January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) (6 page)

Twelve

I spent a chaste,
troubled night curled in Johnny’s arms, both of us too tired to clean up the kitchen before we tumbled into bed. It sounded like Gary was going to be okay, but Maurice most certainly was not. Mrs. Berns and I were likely two of the last people to see him alive, besides his killer. Something Kennie had said was niggling at me, too. She’d said Maurice was a transient, but I knew better. He’d been clean and focused every time he’d entered the library, not to mention a regular for a whole week. I made a mental note to call the Chicago Public Library system to see if they could tell me anything about Maurice, up to and including whether or not he’d recently checked out any books.

I must have fallen asleep near sunrise because next thing I knew, I was alone in my bed and the clock was telling me it was 7:14 AM. I sat up, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. I was disoriented, and at first I thought it was because Johnny was gone. Then I realized that the problem was I was sleeping on the mattress for the first time in weeks. I fought the anxiety, leaning over to sniff Johnny’s empty pillow. The faint scent of his spicy shampoo was comforting. I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. At least I meant to, but it felt like the booglies had set up camp in it for the night. Dragging myself out of bed, I made my way to the kitchen, patting Luna’s happy head on the trek. Tiger Pop stretched when she saw me.

“What time did Johnny leave?”

Luna tried to beat the answer in Morse code using her tail, but alas, I was too dumb to understand. Thankfully, Johnny had left a note on the kitchen counter, which he must have very quietly cleaned while I slept:

Sorry I had to leave before you woke up. Early day at work. You looked beautiful sleeping.

I smiled and pushed a lock of my brown hair out of my eyes. The whole tangled mass moved as one. I ignored it and kept reading:

I baked these cookies last night for dessert, but we didn’t have time to try them. I hope they’re good. I have evening commitments all week. Can you make it to our show on Friday? Call me.
—J

I was sorely tempted to scribble little hearts on that note and hide it under my pillow. That feeling doubled when I lifted the cover next to his note and uncovered a plate mounded with peanut butter cookies, my favorite. I was trying to lose a couple pounds in my belly, so I ate three of them fast following the time-honored maxim that a cookie eaten quickly has no calories.

My next duty was to scrub out Luna and Tiger Pop’s water bowls, fill them with fresh water, and pour their daily ration of food. Somehow, Luna turned her portion into a lean German Shepherd machine. Tiger Pop managed to put on weight, even though the ratio of her food to her body size was the same as Luna’s. I suspected she’d figured out how to break into the cat food cupboard while I slept, or better yet open the fridge for snacks, then kick back on the couch and click on the TV to watch Animal Planet’s blooper reels when I wasn’t around. She was a cat, though. If she didn’t want me to know, I wasn’t going to know.

I scratched them both behind the ears as they ate. We weren’t terribly active in the winter, which I occasionally felt bad about. Luna had her run of the acreage whenever she wanted, but I knew they both missed me when I was gone for long days.

“Maybe we could hit the sledding hill sometime this week,” I suggested. Tiger Pop arched her spine when I scratched the sweet spot where her back met her tail.

Once I was satisfied both animals knew they were loved, I hopped in the shower, applying extra conditioner so I stood a chance of forcing a comb through my shoulder-blade-length brown hair afterward. I also shaved, though I had to change razors halfway through. I lotioned up afterward, rolled on some honey-flavored lip balm, tossed myself into a clean pair of blue jeans, my comfy white bra (which I had to dig out from behind the nightstand), and a rainbow t-shirt that read “Freedom to Love.”

Today’s plans were informal. The library was technically closed on Sundays, though I had agreed to open the space to host a birthday party for Matthew, one of my favorite story hour regulars. He turned five this week. Before the birthday party, I had a meeting scheduled with an attorney at the Litchfield Law Firm. He said he had a small investigative job that he’d like to talk about over a cup of coffee. I also needed to interview Gilbert Hullson about Jiffy, the ice-diving dog, and I wanted to stop by the nursing home to visit my friend and amateur historian Curtis Poling to ask him some questions. Dangit, I wanted to stop by the hospital in Fergus and check on Gary, as well.

Phew. I was tired just thinking about my supposed day off. I gave the animals some more love, tugged a cap over my wet hair and my down jacket over my t-shirt, and headed into the cold world.

Thirteen

Chuck Litchfield was in
his seventies, white-haired but sharp. His son had hired me back in November to investigate an apparent hunting accident. Two corpses later, I solved the crime, but not before uncovering an ancillary drug operation very close to home on top of nearly losing my own life. The fact that Chuck was willing to hire me told me that his law office had very low standards. Fine by me.

“Ms. James! So glad you could make it.”

He motioned me to sit across the booth from him at the Shoreline Café. The Shoreline was the Winchester House of Battle Lake, perpetually being added onto. It had started with a cute dining room and kitchen. Then, a cavernous dining room had been added in the back beyond the restrooms. Next, a bar and ice cream parlor were attached, and a bowling alley was added on to that. The layout felt a little jigsaw puzzled, but this was easy to forget once you dug into their fluffy omelets, or better yet, their heavenly eggs Benedict.

Chuck had chosen a booth at the bay window facing West Battle Lake, the perfect location to see who was coming and going. In the distance and to the right, I spotted the top spires of the ice castle peeking over the trees.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked.

He pointed at a small white plate dusted with crumbs. “Long enough to polish off a piece of homemade cherry pie. My wife would kill me if she knew I was having that for breakfast.”

The three cookies in my stomach nodded in sympathy. “It’s Sunday,” I said. “A day of rest and desserts.”

He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Don’t suppose I could talk you into your own piece of pie? I’d feel better if I wasn’t the only one who slipped.”

I took the seat across from him. My jeans were already feeling a little tourniquety around the waist. I’d figured they’d loosen as the day wore on and the fabric had a chance to stretch. It felt good to have a plan. “Sure. Caramel apple for me.”

He ordered that and another piece of cherry for himself, because “a gentleman never lets a lady eat alone.” I added on a cup of coffee with real cream. While we waited, he slipped into the reason he’d brought me here, Lutheran-style—which is to say, inefficiently and roundabout.

“Heard about the hoo-ha at the lake yesterday. Damn shame. Do they know who the young man you found in the ice was?”

The waitress set my coffee mug down and poured me a steaming cup. The rich smell comforted me instantly. I studied Chuck covertly as I mixed in the cream and two sugars. Previously, I’d only met him in passing when dealing with his son at the law firm. I knew he came from a farm background and was the first in his family to attend college. By all accounts, he’d worked hard for everything he had, and he was well-liked around town. Even so, there was something crafty in his eyes that put me on guard. “They think he was a transient.”

Chuck rubbed his chin. “Been a lot of fly-by-nighters around Battle Lake lately, it seems. It used to be that I recognized everyone in town in the winter. Now, I can’t go to Larry’s without running into at least five strangers, some of whom look like they’re from the rough side of the tracks. Do they think that drugs were involved?”

I sipped the coffee. The creamy, sweet liquid poured down my throat, sending shivers of satisfaction to my fingertips. “No idea.” I took another sip and watched him. Would he be disappointed that I couldn’t tell him more? If so, tough noogies. I wasn’t on the clock. Yet.

He shrugged, glancing back toward the pie cooler. The waitress was pulling out two pies that had been baked fresh that morning, no doubt. The apple pie was unbroken, the lattice work crust on the top drizzled with thick ropes of homemade caramel. A little bit of drool ran out of my mouth, and I wiped at it, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

“Well,” he said, pulling his attention back to me. “It’s a sad business, but not why I asked you here. What can you tell me about Eric Offerdahl?”

“Never heard of him, though I know the Offerdahl name is tied to the Prospect House.”

Chuck nodded. He’d expected that. I was starting to think nothing I could say would surprise him. He’d known exactly how this interview would go before he walked in the door, and truly, it felt like a job interview. “Eric is about your age, maybe a little younger. He was a troubled kid, might still be. Troubled, that is, obviously not a kid anymore. I was hoping you could track him down.”

Some stubborn streak in me refused to ask him why. “Do you have an address?”

“We think he’s living within fifteen miles of Battle Lake.”

“Any idea of who his friends might be?”

“He graduated high school here, but all his friends, if he had any, have moved on.”

“How long do you think he’s been back?”

“A month, maybe two.”

A lovely wedge of warm caramel apple pie with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream was slid in front of me. I smiled. Yesterday might have been a crap sandwich, but today was going pretty well so far. I ate my pie and pretended to contemplate everything Chuck had told me. I hoped my face was somehow radiating thoughtful intelligence because my brain was cycling over two words, again and again:
pie … amazing
. I finished the whole slice barely coming up for air, wondering if the speed-calorie conversion applied to pies as well as cookies.

“You must have been hungry,” Chuck said.

I looked up to see he was only on his second bite. Second bite of his second piece, though, which did not exactly give him carte blanche to the judgment chair.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the pie. It was delicious. If I take the case, how much time do I have to find Eric Offerdahl?”

“Two weeks from today.”

I did the math in my head. “I could give you twenty billable hours in the next two weeks, at forty dollars an hour. I’ll log all the sites I visit and leads I follow. If I don’t find him, you still pay.”

I’d made all this up on the spot, but he nodded as if what I was saying was reasonable.

“Deal.” He held out his hand.

I shook it, trying not to notice the thick cherry ooze smeared across his teeth like blood.

My meeting with Gilbert Hullson had far fewer layers. In fact, I’m not even sure it had one layer. I tracked him down at the hardware store where he worked part-time. He was in the screw aisle sorting through a bin.

“Mr. Hullson?”

“None other.”

He kept sorting, not bothering to glance my way. He wore flannel and, except for a spectacularly bulbous nose, looked like your average middle-aged Midwesterner.

“I’m Mira James. From the
Battle Lake Recall
? I’m here to interview you about Jiffy.”

That got his attention. He immediately stood, his eyes alight. “You shoulda seen it! One minute I’m planning her funeral, and the next, she’s shooting out of a fishhole like popcorn. Poor thing was wet and shivering to beat the band, but she was alive. Ooh, if she could talk, she’d have a story to tell, wouldn’t she?”

“So she really went into one hole and came out the other?”

“As real as these two hands.” He held his gnarled palms toward me. He was missing the ring finger on his left hand, which confused the analogy somewhat.

“Do you have witnesses?”

He flashed a sly smile. “I’m a fisherman. I can always come up with witnesses.”

I felt a mirror smile tugging at my lips. The guy was an absolute weirdo, and he was beginning to grow on me. “Good enough. Don’t suppose I could come by your house later tonight and snap a photo of Jiffy? To run with the article?”

He returned his attention to the screws. “She’d be pleased to meet you.”

Fourteen

In eighth grade, our
health class took a half-day trip to Paynesville Manor, the local nursing home. We were each assigned an honorary grandparent, and our job was to listen to their history and write a mini-biography from it. That’s one of those exercises that must look great on paper, a bunch of teacher’s chuffing each other around a table, talking about active and experiential learning. In reality, we were already struggling with acne and the unshakeable belief that human interaction was merely a set-up for humiliation
à
la face plants, sneeze-farts, spontaneously inappropriate confessions, and/or getting the answer wrong. To expect us to navigate an unfamiliar elderly population was pure cruelty.

Because of that experience, and because in my teens and twenties I’d been confident I’d never grow old and so why bother hanging out with those who were, I’d never entered another nursing home. Until I’d moved to Battle Lake. A series of circumstances led me to the Senior Sunset, and specifically to seek out Curtis Poling. He was believed to be in the middle stages of dementia by those who didn’t know him, an incorrect assumption that he cultivated by casting off the roof of the Sunset into the dry lawn in the back whenever it was sunny and “the fish were likely to be biting.” In truth, Curtis was as wily as they came, with sharp, clear blue eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He’d gone from being my informant to my friend, the man I visited weekly to play cards with, laugh with, and, in the summer, get gardening tips from. He’d also introduced me to Mrs. Berns last March, though she had since moved out of the nursing home and into her own apartment, labeling her temporary residency there a “misunderstanding.”

Today, as I strolled into the foyer of the Senior Sunset, I was struck by how comfortable the predominant scents of a nursing home—antiseptics, Bengay, and dusty-floral old-lady perfume—had grown to me. I signed in at the front desk and made my way to Curtis’s room. I knocked at his door.

“Who is it? Is it Satan? Because I’m not ready to go just yet.”

“Hey, Curtis. It’s me. Mira.”

“Timothy Leary? I’m too old for that psychedelic crap.”

“Mira,” I repeated, keeping my voice level. I smiled as a short, chunky nursing assistant walked past, wearing burgundy scrubs and a suspicious expression. “Mira James.”

“Etta James? What are you doing this far north?”

I sighed. “I brought donuts.”

“Door’s unlocked.”

I let myself in. Curtis lived in a standard room, set up much like a hospital room except for the dresser and the plants in the window. His room featured a bed and a nightstand, a TV mounted to the ceiling, an easy chair by the window and a plastic chair for guests, a closet, and a private bath. He was sitting by the window, reading H. G. Wells’s
The Time Machine
. Upside down. When he was sure it was me, he flipped it right side up.

“Why do you pretend?” I asked. “All the smart nurses must know you’re not crazy.”

He shrugged. “I make it easy on ’em by being consistent. And the crazier I act, the more they leave me alone.” He was wearing a dark blue terry cloth robe. His thin calves poked out like chopsticks. Thankfully, his bony feet were stuffed into the toasty knit mukluks I’d bought him for Christmas after I’d accidentally caught him barefoot. Old farmer’s feet are the stuff of nightmares.

“Where are they?” he asked.

“What?”

“The donuts.”

“I lied about those.” I pulled up the plastic chair so I was sitting across from him. “What was the deal with giving me the runaround in the hall?”

“New nursing assistant. Comes up about to your shoulders, shaped more like a square than a circle?”

I nodded. “She passed by while I was trying to get in. She looked fine, maybe a little curious.”

“Shows what you know. She’s convinced I’m not really crazy and has made it her mission to prove it.”

“Smart, too. I think I like her.”

He scrunched up his lips in a pout, and for a moment, he resembled a baby more than an old man.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll bring donuts next time. Promise. Do you have a few minutes right now?”

“That might be all I have. Never know when the ticker is going to punch out.” He winked. “So what do you want to know?”

First I asked him about Gary’s shooting. He’d heard that it’d happened, of course. You might not think someone in a nursing home would have their finger on the pulse of a town, but you’d be wrong. He still had friends on the outside, and stories were the currency of the Sunset. The elderly traded news like gold and pearls, and it all, somehow, rolled downhill to Curtis. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any more information on Gary than I did, and was in fact happy to learn that Gary’s wound was not serious.

The next topic of conversation was Maurice Jackson. Curtis didn’t ask me if I was okay after finding another body, and I loved him for that. He treated me like I was normal. He did say that he’d heard there were new drugs in town, and a gang on the fringes, and that he assumed they were connected.

“What do you mean, ‘on the fringes’?” I asked.

“They don’t live in Battle Lake, near as I can tell. In fact, I don’t know why they’d even bother coming here, with our small population. But they’ve been showing up often enough.”

“Do you think Gary’s shooting is connected to the gang?”

He rubbed his chin. “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. I’ve lived here for ninety-three years and never has a Battle Lake police officer been shot. It’d be quite a coincidence if a gang comes to town at the same time Gary’s attacked, and there’s no thread between the two. What’d you think of the Prospect House?”

“I never made the press tour,” I said, noting his abrupt shift in topic but not commenting. “I’m hoping for an email back scheduling a private tour.”

He stared out the window. I was struck by how ocean blue his eyes were, and how similar they were to Johnny’s. “She’s a gorgeous old building, that Prospect House. I’m happy other people are going to get to experience her. I stole my first kiss there, did you know that? She was a girl from St. Louis, visiting for the week with her parents. They owned a mercantile back home, I believe. I courted her all of those seven days she was in town, and the night before she left, I snuck into the Prospect House and met her at the base of the grand staircase. I pecked her cheek. She giggled and ran upstairs. Never saw her again.” His eyes grew misty and faraway.

I couldn’t help smiling. “That’s beautiful. What was her name?”

“Amelia. Prettiest girl you ever saw, except for my wife, God rest her soul.”

His use of the word
girl
reminded me of the face I’d seen in the window when I’d been skating. I didn’t see any reason to bring it up. In fact, the further I got from the event, the more certain I was
I’d imagined it. I’d need a full night’s sleep soon or I’d be com
pletely
loony. “Sorry to bring you back to earth, but I have one more
question. What can you tell me about Eric Offerdahl?”

His eyes immediately focused. He began chuckling. “How much research did you do on the Prospect House?”

“I know it was built by Barnaby Offerdahl. I imagine Eric is related to him.”

“Good. I was worried you were getting soft. Eric must be the, let me see now … the great-great grand-nephew of Barnaby. There might be even one more great on there. Eric can trace his lineage straight from Barnaby’s brother. He has blood from the bad side of the family.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s been nothing but trouble since he was born. That’s true of that whole remaining Offerdahl branch. Eric’s parents still own a lot of the land surrounding the Prospect House, but they had to sell off the house to pay gambling debts. I’m surprised they haven’t sold the land as well, given how much that would be worth.”

“Are his parents still alive?”

“His mom, no. She died a decade or so back, heart attack I think I heard. His dad is older, in his seventies, I believe, but as far as I know, still alive. They had Eric late in life. He’s an only child. After he graduated high school, they moved to Phoenix or Texas. Somewhere warm.”

“Any idea where Eric is now?”

“How many donuts are you planning on bringing me next visit?”

“How many do you want?”

He chuckled. “This is worth at least a half dozen Long Johns, but not with that fake chocolate in the middle. I want jelly.”

“You got it.”

He kept the smile on his face. “Last I heard Eric blew back into town about the same time the gang did.” He raised his eyebrows to make sure I understood what he was implying. “He’s living somew
here around Swederland.”

Swederland was a two-bars-and-a-post-office town a five-minute drive from Battle Lake. “That’s where the new brewery is, isn’t it?”

“O’Callaghan’s. But
that
is a whole other story, and you’d have to bring me a dozen donuts for that.”

I wanted to hear more, but his eyes were drooping, and Curtis’s hands had grown minutely shaky on his lap. He was tired, and he was trying to tell me gently. I stood and kissed the top of his head. He still had thick white hair, which was a point of pride with him. It smelled like Brylcreem. “That’s a deal. I have to be running, though. Have an appointment and all that.”

He took my hand. His was as dry as paper, but strong despite the tremor running through it. I glanced at his face, surprised by the affection.

“You are going to be okay, kid.” He smiled and released my hand. “You’re like a cat, curious as the day is long, and always landing on her feet.”

I smiled back. “See you soon,” I said. I glanced over my shoulder on the way out. His eyes were closed.

I arrived at the library with a full hour to go until the birthday party. I decorated with a roll of crepe paper and flicked on the twinkle lights, then went to my computer. Navigating into my paid database, I first ran a search on Eric Offerdahl. There was only one hit, his current address listed as north Minneapolis. I also uncovered a list of misdemeanor crimes committed by him, including vandalism, petty theft, and public intoxication. Most of his crimes took place in Minnesota with the exception of a case of trespassing in Chicago. He’d done jail time, a month here or a month there, but on paper, he appeared to be more of a directionless punk than a serial criminal.

I tracked down a single photo of him, a fuzzy shot where he had his arm wrapped around a woman’s neck in a possessive hug. He had brown hair. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, but he wore a spike through his right eyebrow. The rest of his features were bland. The woman had a beautiful, heart-shaped face accented by a lip ring and thick black liner rimming her eyes.

I clicked on the photo and was brought to the woman’s Facebook page. I knew of Facebook, of course. Who didn’t? I didn’t have an account I posted to, though, just a skeleton page to allow me to log in and research others. What had our culture come to that people needed to advertise that they had a cold and were going to shop for cheese later that day? Made my job easier, but still.

The woman’s name, according to the page, was Lil Angie, and she lived in Minneapolis. I couldn’t find any other photos of Eric on her page or any more mention of him. I wrote down the URL and left Facebook, glancing at the clock. The birthday party guests would arrive soon.

I had time for a curiosity-driven search on “Maurice Jackson,” so I returned to my subscription database. I received twenty hits on the name in the greater Chicago area, with phone numbers and addresses for all of them. Whether they were current or whether any of them were the iced Maurice would remain to be seen because at that moment, the first knock came at the glass front door. It was Matthew and his mom. I waved them in with one hand and clicked the Print button with the other.

Matthew’s friends weren’t far behind, and soon I had the library filled with giggling, Duck Duck Gray Duck–playing kids. They were extra-crazy, hiding in plain sight under chairs and telling jokes with no punch lines. It must be the weather, which one parent told me was going to reach the low thirties today.

“Above freezing?” I asked.

“I know!” she said, as surprised as I was.

Mrs. Berns, who had promised to help me with today’s party, showed up as the worst was over and we were about to cut into the cake and ice cream. “Nice timing,” I whispered, as she laid her coat over the front counter.

“Thank you!” she said brightly. “Is it marble cake? That’s my favorite.”

I glanced over at the sheet cake Matthew’s mom was cutting into, slicing right into the green frosting tail of a brontosaurus. Marble cake was my favorite, too. Could I have cookies for breakfast, pie for a snack, and cake for lunch? I was excited to find out. “I don’t know yet. Where were you?”

“Late night,” she said. “I was playing bridge with some friends, and then I went to the Rusty Nail to sing karaoke.”

I asked, despite myself. “What’d you sing?”

“‘Like a Virgin,’” she said, straight-faced. “Let me help!” she ran over to where Matthew’s mom was sliding the first slice of cake onto a plate. “I can be your distributor.”

Matthew’s mom smiled gratefully and handed the plate to Mrs. Berns, who added a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on the top and then returned to my side.

“Aren’t you going to pass it out to the kids, first?”

“Charity starts at home.”

I threw my hands in the air. She was being particularly difficult today. I scurried over to help with the cake, making sure all the kids and parents had what they needed, all the while wishing I’d laid plastic on the floor. It looked like I was going to have to bring in a professional to shampoo the carpet after this shindig. The thought killed my desire for cake, so I made my way back to Mrs. Berns. She was talking to a woman who’d brought her grandson to the party. The lady was showing Mrs. Berns a photo book. I assumed the pictures were of her grandson and was surprised to make my way out to the side and see they were instead of a golden retriever.