The Mystery Sisters series Box Set

by Karen Musser Nortman

  The nurse pushed Max to an X-ray room, flanked by her two babysitters. They waited outside the door while a young an x-ray tech took pictures of the ankle.

  Max's voice came through the door. "Do you really have to touch it?"

  His voice reflected patience wearing thin. "Like I told you a minute ago, I have to position it so the doctor can see the ankle."

  Then they were directed to an examining room.

  Dr. Bakke entered a few minutes later, a tall, prematurely balding, pale man. He looked at the women with no reaction until he recognized Bess.

  “Mrs. Gregory, what’s the problem?” He appeared to be waiting for an explanation of her companions.

  “These are my cousins, Maxine Berra and Lilian Garrett. They were taking the wooden shoe dancing lessons this afternoon and Max took a spill.”

  He raised his eyebrows with a look that said he obviously didn’t think much of that activity at their ages.

  “Those wooden shoes bring me business every year during the festival. Let’s take a look.” He motioned Max to sit on the examining table. Then he pulled out an extension so her foot rested on the table.

  Bakke pulled up a rolling stool and gently took the foot in both hands, turning it slowly so he could look at the ankle.

  Even soft prodding brought several protests from Max. "Can't you tell by looking at it?"

  Dr. Bakke said nothing, but continued his probing.

  “How’s your mom doing, Erik?” Bess asked.

  Dr. Bakke looked up, surprised and frowned—perhaps annoyed at being interrupted. “What do you mean?” He rested Max's heel on the exam table.

  “I’m sorry—I just meant that awful tragedy this morning. I know Helen and Peter were long-time friends. I wondered how she was taking it, but maybe you haven’t even talked to her today. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “I see.” He picked up the foot again, resting Max’s heel in his hand. “I’m sure she’s very broken up, but I haven’t spoken to her yet. We’re having supper this evening.” He carefully put the foot down and stood. “I’ll check those X-rays. Be right back.” He was gone—not exactly a whirling dervish, but leaving the women feeling a little off balance.

  “Huh,” Bess said. “That was odd. He thinks his mother is very broken up, but he hasn’t even called her?”

  Max said, “That’s what you said about Harry. So it’s doubly odd that the death of someone as well-liked as you say Peter DeVries was provokes such strange reactions.”

  “He was well-liked,” Bess protested.

  “I don’t doubt it. That’s why it’s strange.”

  “But, what about—,” Lil started to say when the door opened.

  Dr. Bakke closed the door behind him and gave Max a little smile. “Good news, Ms. Berra. I don’t see any fractures. You’ve wrenched it, but I don’t think it’s a sprain. You’ll need to rest it and use ice. And no dancing!”

  “Don’t worry. It was a bad idea from the start and I should know better.”

  “You may want a wheelchair.”

  Max harrumphed. “What? I don’t need a wheelchair.”

  “Not if you stay home and keep that foot up. But if you are in town for the Tulip Fest and want to take in more events, a chair would keep you from aggravating the injury.” Dr. Bakke turned to Bess. “The American Legion has chairs and walkers for loan. Call Bud Stassen and he’ll open up for you so you don’t have to wait until Monday. I’m going to have the nurse wrap it for you. Take an acetaminophen if it gets to hurting too much. It should be better in three or four days. Anything else?”

  Max shook her head. “No. Thank you for seeing me.”

  He nodded and left again abruptly. Another five minutes and the nurse returned with a roll of elastic bandage, which she used to efficiently wrap the ankle.

  Bess and Lil helped Max off the table and down the hall. Hanging on to both of their shoulders, she managed with a combination of hops and limps.

  When they got to the car, Bess said, “Here’s the plan. I’ll call Bud Stassen. You can drop me off at my car and I’ll pick up a chair on the way home.”

  “I don’t—,” Max began, but Lil said “Shut up. If you need it, we’ll have it. If you don’t, it’s no big deal.”

  “It isn’t nice to say ‘Shut up’” Max grumbled, as all three had frequently heard their grandmother say when they were young.

  Chapter Seven

  As they drove down Water Street, Lil sat forward and pointed. “There’s that TV van in front of the house.”

  “Great,” Max said.

  Lil eased the Studebaker into the driveway. She went around the car to help Max out. By the time she had Max out of the car and leaning on the cane and her own shoulder, a bright young thing appeared in front of them holding a microphone. The woman wore a polo shirt sporting a TV logo and trim slacks, her hair in an contrived casual coif that reminded Max of the time she had cut Lil’s hair when they were both pre-schoolers.

  “Good afternoon. Darcy Dugan, Channel 17. We’re looking for Dean Gregory. This is his home, right?”

  “Yes, but he isn’t here,” Lil said, as she tried to maneuver Max around the woman.

  “Are you the women who were with him when he found the body in the mill this morning?”

  “How did you--?” Lil began, but Max interrupted. “He’s not here. Please get out of our way.”

  A young man with a camera on his shoulder hovered to the side while Darcy Dugan persisted, this time speaking into the mic. “Channel 17 received information that the body of Peter DeVries, well-known software developer, was discovered this morning by Dean Gregory and two women.” She glanced at the camera with a beaming smile, and then turned back to them with a distressed look. “What was that like? It must have been a shock.” She thrust the microphone toward them.

  “No comment, you dingbat,” Max said. “Now get out of our way.”

  Bess pulled in the driveway behind the Studebaker and jumped out of the car. Seeing Max and Lil’s faces, she rushed up to them. “What’s going on here?”

  Darcy Dugan turned toward Bess and directed the mic toward her. “Ma’am, were you involved with the discovery of the body? How did--?”

  “This is private property,” Bess said. “This woman is injured and needs to get inside and sit down. Please leave.”

  “I just have a few ques--,” Darcy began.

  Bess put her hands on her hips and added, “Or I’ll call the police.”

  Darcy Dugan frowned and motioned to the cameraman with her head toward the van. They both headed down the driveway.

  “Can you believe that?” Bess muttered. “I’ll get the wheelchair so we can get her inside.”

  “No problem,” Lil said, and tried to help her sister with a minimum of grunts.

  After a struggle to get Max into the house, Bess settled Max in a chaise lounge on the patio complete with pillows under the injured foot. She moved the wheel chair nearby.

  Bess had also picked up a walker. “Now, it might seem easier to move around and take less space, but it won’t let you keep your foot up. But maybe later it will come in handy.”

  Max wanted to say “Duh!” but knew Bess was doing her best to make a clumsy idiot guest comfortable. Instead she said, “Thank you. I’d like to kick myself but it would hurt my ankle.”

  Bess said, “Poor Max. I feel so bad that I talked you into that silly lesson.”

  Lil rolled her eyes.

  Rosie paced back and forth from one woman to the next, always stopping to rest her head on Max’s thigh and gaze soulfully up at her mistress. Lil finally took her out for a short walk.

  Dean arrived home shortly after. He mixed himself a drink and came out the French doors to join them on the patio.

  “The word is out. There’s a TV van out front, and they would hardly let me in the house.” A stricken look crossed his face as he noticed Max with her wrapped ankle propped on two pillows. “What happened to you?”

  Max grimaced. “
I don’t even want to explain.”

  “I’ll tell! I’ll tell!” Lil said.

  “Things haven’t changed in seventy years,” Max said. “Go ahead, have your fun.”

  Lil gave Dean a somewhat embellished version of the afternoon.

  He smiled. “I know it isn’t funny, but I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “I have video,” Bess said, with a sly grin.

  “You promised you wouldn’t!” Max was now laughing.

  “I didn’t exactly promise.” Bess held out her phone to her husband.

  Dean watched the short video with only a couple of snorts and chuckles and gave the phone back to Bess.

  “So we missed the cheese market, but there’ll be another one tomorrow,” Bess said. “How are you doing? Have you heard any more about the murder?”

  “I won’t deny that it’s been a long day. But, no, I haven’t heard any more.” He said to Max and Lil, “Bess and I had planned to take you to the Rotterdam Room at the college tonight for supper. They have an excellent culinary and hospitality program. The students do the cooking and the results are fantastic. Max, do you think you can do that, or should we change plans and do takeout here?”

  “No, don’t change plans. We’ll make it work. Lil can push me all over in that stupid chair.”

  “I’ll push you over, all right,” Lil said. “Do we need to dress up?”

  Dean shook his head. “No, you’re fine like you are. I’ll make a reservation for an hour from now. That okay?”

  The women all agreed.

  By the time they headed to the car, the TV van was gone. Dean drove to the college and parked in a large lot marked for patrons of the restaurant. He got the wheelchair out of the back and with Lil’s help, got Max into it.

  The Rotterdam Room took up the end of one of the original nineteenth century college buildings. One wall of windows looked west over the well-groomed lawn, which featured stone edged beds of tulips and brick paths leading down to the Schild Canal. The sun was descending below the tall trees behind them so that it bathed everything in a golden light. The yellow and red tulips glowed like the sunset had descended to the ground.

  Max looked around the room, and although she had enjoyed the folksie Dutch touches every where else they had been, she found the crisp white tablecloths, brass chandeliers, and gray upholstered dining chairs a refreshing and elegant change.

  There were not many early diners and Max, Lil, and the Gregorys were seated at a table by the window wall. The waiter had removed one of the dining chairs so that Max’s wheelchair could be pushed up to the table.

  Dean looked around the table. “Even though Little Sneek is pretty much landlocked, Holland is not, so Dutch cuisine is predominately seafood-based. I would like to take the liberty of ordering a nice white wine, unless any of you have objections?”

  “Sounds lovely,” Lil said, and Max agreed.

  The waiter left menus when he took Dean’s wine order. After much deliberation, Max decided on the shrimp croquettes with fresh asparagus and Lil chose sole with Hollandaise sauce.

  “Oh, look!” Lil pointed at the sides listed in the menu. “Herring Salad. Remember Grandma Jacobsen made that every Christmas? But I thought it was Danish.”

  “I think most of those northern European countries have some version of that dish,” Bess said. “I have German friends, too, who make a herring salad.”

  “I hated it as a kid, but liked it when I grew up,” Max said.

  The waiter brought the wine, offered a taste to Dean, and, on his approval, poured glasses for the women.

  Dean held up his glass. “In spite of the horrible events of the day, here’s to family!”

  Max laughed and held up her glass. “That’s easy for you to say. You aren’t related by blood to any of us.” The others joined the laughter and they clinked glasses.

  Dean recounted some humorous questions and incidents that he had encountered as the docent in the depot that day, as well as what people had said about the murder. Soon the food arrived and they lost themselves in an assault on their taste senses.

  “This is really amazing, Dean.” Lil forked another bite of sole in the golden sauce.

  “I agree. These shrimp croquettes are not the same food that you get in the frozen food sections of the grocery store,” Max said.

  “What a surprise,” Lil commented.

  Bess described some of the events they could participate in the next day. Max only half-listened as she sipped her wine, savored her meal, and gazed out the windows. Young couples—students probably—ambled along the canal hand-in-hand. The soft light made them almost look like figures in a painting. She felt the tension of the day slip away a bit.

  Lil interrupted Bess’s travelogue. “There’s Doctor What’s-His-Name.” She nodded toward the dining room entrance. They all followed her gaze, and Bess supplied: “Dr. Bakke.”

  The doctor spoke to the hostess and gazed around the room.

  “He’s looking for someone,” Dean said.

  “Helen,” Bess said. “He told us he was meeting her for dinner tonight. We asked him how his mother was taking Peter’s death, and he looked a little annoyed that we asked. He said he hadn’t talk to her about it yet—that he would tonight.”

  “Maybe he didn’t approve of their relationship,” Dean said.

  They watched Bakke walk into the adjoining bar.

  “That’s what Max said,” Lil said, “that one of the sons might have felt his inheritance threatened—”

  She was interrupted by a shrill, but indistinct, noise from outside, muffled by the glass. As they all looked to the window, several students and other walkers rushed to a couple standing on the bank of the canal. The boy had his arms around the girl, and she appeared to be sobbing against his chest.

  In another decade, Max though cynically, the girl’s ripped jeans and shirt with openings torn at the shoulders would have raised the alarm that an attack was underway, but Max was ‘with it’ enough to recognize the style for what it was—a silly fad.

  As they watched, a group gathered around them. The boy pointed at the canal and several others pulled out phones and began making calls. Two kids dove into the canal. The whole scene had a surreal quality—like something out of a silent movie.

  Dean got up and dropped his napkin on the table. “I’m going to go see what’s happening. It looks serious.”

  After he left, Max tried to maneuver her chair away from the table.

  Lil grabbed the arm and stopped her. “Where are you going?”

  “I want to see too.” She even sounded whiney to herself.

  Bess jumped up. “No, you aren’t going. If you think your ankle hurts now, wait until you bounce across rough ground. And what if that wheelchair got away from us?”

  Max sat back with a dramatic sigh, although if pressed, she would have admitted that Bess was probably right. Instead they moved their chairs closer to the window.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Several people on the edge of the canal reached down toward the water. Three men were pulling something from the water, helped by the two young people still in the canal. The something looked disturbingly like a person.

  They could see that Dean worked his way to the front.

  “I’m going to see if I can get up near Dean and then I’ll let you know what’s going on,” Bess said. She rushed out the door.

  An ambulance pulled up on the other side of the canal, followed by a police car. Max realized that was the closest they could get to the scene since the nearest roads on this side were some distance away. The EMTs, carrying a stretcher and other gear, were already jogging across a bridge just downstream.

  A few minutes later, Bess was coming back up the hill, clinging to her husband’s arm. On the way, they met Erik Bakke. Dean put his arm around Erik and spoke earnestly to him. Max and Lil heard a cry of agony, and Dean fell to his knees with his face in his hands. He shuddered and shook his head back and forth. Dean put a hand on Erik’s
shoulder and helped him to his feet. Dean headed back down the slope with Erik toward the group at the canal. He kept his arm around Erik’s shoulders as he guided him through the crowd.

  Bess continued back up to the dining room. She was gasping and pale. “It’s Helen Bakke!” she told them.

  “Is she—?” Lil stuttered.

  “I’m afraid so.” Bess’s eyes filled with tears. “Erik heard someone was injured and was coming down to see if he could help.”

  They continued to watch as more police arrived and marked off the scene. The crowd was pushed back which gave the women a better view of the principles.

  Finally the EMTs carried the stretcher back through the crowd toward the ambulance. Max noticed the Channel 17 van pulling up behind the ambulance. Dean guided Erik back around the edge of the crowd toward the dining room.

  Bess went out to meet them. When she returned, she said, “Dean is taking Erik into the bar to get him some coffee and wait for the police. He wants us to join him there.”

  Max pointed out the window. “There’s that ditzy Darcy. At least she’s not headed this way; she’s too busy pestering the crowd.”

  Bess picked up her purse and the dinner bill.

  Lil put a hand out to stop her. “Stop. Max and I are treating.”

  “That’s not...”

  “Stop,” Max said. “Or we’ll have to tell Dean that you are forgetting to say ‘thank you.’”

  Bess couldn’t even crack a sad smile. Lil picked up the bill without a further protest and stopped to pay it on the way to the bar.

  Dean and Erik were seated at a round table. Both men had mugs of coffee in front of them, The women joined them, got Max arranged, and settled themselves. Max and Bess ordered glasses of wine and Lil asked for iced tea.

  Erik was stooped over his mug, shaking his head. “Thank you for your support. I just can’t grasp this.”

  “Was she on her way here, do you think?” Bess asked.

  “I assume so. We were meeting for dinner.”

  “But the parking lots are over on this side of the building,” Max said. “Why would she be down by the canal?”