Hunter’s Dance (28 page)

XLIV

Am I not your wife? Is it not my right to expect you to come to me with your troubles?

The van gave a screech and a lurch and stopped dead. Mia Thorsen put her forehead on the steering wheel. She was too old for this. Or too stupid. She'd been at it a half hour and had made it almost to the end of the driveway. Ross had explained it all:
pull out the choke, push in the clutch, give it a little gas, step on the starter, let off the hand brake, ease out the clutch while you ease in on the gas
. One more time. Mia inhaled, pressed the clutch to the floor and slowly let it out. The vehicle hopped three times, effected a sideways leap, and charged into the telephone pole at the side of the road. The pole didn't fall, only leaned enough to leave the wire lying across the slightly crumpled hood. She returned her head to the steering wheel and let the tears flow.

Well, that did it. Ross was simply going to have to come with her. He might not be the best teacher in the world, but he could be more or less depended on to keep his mouth shut, at least as long as she owed him money. Leonie McIntire had offered, but the thought of having her ineptness exposed to John was more than Mia could face.

She got out and slammed the door. The pole gave a creak and settled gently against the windshield.

She went to the kitchen and shoveled a sizable slice of chocolate cake onto a plate. Before sitting down she added a couple sticks of wood to the fire in the pot-bellied heater. It had been ten years since they'd replaced her mother's old wood range with a shiny white gas-fired model. Mia hadn't been sorry to see it go, but she was glad she'd insisted on adding the heater. It was handy for burning trash and gave the kitchen a warmth that a blue gas flame couldn't touch. A warmth she needed today.

She sat at the window and contemplated the van skewed across the driveway, nose to the telephone pole. She'd have to figure out some way to get it out of there before Nick got home.

Her chance passed. Nick's much abused Dodge pulled into the driveway. It was not yet noon. He was hours early. He couldn't possibly have completed his route. Several minutes passed before Mia heard the thunk of the car door closing and saw Nick emerge from behind the van. He walked stiffly, in contrast to his usual arm-swinging stride. His slow progress toward the house was painful to watch. Had she done this to him? Guibard said no, but how could he know? In her fear of the future, had she been slowly killing it? Killing her husband?

He came into the kitchen with his coat on. “There any coffee, Mia? I ain't feeling so well.”

If he felt anywhere near as bad as he looked, that was a colossal understatement. Mia turned to the sink. “I'll make fresh.”

“Just give me what's there.” She struck a match to the gas burner and slid the pot over the flame. Nick gripped the edge of the table as he sat down. “The Maki kid gone haywire?”

“Ross? Why?”

“Why's the truck holding up the telephone pole?”

“I put it there.”

“You don't know how to drive.”

“Obviously.” She poured a short stream of coffee into a cup. It was the color and consistency of molasses. Nick would have to wait. She dumped the entire mess down the sink and dipped more water into the pot. “But it's time I learned.”

“You need to go somewhere, I can take you.”

“It's time I quit expecting you to do everything for me.”

“Why? It's been good enough for you for thirty years.”

She turned with her back to the sink and folded her arms. “You have to see a doctor, Nick.”

“There's nothing wrong with me. I just need a little rest.” His words were slurred. “And a little coffee!”

Mia picked up the cup and slammed it onto the table. “You're sick. Face it, Nick. You can get to a doctor, or I'm calling Guibard.” She looked out at the wire dangling limp from the pole. “Tomorrow!”

“You don't need to bother.” Nick was turned away, so that his expression was obscured, but the defiance was gone from his voice.

“Good.” Mia pressed her advantage. “So do you want Guibard, or do you want to go to Houghton?”

“I don't need a doctor,” Nick persisted.

“Nick—”

“I don't need a doctor to tell me what's wrong. I know what it is.”

“You can get help for the drinking.”

“I haven't had a drop in six weeks.”

If Ross had taken much of the brandy, that could possibly be true. Nick hadn't been drinking his usual amount. Mia stooped to look into his eyes. “Why?”

“Why? Now there's a good one. You've been nagging me for thirty years about a little booze, and now I quit, you ask why?”

“Yes, why? Why now?”

“I wanted to see if it would help.” He looked away. “It didn't.”

“Maybe it takes a while. Maybe it's withdrawal.”

“Withdrawal, be damned! It ain't withdrawal. It ain't booze. And it ain't something a doctor can do anything about. It's Parkinson's.”

The second Mia heard him say it, she knew it was true. Anger welled up in her like she'd never felt before. She put down the coffee pot and kept her voice steady.

“How long have you known this?”

“Long enough.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“What for? You'd find out soon enough.”

“Not soon enough to do anything about it.”

“What the hell do you think you can do about it? There ain't anything to do. I'll get weaker and weaker, and sooner or later I'll die.”

Mia pulled out a chair and sat down. “I can't believe you kept this from me.”

“I can't believe you thought I was nothing but a drunk!”

Mia felt a heavy knot in her stomach. If she'd cared as much about Nick's pain as she had about her own security and convenience, would she have realized that he was sick, really sick?

Nick stood up. “I'm going to lie down for a while. You might as well get used to having an invalid around the house.” He pulled an envelope from his shirt pocket and slapped it on the table. “I brought you a letter from your buddy. She was putting it in the box when I came by. You can steam off the stamp and save yourself three cents.”

She didn't recognize the handwriting, and there was no return address, but Mia had no doubt as to the identity of the buddy.

“Bonnie Morlen?”

Nick nodded.

The handwriting was strong but looked as if it had been written in a hurry.
Thank you,
it began,
for your friendship and your help. I see what I have to do and I must do it now. I cannot live with sharing in his guilt
.
And I can't die while he lives.
Mia scanned down the page. The words
By the time you get this, it will all be over
and
won't get his hands on my baby's money
jumped out.

She might have been in a rush to get it mailed, but Mia could bet she hadn't planned to get such quick delivery service.

“Nick,” she said. “I have to go. I think Betty Crocker Morlen is planning to kill somebody.”

XLV

It was as if she rejoiced that she'd thrown away her life for her child. When he joined the angels he would remember that a mother on earth had loved him.

Way-jing
something.
Way-jing-gish
. Or something close to that. McIntire opened Frederic Baraga's dictionary of the Ojibwa language to the Ws. Twyla Wall had heard McIntire's mention of Esko Thomson and his mining partners. It had triggered something. What was it she had said? McIntire could most always trust his ear for language, but hearing Twyla speak was enough of a shock to obliterate her words. Or word. If she hadn't repeated it, he'd never have gotten it at all. And the chance of it being entered in the bishop's nineteenth-century reference might be slim. Way-jing? He scanned down the page.
Wegwagi, wegwissmind,
Weiejingeshkid
. That could be it. Definition:
He that is cheating habitually, cheater, swindler, embezzler, deceiver, imposter, seducer.
Well, that was Esko to a T, no doubt about it. Except maybe for the seducer part. It didn't take some ancient crone to tell him that Esko Thomson was not the soul of integrity. But Twyla Wall hadn't seen the man in close to fifty years, maybe more. Never seen the man, for that matter. Twyla knew only the boy. What could he have done that long ago that the woman would still remember and, more to the point, that would move her to break her silence? Well, time doesn't mean much to a lot of old people. It probably never had to Twyla. Fifty years or five minutes, it might be all the same. McIntire felt a shiver when he remembered that hollow laugh.

He hadn't yet said anything to the sheriff about Bonnie's rendezvous with Greg Carlson. It had slipped his mind when he'd made that twenty-mile trip to town with the surveyor's arrow. It could wait until later. Maybe until the sheriff had seen the light and got the warrant to search Esko Thomson's so-called home. McIntire could bet dollars to doughnuts that's where they'd find Bambi Morlen's camera. Maybe Leonie could use it when she did her photographic essay for
Picture Post
. Now there was romantic for you.

But right now he had Gösta to occupy his time, if not all of his mind. It was aggravating. He found it impossible to devote his brain to his work, but when he put it aside, the tale of guilt and atonement pushed its way into his every thought. With Leonie and Siobhan off in the Lincoln to purchase a wedding trousseau, he had the house to himself. Now was the time. He could even have the freedom to work in the kitchen.

The next five minutes he spent in furious concentration over the beautiful Marianne and her affliction with introspection.
While she lay and looked at herself with those icy staring eyes, all natural feeling died within her
. Is that what had happened with Bonnie Morlen? Had she lived so much of her life as a fraud, pretending to be what others expected, that she had completely lost the real Bonnie and could now only sit back and observe? Had her life, like the detached Marianne's,
become a drama where she was the only spectator?

Kelpie lifted her head from the rug and gave a half-hearted woof. McIntire glanced up to see a determined-looking Fratelli tramping through the few inches of new snow to his door. The detective was dressed in his prospecting ensemble, minus the Geiger counter.

“I'm going after it,” he told McIntire. “I'm through letting that scrawny old geezer buffalo me.”

“That twelve gauge didn't look too scrawny.”

“I got a gun, too.”

“I know,” McIntire said. “Passing them out like candy, I hear. Take my word for it, that scrawny old geezer might be a good one to stay away from.”

“I ain't asking for your advice,” Fratelli stated. “I've just come for directions. The track we walked out of his place on was a lot closer to the mine than the way we went in. How do I get to that trail from this end?”

The trail they had come out on would have taken them to a fairly passable logging track and eventually to a township road, if they hadn't branched off to get to Carlson's camp and their vehicles. But McIntire wasn't eager to give the P.I. directions that would put him in Esko Thomson's sights. He hedged. “I don't know that I remember myself. If you go south from town, there's a road to the left somewhere, about a mile after you cross the river. But, what with the snow, it's liable to be a swamp. I doubt the Morgan could get through. And there are roads and trails turning off all the way along. You could get lost.”

Fratelli wasn't that easy to discourage. “Let me see that map.”

“I've turned it over to Koski.”

“Draw one for me.”

McIntire tried to look apologetic. “I haven't been in that neck of the woods since I was a kid. I used to go with my dad to Thomson's to pick up his weekly supply of what he called cider. That was thirty-five years ago. Even if I could remember the lay of the land then, it's probably completely different now.”

Fratelli's face said he didn't believe a word of it. McIntire gave up beating around the bush. “Look here, Melvin, you don't have a ghost of a chance of slipping past Esko to get up to that mine. He'll spot you before you get anywhere near your precious Geiger counter, if he hasn't already taken it to town and sold it. If you're insisting on going, you'll have to take the path in through Carlson's camp. And watch your step. Maybe you can get Greg to go with you.”

Fratelli answered with a “humph” and slammed out the door. A sharp crease graced the freshly laundered denim dungarees.

***

Father Berling was once again to be left in the lurch. McIntire had brewed fresh coffee and renewed his attack when a quick succession of raps sounded at the storm door. McIntire heard its hinges creak and rapid steps cross the back porch. The kitchen door burst open. Mia Thorsen stood red-faced and panting.

“John, it's…” She paused for breath. When she began again, her words were calm and deliberate. “I think somebody'd better check on Bonnie Morlen. She's finally done it. Gone over the edge. She's going to kill her husband. And maybe herself, too.” She stood in the porch in her snowy overshoes and handed him the letter.

McIntire read quickly. “Did you call Koski?”

“My phone is…out. That's why I came here. Don't you think we should get somebody over there? She must be planning to do it today. She mailed the letter this morning. She wouldn't have expected me to get it until tomorrow or the next day, but Nick brought it straight home.”

In answer to McIntire's look, she added, “He's sick.”

McIntire cranked the phone and asked for the mansion. There was no answer, which meant absolutely nothing with respect to whether either of the Morlens were at home.

“Oh God! Maybe she's already done it. Maybe they're both dead!”

“Mia,” McIntire told her, “I don't think it's Wendell she's after.”

“Oh?”

“She's out to get her son's killer, Greg Carlson.”

Mia only stared and gripped her pigtail.

“When Bonnie identified Bambi's body, the sheriff also asked her to look at the articles he had with him when he died,” McIntire told her. “One of the things was the jacket he was wearing. Bonnie had seen that jacket on the evening that her son died—in Greg Carlson's panel truck. So she concluded that Carlson and Bambi were together later that night. She didn't know that Carlson had to park the truck about a quarter mile from his camp, so Bambi and Ross often left stuff in it to save the bother of walking up the trail. Bambi did fetch his jacket from the car, but he didn't have to go anywhere near Carlson to do it.”

“What the devil was Bonnie doing in Greg Carlson's car?” The wrench on the braid seemed close to yanking it from her head. “Oh, brother, you're kidding! Bonnie and Greg were…? The night Bambi died?”

McIntire nodded.

“How could I have been so stupid? The first time I went to see Bonnie, he showed up, nervous as a cat. And she had already set two cups out. I should have realized she was expecting somebody that wasn't me. When she went to the door, she made this big to-do about her husband not being home, but he should come in anyway.” She looked down at her dripping overshoes, and stepped hastily back onto the mat. “I'm sorry, I should have told you. I just didn't think.”

“There was no reason you should have been suspicious.” McIntire tried to reassure her. “It might have seemed odder if Greg Carlson hadn't paid a call on Bambi's parents.”

“Maybe so.” She didn't sound convinced. McIntire wasn't either. “But,” she went on, “if Bonnie knew Greg had killed her son, why would she have continued an affair with him? Or even fed him cocoa?” Her eyes opened wide. “Egads! John, she might have been trying to do away with him then. There was a plate of tart things on the table. When I sat down, she said they were stale and fetched in a fresh supply.”

“Carlson was, not to put too fine a point on it, puking his guts out all that night.”

“Well,” Mia said, “they were thimbleberry. They'd make me gag, too. She didn't have to worry about getting the wrong person. I didn't touch them.” She shuddered and shook her head. “She was trying to
kill
that man. Right there in her tidy little kitchen, mixing up poisoned tarts.”

“She was avenging the death of her only son.”

Mia sagged against the coats that hung on the wall. “I guess I can understand that. But why the homemade execution? Why not go to the police?”

“Michigan doesn't have executions. She didn't want the police to get to him first.”

“Oh, lord.” She looked as she might if she'd consumed a bucketful of thimbleberries. “I've done it again!”

“You put the poison in the tarts?”

She didn't smile. “Koski asked me to tell Bonnie that he's close to arresting somebody. He didn't say who.”

“He didn't say who, because there wasn't a who.” The sheriff's plan to smoke out Bonnie and Wendell Morlen. It had worked admirably.

Mia took the letter and scanned it again. “Bonnie must have told Greg about Bambi not being Wendell's son. If he got the idea that Bonnie only stayed with her husband because of her child, he could have figured with Bambi out of the way, Bonnie would leave Wendell and marry him, and he'd reap the rewards. In getting rid of Bambi he'd kill two birds with one stone. See to it that Bonnie would be filthy rich and get the husband out of the picture in the bargain.”

“And move right in to provide support and sympathy.”

“The poor woman must have been eaten alive by guilt,” Mia said. “And imagine the humiliation—and the rage. How did she ever manage to behave even as close to normal as she did?”

McIntire took his coat from the hook.

“I'd better come with,” Mia offered. “If Bonnie Morlen would listen to anybody, it'd be me.”

“What the hell are you talking about? She's a raving lunatic, and she's got a gun! I'm not going anywhere near that maniac, and neither are you! Koski can handle her.” McIntire took the telephone receiver off the hook. “I'm just hoping to get to Greg Carlson before she does.”

“Ah, so you're not going after a demented woman with pitiful aim. You're on the trail of a cold-blooded murderer.”

“No,” McIntire said. “I'm not convinced that Greg Carlson is a murderer of any sort. Anyway, Fratelli's probably with him. I don't think we need to worry.” McIntire gave a few cranks on the phone and asked for the sheriff.