“Can I use your phone?” I finally said to Jaeger.
He nodded, leaving me no choice but to go inside the house where one of my worst nightmares had begun.
CHAPTER 33
The black plastic phone hung on the wall in between the kitchen and the front room. The perpetually curled cord dangled to the floor, still as a dead snake hanging out to dry. It didn’t take much to imagine Lida with the receiver cradled to her ear as she went about making lefse, a Norwegian potato flatbread, for the holidays, or rakfisk from the trout that came out of the Green River out by Gladstone. Pastor had set me thinking about fishing, I suppose, and rakfisk was one of Lida’s staple recipes; my mother’s, too, as far as that went.
Plain and simple, rakfisk was a salt- and sugar-fermented fish that would last through the winter, served uncooked with onions, sour cream, and dill mustard. It was not a favorite dish of mine, or Hank’s, so I hardly ever cooked it, but Erik had loved it; mostly, I think, because he loved to fish nearly as much as he loved to farm. It was difficult being in Lida’s kitchen without thinking about rakfisk and lefse. All that was missing was the smell. The kitchen was clean and tidy. Breakfast dishes and skillets were put away but bacon lingered in the air. I was glad that Jaeger was eating.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number from memory. Olga picked up on the first ring. “St. Joseph’s Hospital, how may I direct your call?”
“Olga, it’s me, Marjorie Trumaine. I need to check in on Hank.”
“Just a second, and I’ll see if I can get ahold of one of the nurses for ya.”
Olga’s tone was matter of fact, so I wasn’t alarmed. Just uncomfortable because of where I was and what had happened to get the day going. I closed my eyes to help keep the ghosts away, but it didn’t help. Jaeger hadn’t changed a thing in the house. Hadn’t moved one knickknack or traded out one picture. I doubted he ever would. The house was a museum to a life that once was.
“Marjorie?” Olga came back on the line, pulling me back into the present.
“Yes?”
“Hank had an easy night. Doc had a baby to deliver this morning, but it’s possible he’ll get to go home before the end of the day, or first thing in the morning. He sure has rallied since I first saw him come in. Had me worried, he did.”
“Thanks for your concern, Olga. Can you get a message to him for me?”
“Sure thing. Whatcha want me to tell him?”
“Let him know I’m running late. It might be after lunch before I make it to the hospital.”
“Goin’ to that funeral, are you?”
I drew in a breath and bit my tongue before I spoke. “Can you please tell him, Olga?”
“Sure thing, Marjorie. I just wouldn’t go to . . .”
I cut her off. “Thanks, Olga. I have to go.”
I stood in the kitchen, trying to decide what to do next, when Jaeger and Pastor walked in the door. They stopped in unison and stood shoulder to shoulder.
“What’s the matter?” I said, looking at them both. They had serious looks on their faces.
Pastor shrugged. “I told Jaeger about your truck. We don’t think you should be alone, Marjorie.”
“Did you tell him my thinking about Calla?”
Pastor nodded. “All things considered, I thought it was best.”
Jaeger stood stoically, the scar over his eye a little more noticeable than it had been outside. He always looked on the verge of anger, but that was only because of the structure of his bones, not the makeup of his heart. At that moment, he seemed timid as a mouse, every fiber of his being on alert. I understood completely.
“I’ll be fine. But I have to get ready to go into town. I don’t want to miss Calla’s funeral because of this. And, of course, I need to get to Hank. He might get to come home later today. I’ll need my truck for that.”
“Pete’ll take him home if need be,” Pastor said.
I shook my head. “That’s a hearse and an ambulance. Hank’ll only ride in the back of it once. He refuses otherwise.”
A knowing smile flickered across Pastor’s face and disappeared as quickly as it had come. “We don’t think going back to your place is a good thing to do. At least until you’ve had a conversation with the police about what’s happened.”
I didn’t think before I spoke. “Well, I can’t go to a funeral dressed like this!”
“You can wear my mother’s dress,” Jaeger said, then looked at the floor. “She would like that.”
I wished I hadn’t said a word, but that was no surprise. I was always getting myself into something or other without thinking about the consequences.
Erik and Lida Knudsen had been murdered in their bed as they’d slept. I had never seen the aftermath, just imagined it a million times. I stopped at the closed bedroom door and looked at Jaeger, who had his hand on the glass doorknob.
“It’s all right,” he said, reading my fears. “We made it look like it always did.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to put you through this.”
“It’s okay. Once I decided that I was going to stay here, I had to figure out how to live with what was, not just the way things are. I got too much to do to walk in sadness every day. I think you understand what I mean. If I keep this place goin’, it keeps them both alive in a way, and that doesn’t make everything all right, but it makes me feel better. It would break their hearts if I sold this place off. It’s mine and Peter’s now, even if he is away, not breaking a sweat to keep up with it. He’ll throw a hand in when he can one of these days; I’m sure of it.”
I nodded, smiled, then looked past Jaeger to the open door of his bedroom. His bed was unmade, the sheets and blankets a tangled mess that looked like the beginnings of a bird’s nest. I still worried about him and Betty, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Not now. I’d already said my piece once; that had been enough.
I looked at Jaeger a little more closely; there was something I first noticed as he drove up, but I hadn’t put my finger on it until that moment. “You should come by when this all settles down. I’ll give you a haircut like I used to when you and Peter were boys.”
He reached up to his ear and tugged on the hair. “Nah, that’s all right. All of the kids are letting their hair grow a little longer these days.”
I sighed. Even without a television set, I’d heard plenty about the boys from Liverpool that played on the Ed Sullivan show back in February, but I hadn’t thought about them changing the world. They were a music band, for goodness sakes. A band named after a bug. I still preferred Bing Crosby myself.
Pastor had gone back outside to wait on me. He was going to take me into town while Jaeger set about getting the Studebaker’s tires replaced. I could see him through Jaeger’s window, standing next to the black Ford in his black clothes, smoking a cigarette. He looked like a smokestack at a distant factory. It was the first time I had ever seen Pastor John Mark smoke. Stumbling across my mess was a far cry from a peaceful morning spent fishing.
I didn’t say anything else about a haircut. Jaeger opened the door to Erik and Lida’s room and walked in without hesitating. He headed straight to a wardrobe on the opposite side of the room.
I stood at the doorway, blocked by my own fears. The air in the room smelled stale, but that was all. There was no hint of death or blood to detect, and I was glad of that. The bed was covered with a white chenille bedspread, made up perfectly. There wasn’t a wrinkle to be seen. I looked away from the two pillows; they were bleached snow white, no sign of murder anywhere to be seen.
Jaeger stood staring at me. “She only had one black dress,” he said. “I hope you like it.”
Of course she only had one black dress. It was all she needed. I didn’t say that, though. I just smiled the best I could and walked to the wardrobe. Luckily, Lida and I were about the same size. I was sure I could wear the dress, even if I didn’t want to.
CHAPTER 34
The parking lot of the funeral home was full, but it
didn’t require a sheriff ’s deputy to direct traffic. Pastor was able to drive up to the front door without any trouble. He put the Ford in park and left the engine running.
“Aren’t you coming in?” I said.
He looked at me sadly, then turned his attention back to the entrance of McClandon’s. “I can’t condone what Miss Eltmore did, Marjorie. Surely, you must understand what my appearance at her funeral would suggest.”
“Then you don’t believe me.”
“It’s not that.”
“It’s that no one else does. That it’s not official that she was murdered, that she didn’t kill herself. Pastor, if I’m right, then Calla’s basking in the glory of heaven instead of shackled in the bonds of eternal damnation. You should be shouting that victory from the roof of the church.”
“I’ll pray for her.”
“It can’t hurt.” I wanted to say more than that, but I didn’t. Now was not the time to debate the rights and wrongs of Christian behavior more than I already had. I had to stop. It was obvious I wasn’t going to change Pastor’s position. I grabbed the door handle and pulled it up. “Thank you for stopping by this morning. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t,” I said.
“It had been a while, and I thought with all that was going on with Hank that you could use a visit. We haven’t seen much of you at services.”
I wasn’t about to be made to feel guilty for my lack of attendance at church. “Well, I appreciate it.” I pushed open the door and a gust of fresh air rushed inside the car, clearing out the last remnants of dog smell. Shep had stayed with Jaeger.
“Don’t be a stranger, Marjorie. I know things are hard, but the Lord has a plan for us all.”
I stiffened. “Tell that to Erik and Lida, Pastor—or Calla. You tell them that,” I snapped, then as sure as Sunday came once a week, my face went pale, and a wave of embarrassment washed over me. Even I was shocked by my own lack of restraint, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t believe murder was ever planned for the good of anything. That just didn’t make any sense to me. The suggestion of such a thing just flat out made me mad.
Too his credit, Pastor smiled as I got out of the car. But before I could apologize, he leaned over and closed the door, put the car in gear, and drove off without saying another word.
I couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch the black car disappear out of the parking lot, feeling like I had just irrevocably insulted one of the nicest men on earth.
There were only two or three seats open in the back of the funeral chapel. There were no more floral bouquets than there had been at the viewing, but they were clustered together in strategic spots around the room to make it look like an abundant garden of grief. The fragrance of more varieties of flowers than I could identify, or classify, had been dulled by the presence of humans. It looked like Easter Sunday at church, the pews full, everyone in their best clothes, though darker in nature, the air uncomfortable instead of celebratory.
Before I sat down in one of the remaining seats, I craned my neck forward to get a look at the front of the chapel. On one hand, I was thankful that the lid of the simple wood casket was closed. No one would have to see Calla in her final state, dressed in a borrowed pink sweater and with a bullet hole in the wrong side of her head. But that also meant I would never see her again, or be able to confirm what I had seen at the viewing. I was left with my memory and nothing more.
The front row of seats that faced the casket was empty except for one. Herbert Frakes sat alone, hunched over, staring away from the casket at something unseen. I was tempted to walk up there and sit down next to him, offer him some comfort, but my feet remained planted. That would have to wait. I wasn’t family. I didn’t belong there.
Organ music whispered over the crowd, who with their fidgeting and discomfort drowned out the peaks and valleys of an unknown hymn. I had nearly been late to the service, and as I finally took my seat the volume of the music began to increase.
I was seated next to a little boy who was about ten years old. He looked at me, then looked away. He had on a light blue, short-sleeved Oxford shirt and a pair of blue dress pants to match; his one and only best summer outfit that he was about to grow out of. He was a towhead, his hair shimmering white like an old man’s. His hair was a common sight; I would have been more surprised to see a ginger haired boy next to me, or a black haired boy, like Pete McClandon must have been. I glanced over at his mother, Melba Olafson, and smiled. She smiled back. There were a lot of Olafsons in town, just like there were a lot of Smiths or Joneses in other towns. I was glad to sit next to a child; he had no clue what was going on.
Pete McClandon appeared at the open set of double doors that led into the chapel. He looked like I expected him to. Dressed in black from head to toe, his shoulders erect and his gray eyes curiously aware—searching the crowd or just gazing over it, I wasn’t sure which. After a long second, he walked into the room and slowly made his way down the single aisle toward the casket.
But what I didn’t expect, and it seemed no one else did, either, was for Pete to be followed into the room by Duke Parsons, Guy Reinhardt, and another sheriff ’s deputy that I didn’t recognize. All three men were dressed in their shiny best brown and tan uniforms, their campaign hats on top of their heads, their guns holstered with the snaps open. There was no question that they were here on business, not to pay their respects to the deceased town librarian.
A wave of murmurs reached my ears, and the music faded away. Suddenly, I was witness to a confusing spectacle instead of being here just to pay my respects. I was trapped, given no choice but to be part of something I had not intended to be. My whole day had been like that.
Pete and the trio of law officers seemed oblivious of the crowd. They walked straight to the end of the aisle and stopped in front of the casket with their backs to the crowd of mourners. They did not show their intention, and I could only guess at their purpose or reasoning. I should have been able to come up with something, but I couldn’t. I was stunned.
The murmurs didn’t so much as stop but seemed to take a collective breath, waiting to see what was going to happen next. Everyone, including me, had questions that needed to be answered. The main ones being, Why here? Why now? Isn’t this a sacred place? Couldn’t whatever it is have been delayed until after the funeral? Away from the eyes of the whole town? Hadn’t Calla’s reputation and legacy suffered enough?
Only the boy next to me seemed not to be interested in what was happening. He stared at the floor, tapping his shoes to some unheard melody. I wished I could have traded places with him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the front of the room.
After a long second at the casket, Duke turned around and walked over to Herbert. Guy and the other deputy followed, stopped an equal step behind. Pete remained at the casket, looking over the crowd.
“Herbert Frakes,” Duke Parsons, the acting sheriff, said, “you are under arrest for the murder of Calla Eltmore.”
CHAPTER 35
I’d never fainted at bad news, and I wasn’t about to start, but I had to admit that my whole body trembled as the word “arrest” echoed to the back of the funeral chapel. There were quite a few groans, some whispering, and then dead silence, as Herbert Frakes was handcuffed and led down the aisle, silent, shoulders slumped, eyes cast to the floor, offering no struggle at all.
The little boy next to me was interested now, and I wanted to do nothing more than shield his eyes. He didn’t need to see this. But he had. A childhood memory that would mark this day forever. I resisted, held my hands tight at my side. Anyone in this room was bound to remember this day for a long time to come, not just the boy. Me included.
I thought the roof would erupt off of the funeral home once the police and Herbert were out of sight, but it didn’t, not really. People talked, coughed, shifted in their seats, respectful of where they were. I think most folks were just stunned.
Pete McClandon stepped up to take control of the c
rowd, calm them, shush them; he was ready to get on with the funeral. It was a seemingly impossible task. Pete’d had a lot of experience with crowds, but my guess was he’d never had to face anything like this. I wasn’t sure anybody ever had.
Then words and music melded into an unintelligible garble. My mind ran a million miles a second, sorting, searching, organizing—indexing, in an odd way—for any sign that led me to believe that Herbert Frakes was capable of being a killer.
Herbert? How could he have killed Calla? He loved her; I was sure of it. There were, of course, things that I didn’t know about their relationship. But what I had just witnessed didn’t make any sense to me. At that second, I didn’t believe that Herbert had killed Calla any more than I’d believed that Calla had killed herself. But Duke believed it. Duke, the acting sheriff, the deputy intent on winning the upcoming special election. He might have just sealed the win, catching a killer and bringing him to justice in front of everyone. Maybe that was his plan. The Press would surely have something to say about the dramatic arrest at the murdered librarian’s funeral.
I just couldn’t settle my mind to the fact that I had been right. But never in a thousand years would I have thought that Herbert really could have killed Calla—even though he had been on my suspect list in my personal index. Him and the woman with the broken glasses. I hadn’t believed that either of them were responsible for murdering Calla. Not really. I had been grasping at straws. But maybe I’d been right about that, as well. Maybe I’d needed to trust my instincts more than I had. Maybe Hank had been right all along, too—right that Duke knew what I knew, that the police were doing their job. Which meant they had evidence and, most likely, more information about Herbert that I didn’t, and couldn’t, know.
I felt sick at the thought.
I looked over at the towheaded boy, who had gone back to being bored, tapping his toes to that unknown melody, wringing his hands like he was keeping time—or trying to move it along, I wasn’t sure which. I wished I could join in with him, because I sure didn’t like what I was thinking, or what I was hearing coming from the front of the chapel.
See Also Deception Page 15