Witch Cradle (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Falk's story was marginally plausible. Of course, he'd had sixteen years to work on it. It probably didn't matter a hell of a lot; any evidence would be long gone. He said he'd left the day after he found his wife missing. McIntire would have loved to ask him how he'd enjoyed spending the night on their connubial bed with its blood-soaked mattress, but that would have to wait for the sheriff. He hoped he hadn't fouled anything up by mentioning the shotgun.

It didn't seem possible that Falk had fabricated the story of entrusting Eban Vogel with money for Rose. Otherwise, how could he have mentioned it now? He couldn't possibly know that Nick had found it, so he wasn't simply leaping at the opportunity to cover his tracks or put in a fraudulent claim.

Why would Eban have hidden it away unless he'd been aware that Rose Falk was past needing it? Why not deposit it in her account as Falk had asked? Maybe it was just that he, like most people in 1934, was suspicious of banks. If he'd known that Rose was dead, wouldn't he have said something to her husband? He might be naturally reluctant to bring it up if he thought it was her husband who'd killed her; even more so if he'd done it himself.

If they could figure out exactly when Rose died it would help. If the contract for sale of the farm was dated around the same time as the bill of lading, that would presumably mean that Rose was alive when her husband left for Sault St. Marie to arrange the shipping of their possessions across the world. If she died before he could have made it back, Teddy'd be in the clear. Fat chance of proving that. It might be easier to show that she was still alive
after
he returned. Someone might remember seeing her or the two of them together. Someone could have come to say goodbye. Too bad the aunt was dead, but aunts often come with uncles. It would be worth checking.

It was later than McIntire had intended when he snaked along between the snowbanks into his own yard. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree. Leonie must be making it up to the REA for those five no-electric-bill days. He filled a plate with cold chicken and lukewarm mashed potatoes before joining her on the living room sofa.

She was curled up under a quilt, but there was no trace of sleep in her eyes. A bowl of solid-looking tapioca pudding sat on the coffee table. The radio was off. She had no book. Doing nothing was something Leonie seldom indulged in. She might find Deputy Newman's nabbing of a fugitive murderer entertaining.

“I had a phone call.” She yawned. “Well, you had a call. From your mother.”

“What's wrong?” McIntire had once or twice availed himself of the long distance operator to speak to his mother. She'd never before done such an extravagant thing herself.

“Maybe that's for you to say.” Neither of them spoke while the clock on the wall chimed the half hour. “She said someone phoned her to ask about you. She thought it was queer.”

McIntire put down his fork. “To ask what about me?”

“He said he hadn't heard from you for a long time and was trying to track you down.”

“What's queer about that? I haven't been around in a long time. Who was it?” McIntire bit into the long-awaited drumstick.

“I'm not sure she got his name. She said this chap seemed more interested in finding out where you were a few years ago than where you are now.”

The chicken went down like it still wore its feathers. “Did she tell you exactly what this person said?”

“He said he was an old friend and wanted to know if you were back in the United States. He said he'd tried to find you three or four years ago and had no luck.”

“That doesn't sound like something that would send Ma galloping to the phone.”

“Not that part. But then he went on and on about how he hadn't been able to get hold of you and worked things around to asking if she knew where you were in 1948, or if there was a time when you didn't write. She told him there'd been plenty of times you didn't write, and she's only heard from you in the past six months because of Christmas. Is that true?”

“No, it's not. I sent her a birthday card.”

“I sent the card.”

“You put my name on it, didn't you?”

“Yes.” She pulled her knees up to her chin. “It must have been beastly for her, having you go away when you were just a boy and hardly ever seeing you again. How ever did she bear it?”

The sudden glistening of Leonie's eyes would have sent McIntire into panic if he hadn't already reached that state. What in hell was Fratelli trying to pull? It was a clumsy attempt at getting information that even Sophie McIntire had seen through. Why? A re-staging of his bumbling detective act?

When he'd turned up last fall, Fratelli had appeared inept and naive. Yet he'd come to St. Adele on a mission and had accomplished exactly what he'd set out to do. He'd wavered around but hit what he aimed for, and McIntire didn't much like the feeling that he was the agent's current target.

Leonie swung her feet to the floor. “Why would someone be asking Sophie where you were in 1948? If he was really some old friend, he shouldn't have any trouble finding you. Seems like tracking
her
down would have been a great deal stickier. Anybody looking for your mother would have looked here first, but they would hardly have gone to Florida to look for you. What do you suppose it was all about?”

“I can't imagine.”

“Was he right? Were you out of touch somewhere?”

“I was in Moscow.” The lie slipped out as easily as it had when he'd said it to Fratelli.

“You mean…?”

“It's not something I can talk about.” That might be laying it on pretty thick, but it was true, perhaps not for the reasons Leonie might think.

“Not even to me?”

“Maybe. I'll have to think about it.”

“Could this be something dangerous?” Her eyes grew round.

McIntire was hopeless at diagnosing sarcasm, even from his wife, and didn't try. “Oh, of course not. That stuff is all behind us now. It wasn't particularly dangerous at the time.” It wasn't dangerous at all at the time, not in the way Leonie meant, and McIntire hoped it wouldn't prove to be dangerous now.

She took his hand and traced the lines of his palm. “There's still so much I don't know about you.”

McIntire raised her fingers to his lips. “I sometimes suspect there's even more I don't know about you.”

She nodded absently. “Perhaps.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

McIntire would have sworn that he hadn't slept at all if he hadn't awakened to the muffled silence that could only mean one thing. He groaned and turned his face to the pillow.

“What's the matter?”

“Forecast was wrong,
again
. I'll be shoveling
again
.”

“How do you know?”

“Can't you tell? Listen.”

Leonie lay still for a minute, then shook her head. “I don't hear a thing.”

“Exactly. It's like we're wrapped in cotton.”

“I thought you liked snow. It keeps people from bothering you.”

“I got things to do.” Get hold of Melvin Fratelli, for one thing, and wring his scheming neck.

Leonie's thoughts apparently ran along similar lines. “Are you going to ring your mother back?” she asked. “She really did sound worried.”

“I will.” He lowered his head to her shoulder. “Maybe we should just stay right here.”

“I plan to, for a time. You're welcome to join me.”

It was tempting. But he had to get out of bed to stoke the fire, and he knew that once he was up, he would find things that needed doing. Plenty of them. “The town board meeting is tonight,” he remembered. “It oughta be a humdinger. It'll probably take 'til then to dig out.”

It did, or close to it. At seven-fifteen the McIntires swung into the freshly plowed parking area of St. Adele's town hall. It was an exercise in hope springing eternal. There wasn't a spot big enough to stick a tricycle. He drove straight through onto the road and snugged the Studebaker up to the twelve-foot snowbank.

“This has got to be some kind of attendance record.”

Leonie didn't reply, just smiled and clutched her green stenographer's notebook and two pencils. She slid across the seat to exit behind him.

The meeting wasn't due to begin for another fifteen or twenty minutes, but the aroma of coffee was already being overwhelmed by that of tobacco.

Whoever had been entrusted with the job of firing up the furnace hadn't gotten himself shoveled out soon enough. The fifty plus bodies huddled on folding chairs, the steam of their breathing mingling with cigarette smoke to create a layer of blue haze floating in the high-ceilinged room. McIntire grabbed one of the few remaining chairs from the stack against the wall and set it up in an advantageous spot for Leonie to record the official proceedings as well as to catch up on the latest unofficial news—in the front row, next to Sally Ferguson. After filling an enamel cup with coffee he took his usual place, standing at the back of the room near the door.

So what was it that had brought out the crowd? A stale murder or the probable loss of one quarter of the high school faculty? McIntire's appearance wasn't greeted with any more than the usual curiosity at seeing the constable there, so either Erik Pelto was still at large, or his own part in alerting the FBI to the teacher's past life hadn't gotten out.

Ernie Jarvinen gaveled the room to silence. “We are gathered here tonight….” His customary opening words were met with the customary groans and followed by a tedious series of housekeeping tasks, from the last meeting's minutes to Myrtle Van Opelt's forking over of the $12.35 her Justice Court had exacted in fines in the past month.

“Any old business?” brought a few snickers and not a few glances in McIntire's direction, but any mention of homicide was held at bay by a discussion of the planting of tulips at the cemetery gate, which had been approved in September, the bulbs duly purchased but never put in the ground. The assembly, in their collective wisdom, decided it could now wait until spring. A consultation on the best means of keeping the bulbs until the frost was out of the ground ensued.

The door opened, letting in a blast of arctic air and Adam Wall, dressed in his brown county deputy uniform. He was sporting knee-high fringed deer-hide moccasins of the sort that might have come mail order from Bill's Wild West Emporium. What was going on with the sheriff's department and footgear? Was Adam Wall making a rebuttal to Sheriff Koski's fancy western boots? Would Cecil Newman soon be showing up in shiny new Buster Browns?

Wall pulled off his hat and moved next to McIntire. “Have I missed anything?”

“Only Hanging Judge Myrtle.”

“Damn!”

Wall lived a half mile off the road; he didn't make the trek out often. He must have some good reason for being here, seemingly in his sporadic official capacity. McIntire asked, “Deputy Cecil get his man?”

“Yup. J. T. Falk is tucked up in cell number two, toasty warm, scarfing down Mrs. Koski's cooking.”

“And going to be there for some time, I expect.”

“Oh ya. Godwin will ask for no bail, and he'll get it.”

“What's he worried about? Teddy doesn't seem like the type to run. He didn't have to come back here.”

“No,” Wall agreed, “and he wouldn't have any chance of disappearing, anyway. He shits, the Feds know what color.”

“So why not set bail?”

“When it comes to homicide Godwin's batting oh for two. He ain't taking any chances on this one getting away. And Falk ain't complaining. He's warm, he's fed, he's got nothing to do and a stack of books two feet high.” Adam Wall sounded envious.

McIntire lowered his voice a notch. “Any news from Lansing?”

“Two individuals. One adult female, about five foot five, healed fractures of fourth rib and left clavicle. No apparent cause of death. One adult male, at least five-ten, skull blown to smithereens.”

“That's it? Guibard had that much figured out.”

“They got a date off the shipping receipt. August seventeenth, 1934.”

“Didn't anybody ask about it when he was hired?”
The strident voice from the front row told McIntire who might be tucked up in cell number one.

“Mr. Pelto hasn't been spreading communism to his pupils.” Harvey Muller, potato grower and school board chairman, sounded more defensive than convinced.

Roy Sorenson got to his feet “How do you know? You taking tenth grade math? The kids look up to him, he's a communist….”

“He is
not
a communist.”

“He was when he was their age.” Roy shook off Mrs. Roy's tug at his sleeve.

“They didn't know that until certain people started shooting their mouths off, did they?” Muller imitated Sorenson's sneering tone to a tee. The certain blabbermouth wearing the constable badge hoped he wasn't going to be called upon to break up a fight.

“Kinda makes you wonder how many more we got.” It was Ben Lindstrom, normally a sensible sort, McIntire would have guessed, and, as one whose young son spent more time working in the family fishing business than he did in school, perhaps not one with a legitimate complaint.

“You got anybody to take over?”

“No, and if you think decent teachers are all that easy to come up with around here, now's your chance!” Muller folded his arms and pressed his lips together.

“So keep him on. You know damn well if everybody here that ever belonged to some communist outfit got fired we'd plenty of us be in trouble.”

“He ain't being fired because he used to be a communist. We got to let him go if he don't show up for work. He can't hardly teach from a cell in the county jail, now can he?” Muller gave a final huff. “Maybe the state will come up with some extra money to bring in a sub.”

“Think maybe they'd go Pelto's bail?” It was Arnie Johnson, miraculously the first time he'd offered the benefit of his wisdom to the group. His comments were ignored.

The meeting concluded with Harvey Muller promising action and vigilance, Mike Maki suggesting that the high school should have been closed and the kids bused into Chandler years ago, and without McIntire needing to exercise his official duty or avail himself of Adam Wall for reinforcement. From the looks of the group around the coffee maker, he might not be in the clear yet.

“Can I have a word?”

An elderly man, bundled in a World War I vintage army coat, nudged McIntire's elbow. He stuck out his hand. “Larry Houtari. Can we sit for a minute? My legs ain't what they used to be.”

The basement furnace was finally beginning to spit out some warm air, and McIntire dragged two chairs closer to the grating in the floor. The old man settled down with a barrage of wheezing. His lungs apparently were also not what they used to be.

“My wife, she's passed away, was Rose Falk's aunt. Jarvi Makinen was her brother.”

McIntire nodded. “I've been meaning to look you up.”

“Adeline—my wife—she was a terrible nag.”

McIntire wasn't sure if expressing sympathy was in order. Maybe male camaraderie would be the thing. He satisfied himself with a sympathetic nod.

“She nagged about every little thing. Got so I didn't pay no attention most of the time.” Houtari shook his head. “Adeline had a good heart, but that nagging! She was real fond of Rosie, looked after her after her ma died. Rosie needed plenty of looking after, and Adeline worried about her. She was really flustered about them going off to Russia.”

“That's understandable.”

“I'm glad Addie ain't around to know what really happened.”

That was also understandable. McIntire gave another nod.

“Well, I got to remembering. A couple days before Rose and Teddy left it was Adeline's birthday. The ladies, they had a birthday club. The all got together and visited when one of them had a birthday, in the afternoon, you know. Had a little party. Anyway, it was Adeline's birthday, and Rosie didn't show up. Adeline didn't think she'd do that, especially since she was leaving, and they might never see each other again. She got after me to go over to see if everything was okay.”

“What did you find out?”

“I didn't go. Oh, I told Addie some cock and bull story about Rose being really busy or sick or something, I forget. I feel bad about it now. But we just saw her and Ted at the going-away party, and Addie was so miserable, crying and carrying on. I didn't want to have to go through all that again. Now I look back, it wasn't like Rosie not to be at Adeline's birthday, but at the time….” He shrugged. “She was just such a nagger!”

“When was your wife's birthday? Do you remember?”

“Oh, sure. Adeline wouldn't let me forget that! Seventeenth of August.”