Witch Cradle (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Erik Pelto seemed to be one of those hardy individualists tackling winter with gusto, despite his chronically leaking nose. He exhibited an erudite expression as he swept snow from a bird-feeding table and dumped in a scoop of seeds. McIntire coughed.

The teacher looked up without surprise. “Morning,” he said. “I hear you found what you were looking for.”

“I did. Thanks for your help.”

“Don't mention it.” A jay shrieked in impatience. “I'll be with you in a minute.” McIntire wasn't sure if Pelto was speaking to him or the bird. Both probably. He waited as the teacher picked up a pail and scuffed through the snow, threading his way between the trees to replenish three more feeding stations, his head encircled by a clutch of voracious chickadees. He was not going out of his way to be so hospitable to his human visitor, and no doubt he was about to become far less so. Before that happened, McIntire had a few questions. As Pelto made his way back to his side, he asked, “Who do you suppose the other victim might have been?”

His reluctant host almost smiled. “It might have been my old man, if he'd had half a chance. He was quite taken with Rosie, oddly enough. But I don't know of anybody else. How the hell would I? I was just a kid. I can't imagine she had admirers breaking down the door.”

“So you
do
remember the Falks?”

“Once I got to thinking about it.”

It didn't seem to have taken a lot of mind searching. McIntire asked, “Did your family live around here at the time?”

“Not really. We didn't live in any one spot for very long. My father worked for Karelian Aid. Before that he was involved in the Työmies Society and the labor unions. He traveled a lot, and he took me with him.”

“What about your mother?”

It was impossible to pass the question off as neighborly chit-chat. The handle of the empty bucket creaked as Pelto twirled it against his knee.

“I don't remember ever having one,” he said. “She died back in Finland.”

“Is that where you were born?”

The rhythmic creaking ceased. “Why?”

McIntire felt his palms go damp in his gloves. “I saw Pete Koski yesterday.”

The pale eyes waited.

“The sheriff,” McIntire explained.

“I know who you're talking about.”

“He said he'd gotten a call from Immigration.”

Pelto tossed the last of the grain onto the snow. “You'd better come inside.”

McIntire's position on the narrow path required him to walk ahead of his host. He made it to the door without feeling either a dagger or a snowball hit his back.

Erik Pelto's house was small for a family of four, a probable advantage during the heating season. McIntire pushed his way past the jackets crammed on the wall in the entryway and stepped over a pile of overshoes into the kitchen. It had the ambience of a tropical rainforest, an impression enhanced as McIntire's glasses steamed over. Childish voices issued from beyond the wall, and a small human-shaped blur appeared in the doorway. McIntire wiped the lenses and re-situated his spectacles. The blur resolved into the oldest of the children, Mrs. Erik Pelto. “Hello,” she said. “Cold?”

“Cold enough.” McIntire had only seen Pelto's Australian wife a couple of times, and had never spoken more than a greeting. Strange. One might have expected a level of camaraderie between Delilah Pelto and Leonie, even though Leonie definitely did not consider herself a “war bride.” Leonie had tried and seemed a bit put out that the young woman hadn't shown an interest in moving into the shelter of her wing, but apart from both being subjects of King George exiled to a foreign land, they had little in common. Delilah had come to the country as a pregnant adolescent four years in advance of Leonie. She was extraordinarily shy, and, according to Leonie, totally absorbed in her husband and children. What would happen to her with Erik arrested? What if he did have to leave the country—the country for which he was risking his life when they met? McIntire hoped again that Leonie was correct in her assessment that Delilah was more independent than one might think. Leonie might be in a position to know.

“Mr. McIntire is just here on a little business.” Pelto interrupted his wife's advances toward the coffee pot. She smiled, expressed her greetings to Mrs. McIntire, picked up the mop-headed infant that clung to her knee, pulled a Lincoln Log from its mouth, and left the room.

Pelto lifted the lid from a pot on the stove, releasing an aroma of venison and onions to mingle with that of the wool socks hung on the wire above it. He gave its contents a quick stir before turning back to McIntire. “Are you here to arrest me?”

“No, but I expect somebody will be before much longer.”

“You turned me in.” He sounded more resigned than angry.

“Of course not!”

“You come around asking about my father, and, less than a week later, I'm going to be arrested. You expect me to believe that's just a coincidence?”

“It's not a coincidence. I expect you to believe I'm just a moron.”

Pelto didn't argue that. “A moron who can't mind his own business.”

Stupidity, McIntire would admit to, but putting his bungling down to simple snoopiness was going too far. “Two people were murdered. One of them you apparently knew fairly well, although you couldn't see your way clear to admit it. It's my business to find out who killed them.” That was debatable, but McIntire had made it his business, for better or for worse. “You could have told me you aren't an American citizen, that you've been a communist, and if word got out you'd lose your job.”

“You left out getting deported. And I am a U.S. citizen. That won't stop them.”

Wouldn't it? If Pelto hadn't owned up to his red roots when he'd applied for citizenship, it probably wouldn't. What the government can naturalize, they can denaturalize. “Why did you give me that line of bull about not knowing Teddy Falk?”

“Whether I was acquainted with Teddy Falk or his wife is none of your damn business.” The chatter from the living room lapsed, and he lowered his voice. “For a fourteen-year-old kid to see his old man getting all sweated up over a married woman—a married woman young enough to be his daughter, with a face that would stop a clock—is damn embarrassing. I would just as soon forget all that stuff. That ain't gonna happen now. Maybe you can help me brush up on my Finn.”

“Surely you'll be fighting deportation?”

“You just told me about it five minutes ago. How the hell would I know anything about fighting it.”

“They can't do it without a trial…or something like a trial.” McIntire didn't know what the procedure might be. “A hearing, maybe.”

“Of course I won't just turn tail and go. I've got no connection at all to Finland. The government hasn't managed to deport much of anybody so far. But they've kept plenty of people sitting in jail for a long time.” He sneezed into his sleeve. “My teaching days are over, that's for damned sure.”

“Were you a communist?”

“I grew up in the party.” The recollection brought a smile. “For a kid it
was
a party. Rallies, marches, parades, campfires, singing. We were going to change the world. I paid dues myself until after my first year in college. About that time the world changed without my help. Nobody asked about my political beliefs during those four years I spent in the army.” He glanced toward the open door to the other room and spoke more loudly. “So you don't know yet who belongs to the other body?”

McIntire shook his head. “What
do
you remember about Rose Falk and her husband, besides her attraction for your father? What made them decide to go to Karelia so late in the game?”

“Orville Pelto made them decide to go, simple as that. My dad was very persuasive. He convinced dozens of Finns to give up their perfectly satisfactory lives here and go off to create that workers' paradise in Hell.”

“You said that he left the organization about the time the Falks emigrated.”

“Partly from lack of work to do, partly from lack of conviction. Mostly he didn't like the way the Party was going. He thought too much control was coming from Moscow.”

“It must have been a big undertaking, arranging an exodus of hundreds of people.”

“Thousands.”

“How were the trips organized?”

“People had to apply to the Karelian Technical Aid Society before they were accepted. Besides their political zeal, they had to have skills the society wanted—lumber, construction work, fishing. More importantly, they wanted people who had tools and equipment. Plus some good old-fashioned money was always handy. The first line on the application was
How much money can you contribute to the machine fund?
They needed to pay for their own passage. Five hundred dollars each. The applications went to the society's office in New York. Recommendations were sent on to Petrozavodsk, and final approval came from Moscow.”

“Five hundred dollars was a lot of money in the thirties.”

“It's a lot of money now. People sold their farms and livestock and anything else they didn't plan to take with them.”

“What about the stuff the Falks shipped over?” For all his protestations of youthful ignorance, Pelto seemed to know quite a bit. “How would that have been handled?”

“Pa helped take care of that, too. It would have been sent by train to New York City. Then shipped to Petrozavodsk, probably by way of Sweden.”

“On the same ship they sailed on?”

“How would I know? I doubt it. What's that got to do with anything?”

“I was just wondering who would be able to claim the goods. Would it have to be Teddy himself, the Aid Society, or would anybody holding the bill of lading be able to pick the stuff up?”

“Beats me. I guess Pa might know.”

“So the Falks should have taken the train to New York?”

“I suppose so. The society would have fixed up a place for them to stay until the boat sailed.”

“And your father knew that Rose didn't turn up?” If Orville had been so enamored of Mrs. Falk, you'd think he would have checked to find out why she wasn't on the boat, especially if he was aware that her husband sailed without her.

“He knew it when I talked to him a few days ago. I don't know if he knew it at the time. He might have.”

“But he didn't bother to check on them?”

“You'll have to ask him. Doesn't look like it.”

“Even though they'd sold most everything and already shipped off what they had left?” He could hardly have figured they'd just changed their minds and decided to spend the rest of their lives in a tent on the beach.

“He might not have found out about it until later on.”

“Were you in New York at the time?”

“I can't say. I don't remember exactly when it would have been.”

“Where does your father live now?”

“Superior. He uses his persuasive powers to further the cause of capitalism now, sells insurance.”

“We're going sliding!” Two compact, curly-haired gnomes barreled through the room to hurl themselves on the piles of outerwear. Their mother followed with an indulgent smile.

McIntire said a quick goodbye. The Peltos had things to talk about.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Pardon me?” McIntire was on the verge of hanging up when he recognized Mia Thorsen's muffled voice. “You're going to have to speak up, Mia, or get off the phone and write a letter.”

“It's Teddy Falk. He's here.”

“Where?”

“
Here
. In the front room, passing the time with Nick. He says he read in the paper about finding Rose. He came to our house thinking he could see Papa. Now he wants to see you.”

Talk about great sleuthing, now the suspects were coming to him. “Send him on over.”

“I told him maybe you could come here.” Her voice dropped lower still. Did she think McIntire's hearing was that much better than that of the eavesdroppers on the line? “He's not too keen on going out right now. He thinks he might have been followed.”

“By who?” Fratelli again?

“He didn't say. Well, he didn't know. Can you come?”

“Give me five minutes.”

McIntire returned the earpiece to its cradle and resisted grabbing a drumstick from the plate of fried chicken carried by his wife. “I won't be long. If I'm not home in a half-hour, eat without me.”

***

McIntire rounded a bend in the road, pumped his brakes, and swerved, fish-tailing past the hulking form of a grey car, lights off, motor running. He pulled into the Thorsens' driveway. When he could no longer feel his pulse hammering at his eyeballs, he walked back to the idling vehicle and rapped on the steamed-over windshield. The driver's side window opened a spare six inches.

“Cecil, what in hell are you up to?”

The deputy's smooth cheeks were pink under his plaid earflaps. “I tailed the suspect from town. He's up there.”

“So how come you're down here?”

“I'd a damned sight rather wait and take him when he comes out. He could be armed. I wouldn't want anybody hurt if there's gunplay.”

“Armed? The guy's a cab driver!” A Detroit cab driver. Maybe gunplay was all in a day's work.

“He's a murderer, and a communist, and a fugitive. That could mean dangerous.”

Newman hadn't plugged “Ruskie spy” into his list. McIntire leaned closer. “Cecil, think about it. If Teddy Falk was a dangerous Red fugitive killer, why would he have come back here?”

The deputy didn't answer that, just turned up his collar. “He's got to come out sooner or later.”

“I expect it will be later,” McIntire told him. “Maybe after he's tied Mr. and Mrs. Thorsen back to back and cut their throats. In the meantime get this car off the road before somebody that doesn't possess my catlike reflexes comes along. If you don't die of carbon monoxide first.”

McIntire left his own car where it was and walked up to the house. Before knocking at the door, he shone his flashlight into the Ford parked in the drive. If Falk had a sawn-off shotgun, it was either at his side or he kept it in the trunk.

Nick opened the door and led McIntire past a sink full of unwashed dishes to the living room. Mia gave a little wave from her spot on the sofa, leg on a stool, hair once again confined in its customary braid.

McIntire had never heard Theodore Falk's age, but the small man who stood to shake his hand wasn't young, and life among the Soviets hadn't been kind to him. His sparse hair and even sparser eyebrows were white, his forehead mottled with brown. He didn't blink at McIntire's greeting in Russian, but he responded in English, pumping his hand like a long-lost buddy.

“Sorry to get you out at suppertime. I want to meet you and say thanks.” The words were deliberate and heavily accented, but his English was better than McIntire might have expected; he'd probably spoken mostly Finnish even before leaving St. Adele for Karelia. But then he'd spent the last two years driving a cab in Detroit. He went on, “Since I got back to America, I done everything to look for my wife. It's been a blow, hearing she's dead all these years, but at least now I know.”

The amiable smile didn't indicate that Teddy was suffering a whole lot from the blow, and until now the search for his wife hadn't taken him as far as her former home in St. Adele. McIntire was blunt. “What did you think had happened to her?”

“I thought she left me, run off with another man.”

Falk sat down and hunched forward with his hands between his knees. “I was just telling Nick and Mia. I was away for a few days, making arrangements for the trip. When I come home, Rose is gone. There's a note on the table saying she left with another man.”

“Who?”

“That, she didn't tell me.”

“You didn't try to go after her, get her back, at least find out where she'd gone?”

“What was the point?”

Falk answered McIntire's inquiries in a confident, matter-of-fact sort of way, but with a delay, as if running either the question or his response through his mind first. Maybe it was a breakdown in language. Or perhaps the large glass at his elbow, half filled with the purplish liquid that was Nick Thorsen's chokecherry wine, might have something to do with it.

“You must have been…shocked.”

“Nothing Rosie did ever surprised me.”

“And you didn't tell anybody?”

This response was immediate. “Ya, I did. I told Eban Vogel.”

No one commented. Falk picked up the glass. “It was pretty late at night when I got home. I didn't know what to think. I hardly remember what went through my mind. Early next morning I went to see Eban, then I just took off. I didn't know what to do with myself. We already sold the place. Rosie was supposed to sign the contract while I was gone, and I figured she must have done it. Everything else we owned we either sold or shipped off to Petrozavodsk. At first I didn't think I'd go to Karelia without my wife. There didn't seem to be any point in that either. It was really Rose wanted to go. But then I thought, what the hell. Everything was all set. I might as well take the trip and see the world. I could always turn around and come right back.” He drained the glass. “It didn't quite pan out that way. But anyway, I drove to Saginaw to see my mother and my brother, like we planned, and got on the train to New York City.”

“Orville Pelto says you didn't turn up.”

“Orville? What the hell does he know? Far as I know he wasn't even there. He'd set up a place for us to stay, but I didn't go there. I got into New York in the morning and sailed the next day.”

Mia shifted her leg to the floor. “You say you told my father that Rose was gone?”

“There was nobody else I could trust. I needed to leave some things for Rosie, in case she came back.”

“What sort of things?”

“Some legal documents. A copy of the shipping receipt. I don't remember it all. Her passport. Money. It was Friday, and I didn't want to wait around for Monday to put the money in the bank.”

Mia's face was hidden as she bent to shift her leg.

“That was pretty generous of you,” McIntire said, “considering your wife had left you for another man.”

“It was her money.” He shrugged. “I'd cashed some checks from selling the farm and livestock. The place was still in her name only. She didn't get around to changing it when we got married. She had a bank account that Sulo was supposed to pay into. I asked Eban to put the money in it. Like I said, I didn't know what to think. I couldn't figure out why Rosie left me when she wanted to go to Karelia so bad. I thought maybe it was just last-minute nerves, and when she came to her senses she might be back.”

Mia straightened up. “Then why did you take off? Why not wait awhile, or try to find her?”

“Well, you know….” Falk squirmed in his seat and gazed into his empty glass. “I married Rose because I felt sorry for her.”

“And because she had a hundred sixty acres.”

“Eighty, but ya, that didn't hurt. Anyway, once we were married, I found out she didn't really need feeling sorry for.” He looked up quickly. “Is Adeline still alive?”

It wasn't a name McIntire knew.

“No,” Mia told him. “She died quite a long time ago.” She turned to McIntire. “Jarvi's sister. Rose's aunt.”

“If Rose had an aunt,” McIntire asked, “why didn't you leave the mon—documents with her?”

“I didn't want to tell Adeline that Rose had run off. Rosie asked me not to. In her note she said ‘Don't let Aunt Addie find out. Let her think we're together.'”

“So when you got to New York you sent….” McIntire waited.

He hesitated, then nodded. “I mailed some postcards, ya. I signed Rosie's name.”

True, or a lucky guess? “Who did you write them to?”

“To Addie, for sure. I don't remember who else. It was mostly for Addie.”

It sounded feeble, but McIntire didn't pursue it. “Did you have a shotgun?”

Falk nodded. “Sure. Three of them. I had a couple, and Rose had an old twelve gauge of Jarvi's. She kept it behind the door when she was home alone.”

“Loaded?”

“Mostly. Wouldn't have done her a hell of a lot of good if it wasn't.”

“Do you remember if it was there when you came home and found your wife gone?”

Falk didn't seem to wonder about the inquisition he was undergoing, or about McIntire's role as Inquisitor in Chief. Maybe he was used to questions. Maybe he was enjoying the attention. “I think it was,” he said. “She'd been alone for a couple of days. Anyway I know it was around, because I took it with me. Sold it along with the car. I shipped the other two.”

“Was it loaded when you took it?”

“That, I don't remember.” He placed his glass on the coffee table and folded his hands in his lap. “Am I going to be arrested?”

“You betcha,” McIntire said. “And you were right. You were followed here.”

The man stiffened, and for the first time his eyes showed some healthy suspected-killer anxiety. “By who?”

“Cecil Newman, county sheriff
pro temp
.”

Falk relaxed into his chair.

“He's waiting at the end of the driveway, warrant in his frostbitten little hand.”

“Cecil is sitting out there? You're kidding! Tell the nitwit to come in and warm up.” Mia sounded more amused than concerned.

“Don't bother. I'll go.” Falk stood up. “Maybe he'll let me drive my own car in.”

After effusive thanks to both Mia and McIntire, Teddy Falk, escorted by Nick Thorsen and his flashlight, made life worth living for Deputy Sheriff Cecil Newman.

McIntire waited until he heard the door close before he asked, “Mia, have you told anybody about that money?”

“No, who would I tell?”

How stubborn could anybody be? “Teddy Falk, for one. It backs up his story. He's got a right to know that you found it, and so does Pete Koski. I'm going to have to tell him, if you don't. He'll have a conniption about not hearing it sooner. And he'll want you to turn it over.”

Her face froze to a plaster mask. “Tell him I already spent it.”