October Fest

by Jess Lourey

  “What happened?”

  “We ruined them, of course, and almost burned down the kitchen in the process. Dad, bless his Swedish heart, was livid. He yelled at mom for being foolish enough to let a bunch of little kids cook. She had to spend the rest of the day scrubbing the soot off the wall and cleaning her kitchen and cookware. We never ventured in her kitchen again, even though she didn’t say one mean word to us. In fact, she thanked us kindly for trying to make a special morning for her. Don’t you see? How could I forgive myself if I let something happen to that woman?”

  A frustrated tear leaked out the edge of Elizabeth’s eye, and I realized in a rush of joy that she’d already made up her mind, had, in fact, made it up before she’d walked in the door. She wasn’t going to sign the papers, but she needed me, someone who knew and loved her mom as she was now, to convince her it was okay. “You and your family are very lucky,” I started tentatively. “Your mother sounds like she had a level head.”

  Elizabeth pulled a tissue out of her purse and nodded.

  “She still does, despite her escapades,” I continued. “I can’t promise she’ll be fine, because I can’t promise that about anyone. I can tell you that she’s happy, and that sending her away would ruin her.”

  “Do you think she loves Bernard?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “I think she’s just marrying him to get you and Conrad out of her hair.”

  Elizabeth sniffled. “Are we that bad?”

  I raised my eyebrows. They’re my best feature when it comes to conveying judgment.

  “Don’t be too hard on us. Conrad means well. It was hardest on him to lose Dad, and then to feel like he didn’t know his mom anymore. He’s been trying to fix that ever since Dad passed, to bring back the mom he remembers.”

  “Don’t help him to force his needs on Mrs. Berns.”

  “I won’t,” she said, drawing in a shaky sigh. “But I’ve got to figure out how to tell Conrad that.”

  “The direct route is the best.” At least that’s what I’d read.

  “Thanks, Mira. I mean it. My mom really loves you, and I know you’ve done a lot for her. I wish … never mind.”

  “What?”

  “It’s silly. I just wish I had the type of relationship with her that you do. I suppose I live too far away.”

  “Not today, you don’t. Take her out for a night on the town. If you start out by telling her that you’re not sending her up the river, I bet you two’ll have a great time.”

  She smiled. “Probably I should wait until I’ve convinced Conrad to let her stay in Battle Lake. You have a good day, and thank you. I mean that.”

  She gave me a hug and left me feeling relieved. If she could convince Conrad that Mrs. Berns was not mentally incompetent, then Mrs. Berns wouldn’t need to get married. That put me into all sorts of good mood, and as the children began strolling in, I high-fived each one of them and led them to a spot on the reading circle. In about ten minutes I had the group settled on the floor, their mothers and one father looking exhausted but hopeful, when in walked Kenya.

  She plopped down at the outskirts of the circle. “Oh good! I was hoping I’d make it.”

  “This is for kids,” Walter, the child nearest her, exclaimed. He was three years old but would swear he was four if you asked.

  “I know! I love children’s stories. Do you mind if I stay?”

  And the children, with their blanket acceptance, all agreed she was perfectly welcome to stay and would be even more welcome if she happened to have some loose candy on her. She didn’t.

  I began the story, not as accepting as the kids. Kenya was a click off of normal, and I didn’t like her imposing on my happy place. Still, she did look bright-eyed and turned out to be gifted with children, helping them to achieve the down dog and stretching cat poses and redirecting their attention to me when Walter accidentally tooted during the frog pose. By the time story hour was over, she had two children in her lap and another one braiding her hair.

  A few kids stayed after to read books with their parents, but most of them cleared out for lunch and naptime. Kenya stayed after.

  “Hope it didn’t bother you that I showed,” she said. “I saw the flyer for kids reading time when I was here yesterday. I love kids. I’d love to open a daycare someday, actually.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Yesterday, she’d seemed on drugs, and today she was sane as a judge. I decided there’d be no percentage in commenting on her mood swings.

  She made a grimace. “My parents say it’d be a waste of a good brain. I’m studying engineering at the University of North Dakota.”

  “Maybe you could engineer a daycare?”

  She laughed at my lame joke. “I wanted to thank you, too.”

  “For what?”

  “For being so nice to me yesterday, and for helping me to see the light. I’m getting a little old to be rebelling against my parents, you know? My mom was released from jail last night, and we had a good talk. She seems like she’s learned a little humility. My dad couldn’t make it yet—the insurance business is booming, you know—but the police said we can go back to Moorhead tomorrow morning. No offense, but it’ll be a relief to be back with my friends, and even back in my stupid classes.”

  “The police are letting you go home?”

  “Well, they could never officially hold us, except for when mom was in jail. They just asked for our cooperation in staying close, and mom has to always be a friend to the law. Whoops! There I go again. Old habits die hard. She was probably right that it was best for everyone that we stayed around while they looked for the killer.”

  “They still don’t know anything?”

  “Not that I know. Hold on.” She reached into her pocket to pull out her vibrating cell phone. She smiled at first, and then her mouth drooped, and then it looked like she had been stabbed, all the blood drained from her face so fast. She dropped the phone and stood there, staring toward nothing.

  I put out my arm to catch her. “What is it?”

  “My mom. She’s dead.”

  I entreated one of the mothers to watch the library until Mrs. Berns could arrive, and then I drove Kenya to the motel as fast as I could. She was silent the whole way, staring straight ahead as if she were sleepwalking. I felt like I should reach out to her but didn’t know what to say. We pulled up to the familiar sight of police cruisers and an ambulance in the motel parking lot.

  Kenya hadn’t remembered to wear her jacket from the library, and it was cold out. I wrapped my coat around her to ward off the brisk lake wind driving waves onto shore with white-capped ferocity, even though she seemed oblivious to the temperature. Gary Wohnt was the first to spot us and strode over to take Kenya off my hands, not even bothering to shoot me a look before leading her off to his car, where he had her sit half in and half out and offered her coffee.

  I stayed close by.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her gruffly. She didn’t acknowledge the coffee he was offering her, and he set it on the roof of his car before continuing. “Your father called you?”

  She nodded.

  “He should be here shortly. It looks like your mother committed suicide. We found a note on the scene.”

  She looked at him timorously. “Can I see it?”

  “I’m afraid not. We’re treating this as a crime scene until we know exactly what happened.”

  Kenya began sobbing, deep hiccups of sadness. I stood there feeling helpless until I spotted Bernard Mink skulking along the perimeter, a tiny tape recorder shoved against his mouth. I told a blank-faced Kenya that I would be back and snuck up on Bernard from behind.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  He jumped and turned. His bruise had become an ugly green-yellow. “Fuck off.”

  I was completely appalled. I’d meant to annoy him, sure, payment in kind. I hadn’t expected to be met with crude anger. I feared I was looking at the true Bernard Mink. “You can’t talk to me like that!”

  “
Looks like that’s one more thing you’re wrong about.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “Go away.”

  “You go away. I’m only here because I’m trying to clear your ugly name in the murder of Bob Webber.”

  He glanced back toward the second floor to the open door of Glokkmann’s room. “Not necessary. She ’fessed up. In her note.”

  “To killing Webber?”

  “Among other things.”

  “How do you know?” Jeezus, the man pissed me off.

  “Good reporting is about being at the right place at the right time. Plus, the officer over there is my sister’s husband and he was the first one on the scene.”

  Crap. If his brother-in-law had told him what was in Glokkmann’s suicide note, he probably told him a lot more. It’s a cracking shame that curiosity is such a hard taskmaster. It made me beg this creep for answers. “Who found her body?”

  “Cleaning lady.”

  I grimaced. “That woman should get a raise.”

  He ignored me. “They clean rooms a little after lunch for extended stays. Glokkmann’s body was barely cold when she walked in on it.”

  “How’d she do it?”

  “Who?” He was starting to walk away from me.

  “Glokkmann, of course. How’d she kill herself?”

  “Gun. Pretty messy, I hear. Can’t imagine this motel will stay open much longer.”

  “No, me neither,” I mumbled as he walked off to talk to the man I presumed was his brother-in-law. Glokkmann’s death didn’t sit right, and it wasn’t just the gruesome manner in which it had been executed. Webber had been murdered in a way that looked like suicide, and then Swydecker had attempted suicide in a stereotypically feminine way while Glokkmann had offed herself with a gun, a rare choice for women. What other connections did all three share?

  I returned to Kenya’s side. Wohnt still had his eyes on her, though her sobbing had subsided. “I can stay with her until her dad shows up.”

  His eyes flashed at me, and for a second, I thought I saw gratitude.

  Kenya didn’t want to talk, and so I retrieved a blanket from my car and sat with her on the motel’s lakeshore deck until her father showed up two hours later. He was a handsome man in his mid-fifties, trim with salt and pepper hair and wearing a suit that had probably started out the day neatly pressed but now looked grieved in. He ran up to his daughter and held her tightly. They both cried, and it about broke my heart. I had actively disliked Glokkmann, but she had people who loved her as a wife and mother, and their sorrow deserved respect.

  Seeing Kenya in good hands, I dragged myself back to my car. I smelled something familiar next to it, maybe a combination of BO and tomatoes, but I didn’t see any sign of the drifter. Probably just something washed up on shore.

  I didn’t know where to go after I left Kenya, so I returned to work, craving a drink more than I had since I’d quit in September. It was a physical pain, a heartache that could only be cauterized by the hot sear of liquor gliding down my throat. Watching Kenya cry, I’d been reminded of my sad, sixteen-year-old self the day I’d found out my dad had died in the car accident. My first reaction had been shock, a term that doesn’t do justice to the feeling that all of you has been shrunk to the size of an eye, with no body to hold, no legs to run away on, the world a wild spinning place, dangerous to a tiny, wet eye. All you can do is see without comprehending and remain in constant motion to stay safe.

  My shock wore off before my mom’s, and I spent the next few days sitting by her bedside as people came and went with casseroles and murmured sympathy. I don’t remember crying. I recalled guilt over my relief, but no tears. I’d seen that same shock in Kenya, and while she had the humanity to sob in the face of her mother’s death, I’d also spied a flash of relief in her eyes, and I understood. I hoped she would go easier on herself than I had.

  I steered past the library and all the way to the south end of town, pulling into the Municipal Liquor Store parking lot. Nobody needed to know I’d had a drink. Actually, who would care? I was an adult. I’d only be letting myself down. Stepping out of my car, I wondered whether I should be civilized and buy a bottle of red wine, or be honest and buy vodka. I chose the vodka. I almost didn’t stop at the library on my way back. Mrs. Berns knew how to close up and could do fine on her own. The vodka, on the other hand, needed me.

  The yellow brick called to me as I passed, though, and reminded me that I didn’t know whether or not Mrs. Berns had actually made it in. The vodka could wait ten minutes. I twitched into the parking lot and pulled into my Reserved for Librarian space. Walking toward the library entrance, I counted six cars in the paved lot, two of them minivans. Outside, the potentilla shrubs clung to a last bit of color, but I’d need to trim them and clean the cigarette butts from the rock garden before the first snows hit. There’d be time.

  A feeling of utter relaxation seeped into my bones. I knew how I’d be spending tonight, and it felt good. Just had to make sure the library was in capable hands, and I’d go home and check out for the night.

  “You get laid?”

  “What?”

  Mrs. Berns was sitting on a rolling chair in the center of the library with her cast propped in front of her on another chair. She was painting her free toenails a hot pink. “I asked if you’d gotten some action. You’ve got a goofy look on your face, and you either got laid or you’re …” Her eyes sharpened. “Go get it.”

  “Get what?” I’d already started backing toward the door.

  “The bottle.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was the wrong answer. I always knew what she was talking about, even if I didn’t want to, and Mrs. Berns was fully aware of that fact.

  “You’re going to make a crippled old lady get off this chair and fight you for a bottle of wine?”

  “Vodka.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “How’d you get here anyhow?”

  “Well, I can tell you for sure that gravity didn’t lend a hand.” She capped the bottle of polish and blew on her toenails. “I’m trying out this color for my wedding. What do you think?”

  “Looks fine.”

  “From there, yeah, but come close so you can see it from my perspective.”

  I strode over and peered at her toes. “A little bright, but nice.”

  Smack. She whacked me across the top of the head.

  “What’d you do that for?” She’d hit the same spot I’d bonked on the underside of the table when trying to spy on Wohnt and Glokkmann.

  “Because you’re a dumbass. Things get tough and you go back to drinking? I never understood why you were giving it up in the first place, but since it was your choice, you’d think you’d have a little more backbone about it.”

  I rubbed my head. “Sarah Glokkmann killed herself this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “Her daughter looked crushed.”

  “You’d expect that.”

  My eyes felt hot. “It’s just a lot to process, you know? That’s two deaths and a suicide this week alone. And now, there’s a girl without a mother.”

  She squinted at me. “That must be tough, losing a parent.”

  “Yeah.” The heat in my eyes was turning wet.

  “Probably make somebody a big baby forever.”

  “Most likely.”

  “Come here.” And she pulled me to her and held what parts of me she could reach in a surprisingly tight hug, squeezing more tears out of me than I knew I possessed. She patted while she held me and didn’t let up until the tears stopped. “Are you better?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t want her to let go. Up close, she smelled like old-fashioned lipstick and fresh bread.

  “Then get off of me. Hey, Harold!”

  I glanced behind to see an uncomfortable-looking Harry Lohwese trying to sneak out of the library.

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Berns said. “The crying isn’t contagious. Mira here just found out
she’s allergic to vodka, right after she bought a bottle. Do us a favor and take it off her hands. It’s the brown Toyota out there, doors are open.”

  He nodded happily and walked out. I took advantage of the break to blow a pound of snot out of my nose. “Thanks.”

  “You want to thank me, you find the killer.”

  “Done. Glokkmann confessed to it in her suicide note. Bernard didn’t come tell you?”

  She appeared momentarily flustered but covered well. “He’s his own man, not p-whipped like your Johnny. So, the representative killed the bobber after all.”

  “Blogger.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  I sighed. “Thank you. Can I ask you something? I haven’t gotten a chance to ask Bernard, but what did he do to land in jail in the first place?”

  “Bar fights, mostly, with a few DWIs thrown in for flavor. He’s got a temper on him when he drinks.”

  I considered the police blotter I’d uncovered and his rude outburst at the motel today. It wasn’t just when he drank. “He drink around you?”

  “Not often.”

  “He’s doesn’t deserve you.” I reached into my purse and fished out the print-outs from the Daily Register. “He’s got problems.”

  She scanned the paper. “You think I don’t know all about this?”

  “Do you?”

  Her shoulders drooped. “Well, not this exactly, but I’m not blind to his issues.” She sighed and looked me in the eye. “Fine. I didn’t tell you the whole story. We’ve got a business arrangement, Bernard and I. The plan is that he and I party together for a few weeks, get married, and Conrad loses interest in having me declared mentally incompetent. Then, Bernard and I get divorced, I pay him $5,000, and I never see him again.”

  I whistled through my teeth. “So why Bernard?”

  “That’s all I had time for. He and I first met in the gas station, like I told you, and we had a couple weeks of fun. Then Conrad shows up, and I have to quick-like unearth a fiancé. Bernard was convenient. He’s got poor character, it’s true, but that makes him easier to bribe and it means he knows how to keep a secret. The bobber’s death almost ruined it all, but it looks like that’s been cleared up, too.”