A Pattern for Murder (The Bait & Stitch Cozy Mystery Series, Book 1)

by Ann Yost

  There was no remonstrance from Aunt Ianthe or Miss Thyra and that's when I knew that all three ladies suspected foul play in Mrs. Ollanketo's demise. I had no chance to ask them, though, because we heard the front door opening and then Tom Kukka was pounding up the steps and into the room.

  "Oh my god," he said, looking at the remains of his late patient. "Oh, my good god."

  Ellwood, on his heels like a well-trained herding dog, stared at the body, too. Then he looked at me.

  "What's the story here, Hatti? Did you find her like this? Did you touch her?"

  "Just to check for a pulse," I said.

  Ellwood looked at Tom.

  "Did you expect her to die?" He shook his head.

  "It could have happened any time. Her heart was weakening and it took longer to recover after each attack. But, no. I didn't think this would be the time but it was. And I wasn't here."

  I caught Aunt Ianthe's eye and, to my shock, she understood my unspoken message.

  "Deputy," she said, taking Ellwood's arm, "I could use your help with something down in the kitchen. Would you mind? It won't take a moment."

  He didn't want to go. He knew he shouldn't go. What if this was a crime scene? And yet his nineteen years of training to be polite and helpful with his elders held firm and he descended the staircase with my aunt.

  "Tom," I said, in a low voice, "do you think there's any chance this wasn't natural causes?"

  "What? What are you saying, Hatti?"

  "I looked up the two medications, Digitalin and Verapamil. They are contraindicated. Do you know what that means?"

  "Yes. I'm a doctor, remember?"

  "What if Mrs. Ollanketo got the Verapamil instead of the Digitalin?"

  "That couldn't have happened. Not by accident."

  "No. I know. But what if it wasn't by accident?"

  He looked utterly bewildered. "Are you accusing me of murder?"

  "Of course not! I'm just saying what if."

  "What if what?"

  "What if Mrs. O. knew something about Alex Martin's murder, Tom? What if she had to be silenced?"

  He shook his head. "It isn't possible. She collapsed last night before any of it happened and she hasn't been out of this room today except to visit the bathroom. How could she know anything?"

  "I've been thinking about that. Remember right before she fainted? We were walking across the lighthouse yard toward the sauna. There were dozens of people here and everything was loud and chaotic but that wouldn't have bothered Mrs. O. On the other hand, she'd have been able to lip-read a conversation, right?"

  "I guess so."

  "Maybe she saw something compromising."

  "Like what? You think she saw someone announce his or her plans to kill Alex Martin?"

  I shrugged. "Something like that."

  He didn't dismiss the idea right away. That was one of the many things I liked about Tom Kukka. He never reacted defensively.

  "So who was out there?"

  "Pretty much everybody. I remember seeing you and Riitta talking over by the dock and Arvo and Danny speaking with Patty from Patty's Pasties. And then Arvo took a couple of beers to Erik Sundback and they talked, and when Alex came out of the sauna, Erik handed one to him and they talked some more. Oh, and I saw Danny speaking with Captain Jack, too."

  Tom seemed to think about that and then shook his head.

  "I don't see how any of those conversations could have compromised anyone. I mean, if someone intended to kill Alex, he or she wouldn't have announced it. I'm inclined to think that was a spur of the moment thing in which case Flossie could have known nothing about it."

  "There is one thing," I said, and told him about the blue mitten for Miss Thyra. "What if Flossie was trying to pass along a message?"

  "Like what? If you go out to play in the snow you must keep your hands warm?"

  I threw him an affectionate grin.

  "You have so little imagination. What if the mitten is a clue about the identity of the murderer or the motive?"

  "What did Miss Thyra say?"

  "She said Flossie must have forgotten the lecture was over."

  "Well, there you have it. If the mitten were a clue, Thyra would have said."

  "Yeah. I was afraid you were going to say that. Are you positive Mrs. O. couldn't have gotten the wrong medicine?"

  "As sure as I can be. I handed the Verapamil to Erik and asked him to pour it down the sink. I watched him go into the bathroom and I heard the water go on. When I took the empty Digitalin syringe in to wash it out, the empty Verapamil syringe was sitting right there on the sink surround." He glanced over at the open bathroom door. "They're still there."

  Hurried footsteps coming up the stairs turned out to be Riitta, who had arrived in a different vehicle. She rushed into the room, took one look at the bed, slapped her hand across her mouth and moaned. Tom moved as if to comfort her but he was too late. Erik Sundback came up behind Riitta and pulled her against him.

  Tom dropped the arm he'd extended and moved closer to me. I glared at him, irritated that he was just giving up the field.

  "I am so sorry, my dear," Erik said, in a low, soothing tone. "If it's any comfort to you, she died painlessly and of natural causes."

  I looked at him, sharply and Ellwood, who'd returned, said, "unfortunately, we don't know that for sure. We'll have to do an autopsy."

  Sheriff Clump, who was making his way slowly up the steps, stopped midway and howled.

  "By the great horned spoon! Another dagnabbed autopsy? You people are going to break the bank!"

  Arvo, who was behind Clump, assured him that he would transport the body to the morgue, thus saving the county a few pennies and within an hour, Mrs. Ollanketo left the lighthouse for the last time.

  Before that, though, Riitta made coffee and we cut up and served bowls of freshly cut strawberries and plates of date-nut bars. Tom, who had only been allowed to return home because he was needed to issue a death certificate, was to return with Ellwood to the jail. He stood at the dining room window and stared out at the twilight. I brought him a cup of coffee and then stayed.

  "What are you thinking," I asked.

  "About what you said. If there was a mistake with the syringes, it was mine. It's possible that she's dead because of me, Hatti, because I had my mind on other things."

  "You mean Alex Martin's murder."

  "Worse. I was worrying about the attachment between Riitta and Sundback."

  "She isn't serious about him."

  "It's not such a bad idea," he said, heavily. "He's a decent guy and he's loaded. He could do a lot for Danny. She's already made it clear she doesn't want me. But I can't believe I was so preoccupied I'd have mixed up the syringes."

  "I don't think it was a mix up, Tom. If Mrs. O. got the wrong medication, I think it was one hundred percent deliberate."

  His blue eyes were bleak.

  "In either case, I'm the one who injected the syringe. It comes right back to me."

  Chapter 24

  I finally got to bed, bookended by Larry at my feet and Lydia's muzzle on my shoulder. I couldn't seem to stop thinking although it wasn't very productive. Everything kept going around and around in my head, like a taped recording of Bob Seger singing Running Against the Wind over and over while you endure an hour in a dentist's chair.

  The first death had shocked me. The second one, stunned. What was happening to us? Was it possible there was more than one individual involved? Or had Mrs. Ollanketo known something? All at once I knew this was no coincidence. These crimes, and they were crimes, were connected. Someone wanted Alex Martin dead and by some mischance, Mrs. Ollanketo had found out about it. Did that mean Captain Jack was dead, too? Or was he hiding out? Was there still time to save him? And what about Miss Thyra? If the blue mitten was a clue, was she at risk?

  I was still wide awake when the moon had risen high enough to cast a spill of light across my bed. It seemed like a signal and it gave me the courage to make a move. A ver
y bold move. I twisted this way and that, angling myself out of the vise created by the two dogs. I was wearing my usual sleeping garb of a nightshirt from Ronja's store printed with the slogan: London, Paris, New York, Ishpeming, so I took a moment to pull on a pair of panties, too. Then I descended the circular staircase as noiselessly as I could, cast a glance at the closed door to Mrs. Ollanketo's room, stepped in front of Miss Thyra's door and knocked softly. Very softly. All the bedrooms except mine were on this level and the last thing I wanted to do was wake up Riitta, Aunt Ianthe, Miss Irene or Danny. Erik Sundback had insisted on staying and he was sacked out somewhere. When I'd gone to bed, Riitta had been trying to convince him to sleep in her room while she slept downstairs but, my guess was that he'd wound up in Mrs. Ollanketo's room. Erik struck me as one of those lucky people who is not bothered by superstition or an excess of sentiment.

  The first knock went unanswered. A second, slightly louder knock went unanswered, too, but I knew Miss Thyra was in there and I strongly believed she was not asleep. I am pretty familiar with the Lutheran conscience.

  As I was standing there, shivering from the cold and from the temerity of what I was about to do, it occurred to me that most of the rooms in the lighthouse did not lock. I made a mental note to encourage Riitta to use some of the trust fund money to install new locks while, at the same time, feeling glad they hadn't been installed yet.

  I turned the knob of Miss Thyra's door and stepped inside.

  "Henrikki," she growled, but I thought I detected, under the annoyance, a certain amount of relief. Evidently she did not think I was the murderer. "What do you want at this hour?"

  There was a nightlight on the bedside table, one of those old-fashioned lamps that has a bulb in the top and a globe underneath. It was the globe that cast enough light for me to see my quarry and vice versa. Miss Thyra's hair was encased in a hairnet that reminded me of one of the characters on Laugh-In. She was wearing a white nightgown that reached her chin and her wrists and, I had no doubt, fell to her ankles although I couldn't see her ankles because she remained in bed. There was dignity in her straight back but she looked like what she was: trapped. She repeated her question. It's not easy to infuse a whisper with a sense of indignation but she did a pretty good job.

  "Miss Thyra, I think you know something and I want you to tell me what it is."

  "What on earth are you jabbering about?"

  "You were up all night preparing for the seminar. You must have seen people coming and going on the main floor of the lighthouse. Maybe you even saw the body. I mean, it would have been perfectly visible from the dining room window."

  "That's absurd," she snapped. "I was occupied with my own preparations, my own thoughts."

  "Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes," I said, borrowing a phrase from my late mummi. "You are capable of doing more than one thing at a time. I believe you noticed something relevant to Alex Martin's death. Moreover, I think the blue mitten from Mrs. Ollanketo was intended as a clue. What I can't understand is why you are reluctant to tell anyone what you know or suspect."

  "There's nothing to tell," she snapped. "Go back to bed and let me get some sleep."

  "Why did Flossie want you to have the Arjeplog mitten?"

  "She slept through the seminar. I told you that. Or, rather, you told me. She got disoriented. The blue mitten is companion to the green one and she wanted me to have both."

  "You knew she had the blue one, didn't you? Why didn't you ask her for it if it was so important to the lecture?"

  "Contrary to what you seem to think, Henrikki, I am not Superwoman. If I thought of it at all, I thought one Arjeplog mitten was enough. Flossie was the one who came up with the idea of two."

  I shook my head. "I don't buy it. That mitten meant something to Mrs. Ollanketo and she knew it would mean something to you. What are you hiding, Miss Thyra? What are you afraid of?"

  She sat up very straight in her bed.

  "What am I afraid of? Oh, let me see. I am afraid of old age. I am afraid of poverty. I am afraid of being homeless. I am afraid of being alone. You can't understand any of that because you are young. If you are not happy, you have only to go somewhere else, to start over. An elderly person does not have that option, especially an elderly person without means. I have no choices. Flossie had no choices, either."

  I stared at her, the truth of what she was saying triggering a sense of horror.

  "Flossie knew something, didn't she? She couldn't easily tell anyone what she knew because of her hearing and her loud voice." A truly horrible thought came to me. "Did she know she was at risk? Geez Louise! Did she use her last few minutes in a heroic effort to get a message to you? Did she know she was going to die? Miss Thyra, you have to tell me. She can't have died in vain."

  "You are overly dramatic, Henrikki. I have no idea what Flossie knew." She paused, and then said, grudgingly, "she certainly had sisu."

  "What does the blue mitten mean?"

  "Your guess is as good as mine."

  "Roses," I said, remembering the pattern. "Rows and rows of stylized roses. Climbing roses, too, like the kind you'd find on a trellis or a garden wall. Red with yellow centers, aren't they? Roses. Leaves, petals, stems, thorns."

  I stopped and stared at Miss Thyra. "Thorns. Was Mrs. O. trying to point the finger at Danny Thorne?"

  "You see why I did not want to talk about it," Miss Thyra said, quietly. "What is the good of convicting a young man like Danny? We don't know whether he is guilty but an accusation from the grave is very powerful and he had means, motive and opportunity. If you insist upon sharing this theory, Henrikki, this will be on your head."

  She spoke with such gravity, such dignity that I had nothing to say. Of course I didn't want to injure Danny Thorne and, by extension, Riitta. Miss Thyra was right. There was no way to know for sure what Mrs. O. had been trying to say. It wasn't up to us to interpret the mitten.

  "I'll let you get back to sleep," I said, heavily. She made some kind of inarticulate sound and I left her room. It wasn't until I was back in my dog-filled bed that I remembered I'd intended to ask her about the clothespin.

  "Well," I said to Lydia who had snuggled up to my chin, "it'll give me something to look forward to in the morning."

  Chapter 25

  When I opened my eyes, the morning rays of the sun played across my quilt. The dogs had jumped ship sometime in the night and I was alone in my pleasant cocoon. For the first few seconds, I felt cozy and safe. And then I remembered the murder. And the mitten. And Danny.

  The atmosphere of peace and comfort dissipated. What I needed to do, first thing, was see if Captain Jack was back at the oil house. I slipped on a red, paisley halter, stepped into my cutoffs and tied on a pair of red sneakers. Then I attacked my hair, briefly, with my brush. The tufts stood up and out to the sides. I looked like a starfish.Time to chop it off again.

  I wondered how Max and his Hemingway buddy were doing this morning and figured they were having fun. The weather was Yooper perfect and it seemed a shame to have to spend it trying to track down a killer. It occurred to me, though, that this weekend of murder had had one silver lining. I'd been too busy to ruminate about Jace.

  Voices from the dining room reached me as I tiptoed down the backstairs. I crossed my fingers that the kitchen would be empty so that I could grab a cup of coffee and hightail it outdoors. Luck was with me. Not only did I get the coffee, the dogs waited patiently at the back door.

  "Let's go," I whispered, "but no more bodies, do you hear me?" I opened the screen and we stepped out into the summer morning.

  The sun glittered through the leaves creating patches of gold. Overhead the sky was that clear blue that makes you catch your breath. The waves on the lake broke gently against the shore. I know I spend a lot of time talking about the weather but when winter settles in every year like an uninvited guest who always overstays his welcome, it's hard not to rhapsodize in the summer. I headed east toward the oil house.

  I had
to admit that the balmy air and the scenic splendor did not make up for the fact that I was alone, that the same walk yesterday had been much more interesting just because I'd been with Max. Did that mean I really liked him? I already knew that. Did it mean I wanted more than friendship from him? Did he want more from me? I had no answers to those questions. I just knew I missed him.

  Nothing seemed to have changed at the oil house. The curtains hung at the same angle they had yesterday. There was a faint layer of dust on the kitchen countertop. Even the pillows remained where we had left them. Outside, it was the same. The tufts of grass that stuck out of the foundation looked as if they hadn't grown and there were no footprints in the sand near the sauna. I glanced at the door and found the padlock hanging open. I stared it, certain that I'd seen Max lock it back up before we left. Did that mean someone had been here? Who? Captain Jack? My fingers were shaking a little as I opened the door. Whatever I'd expected to find, I was wrong. The room was empty, tidy, untouched, except for one very weird thing.

  The barrel of woodchips that we'd emptied yesterday was filled to the brim, which wouldn't have been strange, except that Max had removed the box of contraband syrup. I blinked, wondering if my imagination was playing a trick on me. Nope, the chips mounded over the top of the barrel. Had someone brought Jack more chips? It seemed unlikely.

  I began to excavate. This time the treasure was only about two inches under the surface. It was one of a pair of shoes, the other a few inches deeper. They were attractive shoes. Warm, caramel-colored leather boat shoes. Alex Martin's shoes.

  What in the Sam hill were they doing in Captain Jack's woodbin?

  I sat cross-legged on the floor and stared at the footwear. Would Sherlock Holmes consider this another clue? Probably. But I didn't know what to think. The shoes made less sense to me than the Arjeplog mitten.

  What possible reason could there be for someone to have stolen the shoes of a dead man and planted them in a barrel of wood chips?

  The answer, of course, was in the question. They'd been planted. Someone, the murderer, wanted the police to find the shoes and connect them with Captain Jack. They were the kind of thing Jack would take away from a scene if he was certain no one else wanted them. Had he done that? Had he been there, found the body and removed the shoes? But, if so, where had the shoes been yesterday? And why was there no sign of Jack in the oil house? I examined the shoes without touching them anymore than I already had. Would they even fit Jack who was a good six inches shorter than Alex Martin?