, I put the truck into gear and headed toward the courthouse, where the sheriff’s office was located. I was in a mind to give Hilo the amulet and be done with all of this murder business.
Nothing good had come from my trip into town. Just the opposite, really. Either I was upset with someone or they were upset with me. I had to wonder if there wasn’t a black curse on the ugly Norse medallion. A dark wind had blown across my face from the moment I had looked up and spied Hilo pulling up our drive. I had been cold ever since Hilo had placed the amulet in my hand. I didn’t like it in my presence at all, and after the day I’d had, I was pretty sure I didn’t want the damned thing in my house, or in my possession, for another second.
I took a deep breath, tapped the steering wheel, and said, “Poppycock,” without regard to anyone around me walking by, who might see me talking to myself. “It’s just a necklace, a thing, Marjorie. You don’t believe in that kind of stuff, in ancient evil, in objects that hold dark powers. Don’t be silly.”
See Also Murder Page 6
