Buttons and Bones (14 page)

“But she was interested in seeing the cabin, and she knew it was the last place her father lived before he disappeared. I wonder what else she knows?”

“That’s easy to find out. Go to Anywho-dot-com and enter her name. She said she’s from Saint Paul, didn’t she? Fabrae isn’t a common name, maybe you’ll find a phone number. Then you can ask her.”

“All right, I’ll try that. You know what else I’d like to try? I’d like to go back up there myself and talk to that little group of old men at The Lone Wolf. If the major’s disappearance was a big item of gossip, I bet they’ll remember it. And I’ll bet they’ll remember other things about the Farmers, too.”

“Durn,” said Jill.

“What?”

“I wish you’d said something about that before I went up there. I could have done that myself.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I think I’ve been looking for an excuse to go back up. Those men gather for morning coffee, so I’ll have to go up the night before. May I stay at your cabin? I want to listen to the loons some more. I’ll look at my schedule and call you back about when I can get away.”

“Of course you can stay at our place.”

“Thank you. Now, don’t forget this evening at six we meet at the Ming Wok.”

“I won’t.”

After they hung up, Betsy went to the Anywho web site and inquired about Molly Fabrae. There was no Molly or Mary or M. Fabrae, but there was a John Fabrae and a Henry Fabrae.

She dialed John’s number and discovered he was Molly’s son. Henry was his father. Betsy thanked him and called Henry.

“Yes, she’s right here,” he said, and in a moment Betsy heard Molly’s voice.

“Hello,
who
is this?” she asked politely.

“My name is Betsy Devonshire. I’m a friend of the Larsons, who bought that old log cabin up on Thunder Lake.”

“Oh, yes. What can I do for you?”

“Jill and I have decided to do some poking around to see if we can find out what happened to bring that unfortunate young German prisoner to the root cellar of the cabin.”

“Wow, you are? How interesting. But why tell me—Oh, but wait, I’m sure my father had nothing to do with it.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Betsy lied. “What we’re trying to do right now is locate Helga, and I’m hoping you can help.”

“How could I help? I never met the woman.”

“Do you know anything about her? Her maiden name, for example.”

There was a silence that went on so long Betsy began to wonder if the connection had been lost. “Fon,” said Molly suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It was Fon something. Like Fon Schultz or Fon Hindenberg, only neither one of those.”

“You mean ‘von’?”

“Dad pronounced it ‘fon.’ Is there a difference?”

“No. ‘Fon’ is the German pronunciation of a word spelled V-O-N. It means ‘from’ or ‘of.’ That’s interesting. Can you think of anything else?”

“She was a lot younger than my father. A lot. Years younger.”

“Very good. Anything else?”

“Not offhand. I wasn’t interested in her, of course. But give me your phone number; if I think of anything else, I’ll call you.”

“Thank you,” Betsy said and complied, adding also her e-mail address.
Good
, she thought as she hung up.
Maybe she can come up with something even more useful.

Twelve

JILL and Betsy met at ten minutes to six outside the Ming Wok restaurant. The air around them was saturated with the scents of hot garlic and brown sauce. Despite her misgivings about the meeting with Robert Nowicki, Betsy yearned to get inside and research the menu. Her mouth was watering.

Jill asked, “Want to play ‘good cop, bad cop’?”

“I don’t know how to play that.”

“Then you be the good cop, all softhearted innocence and willing to believe anything he tells you.”

Betsy nodded. “All right. And you will be?”

“Tired of people lying to me.”

“What if he doesn’t need to be played?”

“All subjects of an interview need to be played.”

Betsy nodded. “And this sort of thing works?”

“Surprisingly often, especially on people who haven’t been questioned by the police before. In fact, his reaction to it will tell us whether or not he’s been through it before.”

“And if he has?”

“Then the jig is up and we play it by ear.”

Betsy nodded. Her own method of interviewing people was very much playing it by ear.

They went into the restaurant, which was small, only a dozen tables, with walls of Chinese orange and imitation bamboo paper. The tables had white tablecloths with white paper covers and black lacquer chairs. In here, the scents were even more delectable to Betsy, who had had a cup of soup for lunch and no customary midafternoon snack.

The place wasn’t crowded and soon they were seated across from each other near the rear with two maroon plastic pots of hot water and an oval basket full of tea bags in front of them. Betsy picked the jasmine tea, Jill the green tea to sustain them until Robert Nowicki arrived.

He came in about ten after six, a tall, dark man with thick brown hair, a long knobby nose, and large bony fingers. He didn’t look nervous; rather, his jaw was set in determined lines, and his lips were pulled thin. Betsy’s heart sank when Jill murmured, “That’s him.”

Jill stood and waved to draw his attention, and he strode over. He was wearing a pale blue dress shirt without a tie, summer-weight trousers, and heavy, dark sandals.

He stood by their table a few moments, his dark eyes moving swiftly between the two women, taking their measure. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties. “I’m Robert Nowicki,” he said in a deep voice. “Which one of you is Jill Larson?”

“I am,” said Jill in a crisp tone. “This is Betsy Devonshire, my partner in this business.”

“How do you do, Ms. Larson, Ms. Devonshire. What business? I’m hoping one of you can explain what this is about.”

“Certainly,” said Betsy kindly. “But why don’t you sit down? Would you care for some tea? I’m trying to stave off hunger pains with it.”

Nowicki suddenly smiled, and his demeanor became pleasant. “Thank you. I guess I could try the tea. I’m sorry if I was rude just now; I’ve had a rough day. My grandmother-in-law needs to go into a nursing home, though she doesn’t think so, and I’ve been trying to find one that doesn’t scare me into agreeing she can stay in her home awhile longer.”

“I understand that can be a very tough job,” said Betsy, pouring tea from her pot into a cup for him and pushing over the tea caddy. “I’m sorry you’re facing it.”

Jill pointedly picked up her menu and the other two obediently followed suit. When the waitress, who introduced herself as Annika, and who looked very Scandinavian, came by a minute later, they placed their orders, then Nowicki said, “Now, why did you want to talk with me?”

Jill said, “My husband and I bought a cabin up on Thunder Lake in Cass County and while cleaning it out, we found a human skeleton in the root cellar.”

Nowicki stared at her. “That must have been a terrible shock.” When she didn’t continue, he said, “Is that supposed to be the reason?”

“The cabin used to be owned by Arnold and Marsha Nowicki.”

He slowly paled. “My grandparents? Well, I’ll be damned.” He tried for a chuckle, which failed. “You mean that old log cabin they used to own? Yes, that’s right, it was on Thunder Lake.” He frowned and sipped his tea. “I’d almost forgotten about it. My parents said it always smelled in there. Mildew, I think they—But you think ...” He wiped his mouth with his fingers. “Oh, my God, is it possible . . . ?”

“Is it possible what, Mr. Nowicki?” asked Jill, looking every inch a cop.

“That skeleton was there when they spent their summer vacations up there? No, wait a minute, there wasn’t a root cellar in that place, they never said anything about a root cellar. You must have the wrong cabin, you have to mean some other cabin. Besides, I’m sure they would have looked down there. So it can’t be their cabin.” But his expression remained horrified. “Right?”

“Nossir,” said Jill, “it
is
your grandparents’ cabin. Your grandparents’ name appears on the list of previous owners. They bought it from Helga and Matthew Farmer in 1945, and sold it to Harry Martin in 1965.”

Nowicki shook his head slowly, closing his eyes, but more in wishful denial than in disbelief. “This is hard to take in,” he muttered. “A horrible thing, to think someone lay—And they didn’t—” Then his eyes snapped open. “So why did you want to talk to me?” he demanded. “Just to make me feel bad? It’s not my fault there was a skeleton in the root cellar! I never saw the place; I wasn’t even born when they owned it!”

“Hold on, hold on,” said Betsy placatingly. “We’re not accusing you of anything. Please, if you don’t mind, just answer a couple of questions, all right?”

Somewhat mollified, he said grudgingly, “All right.”

“Now, let’s go back to the beginning. Do you know how your grandparents came to buy the cabin in the first place?”

Now Nowicki started to look uncomfortable. “I’m the baby of the family, a real tail-ender,” he said after a few moments. “I have an older sister and brother who actually got to meet them. My grandparents were gone before I was born, so everything I know about them is second and third hand.”

“That’s all right, we’ll take that into consideration,” said Betsy. “What do you know about them?”

“Well, the family opinion of them isn’t good. They were cranky and difficult, to start with. And according to my Uncle Max, Grandfather was something of a crook. During the war he helped people beat the rationing laws, getting beef and sugar and lard from somewhere and selling it without collecting ration book ‘points’ for them. I don’t know how it was done, Uncle Max didn’t say.”

“Did your grandfather own a farm?” asked Betsy.

“No. He had a house on the edge of town with some land around it, but it wasn’t a farm.” Nowicki sighed. “He was a ripe old bastard, excuse my language, but that’s what Uncle Max used to say. Uncle Max had a crooked face and said it was because his dad, who used to beat him regularly, one time smashed him in the face so hard he broke his cheekbone.”

“That’s terrible!” said Betsy, shocked.

“What else did he say about him?” asked Jill.

“Not much.”

But his tone was so evasive Betsy was emboldened to ask, “Something else, though, isn’t there?”

“Well . . . He was hard on all the kids. So hard one of them ran away.” Nowicki looked over at the big impressionist painting of bamboo stalks and cherry blossoms on the wall. He added softly, “Or that’s what he told the kids, that Uncle Jerry ran away. Jerry was sixteen.” He looked at Betsy. “Now you two come along and say there was a skeleton in the root cellar.”

Betsy looked thoughtful, but Jill said, “No, we think that skeleton predated your grandparents’ ownership of the cabin.”

“How do you know that?” He looked at once startled and hopeful.

Betsy said, “The police say the skeleton is that of a man who was a German prisoner of war who walked away from a camp of them up in Remer back in 1944. His ID tag was found with his bones.”

“A German POW? In Minnesota? Oh, wait, yeah, I learned about them in high school. There were POW camps all over the U.S. Thousands of Germans were in them. Kind of an incredible thought.” He looked like a man reminded of a startling fact he had somehow forgotten.

“Yes, it is.”

“And now you say one of them was put into a root cellar and no one knew about it until now.”

“That’s right,” said Betsy.

Jill said, “He was one of the few who walked away, and he was never caught, except by person or persons unknown, who murdered him by fracturing his skull and tossing his body into a root cellar.”

“Maybe he fell,” said Nowicki. “Heard the owners coming back and he was trying to hide.”

“We have good reason to think that isn’t the case,” said Jill.

“And you say all this happened in 1944,” he said.

“Yes,” said Betsy.

“But my grandparents didn’t own the cabin until 1945, right?”

“Yes,” admitted Betsy.

On her admission, Nowicki’s volatile nervousness smoothed down. “Well, then, we’re back to my first question, what does this have to do with me?”

“We’re trying to learn more about the owners back then, Helga and Matthew Farmer. We were hoping you knew some stories about how your grandparents came to buy the cabin, and what might have transpired during the transaction.”

“Wow, did you come to the wrong person.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, I really am. Especially since you’re paying for me to stay the night in this nice little town.” He looked around the room, then back at them.

Betsy asked, “Do you think we might persuade someone else, your Uncle Max, say, to talk to us?”

“Probably not.” He shook his head.

“If he did,” said Jill, “what would he say about his mother?”