The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (19 page)

“John, that’s fantastic!” Bonnie was smiling big and bright. “We’ll celebrate tomorrow.”

“I don’t have the job yet.”

“You do. I’m sure of it. You said yourself this dinner is a formality.”

“I hope you’re right, sweetheart.”

“Look, John, we’re going out to dinner with Marlene tonight, but we should be home by 9:00. Make sure you call me tonight and tell me all about your dinner meeting.”

“All right.”

They said their goodbyes with several professions of love and excitement and mutual wishes for a fun evening with their respective dinner dates. When Bonnie hung up, she felt like clapping her hands and dancing her feet, but there was no one to dance with at the moment, not unless she wanted the carbon paper’s ink all over her clothes.

“Come on, you,” she said to her son. “Let’s wash up, then you can help Mama decide what to wear to the restaurant.”

Johnny sat on his rocket ship bed with his cowboys and Indians having an interplanetary fight. Bonnie wondered what kind of story he created in that young mind. It seemed whenever she watched him play that his imagination was greater than his vocabulary and there were worlds in there he simply did not know how to share with her just yet. She put on a dress in her bedroom and went through to the nursery, passing between their closets.

“Well?” She spun around for her son. He flew a cowboy through the air over his bed, somersaulting it until it crashed onto his pillow. Bonnie went back to her room. She tried on a pair of pants and tunic that belted with an orange sash. Johnny glanced at her, but did not show any real interest. Bonnie felt it was a good day for something feminine since she was getting her hair done and especially since Marlene seemed to detest pants. She tried on a yellow, empire-waist, A-line dress with a black belt that sat just below the bust. It was sleeveless with a cute mandarin collar. When she presented herself to Johnny, he looked up from his play, attracted by the bright color, and said one word, “Pretty.” Bonnie left her other outfits laying over a chair. She’d have plenty of time to put them away before John got home tomorrow. 

They decided to take Marlene’s car across the river to Red Wing. There was a restaurant there they liked, the Eagle’s Nest. Marlene said it was classy and she was into anything with class. She put the window down a crack and shook a Winston out of her pack, keeping one hand near the wheel if not exactly on it. “I don’t suppose you’d light this for me while I drive?”

“Marlene, you know I hate those things. Besides, I’ve got Johnny on my lap.”

“Oh, fine.” Marlene pushed in the cigarette lighter on her console and waited, the cigarette between two fingers in anticipation of the first puff.

Bonnie looked past Marlene out the driver’s side window, watching for eagles soaring over the water. She couldn’t get enough of the giant raptors and liked to show them to Johnny. He snuggled against Bonnie’s chest, an old brown teddy bear named Swampy crushed under his arm.

The lighter popped. Marlene put the glowing coil to her cigarette and inhaled. A small puff of smoke rolled off the tip of the cigarette as it lit and Bonnie waved her hand in front of her nose. Johnny mimicked her and she squeezed him into a hug. “That’s right, Johnny. P. U.”

“P. U.”

Marlene scowled at them as she shifted her left hand nearer the open window. “There. Happy?”

“It’s an improvement.”

“Look,” Marlene exclaimed, gesturing at the shoulder out Bonnie’s window.

A man in loose jeans, a military shirt, and John Deere cap stood beside the road, his thumb out for a ride. Bonnie had thought Carl was already long gone, their encounter all but forgotten with the excitement of John’s job interview this week. She stared at him over her shoulder until the road curved and he disappeared behind a bend.

“That’s the bum that’s been hanging around Skoghall. Have you seen him in the village?” Marlene asked.

“I…I don’t know if I’ve seen him or not. I’ve mostly stuck around home this week.”

“Boy, I sure am glad he’s leaving. It’s about time.” Marlene took a puff of her cigarette and released the smoke out the left side of her mouth so it could escape through her cracked window. “He looks like a regular mess.”

“I think he’s a veteran, Marlene.”

“So?” She dragged the O into two syllables.

“So, I don’t think these men can help being messed up. I think war changes a person.”

“Sure it does. How could it not?” Marlene shrugged and touched the cigarette to her lip, then changed her mind. “I’m not heartless, for Pete’s sake! I just don’t want these fellows hanging around my town. They’re bad news. That’s what.”

“It just doesn’t seem they get a lot of help, do they?”

“Isn’t that what the VA is for?”

Bonnie was quiet. She didn’t see how she could defend Carl or any of the other veterans without admitting she knew something about him. The last thing she wanted was a rumor around Skoghall that she was having secret meetings with an old beau. She and Marlene were best friends, but if the pond were any bigger, she thought they probably would have found other fish to swim with.

The Eagle’s Nest restaurant was decorated in red and gold with a large chandelier hung over the salad bar in the middle of the dining room. Bonnie held Johnny’s hand as they followed the hostess to a table next to a window. He lagged behind and when she looked to see why, he was on tiptoe, carefully trodding on only the black portions of the patterned carpet, muttering some gibberish to Swampy who dangled from his other hand. Bonnie smiled and lifted him to her hip. Whatever story he was telling himself, it would have to keep. She caught them up to Marlene and set her purse in the booth before sliding in with Johnny.

“Would you ladies like a cocktail before your supper?” The waitress was a tall girl with straight blonde hair and bangs that practically covered her blue-painted lids. The restaurant’s uniform of a long black skirt and white blouse with a high lace collar accentuated her height, making her resemble a boating pole.

“Oh, let’s.” Marlene leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table and smiled mischievously at Bonnie. “The cat is away, after all.” 

“All right. Why not?” Bonnie looked at the waitress. “I’ll have a Brandy Old Fashioned, please. And a booster seat.”

“Rum and Coke,” Marlene said, dismissing the waitress from their presence with a wave of her fingers. She settled back into the booth. “Gee, Bonnie, you look adorable with your hair all done up like that.”

“Thanks. Mary Jo did a nice job, didn’t she?”

The waitress returned to unceremoniously hand Bonnie a hard little seat covered in Raggedy Ann and Andy-patterned vinyl. Bonnie set it on the booth beside her and lifted Johnny into it.

“Say, how about some Saltines for the child?” Marlene said to the waitress.

She looked at Bonnie.

“That would be nice.” The waitress turned to leave. “And a glass of milk,” Bonnie called after her.

“That girl’s not working very hard for a tip.”

“No, but she sure is tall.” The women giggled, because it seemed that was the kindest observation Bonnie could make.

“I remember being that age. I thought everyone over twenty-five was a nitwit and I was going to rule the world.”

“And how did that work out for you, Marlene?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” She laughed at herself. “I should have left Wisconsin when I had the chance.”

“Don’t you have the chance now?”

“Well…” Marlene looked out the window beside their booth. People passed by on the sidewalk, the evening sun glinted off the hoods of cars parked along the street, and it hardly seemed a bad place to be. Marlene looked back at Bonnie with misty eyes. She unfolded her napkin and touched its corner to her cheek. “Starting over would take a lot of work, wouldn’t it? And this isn’t so bad. All the things I just despised when I was a kid, they got to being pretty comfortable, you know?”

Bonnie nodded. She reached her hand over the table to take Marlene’s, but withdrew it as the waitress arrived, their drinks on her tray. She set them down, along with Johnny’s milk and crackers, then said she would give them time to look over the menus while gazing over their heads and out the window.

“That’s what I need,” Marlene said after the waitress was gone, brightening at the sight of her cocktail. Any sign that she had been on the verge of crying had vanished. “Here’s to girlfriends.” She raised her glass and Bonnie accepted the toast. Marlene took a big sip of her drink, welcoming the alcohol with a smack of her lips and marking the glass with a bright red print on the rim. “But what about you kids? If John gets the job will you be moving to Madison? That would be a nice city to live in, wouldn’t it? Gee, maybe I’d follow you there.”

“I don’t think so. John’s territory would include Minnesota, Iowa, and maybe even the Dakotas. We’d be better off here than farther east.”

“Minneapolis, then.”

“Marlene! Are you trying to ship us off to a city?”

“Of course not. Just dreaming, honey.” Marlene tapped the side of her glass with a bright red fingernail. “I still dream about city life, but I know I’m stuck here. It’s better to be somebody important in nowheresville, than to be a nobody in somewheresville.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Bonnie said, and the women raised their glasses to life in nowheresville.

Chapter Twelve

When Jess drove up to her house, she couldn’t help feeling dread and it angered her.
This is my house,
she thought.
What right does some dead woman have to scare me out of it?
Jess couldn’t stand the thought of losing. She also couldn’t afford to be scared away. She parked in front of the garage and looked at the house.

It was such a pretty house with its limestone foundation, big front porch, and leaded glass windows. It was homey and inviting with the blue sky above, pretty little cluster of birch trees and the big sugar maple out front. There were planting beds around the house in need of weeding. Jess wanted hostas along the sides and maybe geraniums up front next to the porch steps. She had such plans.

“I have such plans,” she said. “I have.” She opened the passenger door for Shakti and helped her to the ground. They went up to the front door and Jess reached out, hesitating before touching the metal knob. The door was slightly ajar. When she’d left the house with her wrists bound, she had hardly worried about locking up. Jess shoved the door with her foot and it swung open into the vestibule. Through the small passageway, she saw the hall. It was well lit from the windows above in the landing. It seemed ironic, the sun in the sky, the birds at her feeder, the tranquil house, and her carrying a knot inside. Jess’s heart thumped in her ears and her palms felt damp. She expected to see the red-haired woman come flying at her from every corner. Jess looked at the floor, remembering what she had glimpsed as she fled the house with Shakti.

There was nothing there now. No bloody footprints. Just a few scuffs and gouges commensurate with the age of the house.

“Come on, Bear,” she said, and they stepped into the hall. Jess decided to take a tour of the main floor before going upstairs. Nothing was out of place, yet Jess could not get her shoulders to relax and her neck began to ache. She started up the stairs and Shakti stopped at the bottom and whined. When Jess went back to pick her up, she scrambled to get away and Jess almost dropped her.

“Great. I guess I’ll go it alone up there.” She left Shakti looking anxious at the bottom and took the stairs slowly to the top.

Jess went into the office first. The lead cowboy sat atop her desk in its usual spot, facing Jess with his six-shooters drawn. She ran a hand over the writing bed and then put her fingers to the typewriter. Over the top of her desk she could see the smokehouse in the yard, its conical roof looking ominous. Jess shuddered. Everything was wrong. She had no business trying to write a book. Even if she could finish it, it would never be read. Nobody had ever heard of Jessica Vernon. Nobody would ever care. She was such a fool for leaving Minneapolis where she knew people and had a career. Jess reminded herself that she had hated her job, and yet right now she was convinced of her failure.