“Where on earth would someone wear a getup like that?” I had asked, pointing to a brown-fringed number hanging on display.
Anna was way ahead of me, as usual. “Cassandra, you really must get out more. There’s a whole culture of people they call reenactors. You’ve seen them at restored forts and old houses. They dress and act the part of people from some other era. It’s quite fascinating.” She had held up a skimpy bustier that must have been worn by a lady of the night “Old clothing styles can be very ‘in-style’ when worn by someone like you. This would look very sexy with your Levi’s.”
I had grimaced and walked away. “A thirty-something Britney Spears look. Just what I need. What kind of animal trapper would wear that little number?” I had pointed to what looked like an animal hide with holes for arms.
Anna had patted her hair and grinned. “Even trappers needed diversions now and then. And he would probably wear that to a Rendezvous.”
“At a meeting with his girlfriend?”
“No, no, no.” She had laughed at my naïveté. “A Rendezvous is a place where trappers meet once a year to trade their furs for supplies. If you’re interested, you can read about the era. I’ve got several books on the subject.” She pointed at her book wall, where a shelf carried books with titles such as 1800s Rendezvous Clothing and Fur Trade Fashion.
When Anna got interested in something, Anna became the expert. She was the one person who could grasp the trauma eating me up inside. “Anna, I’ve never experienced anything even close to this,” I said, holding my head in my hands. “I thought I’d photographed all kinds of scenes. I’ve been to many accidents. I’ve even covered other crime scenes, but it’s never been, oh . . . personal . . . not like this. What am I going to do?”
“How did the sheriff treat you?”
“Law enforcement was fine.” I massaged my forehead. “A deputy put me in the back of a squad car for privacy and briefly interviewed me. He followed me all the way home to make sure I could drive safely.” I gave her a lopsided smile. “But the sheriff’s not going to be too happy with me. The contents of my stomach became part of the crime scene.”
“For once in my life, I’m speechless,” Anna said. “I don’t really know what to say to you, except this will eventually be over. Whoever would have thought something like this would happen, when we discussed the Rendezvous a short month ago. Do you have to talk with the sheriff today?”
“Uh-huh.” I stared emptily at the wood floor. “Well, actually, I have an appointment with someone from Clayton County . . . a deputy sheriff. He’s using space in our police department to interview me. I’m sure it’s just routine, but—”
A man entered the store and disrupted my pity-party discourse. Anna went to greet him. “Hello, Mr. Lansing.”
“Good morning, Anna,” he said, bowing slightly. “And please call me Willis. Mr. Lansing was my father.”
The old joke fell flat coming from a man who looked as if he wouldn’t know a joke if it jumped up and bit him. Tall and slim, he carried himself rigidly erect. A well-trimmed gray goatee framed a square chin that was set off by a thin mouth. Steely, focused eyes glared out under severe brows. Doffing his Greek fisherman’s cap, he revealed a stubbly salt and pepper crew cut. He looked to be Anna’s age or older. I had the urge to add a thin mustache and photograph him in a World War I German Kaiser uniform.
Anna gestured toward me, to bring me into the conversation. “Willis, this is Cassandra Cassidy, a dear friend.”
“I am happy to make your acquaintance, but I wish it were under more auspicious circumstances,” he said stiffly. “I am so sorry for your terrible experience yesterday.”
“Willis was here earlier and told me what happened,” Anna explained, taking Willis’ arm. “He reenacts the part of fur trade characters.” She glanced up at him. “Those of you who participate in such events take your characters very seriously, don’t you? It seems that most of you have meticulously researched everything—how your characters would talk, what they would eat, and so forth.”
I examined Mr. Lansing more closely, while this exercise in adoration was going on. “Yes, I remember seeing you there,” I said finally. “You took part in the tomahawk competition.”
“Yes . . . yes, I did.” He tore his gaze away from Anna. “And did well this time, since Marty was inconvenienced by not having his favorite tomahawk.”
My ears perked up at the mention of my landlord. “Do you know Marty well?”
“He has deep roots in this part of the country,” he said, his gaze drifting to the back of the store. “His father was a town lawyer or politician, or something of that sort. He was successful enough to build a lovely house outside of town. Excuse me, please. I see what I came to purchase.” He moved to walk around me.
“I rent Marty’s carriage house,” I said, starting to follow him.
He stopped and turned. “I am sure he is a fine landlord,” he said. He smiled with his lips closed and continued on his mission.
“Marty was a helicopter pilot in Viet Nam,” Anna said, fussing with a dress hanging on display. “He suffered even more, after he returned, because his wife had taken their son and disappeared.”
“You never told me you knew Marty,” I said.
She glanced at me and then resumed her activity. “I know of him mostly through what I read about him in the newspaper. He runs a helicopter business in our county . . . mostly emergency stuff. You know, flying people to the hospital in the Cities and sometimes around the country. He’s also on one of the town commissions.”
“Sounds like an upstanding citizen,” I said.
Willis Lansing was rifling through a rack of military uniforms. Anna patted my arm. “I’ll be back after I see to Willis,” she said.
“No, no,” I said, swooshing her away. “That’s okay. I’m okay. Really. Take care of your customer. I’ll talk to you later.” I examined my watch. I had just enough time to make my meeting with the Clayton County deputy. Arriving late would not put me in his good graces.
Chapter 3
On the way to the police station, I reminisced about how I had met Marty. When I first saw his house, it had loomed out of the Minnesota pine forest like a prop in a “B” horror-movie set. As I drove around the circular driveway, its gloomy image was heightened by the specter of unclipped, still spindly hollyhock skeletons drooping forlornly against the foundation. Above them, a peaked roof jutted over the stone sidewalk, like a crouching animal about to pounce.
I remember wondering how could I have lived in Colton Mills for almost a year and not known the place existed? I had checked the newspaper ad again: carriage house for rent. with studio. A two-story brick building stood about a hundred yards to the right of the main house. Ivy crept up one side toward its shake-shingled roof. It looked perfectly charming.
But getting to the “charming” entrance meant I had to walk up several wide wooden stairs. My five-feet-four inches weighed in at about 125 pounds, and I wasn’t one to throw my weight around when I felt a little spooked. I had no more guts than the bear making up the rug under my coffee table, which regarded me glassy-eyed out of his beautiful six-foot-long pelt.
I stepped out of my Jeep and stared up at the house. For some inexplicable reason, it gave me the jitters. The stairs led to two curtained double doors opening onto to a shadowy front porch that wrapped around the front and east side. The vision of my studio apartment, tacked onto the end of a dingy hall above the hardware store, flashed through my mind. It was broad daylight on a lovely sunny day in a safe, post-card-perfect small town. What could possibly go wrong?
I ascended the stairs. The porch and steps were in good repair and freshly painted. A good sign. I rang the doorbell. No response. I tried it again. Still no response. From somewhere in the back, I heard a peculiar sound. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk I retreated down the stairs and crept along a stone walk that led to the back of the house. The walk ended at a weathered iron gate. I opened it and peered around a massive lilac b
ush that could have been planted when George Washington was a child.
Thunk.
A burly man was throwing an ax at a foot-thick ring cut from a massive tree, which he had propped up on its side. He took aim and flung one ax after another. Some stuck into the tree-trunk target, while others bumped off and flew into the bushes. He stopped throwing and went to retrieve the implements.
“Hello!” I called out. Not too loudly. If he didn’t hear me, I could turn around, get into my vehicle, and forget I’d ever seen the house. But he had heard me. He turned and waited for me to speak. “I called earlier about the carriage house for rent,” I yelled, never taking my eyes off him as he marched toward me.
Tall and well built, he looked as if he could model for a middle age Marine recruiting poster, if there were such a thing. A gray bushy beard framed his weathered face, suggesting he was as old as my father would probably be, but I had no way of knowing that. “I’m Marty Madigan,” he said, extending a meaty hand over the gate. He had a deep, gravelly voice. His intense gray eyes didn’t quite meet mine.
“Cassandra Cassidy,” I said, grasping his hand.
Offering no explanation for his ax-throwing activity, he got right down to business. “Come this way.” He led me back along the walk toward the carriage house, reciting history as he went. “The carriage house was built in 1880, the same time as the first part of the main house. Originally, it had three bays that provided housing for the Swanson family’s carriages. That area has been converted into a modern garage. Olaf Swanson had the first and biggest flourmill near here and built this place five miles out of town, because he liked the view. He must have been a determined fellow to manage this kind of construction so far out.”
“Sounds like he had a long, bumpy road to town for a sack of sugar.”
Marty nodded, ignoring my attempt at humor, and continued with his commentary. “Swanson’s flour mill was located in the area where the bridge crosses the Oxbow, about two miles toward town. The river was dammed up there to provide power for the mill. So, his place was really not that far from where he worked every day.” He opened a side door that led into the garage and fingered the end of the exposed wall. “You won’t find another building with brick walls this thick,” he said, caressing the side of the wall. “I don’t think a tank could take them down.” He gestured around the interior of the garage. “Plenty of room here for a couple of vehicles.” He turned in my direction, but still didn’t meet my gaze. “How many do you have?”
“Just one,” I said, nodding toward my ten-year-old Jeep sitting in the driveway.
“Well . . . that will leave plenty of room for storage. If you’re a pack rat like me, you can never have enough room for storage.”
The garage spanned the front of the building. A door at the rear led into a hall. Light filtered down from an open stairway at the end leading to the second floor. Another door led to what had been the harness room and was, for me, the clincher. The area had been converted for the former tenant into a darkroom. It was large enough for all my equipment and then some. I asked questions, such as whether the water was filtered. But I could already picture my enlarger on the shelf against the far wall.
“The tenant who left a couple of months ago was a nature photographer,” Marty said, leaning against the doorjamb. “He’d pack up and take off for weeks at a time. He finally decided to move further north, closer to the places where he took most of his pictures. He even produced a calendar that’s sold in Books on Main.” He glanced my way. “You take nature pictures?”
“Not on a regular basis.” I chose not to elaborate. Somehow, taking wedding pictures paled next to Mr. Former Tenant’s beautiful nature calendars for sale on Main Street.
We mounted the stairs and emerged into a bright, sunny loft. The wall opposite was white-painted brick, with a fireplace halfway down the wall. White ceilings arched toward a peaked roof that was punctuated with brown wooden beams running horizontally wall-to-wall, about three feet beneath the peak, producing a dramatic effect. Three skylights let in the afternoon sun, adding to the light filtering in from the oversized windows above the staircase. The sitting area blended into the narrow kitchen at the back of the room. A door led to the bedroom and another to a roomy studio/office, also lit by a skylight.
Resisting the urge to shout, “I’ll take it!” I had put on my businesswoman’s cap and strolled back through the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and checking out the dishwasher and cabinets. I didn’t tell my soon-to-be landlord, but my mishmash of unmatched plates and mugs would barely fill one cabinet. My baking equipment—consisting of one flat round pan big enough to bake a frozen pizza—would be lost in the other cabinet, and I could fill one small drawer with my discount-store silverware and assorted kitchen tools. I inquired about heating and lighting costs.
Marty had listed those for me. “You can see it’s move-in ready,” he said.
“Yes, I see that.” He hadn’t known it at the time, but as long as the kitchen had an electrical outlet for the coffeepot and a microwave oven, it was move-in ready. “The lease on my downtown studio is up in a month, but I’d like to begin moving my things in here this weekend, if that’s okay.”
He had presented me with a lease. My prudent self had said I shouldn’t sign it, but my audacious self had whipped out a pen, trumping the twinges that were running down my spine as I signed it.
Now, as I turned into the parking lot of the police station, I wondered if I had signed that lease a little too hastily. What did I really know about Marty, except that his favorite tomahawk had somehow found its way into Eric’s scalp.
Chapter 4
Monday—Police Station
The murder hadn’t made a big splash in Colton Mills, a hundred miles or so south of Clayton County. Regional TV ran a short clip on the Sunday night news and the Minneapolis paper had covered it briefly in its Monday edition.
Reporter Killed at Rendezvous Event
Eric Hartfield, a columnist for Minnesota Issues Review, was killed Sunday in Prairie River Township, at the site of the annual Prairie River Rendezvous. The Rendezvous is an annual event in which participants portray authentic characters of a nineteenth-century fur post.
Hartfield’s body was discovered in a sweat lodge that had been erected by the Prairie River Band and periodically used for ceremonial purposes. The apparent weapon was a tomahawk of the kind that Rendezvous contestants use in tomahawk throwing competitions. The sheriff has not named any suspects.
So far, my name had not surfaced as the one who had discovered the body, and my hope was that I could remain unidentified. What I wanted most was for the sheriff to return the “tools” he had confiscated, because they held all my cameras and the envelopes of exposed film and CF cards.
When I arrived at the police station for my interview with the Clayton County deputy sheriff, the police directed me to, of all things, a bomb shelter under City Hall. “I’m Cassandra Cassidy,” I said to the receptionist. “I’d like to see Deputy Shaw.”
“Deputy Shaw?” A hint of amusement flashed across her fleshy face. “Oh, yes. You mean Deputy Sheriff Shaw.” She punched the air above her head with her forefinger. “We’re short of space in the police station and had to give him a room downstairs.” She pointed to a staircase. “Take that to the basement, turn left when you get to the bottom of the stairs, and walk to the end of the hall. He’ll be waiting for you.”
The cold, clammy walls made me shiver despite the hot day outside. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to relax on the flimsy folding chair where I sat next to a gritty little table. It was impossible, of course. My mind churned over the details of my experience, causing increased anxiety. When my name was called, I actually stumbled into the smaller cell-like room, which was furnished with nothing but two chairs and a decrepit wood table, about the size of a teacher’s desk.
My expectations for a quick and routine interview were dashed in the first five minutes. The kindly deputy from the Rende
zvous had been replaced by one with a Perry Mason complex. Far from being the personable small-town Barney Fife I expected, Deputy Sheriff Bertram Shaw went by the book. He had folded his scrawny six-foot frame onto a dusty wooden chair, his pen poised over a clipboard. Before he uttered a word to me, he rubbed his nose and made a face in reaction to the room’s musty smell. Then, without any niceties, he began his questioning. “How did you came to move into the house next to Mr. Madigan?” His eyes were cold and his voice told me this was to be a no-nonsense interview. I peered over his shoulder to avoid making eye contact.
“I moved there because I liked the accommodations.” My eyes caught sight of a spider web in the corner of the concrete room, directly behind his right shoulder. I wondered how long would it take the spider to drop onto the cardboard boxes stacked helter-skelter against the wall.
“Did you know Mr. Madigan prior to living in his rented house?”
“No, sir, I simply answered his ad in the paper.”
“Did you ever see anyone coming or going to his house?”
“No, sir. I can’t see what goes on at Marty’s house from the carriage house.”
“Were you ever concerned for your safety?”
Was I? The day I rented the place, it occurred to me I had signed a lease to live next to an ax-wielding landlord who lived in a remote house, five winding miles from the nearest town. “No sir, I can’t say that I was. Nothing untoward has ever happened in the time I have lived there.” I felt fidgety, for some reason, and drummed my fingernails on the table.
Shaw stared at them and seemed to lose his train of thought. “You’re a photographer, I understand.”
“Yes. I make my living selling the photographs I take.” I shifted in my chair.
A Rendezvous to Die For Page 3
