The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (26 page)

Jess smoothed her hair back into her grasp and slid a hairband off her wrist. She tilted her head and saw a small, round face in the window over the antique store’s front porch. The girl from the closet looked pale behind the glass. A slight wave in the old window pane distorted her face. Yet Jess could see that she had fair hair styled in old fashioned ringlets. Even through the glass, her green eyes seemed to glow. Her blouse was closed around her neck and had puffed sleeves, an unusual look unless she was a flower girl in some wedding or playing dress up with Lora’s antique clothing. Jess waved to the girl and she lifted a hand to press her palm against the glass. She smiled down at Jess.

“Who are you waving at?” Beckett joined Jess on the sidewalk.

“That girl.” Jess pointed at the window and Beckett looked up. “She’s gone. Does Lora have a daughter?”

“No.”

“Oh. What did Lora want?” Jess tried to sound casually curious.

“She has a customer coming to pick up a sideboard. She needed help moving it near the front door.”

“Do all the ladies of Skoghall come to you for moving help?”

“So far just Lora and you.” He took her hand and turned them toward the hardware store again, pausing to kiss Jess on the brow.

“Hang on.” She bent to get her dishes from the sidewalk and when she stood, Jess thought she saw the lace curtains in the antique store’s front window swish. She hoped so. She hoped that Lora had been watching.

Jess enjoyed the blue sky as she drove her and Shakti back to the house. On the drive to Hadley, they’d seen those sprinkler contraptions in fields and Beckett, whom Jess noticed often made close observations, said the crops should have been taller by now. She turned into her driveway and rolled past the barn, eyeing the smokehouse through the side window. She parked in front of the garage and opened the passenger door for Shakti. The puppy tumbled out of the car and immediately set nose to the ground. She followed some invisible trail in a meandering path across the drive and under the sugar maple where she circled before deciding to squat. A squirrel abandoned the feeder when Shakti approached and barked at her from a higher branch.

Jess was anxious for Bonnie to know that she had met John, and was hoping the news would appease her. When she thought of how long Bonnie and John had suffered, it made her miserable. She went straight upstairs to the office, Shakti at her heels. Jess paused in the doorway and peered into the room, as though it belonged to someone else and she wanted to make sure that someone wasn’t home. Shakti turned and went into the bedroom instead. “Abandoning me?” Jess called after the puppy. She couldn’t help her nerves, despite the confidence she felt at the café only an hour before. It seemed so simple a plan. Find the Vietnam veteran and exonerate John Sykes before he dies of cancer. Now, with that little cowboy pointing his pistols at her, it seemed impossibly complicated. Jess sighed.

She stood before her desk and lifted the sheet of paper in the typewriter. It was still blank except for the question at the top, “What is his name?” She moved the typewriter and set up her computer. Shakti came in dragging a rope toy and curled up underneath the desk to chew happily. Jess arranged her feet around the puppy and began her search for area VA Hospitals and American Legions.

Jess slumped forward to fold her arms on the writing deck and lay her head atop them. She fell asleep with the sun coming in full through the uncurtained windows, bright across her face. While she slept, her heart rate accelerated, her pores seeped enough sweat to dampen her shirt, and her eyes darted behind her lids. It was nighttime, warm and slightly damp. And dark, the moon and stars lost behind low-hanging clouds, the sort of sky favored by werewolf and vampire movie makers. A baby was crying. She felt constricted. Too tight. She wanted to scream. The baby’s cries grew louder, more urgent, and then they seemed far away. Her feet hurt. The pain was excruciating. The baby. The baby needed her and she couldn’t go to him. She heard a door creak open. Jess woke gasping for air with her hands clawing at her throat. She had to blink back the light while her eyes adjusted. When at last she could see, she was looking through the branches of the sugar maple at the smokehouse. The wind had come up and the door of the smokehouse swung open and shut, banging against its frame.

Jess looked into each corner of the room, but there was nothing there. She lifted her feet one at a time to look at their bottoms, to touch them where they hurt, and wonder that nothing was wrong with them. She heard a small sound, a whimper of fear, and pushed her chair back to look under the desk. Poor Shakti was still there, trembling. “Come…” Jess had to clear a croak out of her throat before she could speak properly. “Come here, Bear.” She reached out to the puppy. Shakti fell forward into Jess’s hands and she lifted her from under the desk. While she stroked the puppy’s head, Jess calmed herself enough to gather her wits. She looked down at the computer. She’d been copying addresses and directions off the internet into a document. At the end of her were two words: find him, the cursor blinking beside the M. “She likes to type,” Jess said to Shakti. She looked out the window again at the smokehouse.

That door had been padlocked.

Jess carried Shakti outside and across the yard. She stopped just before reaching the smokehouse, afraid of what she would see. The door banged against its frame. The padlock was on the ground, its shank bent backwards. Jess reached out and grabbed the door with one hand, the other wrapped under Shakti’s armpits. She took a step forward to see inside, fear grabbing at her throat.

Nothing.

Whatever Bonnie had wanted her to see had disappeared with the dream. Jess sighed in relief. Shakti squirmed and Jess set her down, already recovered from her fright, Shakti set off happily sniffing. Jess picked up the lock and turned it over, then tried to bend the shank with her hands, even though she already knew that was impossible.

A tall woman with silvery hair cropped close to her head opened the door. The first days of June were hitting eighty, but she was dressed for air conditioning in dark linen pants and a long-sleeve top of gold and lilac swirls. Laden with jewelry, including diamond rings and a tennis bracelet of significant weight, she sparkled in the doorway in which she stood with a cocktail in her free hand. “You must be Jessica,” she said. “Come in.”

Jess had had no trouble tracking down Marlene Wilkins. She had become a small business owner and civic servant from the early 1980s until she retired a few years ago, a transition that garnered a few local headlines. Marlene had seemed to welcome the opportunity to talk about old times, and Jess was given directions to a newer home in the hills around Red Wing.

The house was the opposite of Jess’s old farmhouse, clean and contemporary with a great room, a high sloping ceiling with skylights, and a view of the hills behind the house. It wasn’t perched on a bluff top, overlooking the Mississippi with a vantage shared with eagles, but Marlene wasn’t exactly hurting in her retirement years. She motioned for Jess to sit on a white leather sectional sofa. Jess struggled to not fall backwards into the deep cushions.

“You must be thirsty,” Marlene said. “I have a cocktail at 4:00 every day. It’s one of the luxuries afforded by retirement. A lack of responsibility, you could say. It’s a nice transition point before the evening comes on. Care to join me?”

“I’ll have what you’re having, I guess.”

“Good girl.” Marlene practically bounced out of her chair and went to a sideboard holding a mirrored tray, crystal decanter, and ice bucket, as well as other bar-tending accouterments. Jess watched as Marlene plucked a lime wedge from a small dish and squeezed it over her drink.

“Thank you.”

Marlene crossed her legs, managing to somehow assume a lady-like posture in the overstuffed chair. “So, you wanted to talk about Bonnie Sykes? I haven’t heard that name spoken in years. Decades maybe.” Marlene paused to shake her head. “How long has it been?”

“Forty years this month.”

“Forty years! Am I really so old?” She put both hands to her cheeks as though checking her skin against time. She lowered her hands to her lap and her face suddenly looked older, having fallen into an expression of grief. Marlene shook her head and reached for her drink. “That poor girl.” The ice cubes clinked against each other as she tipped her glass. “Why exactly are you interested in Bonnie?” Marlene fixed her gaze on Jess with a sudden unnerving intensity.

“I’d like to find her son. I found a toy I believe was his and I’d like to return it to him.”

“Is that all? You could have said that over the phone, couldn’t you?”

“Well,” Jess ran through her options as quickly as possible, “I seem to have gotten involved in something. I didn’t mean to, of course, but I’m living in the Sykes’ old house. I found John Sykes in jail for the murder of his wife, but he’s innocent. Or so he says…” Jess trailed off, hoping Marlene would pick up the thread of inquiry, and she was not disappointed.

“I never believed he killed Bonnie. Those two were crazy about each other. And he was at a job interview somewhere. Madison, I think. Bonnie and I talked about it all night. She was so excited. He would advance his career…they could move to a city somewhere decent…a place with some life, you know?”

“Bonnie wanted to move?”

“Oh, well, maybe not right away. There wasn’t much happening in Skoghall back then. Today it’s got all those artist types and the River Road traffic. It almost sounds like fun.” Marlene’s eyes sparked with some kind of mischief. “Bonnie and I were going to open up a little boutique there. Bring some class to the joint, you know. But, well… I eventually opened the boutique myself, but not in Skoghall. That place was dead to me, just dead to me.” Marlene sipped her cocktail then set it down with the sharp clink of glass against glass. “You must think me maudlin, going on about a boutique when you came here to find out about Bonnie. That poor thing.”

“No, Mrs. Wilkins, not at all.” Jess picked up her drink, wrapping the edges of the cocktail napkin around the moist sides of the glass.

“You’re being kind, Jessica. And you can call me Marlene. Now, I know that Bonnie and her husband were very much in love and doted on that little boy of theirs. He was John Jr. Johnny.”

“Yes, but for some reason I can’t find him anywhere online. Do you know what happened to him after John Sykes went to jail?”

“Of course. Bonnie was my good friend. I followed that trial all the way through to the end.” She tapped the side of her glass with a well-manicured nail. “Johnny went to live with Bonnie’s folks, down in La Crosse, or maybe one of those little towns outside of La Crosse, but definitely the La Crosse area.”

“Do you know their name?” Jess leaned forward on her seat, a difficult thing on the deep sofa.

“Eckles. Eckley. Eckland. Ecklund. That’s it, Ecklund.”

There was a click and scrape, then the rattling of keys as Marlene’s husband come in like a blustery wind. Marlene looked past Jess toward the entryway, an expectant smile on her face. Jess had to twist to look over her shoulder at the rotund man who had just entered. The top of his bald head shone with sweat. A pair of sunglasses hung from a foam strap around his neck, and he was dressed in golf clothes.

“Wilky, darling, this is Jessica. Jessica, this is Arlen Wilkins, my husband.” Marlene rose with ease from her chair and crossed the great room while making their introductions.

“Jessica,” he nodded to her from the entryway. “I still have to get my clubs out of the trunk,” he said before exchanging a peck on the cheek with his wife. He emptied his pockets onto a tray on a catch-all table near the door. “Be right back.”

Marlene went to the sideboard and mixed a fresh drink. When Arlen returned, he noisily dropped a pair of golf shoes onto the tile floor before joining them. He took the drink Marlene offered and sat with a huff of air as though the drop from standing was an exertion in itself. Jess understood now why a slender woman like Marlene would have such enormous furniture. He touched his glass to his wife’s before drinking. “Ah, this is just the thing after eighteen holes. Do you golf?”

“No,” Jess said. “I write.”

“A writer, are you? What do you write?”

Jess shifted on the chair, aware of Arlen’s scrutiny and pending judgment. “Novels, but nothing you’d have heard of yet.” She smiled, hoping he would not ask the inevitable question: what is your book about? She couldn’t stand the idea of explaining her life to Arlen Wilkins.

“I don’t read fiction,” he announced. “I like sports and news. That’s about it.”

“Wilky, Jessica lives in the old Sykes’ place. She’s trying to find John Sykes, Jr.” Marlene pointed at Jess, directing her husband’s attention the way she would to some roadside oddity. Jess sipped her drink, sensing it was one of Arlen Wilkins approved activities. “Now, tell us how your game went?” Marlene said, lowering her hand.

“
Bah
,” he exhaled some sort of disgust, his face reddening at the reminder of the recent past. “That Tom is a cheat.”

“Dear, we have a guest.” Marlene patted his knee.

“Well, Tom is still a cheat.”

“Yes, but how is Sterling?”

“Huh? What? Oh, Sterling. Sterling is as fine as ever. Still slices to the left.”

Jess was thinking of graceful ways to excuse herself when Marlene graciously brought them back around to the purpose of her visit.

“I’m sure Jessica needs to be going soon.” Jess thought she caught a wink with Marlene’s smile. “What else did you need to know, dear?”

Jess tried to straighten up, but only managed to sink further into the sofa cushions. “Do either of you remember a Vietnam veteran in Skoghall around the time Bonnie was killed?”

“A vet?” Arlen began. “A vet? Let me see. I don’t think…”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Marlene stopped her husband’s noisy ruminations. “There was a stranger lurking around Skoghall. He was filthy, a tramp. He wore this nasty old John Deere cap. Bonnie and I saw him hitchhiking on the River Road the night she died—we were on our way to dinner. Bonnie felt sorry for him.” Marlene shook her head. “Bonnie felt for everyone, trusted everyone…I suppose that’s why she died the way she did.”