“Please stop talking, Liddy!” groaned Douglas.
She went on. “Mama told me how Tony had introduced her to his children, and how they were two darlings, sweet and good, and I’m sure she was being so charming and nice and kind to them, just as she was to us. Over and over, every single time, she broke our hearts, until we didn’t have real hearts anymore, just little bags of broken rocks. It wasn’t fair. I couldn’t bear it. All of us so messed up, Daddy, Doogie, me—and now she was starting in on Tony and poor little Benjamin and Annie. I couldn’t let that happen, could I? Well, could I?”
Into the silence that followed, Betsy said, “I saw the snowmobile tracks on the lawn. I suppose skimping one grooming of the Pincushion mightn’t be noticed, Douglas.”
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“When I called the ranger station in Grand Marais, they told me you were assigned to groom the Pincushion cross-country ski trails last Friday. That’s done on a snowmobile. They gave you the key to the shed where the snowmobiles are kept. You’re familiar with the Pincushion and the trails through Judge Magney State Park, aren’t you? You’re the apprentice who goes through the park looking for stranded or injured tourists. So you noticed, didn’t you, that it’s the same key that opens the shed in Grand Marais and the shed across the highway. It even opens the station over there, too, where there was a spare uniform, which you borrowed. The ranger in Grand Marais says they always keep a couple of spare shirts and trousers and even a jacket there, because ranger work can be messy, and you can’t meet the public in a messy uniform.”
“No,” agreed Douglas.
Betsy continued. “You put on the uniform, and you sat in the dining room and sipped that dreadful overcooked coffee until she arrived, didn’t you? You watched while she sat down in the lounge to talk to me and work on her new design of a Victorian doll. And she had an allergic attack. What did you tell her, that Frank was in his room with a cell phone?”
Carla said, “What—Doogie, too?”
“Oh, yes,” said Betsy. “It took both of them. It was Liddy’s idea, and she used Douglas as her cat’s paw.”
Douglas said, “What cat’s paw? I never was here, I never saw my mother until—until they made me come and identify her body. I never touched my mother’s body.”
“Oh, Doogie, never mind, she knows everything.” Liddy’s eyes, huge and shadowed, turned to Betsy for confirmation.
But Betsy could not lie, not now, when truth was the most important thing. “I don’t know everything. What I don’t understand is why Douglas tried to hide the body. Sharon died of an allergic reaction, which anyone might think was an accident or even, for her, a natural death, to be expected since she was so violently allergic to so many things.”
“Yes, you did it all wrong, Doogie,” said Liddy. “Not like I told you at all. Why did you do it like that?”
Douglas turned on her ferociously. “Because, you silly bitch, she didn’t die of that allergic reaction! I smothered her!”
The silence this time was electric, then Douglas exhaled noisily and pulled at the wet and rumpled tablecloth as if to straighten it, but quit after the one pull. “I know you said it couldn’t go wrong, Liddy, but it did, big time. First, when that doctored EpiPen got away. I watched it roll under the door and it scared me, but I thought maybe we could do it anyhow. I said I didn’t have a quarter to call an ambulance, and she said she’d left her coat and purse up in Dad’s room. I said his cell phone is probably up there, too, and I took her and her canvas stitchery bag up there, but of course Dad always has his phone with him, so I said I’d find someone to call an ambulance and get her spare EpiPen out of the car. I went down the back stairs and hung around outside for fifteen minutes, and no one saw me. But when I went back up there, she was still breathing. She was suffering—it was horrible, I had to end it for her, she was hurting . . . And anyhow I couldn’t wait any longer. Dad might come back, or someone out in the hall might hear the noise she was making. So I put a pillow over her face and held it down for a really long time, till I was sure she was dead.”
“Oh, my God, Doogie!” cried Liddy, horrified. “You poor thing!”
Jill and Carla looked at Liddy wide eyed. Betsy was sure she’d never heard anything more cold-blooded in her life.
Douglas said, “Well, I’ve read they can tell when someone’s been suffocated, so the original plan to make it look like allergic reaction was shot to hell. I ran back up the lane and across the road to the shed and got the snowmobile and brought it around to the back door, not knowing Miss Nosypants had already walked in on Mama’s body. I went up and put her coat on her, and got her purse and that canvas thing her sewing stuff goes into. The scariest part was taking her down that hall and down the stairs. I could hear women talking in the rooms. But no one came out and saw me. I was going to put everything down the kettle and come back to drive her car away, but by the time I got just out to the highway I had stopped three times to pick up the bag and the purse and coat, so I put the coat on her and hid the bag and purse in the ditch, and went up the long back trail in the near dark to the river, a ride from hell I assure you, and carried her down the falls and dropped her in. She went right down out of sight and I ran back to my snowmobile and drove it back to the ranger station. Then I had to walk up and down in the ditch for what seemed like an hour before I found the purse and bag, but be damned if I could find the car keys. I finally walked over to the shed, where there was a light, and I opened the door and dumped everything out of the bag and her purse, and they just weren’t there.”
“So you didn’t fall,” said Betsy.
“Fall?” he said, looking at her politely. “No, I didn’t fall.”
Liddy said, “You don’t pay attention, Doogie. Her keys were in her coat pocket, she always puts her keys in her coat pocket, didn’t you ever notice that?” She began to giggle, an eerie, high-pitched sound, and Douglas slammed his hand on the table to make her stop.
He continued. “So I picked up everything and put it in the furnace, went back to the station for my car, and drove like hell back to Grand Marais, where I clocked out and went home scared to death.” He sighed a long sigh and said quietly, “It started unraveling when the EpiPen rolled under the door. I should’ve known right then we were screwed. But I thought we might still get away with it when they said she died of an allergic reaction. I suppose being knocked around in that kettle covered up what happens to smothered people’s eyes. But I was right after all, it was the EpiPen that tore it for us.”
“What about the eyes?” asked Betsy.
Jill said, “He means petechial hemorrhages, tiny marks in the eyes of someone who’s been smothered. But I suppose once they examined the lungs and saw such strong evidence of an allergic reaction they didn’t look any further. Anyway, I suspect the symptoms of smothering might be hard to tell from someone dying of a severe allergic reaction, which also stops the breathing.”
“You only had to be patient,” said Liddy mildly. “She would have died by herself, if you’d just waited awhile.”
He turned again on his sister. “And have this snoop walk in on me hovering like a buzzard over her? No way! But if you’d kept your crybaby mouth shut, we’d be going home about now anyhow!”
Liddy scolded him, “So what if somebody walked in, even Dad? They’d’ve just found you trying to help Mama. So it isn’t my fault, it’s yours, Doogie, it’s all your fault!” Her tone was that of a big sister who has been found with little brother rooting around in the Christmas presents hidden in a closet, and it would have been funny if it hadn’t been so wildly inappropriate to the occasion.
Betsy looked at Jill, who had the look of a cop being handed an extremely unlikely excuse for speeding. Ah, thought Betsy, she’s getting a head start on her defense.
“Douglas Owen, Elizabeth Owen, I am placing both of you under arrest for murder,” said a rough voice, and everyone looked up to see Sheriff Goodman, accompanied by the quartet from the BCA
. “You have a right to remain silent,” he continued, and everyone sat quietly until the ritual warning was completed. “Do you understand your rights as I have explained them?”
“Yessir,” said Douglas, “and I wish to speak with Dad’s attorney.”
Goodman looked at Liddy, who, eyes very wide, whispered, “Yes.”
Goodman asked Jill, “They say anything incriminating?”
“Oh, yes indeed,” replied Jill. “I suppose you want us all to come by to fill out a report.”
“That’s right. Finish your . . . meal first.” He frowned deeply at the wet rubble they were sitting in. “Well, anyhow, I’ll be waiting for you.” He included Carla in his sweeping glance, then had Liddy and Douglas stand while they were handcuffed and led away.
“My word,” said Carla, after they’d gone. “I was going to marry their father.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t,” said Jill, brushing a shard of coffee cup off her lap.
“Oh, no, it’s impossible now. In a few years everyone will halfway forget who murdered whom, and I might find myself included on the wrong list. I can’t believe they murdered their own mother—and not for the money, but to protect two little kids they didn’t even know.”
Betsy said, “Most children work their way through the pain and anger of divorce. It leaves a scar, of course, but most children recover and lead productive lives. But Sharon kept renewing the wound. Because she was a vicious, selfish person, they were never allowed to get over it. Liddy says she did it to save Tony’s children, but I wonder if this might have been an attempt to reach back in time to save herself and her brother, doing what she wished someone had done for her all those years ago. I think she both loved and loathed her mother. And worse, she planted and nurtured that hatred in her brother.”
“So you think Liddy was the prime mover in this,” said Jill.
“Don’t you?”
“Actually, I do. Though with a good lawyer and the lack of a money motive, there might be trouble proving it. Doogie, after all, was the person on the scene with the pillow. But of course there are the incriminating statements we just sat through. What an odd way for Douglas to behave! If he’d simply aborted the plan and just helped his mother, brought her the spare EpiPen out of the car, no one might have been the wiser, and they might have had another chance down the road to try it again. Or if he’d just walked away into the sunset, left his mother to die in Frank’s room, who knows what trouble poor Frank Owen would still be in?”
“That’s why I called him a cat’s paw,” said Betsy. “She told him what to do, and it never occurred to him not to struggle on through with the plan.”
“How awful!” cried Carla. “And I would bet those two would have let their father go to prison for it, don’t you think? Oh, poor Frank! Those were his children! Oh, what is he going to do?”
“Seek comfort from a woman who loves him?” suggested Betsy. “Who would promise to stand by him for better or worse?”
Carla looked at Betsy, and very slowly a little smile formed. “That would be generous and kind of me, wouldn’t it? And I really do like him very much, you know.”
Two wait people came to tidy up the floor and table, spreading a new cloth. “If you would like something to eat,” said one—Billie, the woman with the braids wrapped around her young, freshly scrubbed face—“I’ll see if the cook can make you an omelet.”
“Thank you, no,” said Carla, and Jill and Betsy shook their heads. They all stood. “I think I’ll drive into Grand Marais alone,” Carla said. “In case Frank wants me to run any errands.” Her dark face pulled into a grimace. “Or bring the children something, I suppose.”
16
Coming back from Grand Marais and the lengthy and tiresome completion of reports, statements, affidavits, and other paperwork, Betsy sighed and squirmed in the passenger seat.
“What’s the matter?” asked Jill.
“I don’t know. I just feel restless. It’s late, I should be sleepy—God knows I tried, but I couldn’t seem to get enough sleep; it must be the air up here or something—but now I feel like, oh, I don’t know, like a long walk up the lakeshore, or even putting on those skis and heading up the river again. If I were home, I’d be cleaning out cabinets or scrubbing the bathroom tile.”
Jill asked, “Are you pregnant?”
“For heaven’s sake, why do you ask that?”
“Because I had a cousin with four kids, and with every single one of them, the day before labor began, she was up all night cleaning. ‘Nest building,’ she called it.”
“Humph. No, I am not even a little bit pregnant, much less nine months gone. Say, what’s that light up ahead? Like a glow on the horizon. Is there a big city north of here?” Betsy was leaning forward, looking out the windshield.
Jill immediately pulled over. “No,” she said, “it’s the northern lights. Sometimes they’re like that before your eyes get fully adjusted to the dark, kind of a very faint gold.” She turned on the flashers and opened the door. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”
Betsy climbed eagerly out, and they walked up the shoulder of the road. It was late, dark, bitterly cold. The sky was spattered with stars. The farther they walked away from the flashing lights, the darker it got. As their eyes adjusted, more and more stars appeared. A few minutes later, the strange gold light shifted subtly, and then turned colors and began to dance.
“Listen,” whispered Jill, coming to a halt.
Betsy, walking in front, froze and looked around in alarm, fearful a wolf or moose was coming. Then she heard it, the faintest possible crackle, as of someone a mile away wadding up cellophane. “What’s that?” she whispered.
“Sometimes you can hear the northern lights.”
“Aww—!” scoffed Betsy.
“No, I’m serious. It happens more often if you’re up near the Arctic Circle. But it can happen here, too.”
Betsy listened some more. “Wow,” she breathed. She looked around the sky. “Look,” she said, “the Milky Way. And the Big Dipper. And Orion—he’s my favorite, I don’t know why. I remember the first time I saw Orion from San Diego, and it was strange to be sitting on grass, surrounded by blooming flowers, because he’s the winter constellation.” She began to walk again, stamping her feet hard because they were getting cold.
“You miss San Diego?”
“Sometimes. But this”—Betsy stopped to gesture at the black shapes of evergreens lining either side of the road, visible in the faint reflection of starlight on snow—“is amazing. It’s beautiful, but so harsh, so unforgiving. How did people live up here before furnaces and Thinsulate?”
“Beats me.”
“And Naniboujou. I thought that was such a silly name when I first heard it, but now . . . Now I wish he were real, that you could court his good will with a pinch of tobacco. I’ll never look at wild geese flying in formation the same way again.”
They walked a little farther, then Jill said, “We’d better start back. It’s late and I’m getting cold.”
“You? I don’t believe it! You love winter!”
“Yes, I do. But I’m feeling a little blue, thinking about Mr. Owen. He’s been living a nightmare, and to escape it he lost both his children.”
“Yes,” said Betsy, suddenly a little sad herself, and turned to follow Jill back up the road. “Jill, what makes some people turn to murder and others not? You hear people saying, ‘No wonder that kid turned to crime, he never knew his father, his mother was a drug addict in a bad neighborhood, he went to a bad school, had nothing but bad companions.’ But you hear about another kid from the same neighborhood, same school, no parents, surrounded by the same bad companions, and he somehow turns out great. Why?”
“Beats me.”
“Douglas and Elizabeth. Those two had a bad mother, but a good father, and every other advantage. Yet they did a wicked thing. Why?”
“It’s not my job to know. It’s not your job either. Not to find them out, or figure out why they
did it. I think I’m feeling what you feel after you’ve solved one of these mysteries, as if you are looking into a terrible, meaningless abyss that swallows the innocent along with the guilty.”
“Yes,” said Betsy, remembering.
“So if you still want to, call it quits. I won’t try to change your mind. I suppose you can knock down that impulse to investigate for good if you keep trying.”
They were at the car. They had left it unlocked. They climbed in, Jill started the engine, turned the heater up high, shut off the flashers, and hit the headlights. The road was completely empty and she pulled out. “Shall we start for home in the morning?”
“I suppose so. No, wait a minute. You’ve still got the whole week off. No need for you to go back. You can run me into Grand Marais and I can catch a bus. Is there bus service from there?”
Jill laughed softly. “A bus ride all the way back to the Cities? That would be a long, serious trip, with a stop at every wide place in the road. It’ll take you fourteen hours, probably. No, I’ll drive you home.”
“But that wouldn’t be fair to you. How about I stay on? I want to work on that rose window pattern, and I’ve got a lot to do. Frogging, then restitching.”
“I thought you’d quit working on it.”
“Oh, I can give it another chance, I guess. If I give it enough chances, I may get it right.”
“Stubborn, aren’t you?”
“I prefer to think of it as determined. Just like I prefer to think that I’m curious, not an incorrigible snoop. Nothing wrong with being curious. And maybe, like Carla with her trame, and the geologist Parker, a little obsessed. I start wondering about things, and once I start wondering, I just have to keep going until I have the explanation.” She chuckled. “That doesn’t sound like nosy Miss Marple, it sounds more like driven Hercule Poirot.”
Jill said, “It’s neither. Your ability to ferret out crime and make the perps confess is a blessing to the innocent.”
Unraveled Sleeve Page 22
