Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona (6 page)

“Of course ‘tis the bard! Sonnet 104. About the passage and ravages of time. Which you three have yet to suffer.” She gives me a penetrating onceover. “How did
you
come to know Ingrid? I never heard her mention you.”

“I’m a family friend,” I lie. “Shanelle, Trixie, and I came to Winona to participate in the Giant W opening ceremony. I’m sorry but I didn’t catch your name?”

She looks shocked that I have to ask. “I’m Priscilla Pembroke! Surely you’ve heard of me.”

I’m too polite to reply that I have not. “I gather you don’t live in Winona?”

“I live in Manhattan.” She says it as if living anywhere else would be preposterous. “You would have had to know Ingrid only for a minute or two to hear her speak of me. We were as close as two friends can be. And now”—Priscilla staggers then lays her palm against her forehead—“she’s gone! ‘Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come!’ ” She lowers her head and gives me an expectant look. “Julius Caesar, of course. Act two, scene two, page two.”

“So … you’re an actress?” Shanelle guesses.

She hurls a glare like a hate bomb in Shanelle’s direction. “I am an ac-TOR! I will not be limited to female roles. I can play anything: man, woman, or beast.” She grabs the handle of her spinner. “I’ll show myself to my room.”

I race to bar her from proceeding upstairs. “Priscilla, you’ll have to wait for Ingrid’s sister to get back before you do that.”

Her nostrils flare. “You cannot seriously mean to keep me from a home I know as well as my own.”

“It’s not up to me. Maggie is Ingrid’s closest relative and you’ll have to speak to her.”

It’s only after Shanelle and Trixie flank me in a show of solidarity that Priscilla backs down. “I’ll prove to all of you how intimately I know Ingrid,” she huffs. “In fact, even though she swore me to secrecy, I will tell you where her shrine is.”

“She has a shrine?” Trixie says.

“To the goddess Freyja!” This time Priscilla throws out both arms. “The name means lady. She is one of the pre-eminent goddesses of the Norse pantheon. A high-ranking member of the tribe of deities known as the Vanir.”

Trixie’s features twist in confusion. “Why would Ingrid have a shrine to this Freyja?”

“Because she was a worshipper! Like so many women drawn to Freyja’s wisdom and her pursuit of passionate fulfillment in life. I believe no heathen goddess is so loved, and so misunderstood, as Freyja. She is incredibly complex.” Priscilla eyes us dubiously. “Too complex for many to understand.”

I watch Trixie’s eyes widen with every word Priscilla utters. Pantheon. Tribe. Vanir.

Heathen.

“Are you a worshipper, too?” Shanelle wants to know.

Priscilla lowers her voice. “I have been known to participate in the honor rituals. They’re celebrated every Friday the 13
th
.”

That’s coming around again in just a few days. “All right,” I say. “Show us Ingrid’s shrine.” This I’ve got to see.

With a triumphant spin, Priscilla makes a beeline for the library. Either she’s a fantastic actress or she really does know her way around Damsgard. This is yet another spectacular room with gorgeous floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a formidable antique desk with elaborate carvings. The Christmas tree in the corner is bedecked with red ornaments and ribbons; Santas perch on the steps of the rolling bookshelf ladder; and holiday stockings dangle from the fireplace mantel.

“I don’t see a shrine in here,” Shanelle says.

Priscilla raises a silencing hand in our direction. She can’t seem to tear her eyes from the oil painting that hangs above the mantel. It features brightly colored sailboats tearing around on what looks like a stormy sea. I’m no art expert but I’d describe it as impressionistic.

Finally she abandons the painting and walks to the bookshelves in the corner by the Christmas tree. I don’t see what she does but presto!—the shelves swing back to reveal a secret room.

We three queens gasp. “It’s just like in the movies!” Trixie cries.

Priscilla flings us an exultant look. “I told you I knew my way around Damsgard.” She flounces into the secret room and you can bet we immediately follow.

It’s a small windowless room and, yes, there is a shrine inside. Well, more of an altar really, draped in crimson and forest green fabric that crashes to the oriental carpet. On top of it are arrayed several tall gold vases holding stalks of wheat. I also note sprigs of dill and small sculptures of animals. A cat, a bird, and—

“What’s this?” I hold up a gray stone sculpture that looks like a fat, hairy pig with a prominent snout.

“That’s a boar.” Priscilla takes it from my hand and returns it to the altar. “Occasionally Freyja rides a boar. Sometimes a falcon.”

Shanelle guffaws. “I thought you were going to say she sometimes turns into one.”

Priscilla narrows her eyes. “Freyja has been known to shape shift. It is her choice whether to fly, ride an animal, or be carried in a chariot drawn by felines.”

I guess that’s where the cats come in. “What’s this?” I hold up a palm-sized uneven chunk of translucent golden stone.

Priscilla removes that, too, from my hand. “Freyja is associated with amber. As legend goes, she received a fantastic necklace of amber by sleeping with four dwarves on four succeeding nights.”

Wow. I guess that’s how Freyja found that “passionate fulfillment” that Priscilla referred to. Personally, if I went in for that sort of thing, I would prefer taller men. But to each her own.

“Amber has been meaningful to many over the centuries,” Priscilla tells us. “It has been found in Egyptian tombs and was even used as currency among the Assyrians and the Phoenicians.” Priscilla gazes at each of us in turn. “It is sometimes called ‘the jewel whose power cannot be resisted.’ ”

I shiver, hearing that. All this is freaking me out. It’s so far removed from my own experience. And never would I have guessed that anything “heathen” would come within a million miles of Ingrid Svendsen.

Then again, this just proves Ingrid had secrets. It was no doubt one of those that got her killed.

“Why was Ingrid into all this?” Shanelle wants to know.

Priscilla edges closer. “You’re so narrow-minded you can’t think of a reason? Perhaps she was not bound by Western tradition, as you seem to be. Perhaps the Icelandic sagas resounded in her heart. Perhaps she espoused the heathen values of warriorship and understood the value of bold action.”

“You said she swore you to secrecy,” I say. “So Ingrid was making a point of keeping all this to herself?”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same thing?” Priscilla demands. “In a town where eyes snoop and tongues wag?”

I hope they do wag. In fact I’m hoping I can make Priscilla’s tongue wag. I don’t know what to make of this nervy Manhattanite but if she knows Ingrid half as intimately as she says she does, she’ll be a font of information. “Perhaps you’d like to join us for a glass of wine and some soup,” I suggest. I make a point of leading Priscilla out of the secret room. I have a suspicious enough mind that I’m worried she might try to trap us in there given half a chance. “I’m sure by the time we’re done with lunch Maggie will be back from her errands.”

“That would be delightful—” she’s starting to say when again the doorbell rings.

I march into the foyer and throw the door open, castigating myself for once again hoping to find Mario Suave on the stoop. No such luck. While this latest arrival is indeed a man, and a man roughly Mario’s age, too, it is not Mario. With his beard, longish dark hair and tweed jacket, he’s a professor-type who’s just sexy enough that some students would fall in love with him.

He holds out his hand. “I’m Peter Svendsen.” He waits a beat, then, “Erik Svendsen’s son.”

“Ingrid’s … stepson?”

He nods. I step back to usher him in out of the cold. As he stomps the snow off his shoes, behind me I hear clattering noises. Then the kitchen door at the side of the house bangs. Maggie and Pop must’ve come back in that way for some reason.

It’s only when I’m introducing Peter to Trixie and Shanelle that I realize Priscilla is no longer among us. Her luggage is gone, too. Nor is there any sign of Pop or Maggie having returned.

I race to the kitchen. The side door is ajar. I pull it open even though I already know what I will see in the freshly fallen snow. Footprints. And the tracks left by a trendy leather spinner.

Trixie has trailed me into the kitchen. “First we can’t get rid of Priscilla and then she disappears! Where did she go?”

“The tracks lead to the street.” I give my nose a hearty blow. “I presume she came by car.”

Trixie throws out her arms. “How weird is that?”

I’m mystified, too. And freakish behavior by an out-of-towner who claims to be the BFF of the murder victim certainly raises a host of questions in my mind.

I want to know more about Priscilla Pembroke. Though I don’t know how I’ll ever find her again.

First things first. We rejoin Shanelle and Peter Svendsen in the living room.

This is an amazingly beautiful space, too, with the same rust-colored walls and coffered ceilings as the dining room plus stunning white built-in cabinetry and plush velvet-upholstered seating arrangements. Poinsettias and garlands abound. And the Christmas tree in this room is the grandest of all. Since it’s a real tree, it gives off a marvelous pine scent. A gazillion glittering ornaments hang from its branches, also adorned by green mesh ribbon flecked with gold.

“We’re all so sorry about your stepmother,” I tell Peter after we offer him a glass of wine. It turns out he’s already heard through the grapevine that Ingrid invited all of us to stay as guests here in his childhood home.

“Thank you.” He clasps his hands between his knees. “I will admit to you that we weren’t close. Still, it’s a shocking thing.”

“I imagine you’ve talked to the police.”

“I didn’t have much to tell them. The truth is that since my father died I’ve had as little as possible to do with Ingrid.”

Peter seems in the mood to dish the dirt. I’ll take him up on it. “It sounds like you disapproved of the marriage.”

“My sister and I both did. Nora moved to Chicago and got married years ago so she’s less involved than I am. But she knows the gossip just like everybody else does.”

This is getting good. I lean forward. “What gossip is that?”

“Ingrid Svendsen did to my father what she did to her first husband. She homed in on a well-to-do older man and insinuated herself into his life. Granted, my father was divorced.”

“Her first husband wasn’t?” Trixie interjects.

“Far from it. He was a well-known doctor with a wife and young kids. He was at least fifteen years older than Ingrid. But did she let any of that stop her?”

I watch Peter Svendsen get het up. Clearly he’s no fan of stepmommy dearest.

“Ingrid might have put on a good show,” he goes on, “but she was nothing but a scheming opportunist. Nora and I went ballistic when my father got it into his head to marry her.”

“You must’ve tried to talk him out of it,” Shanelle says.

“I tried, Nora tried. We couldn’t reason with him at all.”

I have to wonder if the Svendsen heirs were more worried about their inheritance than their father’s happiness. “Was Ingrid a good wife to your father?” I ask.

Peter grudgingly admits she was. “Except for how much money she spent. Too much was never enough. And I’d be damned if I’d let her get her claws into Damsgard.”

My ears perk up. “What do you mean?”

“She led you to believe she owned the place, right?” He snorts. “She did that all the time. It drove me crazy.”

“She
didn’t
own it?” Shanelle says.

“No way! That’s one concession Nora and I wrung out of Dad. He stipulated in his will that Ingrid could live here until she died but that’s it. The house was never in her name. Never. And now that she’s gone Damsgard and everything in it will come to me.”

Whoa! I fall back against the sofa cushions. Shanelle, Trixie, and I look at each other and I can see they’re as astonished as I am. This is a major news flash.

For Maggie, it’ll be gargantuan.

That is, if it’s true. Peter Svendsen has a vested interest here. He may not be speaking the whole truth and nothing but.

“In fact, that’s why I’m here,” he goes on. “I haven’t been in the house for four years, since my dad died. I couldn’t bring myself to watch Ingrid play lady of the manor. Now I don’t have to anymore.” He stands up. “I’d like to look around.”

Man, it’s a full-time job keeping people from wandering in off the street and wanting to traipse through the house. I don’t feel I can stop Peter Svendsen, though, the way I stopped Priscilla Pembroke. After all, I’m only here at the behest of someone who’s no longer among the living. I’ll just keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t lift anything.

Peter, Trixie, and I have wandered into the library—where the secret-door bookshelf is back in place—when I get it into my head to ask if he ever met Priscilla Pembroke. “She said she was one of Ingrid’s best friends,” I say.

“That’s not much of a recommendation in my book.” He runs a loving hand across the antique desk. I wonder if he ever sat there and did homework as a boy.

“Priscilla is an actress,” Trixie adds. “She’s very theatrical.”

Peter groans. “God save me from actresses.”

“It sounds like there’s a story there,” I guess.

“An epic tale. Don’t ask.”

Before Peter takes his leave, he wants to know how long we’ll be staying in Winona. At this point that’s a good question.

“Another few days,” I reply vaguely. “I hope that won’t be a problem for you.”

Peter pulls open the front door and cold air rushes inside. It’s already pitch dark out and we three queens haven’t even finished lunch. “None of this will happen fast,” he says and I know he’s referring to the day he longs for, when Damsgard will be his.

I have to wonder if he took action to hurry that day along.