A Yarn Over Murder

by Ann Yost

  I’d wimped out. I started to get cramps and, because I thought-slash-hoped I was pregnant, I didn’t want to take a chance on a miscarriage. It turned out to be a false alarm and, because we had not discussed children yet, I had never told Jace.

  “I’m tougher now,” I said, by way of explanation.

  “Speaking of tough, I seem to remember you were averse to anything that crawled. How’d you wind up with a bait shop?”

  “Pops. He asked me to run it just to give me something to do, I suspect, but it has worked out because he’s busy being the police chief and he let me add yarn supplies so it’s a little more up my alley. Anyway, I have Einar.”

  “Einar?”

  “Pops’ assistant. He handles everything in the refrigerator and all the other fishing gear, too. He knows everything there is to know about fishing.” I paused. “And the weather. And sauna.”

  “Why do you call it sow-na?”

  “Finns pronounce every letter and always put the emphasis on the first syllable. It’s just how we say it.”

  He nodded. “So you get along with this Einar?”

  “Well, he’s not much of a conversationalist. You can’t get more than a few words out of him on any given day unless its commentary on my lack of a husband.”

  “You don’t lack a husband.”

  The words were spoken in a neutral tone but there was a remote expression in his eyes.

  It came to me in a flash that a relationship like ours, between two people who had once been wildly in love, was the most difficult to navigate. If we had just met, we’d be chatting easily, sharing anecdotes or an easy silence. As it was, nearly every topic was loaded and the gun always pointed back to our failed marriage.

  “Détente,” I said, lightly. “Remember?”

  He looked into the fire and spoke.

  “So. How does Einar feel about Max?”

  I didn’t get the connection at once.

  “Max admires Einar’s flies and respects his fishing knowledge. They don’t go fishing together or have slumber parties.”

  “How about you?”

  I knew what he was asking and I felt a rush of sadness. Nothing could bring us back together but, clearly, a friendship between us wasn’t possible.

  “No slumber parties. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “How do you like living in Red Jacket?”

  This had to, I thought, be the strangest conversation. I was living in my hometown because, twelve months ago, and for no stated reason, he had kicked me out of the marriage.

  “I like it fine.”

  “You liked living in D.C., as I recall.”

  I thought back to the culture shock I’d experienced in the fast-paced lifestyle of the nation’s capital. I’d gotten adjusted to it because I’d loved being with Jace.

  “I’m really more of a small-town girl.”

  He didn’t answer. He got to his feet with his usual masculine grace and punched up the fire. His hands were quick and efficient and something flashed in the jumping flames.

  “You’re still wearing your ring.”

  He frowned, then sat back down just a little closer than he’d been before.

  “We’re still married,” he said. In the following pause, I imagined the unspoken words, I’ve missed you.

  My heart jumped a little but I couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad thing. I’d worked hard to come to terms with what had happened and I didn’t want to fall back into the what-might-have-been-slash-if-only frame of mind.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly. “It was so unfair to you. I’m sorry I never explained.”

  I froze. Did that mean he was going to explain now? Could I stand to listen to it? Could I stand not to? I was conscious of a strong inclination toward peace. Like I said, a Christmas-time cease-fire. No more pain. He seemed to read my mind because he dropped the subject. We cleaned up, spread our sleeping bags in front of the fire and crawled into them.

  “Tell me about St. Lucy,” he said, as we watched the flames. It was a good topic and I was happy to comply.

  “Celebrating St. Lucy day is a Swedish tradition and practiced in areas of Finland where there are Swedish-speaking Finns. Since most of us are Lutherans, we don’t have much to do with saints in general but somehow St. Lucy really caught on in Sweden and has been continued in this country.

  “Anyway, St. Lucy or Santa Lucia, was supposedly a young girl who wanted to keep herself pure for God and rejected an offer of marriage from an Italian nobleman. The suitor’s cronies killed her by thrusting a sword into one of her eyes and making her bleed to death. That’s the dark side of the story. The other side is that St. Lucy represents light—which is illustrated by the crown of candles on her head. The lightness is very welcome during the long, dark nights and short, gray days of December.”

  “The whole thing’s apocryphal, right? Like the stories in the Bible.”

  “You could make a case for both of those,” I said, “but I wouldn’t do it around here. We’re very attached to our traditions.”

  “So how is the St. Lucy girl chosen?”

  I nodded. I thought it was like him, thorough and thoughtful, to have hit on an aspect of this case that might not be evident to someone else.

  “Normally the high school seniors choose St. Lucy and there’s a very short list. This year, Astrid Laplander was the frontrunner but then Liisa Pelonen arrived in town and she looked exactly like every poster you’ve ever seen of St. Lucy. Arvo Maki unilaterally decided to name Liisa to the position and the rest is history.”

  “Do you think that had anything to do with her death?”

  “Not if your brother killed her.”

  “Let’s—for the sake of argument—say he didn’t. Could this Astrid person have been angry enough to have committed murder?”

  “She was angry,” I admitted. “And her mother, even more so. It’s a big deal in Red Jacket. St. Lucy is a status position among the girls and the mothers, like Ronja Laplander, really believe good things will come to a girl who plays the martyr.”

  “It didn’t work in the case of Liisa Pelonen.”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever take the part?”

  “Yes. You have to remember that while it’s a coveted part we have a very small community.”

  “What about your sister and your cousin?”

  I was frankly surprised that he remembered Elli.

  “Sofi was picked all right, but not Elli who was a senior the same year as me. Only one of us could be St. Lucy. She didn’t mind.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I thought back to high school and the St. Lucy festival.

  “I’m sure. One of the superstitions is that St. Lucy will get a good husband. Elli was practically engaged to someone at that point and she figured I needed the karma more than she did.”

  “Ah. I didn’t know your cousin was married.”

  “She’s not. It didn’t work out. In the end.”

  It hadn’t worked out for me, either, but neither of us pointed that out.

  “So how much anger was there this year?”

  “Quite a lot,” I admitted. “Ronja, the mother, was furious with Arvo for taking the decision into his own hands. Physically, Liisa was the perfect St. Lucy, but it wasn’t fair for Arvo to completely ignore the Laplanders’ hopes.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes watching the fire. Suddenly Jace ran his fingers through his short hair and spoke.

  “Let’s pool our resources, Umlaut. Maybe if we go over every detail of what each of us knows, some direction will occur to us.”

  I thought it was a good idea. It seems to me that trying to solve a crime is like trying to put together a puzzle, only first you have to find all the pieces. We were still in gathering mode.

  I told him about Liisa’s day starting with breakfast.

  “She’d gone downtown with Arvo to help put up more twinkle lights and then, a couple of hours before she was supposed to be
at the church to line up for the parade, she told him she needed to go shopping for a dress for the high school dance scheduled for that night. According to Pauline, she went down to the Frostbite Mall in Houghton with an unknown friend and got back just in the nick of time for the start of the parade at 3 o’clock. The parade is scheduled so when it ends down at the Old Finnish Cemetery, dusk is settling in and the lighted candles the children prop up next to the headstones are visible.

  “The fact that Liisa was late meant that there was no time for her to put on longjohns under her costume and she caught a chill.”

  “Why didn’t she just wear a jacket?”

  I made a face. “She should have. Apparently, Pauline was afraid it would detract from the impression of the delicate saint. Anyway, as a result, she had a scratchy throat and a bit of a fever when she got home. Pauline gave her tea and Vicks and tucked her in bed.”

  “Vicks?”

  “Vaporub. Guaranteed to cure anything that ails you.”

  “Then what? The Makis left the house?”

  “That’s right. They were expected at the smorgasbord at Elli’s bed and breakfast. Pauline went home once, about six forty-five, to pick up some jam but she didn’t hear anything and she didn’t peek in on Liisa because she didn’t want to wake her. They returned at nine and it took them fifteen or twenty minutes to search the house when they found her not in her bed.”

  “How’d they know to look in the sauna?”

  “I imagine it was the last place they did look.”

  “And, at that point, she was back in her clothes.”

  I nodded. “She had to be planning to leave.”

  “With Reid, you mean.”

  I nodded, again.

  “So where’s her suitcase?”

  “I wondered the same thing.”

  “So the last time anyone saw her alive it was Pauline Maki and that was, what time?”

  “About six-fifteen.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Hatti, does it occur to you we have only Pauline Maki’s word that Liisa was alive and in bed at six-fifteen?”

  I stared at him. “You think Pauline Maki killed her? But why? There’s no motive. Pauline and Arvo loved Liisa.”

  “Maybe Arvo loved her too much.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t see them after they found the body. He was weeping and she was pale and hollow-eyed and shaking. Pauline told me that Liisa’s coming to live with them made up for all the years of childlessness. They honestly considered her a surrogate daughter. And you should see what she, Pauline, that is, did to the bedroom. She must have spent a fortune on pink furniture, clothes and accessories.”

  “All right, all right. It was just a thought.”

  “And, anyway,” I rushed ahead, impulsively, following my own train of thought. “Pauline didn’t even know about the baby.”

  “She couldn’t have had anything to do with the pregnancy,” I added.

  “No,” he said, finally, “but it’s possible her husband did.”

  “Arvo? No way. He would never have abused the trust of a young girl living in his house. Why he’s as honorable as Pops.”

  The look my husband turned on me was positively reptilian.

  “I’m sure you believe that,” he finally said. He looked so miserable that I reached out a hand and laid it on his arm.

  “I realize the baby makes the case worse for Reid.”

  “Not necessarily. He told Grandfather that his relationship with Liisa was purely platonic. He was helping her get out of Dodge because she was afraid of something or somebody.”

  “He might have lied,” I said, thinking of the dreamcatcher in my pocket.

  “Why should he lie? There was nothing stopping them from being in a relationship if that’s what they wanted.”

  I shrugged. “That baby came from somewhere.”

  “My money’s on Arvo Maki.”

  I struggled to control my temper. Nothing could be gained by getting into a knock-down, drag-out with Jace.

  “Sonya believes Liisa was hit with a rock but that it didn’t kill her. We don’t know the cause of death but there is no rock on the floor of the sauna so the blow must have been deliberate.”

  “So we know there was an attack but not how she came to die.”

  “There’s just not that much blood at the scene.”

  “Maybe she was killed somewhere else.”

  “It’s possible.” I sighed and decided to share my theory. “Sonya suspected that Liisa had a heart condition and Pauline corroborated that. Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain the blow on the head. You know what I think?” He raised one eyebrow. “I think she was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned with what?” But he knew. “You think my brother has a stash left over from the old days. You think he killed her with an overdose of methamphetamines.”

  I could hear the disgust and the concern in his voice and I didn’t know how to answer either.

  “I need to talk to your brother,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m going to sleep.”

  Seventeen

  Ignatius Holomo, Red Jacket’s oldest living inhabitant since my mummi died, had surrendered his title and was, as Pops put it, “at long last heading to the marble orchard.”

  I walked over to the funeral home with my parents and Sofi to pay my respects. Everyone in town was there, queued up to file past the coffin while Miss Irene played Sibelius on the old, upright piano, the way she does for all our funerals whether they are held in the chapel at the Maki Funeral Home or at St. Heikki’s. The scent of roses was strong and it triggered a familiar feeling of anxiety.

  I am not a fan of funerals in general, and my least favorite part is the mandatory “viewing of the body.” As a child, I’d developed the trick of focusing on a corner of the raised coffin lid, thereby avoiding a face-to-face with the dearly departed. Sometimes though, like today, my conscience intervened and I forced my gaze to Ignatius’s grizzled mug, intending to suck it up and offer him a silent “R.I.P.”

  I never got the chance. A series of short, sharp, shrieks halted Miss Irene’s playing and shocked me awake. I shot bolt upright, hyperventilating, sweating, gripped by panic. After a moment, I calmed down enough to become aware of strong arms holding me and a husky voice in my ear.

  “You’re all right, babe. It was just a bad dream. I’m here.”

  I laid my head against a muscular shoulder as conflicting emotions assailed me. Gratitude and relief on the one hand and resentment on the other. I’d hoped to awake to those words every morning for the past three hundred and sixty-five days.

  “What was it, Umlaut?”

  I breathed deeply a few times before answering.

  “I was at a funeral service. When I looked into the coffin, it was you.”

  “Ah. I imagine you’ve had that dream more than once during the past year.”

  I shook my head but kept silent. I did not tell him that my standby dream was of him holding me and repeating the same words he’d just said. You’re all right, babe. It was just a bad dream. I’m here.

  His fingers drew a line down my cheek, and then I felt his lips against mine. It was a chaste kiss, sweet and comforting and so non-sexual that I wanted to cry. That impulse, thank goodness, was checked when the cabin door burst open letting in a blast of snow and cold and a bright, harsh light. Jace cursed and rolled away from me.

  It was a scenario that was all too familiar, and in that moment, I felt lonelier than at any time in my life.

  “Well, damn, big brother,” said the newcomer. “And here I thought you were coming up here to rescue me.”

  Luckily, the brash words banished my self-pity. Geez Louise. If there was a less dignified, more embarrassing way to get introduced to a murder suspect (or anyone else) I couldn’t imagine what it was. I struggled to sit up.

  “Don’t get up on my account.”

  He propped his flashlight on its end so that it illuminated the room without blinding us and I was a
ble to get my first glimpse of Reid Night Wind, my soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law. I was not surprised to see that he was as devastatingly handsome as Jace. About six feet tall, rangy shoulders, lean and tanned with a shock of thick, raven hair and matching eyelashes. His nose, like Jace’s, was straight and narrow, his chin square, his cheekbones as sharp as flint.

  Straight, white teeth flashed in the shadows and I found myself wishing I could have combed my hair.

  “I’m Hatti Lehtinen,” I said, trying to take some kind of command of the situation.

  “I’m relieved to hear it,” Reid said, bending over to take my hand then raising it to his perfectly sculpted lips. “I’d hate to find my brother on top of someone else’s wife.”

  Smooth, I thought. Too smooth for someone who was not yet twenty-two. He might very well be capable of planning and executing a crime. The thought saddened me.

  “I’m glad you dropped by. I’ve got some questions.”

  Reid nodded. “Grandfather said you were Red Jacket’s top cop.”

  “Temporary top cop.”

  “Temporary, acting,” Jace put in. “Temporary job, temporary husband. Temporary is Hatti’s middle name these days.”

  The edge in his voice surprised me and I shot him a look intended to remind him that the separation had been his idea. Naturally, he wasn’t looking at me.

  “Where’ve you been, Reid?”

  “Visiting a friend.”

  “Is your friend a timber wolf?”

  He chuckled as he took off his boots and grabbed a sleeping bag to sit on.

  “I spend a lot of time up here. There’s a whole community if you know where to look.” He settled into a cross-legged position and grinned at me and I was willing to bet my last pasty that his friend was female. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask your questions. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “Did you know Liisa Pelonen was pregnant? Did you kill her?”

  I hadn’t planned to start with that. It just came out. And I thought it surprised him. I studied his face as he composed his answer. His eyes were dark, almost black, compared with the light gray of his half-brother. Like Jace, he’d already learned how to mask his response.