Heritage of Darkness (33 page)

goat head on a stick. The waffles she’d just gobbled threatened a

sour reappearance.

Chloe tried again to wrench away from the devil-creature. Her

boots slipped over the drop-off beside the house. The
julebukker
swung her hard, like a mean child playing crack-the-whip, and

released her abruptly. Chloe flew head-first toward the home’s

stacked-stone foundation.



Roelke walked as quickly as he dared on the slick sidewalks, head

down against the wind and snow, arguing with himself. He felt

bad about leaving Chloe so abruptly. Maybe he
should
have tried explaining, even brought her along. Problem was, he was planning

to trespass on the Rimestads’ property again. Best to go solo.

Besides, he was angry at himself for missing something.

Although he’d sympathized when Chloe told him that Adelle

Rimestad worked with diseased wood, he hadn’t given the story

his full attention. But something he’d heard Edwina Ree say in the church that evening had snapped in his brain like a rubber band:

Even the most cautious might find the roof torn from their hut, their
well fouled with urine, or their chimney clogged with straw.

279

The last time Roelke was here, he’d noticed that a vent leading

from Adelle’s workshop appeared to be blocked by a squirrel’s

nest. He hadn’t given it another thought … until hearing Edwina’s

reference to clogged chimneys. Roelke still considered Tom Rimes-

tad a suspect in Petra Lekstrom’s murder, but Chloe had described

a devoted couple. The last thing Rimestad needed was any hint

that his laxness in maintaining the ventilation system had contributed to Adelle’s lung disease.

Lights glowed inside the Rimestad house, but the curtains were

drawn. He was glad to see that the garage-side neighbors’ home

was dark. With any luck, their precious Muffykins was dreaming

doggie dreams instead of keeping watch.

Roelke slipped down the driveway and along the side of the

garage without attracting attention, canine or otherwise. He aimed his flashlight’s beam at several small sticks poking from the vent.

Shouldn’t there have been some screen over the vent? Maybe it had

fallen out. Anyway, it would take just a quick moment to clear the vent. His good deed for the day, and no one would be the wiser.

The vent was too high for him to reach, but Tom had stacked

some cinder blocks beside the garage to keep his trashcans out of

the snow. Quickly, silently, Roelke soon moved enough of the

blocks to provide the boost he needed.

Closer now, he grabbed one of the sticks and poked it tenta-

tively into the open space. The stick did not meet the soft flesh of a slumbering mammal.

It did, however, hit something hard and unyielding with a

tinny thump. What the hell? Roelke reached one gloved hand

above his head, into the vent. His fingers met the same obstruc-

280

tion—something hard and flat where nothing hard and flat should

be.

His good neighbor vibe disappeared and his senses crackled to

cop mode, full alert. He stepped back to the walkway and added

the last of the cinderblocks to his makeshift step. Once he’d bal-

anced on top of the pile, he braced his left hand against the garage wall and held his flashlight in his right. He rose slowly on tiptoes and peered into the vent.

There
was
no vent. A metal plate had been pressed into the shaft, completely sealing it about six inches in. The plate had been there long enough to obtain a layer of rust.

Jesus,
Roelke thought. Who would have sealed the vent?

Maybe Tom had when Adelle stopped carving. Except … Chloe

had said that Adelle still visited her workshop on good days.

All right, maybe the plate had been intended to be adjustable—

closed when the workshop was not in use, open when it was.

Except … he couldn’t see any sign that the plate had ever moved.

The metal had been cut slightly larger than the vent pipe, and

when pressed into place, the edges had folded back in right angles.

There was no handle, no visible way to move or remove it.

Roelke stepped back down and restored the cinder blocks and

trashcans to their original position. He walked back down the

driveway undetected. With a bit more luck the falling snow would

erase his tracks.

His thoughts buzzed as he turned back toward the downtown.

Who had converted the Rimestad garage into Adelle’s workshop?

Had Tom cut corners and done the work himself instead of hiring

a professional? Had he inexplicably done something that allowed

281

for the vent cover to wedge itself closed?
Or
, had someone who wanted to harm Adelle Rimestad done that deliberately?

If that were the case, who was behind it? Men were most likely

to strike hard and fast; women most likely to kill with poison.

Wood fungus was an unusual poison, but according to Chloe, poi-

son nonetheless. He remembered that after interviewing Edwina

Ree, Chloe had advised against ruling women off the list of sus-

pects. Something about
julebukkers
and acting against expected roles.

Had a woman blocked the vent? What woman hated Adelle

Rimestad so much that she’d try to poison her this way? Could it

have been Petra? By all accounts, Ms. Lekstrom had been mean-

ness incarnate. And what about Violet Sorensen? Based on what

Chloe had overheard, Sigrid’s daughter wasn’t the sweet daughter

of Decorah she presented herself to be—

Roelke skidded on an ice glare. After regaining his footing he

forced himself to slow down, physically and mentally. If someone

did bear a grudge against Adelle—and he had no idea why anyone

would—messing with ventilation was a pretty iffy way to do dam-

age.

Still …

He turned onto Water Street. He could see the museum build-

ings through the falling snow. His hands clenched and unclenched.

He
should
go find Chloe. She might be pissed at him for running off.

But his head felt ready to explode with what-ifs and wild theo-

ries. Maybe he’d gone completely off his rocker. Maybe he’d com-

pletely misconstrued what he’d seen. He could try talking it

through with Chloe, but she knew less about the situation than he

282

did. And he didn’t have enough to go to the police. He had abso-

lutely nothing except worries and hunches and wild-ass guesses.

I need facts, Roelke thought. And short of knocking on the

Rimestads’ door and asking, he wasn’t sure how to get them.

Unless … maybe Emil would remember who had designed and

constructed the workshop. As Roelke approached Vesterheim he

looked for Emil’s pickup, but his favorite parking spot on the corner was empty. Damn.

Well, Emil had probably headed for home as soon as class

ended. It had been a long week. And unless he was talking wood-

carving, Emil wasn’t comfortable in crowds.

Roelke stepped under a streetlamp and checked his watch. If he

booked it, he would have just enough time before the concert to

get to Emil’s farm and back on foot.

283

thirty

The
julebukker
flung Chloe at the stone wall as if she were a bale of hay. Instinct brought her forearms up to protect her face.

Even through her thick sweater and parka, the slam knocked the

breath from her lungs and brought tears of pain to her eyes. A

rough stone grabbed her hat as her head grazed the foundation.

She fell hard, skidding, her cheek smacking snow with a shock of

bare skin against gritty ice crystals.

Rage almost propelled her upwards but the terrain was too

slick, too steep. She began tumbling down the slope, breaking

through the sleet-glazed crust all the way. Her scrabbling hands

found only fistfuls of snow. In the jumble she heard the carolers’

harmony drifting from somewhere nearby, children laughing, per-

haps even the calm hum of her mother’s voice chatting with guests

inside the Valdres House. And she heard snow crunch as she thud-

ded to a stop.

A final frisson of pain rattled her bones. She struggled to catch

her breath, gingerly testing each limb to see if it still worked. My 284

skull could have cracked like an egg, she thought. The image made

her woozy, and she decided to lie in the snow a moment longer.

The wet cold soaking through denim became the most urgent

discomfort. With effort she managed to roll onto her hands and

knees. When she crawled away from the hill, she found herself

staring at the knees of two elderly visitors. “Are you all right?” a woman asked.

Chloe staggered to her feet, panting as if she’d just skied the

Birkie. “Did you
see
that guy?”

“What guy was that, dear?”

Chloe squinted at the hill, then looked around the lower

grounds. There was no sign of the creature who’d flung her down

like a sack of flour. Guests still wandered. Carolers still sang.

Lamps still glowed. She could see at least a dozen
julebukkers
now.

Two carried wooden goat heads mounted on poles. Several had

grabbed the hands of laughing visitors to form a torch-lit parade.

Chloe did not see a creature in yarn wig and Cossack hat, but the

darkness, the closely-situated buildings and changing terrain made it impossible to see everywhere.

The older couple still peered at her with concern. “Never

mind,” she said. “I’m fine. I just … um … slipped.”

“It’s getting treacherous,” the gentleman agreed. “The wind’s

picking up, too. We’re heading back to our car.”

Chloe slapped snow from her clothes as she tried to figure out

what had just happened. Could someone actually have attacked

her right in the middle of the festivities?

Damn straight.

285

She marched indignantly through the grounds, looking for the

nice young police officer she’d noticed earlier. She wanted to make him go find the SOB who’d grabbed her.

Although … what could she say, really? A guy dressed up in

crazy costume—like all the others out there entertaining guests—

had gotten too rambunctious? Come to think of it, she wasn’t pos-

itive her
julebukker
was a guy. The grip on her wrist had felt like iron, but she’d been taken by surprise, and everything had happened in a blur.

Her steps slowed, then stopped. Am I losing it? she asked her-

self. Did the week’s events make me see a demon in an overzealous

high school kid enjoying the excuse to act out? Were her nerves so frazzled that she couldn’t tell the difference between holiday fun and evil intent?

According to Edwina, however, holiday fun and evil intent

arrived hand-in-hand in Scandi-land this time of year.

Lovely. Chloe wished Roelke hadn’t disappeared, and then she

wished she hadn’t wished that, because she really didn’t want to be a needy kind of girl. Maybe a middle course was best: tell the officer what had happened, but without hysterics.

OK, she thought. You’ve got a cop to find and an artifact bowl

to return to the storage building. Get moving.



Roelke walked north and east to the sound of boots crunching

snow and shovels scraping sidewalks. A few cars passed, moving

slowly, throwing fans of slush. The wind drove snowflakes almost

sideways through the cones of light cast by street lamps. This may 286

not have been my best-ever idea, Roelke thought as he approached

the Upper Iowa River bridge. He was well-dressed for wintry

weather, but the snow was slowing him down. Best try to pick up

the pace.

Good plan, but he’d no more than tromped onto the bridge

when both feet flew out from under him. He landed, once again,

on his ass. “Danger,” he muttered as he clambered to his feet.

“Bridge surface may freeze before road.”

There were no lampposts on the bridge. He dug his flashlight

from his pocket and scanned the single traffic lane, hoping to

identify any additional icy spots. There was nothing to see but

snow and the twin ruts of tire tracks. He set out again, this time keeping a hand on the railing.

He was halfway across the narrow bridge when headlights

appeared ahead. A car was coming down the hill, too fast. “Slow

down,” Roelke muttered. “Slow
down
. Slow down, Goddammit!”

The car didn’t slow down. As it hit the bridge the yellow beams

went crazy, slicing the snow-hazy night. The vehicle was a dark

blur, whirling, sliding, coming his way—
Christ Almighty
—coming his way and there was nowhere to
go
, nowhere to go. The bridge railing bore into Roelke’s hip until something had to give, bone or iron, and the car kept coming.

Roelke leaned out over the river, away from the speeding mass

of steel. He heard the relentless
shussh
of skidding tires. The car was seconds away from crushing him.

Instinct pushed him over the railing in a wild twisting scram-

ble. He managed to catch one vertical iron bar with his right arm.

His other arm shot around too, and he clenched his right elbow

with his left hand. The car hit the railing inches beyond the spot 287

where he now dangled. The bridge shuddered. Roelke clenched

every muscle. The car fish-tailed once or twice before the driver

was able to straighten it out.