Honestly, I was taken aback by the deteriorated state of the house. As my eyes scanned the front room, my mind tried to categorize everything that I was seeing, but it was impossible to think, even more difficult than it was to breathe.
It had never occurred to me that Hilo and Ardith lived in such a way, that she wasn’t tidy and organized. I was foolish to think that everyone was like me, but the two of them always presented themselves as clean and pressed, though Hilo could look a little rumpled in his uniform—the same uniform he wore day after day. I couldn’t remember seeing him dressed in anything else now that I thought about it. But I hadn’t expected to see him dressed any other way. He was the sheriff, after all, and his daily wear of the uniform fulfilled my expectations. So did Ardith. She always wore a simple dress, usually flowered in one way or another, but subtle, beautiful in its simplicity. I guess the truth was you didn’t know people as well as you thought you did, no matter how many years you’d spent in each other’s company.
I had to wonder what else I didn’t know, but pushed away that curiosity as soon as it crossed my mind. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Just like I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing that Hilo and Ardith had lived like pack rats.
The house was small, most likely four rooms: the front room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen in the back—the standard floor plan for an early twentieth-century North Dakota farmhouse. Along with the lifetime collection of stuff and lack of organization, there were people everywhere: people I recognized from town, from church, and people I couldn’t recall ever seeing before.
I stood in the doorway dumbfounded, lost, akin to what Alice must’ve felt like when she first tumbled down that rabbit hole. I worried that I would encounter the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts, especially when a voice came to my ear. “The food goes in the kitchen, honey,” a woman to my right said.
She was tall, leggy, with even taller blond hair, of the likes I’d hardly ever seen before. She looked glittery, polished from head to toe in a bright store-bought orange dress, a big city girl suddenly transplanted into the country directing funeral food. She looked like an expensive lawyer’s secretary. It was her perfume that had accosted my nose when I had walked in the door. I preferred the smell of pig shit to Chanel No. 5 to be honest.
I didn’t budge. “Do you know where Hilo is?” I asked.
The woman stared down her nose at me with a look that needed slapped off her face. Fortunately, my hands were full.
I was not an idiot for asking the question—which was what her haughty expression voiced silently. I’d come to deliver food and to see Hilo, and that’s what I was going to do. I had left Hank once again, and I was worried beyond description about what I would find when I returned home. But here I stood. “I have business to discuss with Hilo,” I said with a harsher tone than I’d intended.
“Today’s a bad day for that, honey.”
“Do tell.”
My response flustered the woman even more. She shook her head and looked to the ceiling, exasperated. “Hamish told me to direct food to the kitchen, and that’s all I know.”
That explained it. She was Hamish Martin’s latest go-to girl. The insurance salesman traded in secretaries as often as he traded in convertibles. Once he put a little mileage on them, dinged up their fenders, and eyed a newer, shinier model, they were history. I’d never seen this one before. But we’d stopped buying insurance from Hamish Martin eons ago, after a policy he sold us refused to pay out for some hail damage we’d suffered, so I’d lost track of his conquests a long time ago.
“Thanks,” I said, eyeing a path to the kitchen. It was going to be a bump-and-shove journey through all of the people, but the decaying smell of the room, and the realization of where I was and why, was starting to overwhelm me more than I suspected being inside Hilo and Ardith’s house ever would.
I said nothing more to the secretary, didn’t like her anyway, and pushed my way through the front room, excusing myself as I went.
A soft apology went a long way—if it was heard. The room was as loud as a tavern on a Saturday night. Not that I had much experience with that, but Hilo’s front room was how I imagined it to be.
I had to wonder if Herbert Frakes was there. Everybody else from town was. Though I hadn’t seen Calla, either. I really hadn’t expected to see the pair from the library, but it would’ve been nice to have had the comfort of one of my friends, even though she was annoyed with me for upsetting Herbert. Circumstances had a way of washing away anger. It would’ve been nice to sneak a cigarette with Calla, but that didn’t look like it was going to happen, either.
The kitchen was no more organized, cleaner, or emptier of people than the front room was. The counters were cluttered with tuna-and-noodle hot dishes, platters of fried chicken, cakes, and pies—enough food to feed Hilo for the next twenty-five years. It was a smorgasbord of grief.
On a good day, the kitchen could’ve handled two or three women accustomed to a ballet of handling pots and pans, frying, boiling, and ultimately cleaning, but to be honest, I couldn’t count all of the bodies—mostly men—in the kitchen. It was so foggy with cigarette smoke that I could hardly smell anything else. That might’ve been a gift, but my lungs didn’t seem to think so. I felt like a gasping fish trapped in a shrinking mud hole.
I stopped again, elbow-to-elbow and knee-to-knee with strangers. I didn’t know what to do with the lefse and potato sausage, so I sat it on top of a closed sheet cake and wiggled away toward the back door to get a breath of fresh air.
“Excuse me. Hello. Excuse me.” A few feigned smiles, and I was outside.
The back porch held two old washing machines, a rusted stove that looked like it was home to a family of raccoons, and another group of men I didn’t recognize. After standing and listening for a second, I realized that they were all deputies from other counties. I was surrounded by police officers. That made me feel better and I could breathe again, but they were all smoking, too. Or seemed to be.
I took another deep breath and stared out over Hilo’s backyard, glad to be free of the food I’d brought, and even happier to be left alone for a moment. A few of the men doffed their hats, offered a restrained, “Ma’am,” then went back to their muted and private conversations.
The land at the back of the house sloped down into a dense line of trees—a few willows, sycamores, and oaks—which explained the presence of the coon nest in the stove. The river cut through the north side of the property, allowing for a yard free of a gopher town but home to other critters that most people didn’t have to deal with.
The wind had kept up steadily without any hint that it was going away any time soon, and the sun had traversed down behind us. Delicate pink fingers stretched out overhead, gentle clouds that offered no threat and only reflected the setting sun—no rain, no storm, just the promise of more calm weather. It was a perfect evening for a picnic, or to work late tuning up the combine if that task was required.
I was about to turn back around and go into the house and try to find Hilo, but I spied him walking the tree line away from the house, alone, about fifty yards off.
I clutched my purse tight, thought about taking off my heels to hurry after him, but decided against running barefoot across the unknown yard in my good dress and headed off the porch in pursuit of the sheriff as quickly and carefully as I could.
Hilo turned when I was halfway to him and stopped. I was glad of that. The grass was moist, slippery against my smooth flat soles that hit the ground with purpose, but with very little purchase, even with the heels. I was afraid I was going to tumble the rest of the way down the slope and find my very own rabbit hole.
“I thought that was you, Marjorie,” Hilo said. He was still dressed in his uniform: dark brown shirt and dark brown pants with an even darker stripe up the side, wrinkled, of course. But it was easy to notice, even in the declining light, that there was something missing. The five-pointed star that was forever pinned over Hilo’s heart was gone.
The only thing that was there now was a small empty hole, tattered around the edges. I restrained myself from saying anything about the missing badge.
Hilo’s face was puffier than normal, his hatless white hair a muss, even more so than normal, but he was standing on two feet, and his eyes were reasonably clear, more so than I had expected them to be.
I had to catch my breath before I spoke, so we stood there looking at each other for another long moment. The years passed between us and now we shared another tragedy. I had not been able to speak with Hilo when he had responded to the call about Ardith, come onto the property in a rush, then fell to the ground in disbelief as he saw Ardith, murdered and bloody behind the first barn. I was lost in my own hysteria and could hardly bear witness to his. His terror and moan had sounded like a distant train, mournful and lost, about to derail.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. And then the tears came. I couldn’t help it. They flooded out of my eyes in rivers, like they’d been building behind an invisible dam. I just couldn’t help myself, couldn’t hold back my grief, my guilt, my pain, any longer.
Hilo said nothing. He just reached for me as I crumbled into his arms.
CHAPTER 26
I took a deep draw off the Salem and stared past Hilo to the gloaming sky. Dainty pink clouds had stretched out farther to the west, eating into soft yellows, all being chased by a darkening blue that would soon fade to black. Daylight seemed to go on forever in the summer, and mostly that was a wonderful thing for a farmer, but under other circumstances some days seemed to go on far too long. Grief was a heavy, invisible ankle weight that made the easiest step difficult, and the sky was dark no matter the time of day.
A magpie flittered from one fence post to the next, its long feathery tail dragging from lack of wind or enthusiasm. The black-and-white bird eyed us first with suspicion, then with opportunity. We had nothing to offer it that I knew of. The scavenger would have to fend for itself until Hilo rid himself of all the food that was stacking up in the kitchen.
“I brought lefse,” I said, exhaling smoke as I spoke. There was little comfort in the act, and Hilo matched the magpie’s first gaze. He seemed suspicious of everything, even me. I couldn’t blame him.
“Hank thinks you quit smoking,” he finally said. Crickets chirped nearby, but there was no music to add from his voice. It looked like it hurt him to speak.
We were a good fifty yards from the house, and the voices from inside floated down to us like vibrations from a grand party that we hadn’t been invited to, or were trying to escape.
The mention of lefse didn’t give Hilo a reason to flinch or show any enthusiasm at all. I was sure the thought of food turned his stomach as much as it did mine.
“Yes,” I said. “But I’m sure he knows I have a cigarette occasionally, he just doesn’t say anything. I try not to smoke around him. It’s a crutch I need some days more than others.”
Hilo stared me directly in the eye and let a thoughtful pause settle in between us. “It’s not your fault, Marjorie.”
“I left her there, Hilo.” It was a broken sigh. The words got tangled up in a bramble of sadness that had lodged itself in the base of my throat from the moment I’d found Ardith. It had never left.
How could I not have regrets? How could it not be my fault?
“How were you to know?” Hilo asked. “I left her there, too.” His voice trailed off down the hill to the riparian tree line that hid the sight of the river, but not the smell. The water added a freshness to the air that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Without reason, the crickets stopped chirping. Maybe they were listening to us like we were listening to them.
I looked at the hole in Hilo’s shirt, where the badge used to be, and he caught my gaze.
“I resigned,” he said. “If I can’t protect my own wife, keep her safe, then how can I expect to keep the people of Stark County safe? I’m finished. Probably should have quit long before now.”
“You told me after Hank’s accident not to make any rash decisions, not to rush off and sell the farm. ‘Slow down,’ you said, ‘the storm clouds will clear soon enough.’”
“I was right, too, wasn’t I?”
“Mostly, but there are days when a first-floor apartment in town, close to the hospital and the library, would be less work, easier. Some days, an easier way of life would be just fine with me.”
“Hank’d never survive the move, the loss of the land. You either, as far as that goes. Be like taking a fish out of a pond and putting it into the ocean. How could you breathe?”
I shrugged and put the Salem’s white filter to my lips again. It was already tainted with a light coating of my lipstick, and I suddenly wondered if it needed refreshed. I wore it light to begin with. Then I wondered why I should care.
I took another puff, not so deep. “You’re probably right. But I always wonder if a change of scenery would do him good. Especially now.”
“And?”
“We haven’t talked about it,” I said. “Not recently. But he’s always said the only way he was leaving that farm was in a pine box stuffed into the McClandon’s hearse. And you know Hank . . .”
“He means it,” Hilo said.
I nodded, exhaled, and didn’t want to consider the thought. But it was too late. I’d held that final image of Hank in my mind a million times, tried to ward it off like the coming of the flu, with happy thoughts, cheerful notes, a warm soup, but it never worked. The grim vision of the simple coffin being lifted out of my bedroom never left me, especially when I was there.
I glanced down at my purse, trying to take my mind away from my own personal pain. “I didn’t find much,” I said.
“About the amulet?” Hilo hadn’t moved, just stood before me like he was going to catch me again if I fell, if I crumpled to the ground. He was good at reading me.
“Yes,” I said. “Just mythologies that I can’t connect anything with— except . . .” I stopped.
“The mistletoe.” Hilo finished my sentence.
“You know about that?”
Hilo shook his head no. A wiry hair spiraled over his ear, and he pushed it away immediately, like it was a mosquito, an insect on the attack. “Not really, not the details. Just makes sense, that’s all. First they leave the amulet in Erik’s hand, then mistletoe in Ardith’s. I don’t read much, but I figure I can see a tell as much as the next cop. Whoever done this was leaving a note, telling us that he was there, flipping his nose up at us like he’s smarter than all the rest of us.”
“Then you think it was the same person who killed them all then?” I asked.
“I do, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t somebody else tryin’ to follow along with the Knudsens’ murders, copying it. I don’t really know anything for certain, Marjorie. It could be the same person, or it could be two different ones. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. Not here.”
“They would have to know, too, Hilo,” I said. “They would have to know what the amulet was and the story that’s depicted on it. If it was another person, two different ones.”
“The detail of the amulet left behind hadn’t been released to the press, and the mistletoe won’t be, either. Not until we . . .” Hilo paused, looked to the sky, then said, “not until they solve this thing.”
The cigarette dangled between my fingers, as comfortable there as a red pen was. “I was going to give you the amulet back. I don’t want it, don’t need it.”
Hilo just stared at me, then stuffed both his hands into his pockets.
The crowd in the house roared with laughter, drawing our attention to it for a brief second. I wasn’t upset or offended. People dealt with tragedy and pain in a lot of different ways. Somebody probably told a good joke. Besides, it wasn’t my place, my house, to be offended.
Hilo didn’t seem to mind the distant laughter. “I’d like you to keep it for now, Marjorie, if it’s all the same to you,” he said. “Probably be best that you give it to the new sheriff,
whoever that’ll be. I’ll let you know when I’ve told them that you have it. No one knows you have it. You’re safe.”
I nodded yes, then stopped, and shook my head no. “That’s not true,” I said.
Hilo leaned into me and examined my face like it was under a microscope. “I told you not to tell anyone.”
The sudden change in his tight face and his hard voice startled me and made me feel like a little girl caught in a betrayal. “I showed it to Raymond. My cousin.”
Hilo withdrew. It was only a momentary flash of anger. “Right. Hurtibese. The professor,” Hilo said. “Raymond Hurtibese. Your cousin. Of course, you would show it to him.”
“I’m sorry. I thought he might recognize it. He said another professor had some similar pieces stolen recently. Is this connected to that, Hilo?” It was a question I’d wanted to ask him since I’d talked to Raymond, but it had seemed as inappropriate as laughter. I hadn’t seen him other than when he came to the farm to see to Ardith, the crime scene, and the emotional wreckage.
There was a part of me that was angry with Hilo, especially if the answer was yes and he hadn’t told me that I’d had a piece of stolen jewelry in my purse.
“This wasn’t from Professor Strand’s collection,” Hilo said. It was a definitive answer. No argument.
“You’re certain?” I couldn’t help myself.
“I showed it to him before I brought it to you. He was interested in it, of course, because of his own acquisitions from the original collection, and for field study. But he assured me that the amulet that was left behind at the Knudsens wasn’t one stolen from him. He’d never seen it before.”
See Also Murder Page 17
