by Ann Yost
Max’s eyes left the road to glance at me.
“You really think he’s innocent? Or is it just wishful thinking?”
“He shouldn’t have married her for the money but I don’t believe he killed her,” I said, a little surprised that it was true.
But then, I didn’t think Arvo was a killer, either.
Max heard my heartfelt sigh and patted my hand.
Thirty-Two
Doc’s office, three blocks south of the sheriff’s department and on the same side of the street, is actually his home. The depression-era bungalow always reminded me of Hansel and Gretel, with its white stone exterior set off by red bric-a-brac trim around the arched front door and along the steep roofline. It was cute, quaint and tiny, with low ceilings and small, cozy rooms, perfectly calibrated for Mrs. Doc, a miniature version of Mrs. Santa.
Doc himself was a tall, robustly built man with thick white hair and a beard and the slightly hunched posture of someone who spent most of his day ducking to move through his home.
He answered the door to my knock. “Hei, Henrikki,” he said, gathering me into a hug. “This your young man?”
I didn’t know what to say, but Max did. He chuckled.
“Been a long time since I was called a young man.”
Doc nodded and seemed to study him while I introduced the two men. Without further comment, the physician led us into his office and invited us to sit down. A moment later, Flossie Laitimaki arrived with coffee and Joulutorttu and I introduced Max again.
Doc asked the inevitable question about why Max had decided to move to the Keweenaw and buy an old fishing camp and Max answered with his usual combination of courtesy, humor, and evasion. Then Doc turned to me.
“And you, Hatti? How is your family?”
I told him what there was to know about my folks (he already knew), and Sofi and Elli (he knew that, too) and I realized how much I had missed that kind of connection when I’d lived in D.C. It wasn’t that people weren’t pleasant or even friendly in some cases. It was that they didn’t know me and that it would take a lifetime for them to know me and my family the way Doc did.
“All right, tytar,” he said, using the word for daughter, “you came because you want to know more about Liisa Pelonen, eh? Well, I’m sorry to say, it isn’t much.”
“You can’t find any indication she was murdered?”
He shook his head. “She was hit on the head, a blow that would not have killed her, and then she died. My best guess is that she had an arrhythmia and the shock from the blow caused her heart to stutter and slow so that her blood pressure dropped and she fainted.”
“Are you certain about that?”
“As I say, it is a guess based on the lack of other indicators and the knowledge that the girl was prone to vasovagal syncope.” I nodded. And then he threw me a curve. “I must say, between you, me and the lamp-post, I didn’t see any evidence of heart problems.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. Not everything shows up, of course. More likely the girl fainted once and a doctor spoke to her parents about syncope and it became part of family lore.”
“You mean she didn’t have the condition?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, I didn’t see any evidence of it. But I’m hardly an expert.”
A thought had been playing in my brain and I voiced it.
“Doc, is it possible Liisa’s heart was slowed by drugs?”
He didn’t respond right away and I got the impression he had already considered that possibility.
“I found no drugs in her system.”
“But you didn’t check for every kind of drug, right?”
“That’s right. There’s a standard tox screen for an autopsy.”
“So what if someone had introduced a more arcane substance into her system?”
“Like what?”
I spread my hands to the side, frustrated.
“I don’t know. I thought you could help me figure it out.”
“Are you asking me what I would have used if I’d wanted to kill someone and make it look like an accident?”
The idea of Doc, who had brought hundreds if not thousands of babies into the world, including me, deliberately killing someone was ludicrous but that was exactly what I meant and he knew it. I nodded, again.
“It would have to be some kind of poison, right?” The suggestion came from Max. “Something that wouldn’t show up on a tox screen, or else something that would masquerade as something more innocuous. Maybe something herbal.”
Thoughts and images exploded in my head like a child’s piñata. Something herbal. Something like the aconite in the monkshood flower in the Makis’s greenhouse.
“I still have the specimens and could run more tests,” Doc said, “but I’d have to be looking for something in particular.”
I knew I needed to tell him but it would be tantamount to a death knell for Arvo. For a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“If anything occurs,” Doc started to say. I stopped him by putting my hand on his arm.
“Aconite,” I said.
Doc eyed me, curiously.
“That’s from a flower, isn’t it? Wolfsbane or some such?”
“Wolfsbane or Monkshood it’s called,” I agreed. “Pauline Maki has some in her greenhouse.”
“Surely you don’t suspect Pauline,” Doc said, shocked.
“No. Oh, no. I don’t suspect Arvo, either. I just know about the poisonous flower.”
My mind was racing but I must have been quiet during the drive back to Red Jacket.
“A penny for your thoughts, Umlaut,” Max said, his tone light.
“I’m feeling a little guilty. I just kind of threw Arvo under the bus.”
“No, you didn’t. You did the right thing. Your job is to gather as much information as possible and to make connections. We were talking with Doc about poisons and you recalled a poison you’d just seen in the home of one of those involved in the case. It was right to tell Doc about the monkshood. It was your duty.”
“But what if there is no connection between the flower and Liisa’s death? What if I cast an aspersion on the Makis for no good reason at all?”
“You’ve got to look at everything objectively,” he said, basically repeating the point. “Just remember, when you’ve eliminated the possible, what remains, however improbable, is the truth.” Max said
“Sherlock Holmes?”
“Yep. He also said follow the money.”
“He did not.”
“Well, he should have.”
I was quiet the rest of the way to Main Street and Patty’s Pasties. If Doc confirmed the presence of aconite in Liisa’s body, the finger of guilt would point squarely at Arvo, which would clear Reid Night Wind. I was ashamed at how badly I wanted that to be true.
“Follow the money,” Max repeated, “and the emotional impact.” It was as if he’d read my mind. “Reid Night Wind, if he’s telling the truth, felt sorry for the girl. Arvo Maki loved her and, at least to my mind, that level of attachment seemed a bit unnatural.”
“What are you saying?”
He held up his hands. “Nothing kinky, Babe. It’s just that if the Makis had wanted a child, they should have had one of their own. You can’t just annex a kid at age eighteen, you know. She’s not a business or a piece of property.”
“Are you saying you think Arvo killed her?”
He shook his head. “I’m just pointing out that love and hate are two sides of the same coin.”
“Whatever that means,” I muttered. “Let me buy you lunch?”
He wasn’t listening to me. The smile had dropped off his face as he gazed through the plate-glass window to see Sofi, Elli and Sonya gathered at a table.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’m not hungry. Raincheck?”
“Of course.” I didn’t understand it but I felt his pain and there was a gentleness in my voice. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“You�
�re a nice person, Hatti.”
Thirty-Three
The pasty, legend has it, was invented by a Cornish miner’s wife so that her husband, deep underground at mid-day, could enjoy a hot meal. The original pasty was a pastry-enclosed meat pie that included vegetables and gravy.
The concept crossed the Atlantic with the immigrants coming to work in the copper and iron mines in the UP, and the pasty had become iconic on the Keweenaw. Nowadays, though, there are pasties for every taste including vegetarian pasties, salad pasties, tuna, chipotle, Asian pasties, Italian pasties with pasta and, for the fast-food lover, the bacon-cheeseburger pasty.
Just for the record, all of Patty’s pasties are all delicious.
I found my buddies sitting at a corner table. They’d already put in their orders—and mine—so all we had to do was wait. It was a perfect time to catch them up on developments and to pick their brains.
“I’m concerned about Reid Night Wind,” Sonya said, her brow furrowed. “The case is starting to look watertight. There’s the money he will inherit and the eyewitness account of Friday night behind the sauna. He has means, motive, and opportunity and Jace thinks Sheriff Clump is hesitating only because he’s waiting for a confession which would make everything much simpler and result in less paperwork for him.”
“You talked to Jace?”
The words came from Sofi but I was silently screaming the same question.
“He called to ask me to pick up some clothes and things from the rez in case Reid has to spend a night or two in jail. Chief Joseph packed a little bag.”
A little bag.
“Omigosh,” I said. “I forgot to tell you about the suitcase I found in Pauline’s greenhouse. It was hidden under one of the tables and I found it when I stubbed my toe on a pot.” They all leaned forward.
“Anything in it?”
“Just the stuff you’d expect. Clothing. Nothing nefarious. There’s something else, too. I just talked to Doc about what could have caused the syncope.”
“You mean something other than the shock of getting hit on the head?” Sonya asked.
I nodded. “Right from the first it seemed like that blow to the head was just a diversion. I mean, you determined that it couldn’t have killed Liisa and Doc agreed with that. And, it seems kind of risky to have depended upon shock killing her.”
“Not so risky,” Sonya said, “since she was known to have a heart problem.”
“About that. Doc said he saw no evidence of heart disease or dysfunction. There’s no way of knowing whether Liisa really believed she had a heart condition or whether it was made up, but the fact is, her heart was healthy, then.”
After a long silence, Elli spoke.
“So what do you think killed her?”
“Poison. Maybe aconite, which comes from the monkshood flower and is strong enough to stop the heart.”
“From a flower? One of those blue ones in Pauline’s greenhouse?”
I looked admiringly at my sister. “Yep.”
“Then that means it was Arvo,” Elli said, with a little cry. “It just couldn’t be Arvo.”
“I know,” I said. “But I guess we’ll find out. Doc is going to test for the poison.”
“What about Grace Ikola,” Elli asked. “She claimed to have seen Reid Night Wind running away from the sauna, carrying a suitcase.”
“About that,” Sonya said, apologetically. “Jace talked with the Ikolas. Grace did see Reid in the yard by the sauna but she didn’t see a suitcase. Who said she did?”
“Sheriff Clump,” I said. “He was so proud of his eye-witness but he didn’t tell us how he’d come by that report.” I paused. “I feel like we’re getting closer to the answer.”
“I feel like that, too,” Elli said. “Only I just wish it was not Arvo.”
I walked back home through the pelting snow. As a kid, I’d pretended to be a Siberian husky mushing against the weather. Today I was barely aware of it. My mind was in a whirl. It felt like the lottery wheel on a game show, spinning, spinning and slowing. And just like on TV, I didn’t know where it would stop.
I let Larry out (but kept an eye on him because it is not great to be a short dog in a deep snow.) Then I made some coffee, poured a cup and headed for the study and my neglected laptop. I normally kept it at work as it contained all my records, invoices and spreadsheets, but since I had been focused on the murder I’d kept it at home and now I was glad of it. There was something niggling at the back of my mind and I thought if I could get lost in one of those mindless computer searches for shoes or purses, I might be able to sweep enough cobwebs away to get at the nugget of information.
But, for once, shoes didn’t hold my attention and I found myself looking up aconite. The juice of the plant or its roots was so powerful that the Nazis had used it as an ingredient in poison bullets. If swallowed, it could bring on vomiting and death but even contact with the skin could cause numbness and cardiac symptoms.
Contact with the skin.
I scrolled down until I found a knitting reference. Intrigued, I read the story out of Tasmania, headlined “Wedding Shawl Turns to Shroud.”
“When Charlotte Lambie of Binalong Bay told her mother she was engaged to be married, Mary Binalong, a master knitter, decided to make a very special gift, a Shetland wedding ring shawl. Composed of nearly one hundred thousand stitches of decreases, increases, knit two together through the back and yarn-overs, this shell-white masterpiece took two years to create.
(There was a picture of the bride wearing a wispy shawl knitted in the shell pattern.)
Mary Lambie told this reporter that, despite her many years of knitting, this heirloom project had been unbelievably difficult, composed as it was of a fine mohair yarn whose strands tended to stick together.
“I had to go back and undo,” Mary said. “Oh, so many times. I dropped out of church choir to find more time and I developed a squint. My dear husband, Declan, learned to cook and to clean to support me in this effort. It was worth it. The shawl won the blue ribbon at the Australian National Knitting Expo in Melbourne.”
Editor’s note: After this interview was published, there was an incident involving the shawl and we contacted Mary for a follow up.
“I left the shawl spread out on my white bedspread,” she said, from her cell at the Binalong Jail. “While I was out, my so-called husband dumped out the laundry basket on that bed then he scooped everything into the washing machine. I got home to find my shawl shrunk into a diaper.”
When asked what she did next, Mary Lambie replied, “oh, there was nothing to be done about the shawl. I went to work on Declan. I make my own soap, you see, and I made up a new batch, substituting the leaves of the monkshood flower for lavender. Then I offered to scrub his back in the bath. I will say he died a happy man.”
I sat in a kitchen chair staring at the computer screen for a long time and remembered a conversation from the Moomins.
“Moominpappa: Tell us all that’s happening in the world!
Snufkin: Fuss and Misery.”
Thirty-Four
The only black dress I could find was a tunic that I paired with black tights and knee-high fashion boots. I borrowed a seventy-year-old mink jacket that had belonged to my mummi and the socially-inappropriate, dominiatrix look was complete.
It didn’t matter. Practicality was the name of the game on this, the day of Liisa Pelonen’s funeral. The fur jacket had pockets deep enough to carry what I needed, too.
Just as I was about to tuck my cellphone into one of the deep pockets, I decided it was foolish not to call for backup. Or, at the least, to let someone know where I was.
I punched in a number and realized, with some surprise, that I’d called my husband. Naturally, he did not answer. Jace always had bigger fish to fry than me. I left a message telling him where I was going but not what I intended to do there. I didn’t want him to be disappointed if it didn’t work or if I was wrong—a very real possibility.
Pauline’s evergr
een wreaths on the double-front doors looked as fresh and unrevealing as ever and it occurred to me, inconsequentially, how something as innocuous as a door decoration can provide an observer with information. And then I second-guessed myself. What was I thinking? Arvo and Pauline were running a business here. The undecorated wreaths were not a personal statement. They were part of the job.
Arvo never locked the door on funeral service days so I didn’t bother to knock. I let myself into the shadowy foyer and glanced at my watch. It was three p.m. and the service was at four-thirty. I was surprised to find the lights off and the entry way deserted but there was a majestic arrangement of yellow lilies, roses and delphiniums in a copper container on the pedestal in the corridor and a stack of freshly printed programs on the desk. The profile of Liisa Pelonen, on the front, was artistic and lovely but didn’t do justice to her ethereal smile. I figured it had come from Arvo’s camera.
I had shaken off my umbrella on the doorstep and set it in a brass holder by the door, despite my desire to keep it in my hand as a kind of impromptu weapon. The silence felt eerie. There was always soft, classical music (mostly Sibelius) playing on funeral days. Where was the music? Where were the lights? Where was Arvo? I forced myself to tiptoe down the main corridor.
The chapel was wide open and empty except for the white coffin spotlighted up near the altar. I felt an unreasoning sense of relief as I realized I wasn’t alone. I didn’t feel my usual aversion to gazing at a corpse, either. Instead, I experienced a stinging anger. How dared someone deprive this young woman of her future? How dared he?
I slipped my hand into one pocket and pulled out the bracelet from Matti and the dreamcatcher from Reid. I tucked both items under the counterpane pulled up to her waist.
“You should have these gifts,” I said, “to remind you of how much you were loved.” The sentiment brought me back to Arvo. He had loved Liisa Pelonen like a daughter. Had he found out about quickie marriage to Reid Night Wind and her plan to escape Red Jacket? Had it broken his heart? I realized I had felt all along that this murder wasn’t about money but about emotion. Someone had loved Liisa Pelonen too much.