In Sheep's Clothing (25 page)

Aunt Sissy went up the steps.

“Are you there yet?” I yelled.

“Yes,” she called back.

I realized that once again in my life, I was not tall enough. Mayor Tom instantly understood and came over and stuck a ballpoint pen through the hole. “You see it?” he yelled.

“No…” she said. “Oh, wait. Yes.”

A minute later she came back down the steps. “Where the brick meets the wall, there's a small hole in the floor. You can't really see it, unless you're looking for it. That might explain where all of our eight-legged friends are coming from.”

“So, what does it mean?” Mayor Tom asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe nothing,” I said. “It's just that if the door to the cellar were shut, you should be able to hear whoever was in there. It would most likely travel up the brick.”

“So you're saying there was a ghost,” Mayor Tom said. “Sissy, no offense, but you have the most bizarre family.”

She just shrugged.

“No, I'm not saying that there was a ghost.”

I looked around a moment, and then I was ready to go. Mayor Tom hesitated.

“What?”

He stared at the wall for a second. “What's that?”

“What's what?” I asked.

“There's something written on the wall … I can't make it out. Sissy, you got a flashlight?”

“Yes,” she said. “I'll be right back.”

I leaned down in front of where he was pointing and tried to see what it was, but I just couldn't make it out no matter how much I strained my eyes. Aunt Sissy returned with a flashlight and shined it on the wall. There, scraped into the stone were four letters.

P.

A.

Another P. And another A.

Papa.

“Oh, my God, I'm going to be sick,” I said.

“What is it?”

Tears welled in my eyes and my breath came in quick, ragged gasps. “Papa. It was her father.”

“What was her father?” Tom asked.

Aunt Sissy just stared at me, still not comprehending. Why I hadn't even suspected was beyond me. Anna's diary talks about how her father was gone from home the night of Konrad Nagel's murder. Describes her mother's bizarre behavior afterward. The fact that Sven had been the one to report the deaths. The fact that Karl Bloomquist had not taken his granddaughter in. He had never taken in Emelie Bloomquist because he thought she was dead. Sven had found a couple who would raise her away from Karl, and only when Karl was dead did Sven bring her to live with him. It was Karl whom they had been afraid of all along.

I had to wonder if Anna had figured it out. That her father had been the one to kill her lover and his father.

“Karl Bloomquist killed Konrad, most likely because Konrad refused to let Isaac marry Anna.”

“And then he killed Isaac for getting her pregnant in the first place?” Aunt Sissy asked.

“That would be my guess.”

“Who are you guys talking about?” Mayor Tom asked.

“And then he burned down the house with his daughter and her baby inside, hoping to rid himself of the whole distasteful deed,” Aunt Sissy said.

“Only he didn't realize his wife was inside. Or maybe he did and by then he didn't care,” I said.

“Oh, my God,” Aunt Sissy said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Who are you guys talking about?” Mayor Tom insisted.

“Your ghost,” I said. “And her tragic life.”

“There is no ghost,” Tom said.

“I've gotta get out of here. The mold and mildew is making me sick,” I said.

“I'm with you,” Mayor Tom said.

Within seconds we were out of the cellar and on the back porch. I shivered from the overwhelming betrayal of it all. I put my head between my knees and just cried. I cried for Anna Bloomquist, who had clawed her killer's name on the cellar wall as she succumbed to the ghastly black smoke.

“Are you guys gonna tell me what is going on?” Mayor Tom asked.

Aunt Sissy put a hand on my shoulder and I swiped at my tears. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. It might not ever stand up in a court of law, but I knew in my gut that Karl Bloomquist was the killer of Konrad and Isaac Nagel and his own daughter and wife.

“Aunt Sissy,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Next time you want to know who wrote something? You find it out for yourself. This has been the most gut-wrenching thing I've been through in a long time. And I don't even know these people!”

“Next time I find an ancient diary, I'm not even going to read it.”

Twenty-six

I tossed and turned all night. Partly because I knew we were leaving the next day, and partly because I was sleeping in the house on the site where a zealot had burned down his house so that his daughter and grandaughter would no longer be an embarrassment to him. Oh, and then there was Brian Bloomquist, who I would bet money was murdered simply because he owned a tract of land that Roberta Flagg wanted.

Thoughts of Roberta and her audacity kept my heavy eyes wide open for hours. The woman had the audacity to punch me because I dared to say something negative about her ancestor. He wasn't a murderer, but he was certainly a jerk. I couldn't take it any longer. Maybe it was my ego, but I could not let that woman think she had pulled the wool over my eyes. Maybe she had everybody else in this town fooled, but she didn't fool me.

I got up at six, skipped breakfast, and borrowed Rudy's truck. I drove around the country, around the lake, through town, and then I eventually stopped at the side of the lake without buildings and without people and just sat there surrounded by Mother Nature and tried to clear my head. The lake was gorgeous, the blue sky reflected on the surface, with the green trees lining the side. It almost looked like I was at one of those IMAX movies where everything was projected in a circle all around me.

Finally, I went to the historical society hoping to find Roberta. She wasn't there. It was too early. I went to a gas station and looked in the white pages and found Roberta's address. Then I asked the attendant where Watson Grove was located.

When I knocked on her door a few minutes later, I was keenly aware of the little things, like the bikes that were thrown down in the yard, the sandbox. The dog doo I had just stepped in. It was a small ranch, probably three bedrooms. They couldn't afford much. How could they? Every penny they had was being spent on lakefront property. Roberta answered the door wearing a dingy plaid house robe and big pink fluffy slippers. She looked shocked to see me. There was a sense of satisfaction hidden in that expression of shock. Like she was going to get one more chance to deck me or something.

“I want to talk to you,” I said.

“I'm not letting you in my house for love or money,” she said.

“I need to talk to you about Brian Bloomquist,” I said.

Roberta gave a nervous look over her shoulder. “I have nothing to say,” she said.

Her family was probably at home. She wasn't going to talk to me where they could hear her, no matter what.

“Why don't you come out here on the porch,” I said. “That way I can call you a murderer, and your kids won't hear me.”

Roberta's face went white. Then she laughed. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“I think you do,” I said.

She shut the door and came out on the porch then. “Say what you have to say and then get off my property, out of Olin, and out of this state.”

“In a hurry to get rid of me, eh?”

She exhaled an angry breath and then said, “What do you want?”

“I just want to let you know that you don't fool me. I know you killed Brian Bloomquist,” I said. “You thought if you killed him everybody would automatically assume it was Kimberly Canton. Then you'd be free to buy the property. What you didn't think of … which either shows your haste or your stupidity—I'm going for the latter—is that Kimberly Canton has an airtight alibi.”

She said nothing.

“So, then you're still free to buy the land—if the widow decides to sell—because nobody really suspects little ol' Roberta. You've been very quiet about the subject.”

“What subject?”

“The fact that you're in a race to get as much lakefront property as Kimberly Canton.”

“Don't be silly,” she said, but she pulled her robe closer to her chest.

“You own over two hundred acres right now, isn't that right?” Roberta's gaze shifted from mine to somewhere in the front yard. “But you didn't figure anybody would ever catch on to that, did you?”

She said nothing. Anger seethed from every pore, but she said nothing to me.

“And nobody would have, if my aunt hadn't found that diary and started snooping around,” I said. “Now everybody knows everything.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, I've told the sheriff everything I know and all of my suspicions,” I said.

She laughed then, relief washing over her. “Oh, is that all? Ooooh, I'm shivering here. Go home, Mrs. O'Shea.”

I stopped her from turning to go inside by grabbing her arm, and she looked down at my hand as if it were diseased. “Get your hand off of me,” she said. “You're not in your hometown, dearest. You're in Olin. My town. They can't arrest me on your suspicions. I don't know how they do things in Missouri, but in Minnesota we have to have a little thing called physical evidence.”

I leaned in close to her then. “Oh, I'm not saying you're going to be brought up on charges. I'm just here to let you know that I know, Roberta. I know what you are and I know what you did. Whether I can prove it or not.”

Still Roberta said nothing. A flicker of something danced through her eyes. Fear. Guilt. And then justification. She felt justified in what she had done.

“And that's what I came here for,” I said.

“What?”

“That look you just gave me. My proof,” I said and let go of her arm.

I turned and walked down her steps, turning back to add one last thing. “Good day, Mrs. Flagg. You better hope you didn't leave any of that ‘physical evidence' behind.”

With that I got in my husband's truck and headed back to my aunt's farm. I was satisfied now. I knew by the look on her face she was guilty. Oh, and the fact that less than thirty seconds after I pulled out of her driveway she threw her kids in her car and took off like a bat out of hell. Still in her pajamas.

Twenty-seven

I went back to Aunt Sissy's, and after having one of her fabulous breakfasts of all breakfasts—reheated—Rudy and I started to pack the truck. A call came from the sheriff's office for Colin. I stood in the kitchen and watched my stepfather almost melt into a puddle of relief as he listened to Sheriff Aberg on the other end. He hung up the phone and then gave a gleeful shout.

“I get to go home with you guys. All charges dropped. I can leave the state. I can go home to my wife and … and … I get to ride in a car with you for twelve hours,” he said.

I smiled.

“I didn't think I would ever be so happy to be stuck in a truck with you for twelve hours, but, by golly, I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing,” he said.

“Not even fishing?” I said.

“Okay, well, no point in going to extremes.”

Aunt Sissy had been standing at the doorway. “I'm glad you get to go home with Rudy and Torie. Did they happen to say why they were letting you go?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “They made another arrest.”

Aunt Sissy and I looked at each other.

“Roberta Flagg.”

“I knew it,” Aunt Sissy said.

I sighed to myself, content. You know, it's just a lake. It's just land. It's not worth killing somebody over. How do people get so far gone in their dementia that they lose sight of that?

“Evidently, after you guys talked to him yesterday he was watching Roberta's house,” he said. “And some forensics just came back from the lab.”

“How do you know he was watching her house?” I asked.

“He said they arrested her as she was trying to flee town,” he said. “This morning.”

“That had to be hard for Sheriff Aberg,” I said. “Considering he's such good friends with her husband and all.”

“Yeah,” Colin nodded. “It's always harder when there's a personal connection.”

I just stared at him.

“Sometimes that personal connection actually makes it easier to arrest them,” he said and smiled.

“Yeah, I was waiting for that,” I said.

Suddenly an expression akin to that worn by a child on Christmas morning spread across his face. “Oh, I have to go pack!” And off he went.

Aunt Sissy disappeared for a second, holding up her finger. She returned with my quilt all folded neatly. “Here,” she said. “I finished it for you.”

“When did you find time to do that?”

“Last night after you went to bed,” she said.

“Oh, I want to see it. Let's lay it out on the floor in the living room.”

Once the quilt was spread out perfectly on the living room floor, without a single wrinkle, I just stood in awe. I hugged Aunt Sissy with everything I had. “Thank you so much,” I whispered.

“It's personalized,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” she said and held up a corner. There she had quilted in the words:
For Torie. Thanks for our adventure and for solving my mystery. Aunt Sissy.
“So that you'll never forget Anna Bloomquist,” she said.

“I don't think that's possible,” I said. I swiped at another blasted tear. “I will never forget her.”

I folded the quilt and ran my fingers across the stitches. “You have the package ready for Kimberly Canton?”

“Yes,” she said. “All I have to do is take it to the post office.”

“Great.”