January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) (16 page)

Thirty-Nine

I hung at the
hospital until they chased me out well past visiting hours. Curtis didn’t wake up again, but the nurse on staff assured me that it was an excellent sign that he had spoken. Driving home, I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. Was it yesterday? I realized I was so hungry that my stomach was cramping. I pulled into the Sunmart Foods parking lot and dipped into the deli to buy some spicy buffalo wings. I ended up leaving with the wings, a grapefruit soda, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and a small bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. When I pulled into my driveway, 97 percent of the food was in my tummy and only 3 percent on the front of my coat and in my lap.

“Where have you been all day?”

Taunita was seated on the couch, Timothy tucked under her arm and Alessa in her lap, reading an
Olivia
picture book to both of them. I glanced at the clock. It was 6:28 PM.

“My friend’s in the hospital. He was in critical condition, but it looks like he’s through the worst of it.” Away from the hospital and anyone who really knew me, I began to melt. The tears came first, followed by the kind of crying that made it hard to breathe.

It was embarrassing to be so emotional in front of a near stranger, but she pulled me over to the couch. I’d been doing too much of this crying thing lately. When my sobs had subsided to whimpering, I wiped at my eyes and saw that Timothy had put his soft blankie across my lap and gone to play with Luna. Alessa was on the other side of her mom, still watching me with her serious eyes, her thumb stuck in her mouth.

“Sorry,” I said, pulling away and going for a tissue.

Taunita watched me. “We all need a good cry sometimes. What put your friend in the hospital?”

I told her, starting with who Curtis was and what he meant to me, how he’d become a close friend and honorary grandpa to me. He was my guy. I counted on him. I needed him. “I guess he woke up for a short bit this afternoon,” I finished. “He asked for me, and another friend, and said the guy who attacked him had a tattoo and made a sound like a hurt baby animal.”

“Aw shit.” Taunita stood and began pacing. “Ray beat up an old man? Outside a drugstore? Shit,” she repeated.

Timothy’s eyes grew wide. I expected we would hear him trying out that word very shortly.

“Sounds like,” I said. “I don’t know anyone else with a stingray tattoo. I told the police what Curtis said before I came here.”

“But your friend isn’t awake yet?”

“He wasn’t when I left. He won’t be talking to anyone before tomorrow at the earliest.”

She glanced at her jacket. “You mind watching the kids while I go out for a while? I gotta get out of the house.”

Timothy was brushing Luna with a hairbrush that looked suspiciously like my own. Also, a distinct smell had begun to emanate from Alessa’s quadrant of the room, and it wasn’t chocolate.

“How long will you be gone?”

“Not too long. I need air.”

“Fine.” The woman had just watched me break down. What else could I say?

Ten minutes later, on her way out the door, she hit me with an
other zinger. “Oh, and a really hot guy stopped by looking for you.
Almost gave me a taste for blondes, except he looked so sad. Said his name was Johnny?”

“Peeza.”

“Your mom said you already ate.” Alessa hadn’t warmed to me yet, but neither was she crying. It had been just the three of us for nearly an hour. For most of that time, Timothy had alternated between saying “ship” (thank goodness he couldn’t say his “t”s well) and “peeza.” I’d spent a lot of those minutes trying not to think about Johnny. I knew I should call him, but not now. I was busy. I’d think about it tomorrow.

“Peeza.”

Had to give the kid points for consistency. “I have string cheese. Do you want some of that?”

“Peeza.”

My shoulders slumped. Pizza delivery, like high-speed internet, had not yet come to rural Minnesota. A gas station in Battle Lake offered in-town pizza delivery. I lived three and a half miles outside of town.

“I’ll try.” I grabbed the phone. After two minutes of negotiation and “turn left at the Johnson farm” type directions, the delivery man agreed he’d bring pizza right to my door for an extra $5 delivery charge. I took it as a victory. Thirty minutes later, Timothy and I were enjoying second supper, and Alessa had allowed me to hold her, though she craned her neck like an owlet so she could watch me while I did so.

“Does your sister ever smile?”

“
Dinah-sore!” Timothy dropped his pizza slice, arched his fingers into claws, drew back his lips, and growled.

I was getting ready to check his temperature when I felt the chuckle in my arms. Alessa was laughing at her brother, a deep Buddha giggle that rocked her whole body. It was contagious, calling up bubbling giggles from inside me. The more Alessa and I laughed, the more faces Timothy made, from monkey to giraffe to “monter-bot-a-rawr.”

“Hey,” I said spontaneously. “Do you guys want to go sledding?”

Timothy stopped in mid-mouse and pointed at the window. “Dark. Dark out der.”

It was indeed night, but a gorgeous full moon glittered on the snow like an invitation.

“Moonlight sledding! It’ll be fun.” I cleaned up the pizza, wrote Taunita a note explaining where we were, changed Alessa’s diaper for the second time that night, and piled both kids into their winter gear. Twenty minutes later, I’d hauled Sunny’s sleds out of a nearby shed and pulled the kids to the top of the sledding hill by the house. Luna was at our side, barking her excitement. The three of us slid down dozens of times, snow shushing up at us and the moon smiling down. I was amazed and grateful that Taunita trusted me with such incredible, valuable, creatures. They giggled. They begged for more. Boogers ran down both their faces like open faucets, and still they didn’t want to stop sledding. I thought of Maurice, and all that he would miss, and I kept on sledding with them until we were all soaked and Alessa’s eyes were heavy despite the smile on her face. I situated them both in the sled, Timothy holding his sister, and pulled them gently back.

They were both asleep by the time we reached the house, their cheeks impossibly rosy and vulnerable, their mouths both perfect little hearts. I carried them softly inside, wiped their noses, undressed and changed them, and tucked them into bed without waking them. I fell asleep on the couch so I’d be nearby if they needed me. Before I drifted off, I had a realization. The night I’d gotten the call about Curtis, I’d been sleeping on my mattress rather than under it. That meant tonight was the second night in a row that I’d slept above ground.

Something about having the kids around made me feel stronger.

Forty

I woke to the
sound of someone shuffling in my kitchen. I sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. The sun had not risen, but the murky lavender of the sky suggested it was near the horizon.

“Taunita?

“Ssh, now. The babies are still sleeping.”

I smelled oatmeal and coffee and heard her humming. “Where were you?”

“Stopping a cycle.” The humming continued. “Feeding justice. You must have wore out T and Alessa. They never sleep in this late.”

I pulled myself off the couch and poked my head into their room. Both were still conked out, Timothy sleeping with his arms sprawled and Alessa curled around a blanket. They looked like cozy, chubby angels. Returning to the kitchen, I accepted the cup of coffee Taunita handed me.

“I took them sledding. They’re pretty sweet kids.”

“Sledding? At night?”

“The moon was full.” I sipped at the coffee. It was bitter and delicious. I could get used to these roommates. “What do you mean you fed justice?”

“Not worth talking about. Can I borrow some money?”

I almost asked her what for, but it didn’t matter. I have a rule that I’ll lend anyone money once with no expectations of return. That way, I’m never let down, only pleasantly surprised. I grabbed my wallet off the counter. I had three twenties. I handed two to Taunita. “Do you know Eric Offerdahl?”

She shoved the money in her back jeans pocket. “I know the name. He’s a drug punk. Maurice met him through a friend in Chicago.”

“He’s from this area originally and is back here now, working at a brewery.”

She snorted. “From what Maurice told me, if Eric is working a legit job, it’s just a front to sell drugs. Mo said Offerdahl has bad bones.”

Her mention of Chicago earlier stirred a thought. “Have you ever heard of O’Callaghan’s? They had a carpet empire in the Chicago area, and now they own the microbrewery where Eric works. I’m wondering if the whole business is a front for drug-dealing.”

She shook her head. “Nah. Never heard of them. But if they owned an ‘empire,’ it makes no sense for them to mess with drugs. And why out here, in the middle of nowhere? It’s probably just two-bit Eric doing his business out the side.”

“Was Maurice dealing?”

She poured the oatmeal into a bowl. It smelled like apples and cinnamon. She must have brought it with her. Conflicting emotions chased each other across her face. She took her time answering.

“He said he wasn’t,” she said softly. “He said he was just here following up on those letters. But then he got himself killed, so I don’t know. You’re gonna look into what happened to him, aren’t you? You said you would.”

“Mama?”

We both turned. A tousle-headed Timothy stood in the doorway, his blankie in one hand and a love-worn teddy bear in the other. I wanted to hug him close, but he was looking at me shyly, as if he was embarrassed at how well we’d gotten along yesterday.

Taunita grabbed him and held him close. “Hey, baby. I heard you went sledding!”

He ducked his head into the crook of her neck. “Hungry.”

She began feeding him oatmeal. I was deliberately ignoring her question. I didn’t want to tell her no, but Maurice’s death was in police hands now, and with the drugs and recent violence, they certainly weren’t going to care about some old letter and a drafty story about a stolen inheritance.

I took advantage of her attention being distracted and slipped to the phone to call the hospital. No change in Curtis’s condition, for better or worse. I ducked into the shower and got myself cleaned and prepped for work. When I returned to the living room, Alessa was awake, too, and eating her share of oatmeal with her mom’s help. She put her arms up to me immediately when she saw me, and I felt like I’d just won the Boston Marathon.

I snuggled her, taking over the oatmeal feeding and managing to keep us both pretty clean.

“I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” I finally said. “But nothing’s changed. I still can’t promise anything.”

Taunita smiled and nodded. She’d been waiting patiently for my answer.

“I’ve got to go to work at the library, and then maybe run some errands after. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

“All right,” Taunita said.

All I could think of to help was to stop by the Prospect House before work in the hopes of talking with Carter Stone. I’d ask him what, if anything, he knew about Orpheus Jackson. It was the safest way I could think of tracking down information for Taunita.

It was a beautiful day, icy but clear, the sun sparkling off the driveway with the strength of a klieg light. The air looked and smelled beautifully clean, purified in the bitter cold. I put the temperature at five below zero, but it was only a guess. I scraped all six windows as the Toyota warmed up, or at least became less frigid. The seat was still rock-cold when I slid into it, hunched forward so I could see through the defrosted circles immediately at the base of the windshield. By the time I reached the end of Sunny’s long driveway, I didn’t need to hunch. The lower third of the windshield was clear. By the time I was at the Prospect House, the car was warm. Oh well.

It was eight o’clock, well before regular tour hours. I decided to walk right into the kitchen rather than knock. I surprised Carter pouring a mug of coffee, his Civil War–style cap askew on his head.

“Good morning!” His voice was surprised, and he glanced over my shoulder. I followed his gaze and spotted someone disappearing down the stairs that led to the section of the House devoted to the Civil War.

“My wife,” he said, by way of explanation. “Going to do some more cataloging. Were we expecting you?”

“Sorry, no. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me before I go to work. About Orpheus Jackson?”

He leaned into the fridge, grabbed a jug of whole milk, and poured a healthy dose into his coffee. “Who?”

“Orpheus Jackson. He was in the Battle of Honey Hill with—”

“Barnaby Offerdahl,” he finished for me. “Barnaby served in the 1st Artillery. I believe the Union lost nearly a hundred men in that battle. Barnaby was one of ’em. I do recall the name Orpheus, but it’s more an old legend than anything. A story really.”

“Do you mind telling it?”

He shrugged, taking a deep pull from his coffee cup. “From what I recall, Barnaby didn’t mention Orpheus in any of the letters to his brother that I came across, but that’s no surprise. Barnaby didn’t trust any of his own family beyond his daughter. What I heard, I heard through the hundred-and-twenty-year-old grapevine, so I wouldn’t call any of it reliable. But there was a story that Barnaby became close friends with a free black man during the war. It was a bit of a scandal around here, in those times, because Barnaby spread the word that he was bringing the man back with him to live in Battle Lake.”

“But he never did bring an army buddy home with him?”

“Not that I know of. Barnaby only came back to Battle Lake once after he started serving, shortly after the first time he was shot, but he was back in the field again soon after.”

“But the free black man did come here.”

He set his coffee cup on the counter and topped it off. “How do you mean?”

“The hanged man.”

“Ah.” Carter rubbed his mustache. “That is true.”

My heartbeat started humming. I smelled a mystery here, a 120-year-old one. “I don’t suppose that hanged man could have been Orpheus, returning with a message for the Offerdahls?”

“Never occurred to me, but unlikely. Why would he have traveled all this way with a message, just to hang himself?”

Excellent question,
if
he actually hung himself. And if what Taunita had said about the return address on the letters Maurice had found was true, I knew for a fact that Orpheus had spent time in Battle Lake. “I wish we knew if the hanged man had any clues on him.”

Carter took a big slurp of his coffee. “That I
can
help with. I found a wooden box of his effects near the attic.”

“What? How do you know they belonged to the hanged man?”

He tapped his head. “I’m a bit of a historian. Well, more than a bit. Plus, the box was labeled ‘hanged man,’ with the date of March 1865 on the box, same month as the body was found.” He winked at me. “We’re cross-checking all boxes with the newspaper articles we have so we can find out what was what. We have quite a database going.”

“What was in the box?” I couldn’t contain my excitement. “Anything that would identify him?”

“All I remember is the musket. I keep that on display downstairs.”

“Can I see it?” The words of Orpheus’s letter were spiraling in my head:
Should anything happen to me, look to the tunnel of justice.
The tunnel of justice! What else could that refer to but the barrel of his musket? For the first time in my life, a mystery was falling into place immediately. I imagined discovering a note from Orpheus tucked in the barrel of the gun, yellowed with age but bearing a map to Civil War treasure he’d buried. Taunita and the babies would be rich. I followed Carter into the basement, fighting every instinct in me to nudge him in the back, forcing him to move faster.

“Libby?”

His wife glanced up from the far side of the room, where she was holding an ornate old handgun in one hand and typing on a laptop with the other. “Yes, love?”

“You remember the hanged man box?”

She turned to face us full on, setting down the handgun. Her face was pleasantly lined, her fading blonde hair curling at shoulder level. “Of course. It’s a gruesome story.”

“What else was in the box?”

She returned to her laptop, typing in a quick flurry of letters. “Musket 25A, a Bible, a wooden fife, and two quarters, two nickels, and a penny.”

“He had money in his pockets?” My heart dropped. So he hadn’t been robbed, which suggested that he also hadn’t been murdered, his treasure map taken, and then his body moved to make it look like a suicide.

“Sixty-one cents.”

“Here’s the musket,” Carter said, drawing my attention to a nearby table.

He placed the gun into my hands. It was heavy, maybe seven pounds, the dark brown wood worn so smooth that it felt satiny. The trigger was plated silver, as was the hammer. A metal strip rested on the top and the bottom of the long barrel, three equal-spaced silver bands circling the length of it.

“That’s a Springfield rifle musket, a single-shot muzzle-loader. You see the hammer?”

I nodded, touching the cool silver with my thumb.

“A percussion cap. It fired a .58-caliber Minie ball. One of the most accurate rifles of its time.”

“And it was found next to the hanged man’s body?” I couldn’t shake the disappointment. If Orpheus had been murdered as I believed, surely his gun would have been taken.

“As far as we know. We just have the wooden box. This gun definitely would’ve been used in the Civil War, so the date on the box is accurate.”

I turned the gun around. “No chance this could still fire?”

“None. I cleaned all the guns myself, made them safe for handling.”

“I’ve always wanted to look down the barrel of a musket.” It was a weird thing to say, but less odd than just doing it, I figured.

“Knock yourself out.”

I could feel Libby staring at me from across the room. I kept my attention on the hole, angling it toward the light, still nervous about looking down the barrel of a gun despite Carter’s assurance. I didn’t see anything and so angled it farther, and there it was—a shadow within a shadow. There was something curled inside the barrel. I sucked in my breath.

“Well, that’s one dream realized,” I said, handing the gun back to Carter. I couldn’t very well dig out whatever was in there right in front him. I liked him, but the residue of sleepless nights had me paranoid, and I didn’t know whose team he was on.

“All right,” he said, chuckling.

I appreciated that he didn’t question weirdness. Too bad I had already made up my mind to break into the Prospect House that night and steal the gun. “Thanks for your time. I better be running,” I said, making for the stairs. I walked past a gorgeous corn plant. “Beautiful plant!” I called over my shoulder.

“Thanks,” Libby said.

I thought I also heard her say, “Kennie takes care of them,” but I chose to block that out.

The rich, dark smell of fresh-roasted coffee washed over me, trailed closely by the homey scent of fresh-baked rolls. I would need to cut back on my eating, or at least start eating healthy, but I would think about that next week. Today, I wanted nothing more than a soy latte sweetened with fresh honey and sprinkled with cinnamon powder and a side of Sid’s homemade chocolate chip–pecan banana bread. I swallowed the excess saliva pooling in my mouth and made my way to the front.

The door opened behind me, letting in a gust of icy air, but I was staring at the glass display case like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I
could
have a fresh-fried glazed donut instead. Or—ohmygod, a new tray had just been slid into the display case—I could eat one of Sid’s famous skollebollers, a Norwegian cardamom-scented, vanilla custard-filled, coconut-dusted bun. They were so fresh that their warmth steamed the glass. I moaned.

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

I swiveled. Mrs. Berns was stepping from foot to foot.

“Do you have to pee?”

“Nope.” She tugged off her hat. “Just cold. Whatcha gonna have?”

I glanced back at the case. Could I declare an emergency and budge everyone? “Skolleboller.”

“Good choice.”

“Why aren’t you with your new friend?”

She pulled off her mittens, breathing into her fingers. “I missed you.”

I felt my eyes light up. “Really?”

“No!” She punched my arm. “Ha. You’re so gullible. No, I decided there’s only room for one gutsy old dame in a gang, and so I dumped her. She was too bossy, anyhow. Speaking of, what’s on our agenda for tonight?”