Helga was the more conventionally attractive sister—thinner than Anastasia and with a small narrow nose and delicate features. She seemed quiet but appeared to Pat to be a rock of serenity.
Babe was a sprightly woman, standing about four foot ten. A nurse who usually dressed in bright red, she had boundless energy and passion for life. Her positive attitude was infectious and a likely source of strength to her friends during this sad time. Babe appeared to Pat to be performing ballet moves to keep herself warm during the service.
Katrina was the bravest and most adventurous of the Russian women. Fiercely independent and self-sufficient, she had left her abusive husband behind years ago to pursue a career as a linguist. She appeared to follow the service closely, more clearly able than the other women to understand every word.
Sonja appeared to be the frailest of the Russians. Dark-complected, with a medium build, she walked with a hitch in her gait, appeared to wear a constant mantle of anxiety and responsibility that etched itself in her features. Unknown to most, she had harbored a secret desire for many years that someday she would marry Joe. She held a bright blue handkerchief to her nose, constantly wiping her taut, lined face.
The brother, Jacob, whom Pat had not seen until today, stood a bit apart from the women with his wife. Pat looked at him more closely—he was heavyset, with thinning gray hair and a gray beard. If she hadn't known better, she almost might have thought it was Joe standing there, so similar were their facial features and eyes. Jacob, however, was at least ten years older. Jacob's visible grief was etched into his face. Pat recalled at that moment how Joe had volunteered to take his place in the war.
Standing by the minister were six honor-guard soldiers in dress blues, representing the army color guard, waiting to give the salute. And behind them, men of different ages from the community, some in uniform, were there to pay their final respects to a fallen mate.
There was Ernest Lopez, a gray-haired Native American Vietnam vet, who now devoted himself to making peace in the world. Next to him was James Adams, a stocky middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap, who also served in Vietnam as a medic and who had evolved into a know-it-all, left-leaning political junkie.
Ernest's son-in-law, Stuart Reuben, stood soberly nearby. Stuart was in his late twenties and had recently returned from his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He was becoming reacquainted with his family and hometown after being discharged with honor from the Marines.
There was Lulu, a woman Pat recognized as the owner of a shop on Main Street that seemed to have stopped in time in the sixties. She was crying quietly and holding a tie-dyed hanky to her nose. Next to her was a man Pat didn't know—perhaps Lulu's husband—looking cold and a little grumpy. Then there were a few who worked at the co-op and a whole group of servers and cooks from the Black Cat, which seemed only right to Pat. And there was Bill, one of the local artists, who was always in the Black Cat, too.
Mike Williamson, the local banker, was there with his wife, Susan. He looked sharply dressed in a tailored Lord and Taylor black trench coat with a red tartan wool scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Sarah Martin, the local decorator, stood tall and stately against the old oak tree, glancing repeatedly at her watch, having arrived hurriedly at the last minute.
Father Luke Grayson, the Catholic priest, hatless and wearing his black suit and collar, stood in the midst of a group of elderly women, wearing an expression of what appeared to be slight dismay. Father Luke had a long neck, stiffly held, and he cocked his head upward in such a way that the casual observer would believe that he was looking down his nose at the "rental preacher."
As Pat's glance traveled around the crowd, over farmers and professors and even a few students, it stopped at the very back of the crowd on two men who seemed out of place. It wasn't that they looked that much different—they were two average-looking guys in black overcoats and sunglasses. Like Pat, the men seemed to be watching the crowd. Suddenly, one glanced at Pat and held her gaze, looking at her straight in her eyes. She smiled slightly, feeling her face turning red, as he continued to look at her without expression. Embarrassed, she turned her attention back to the service as the minister intoned: "Into your hands, oh merciful Savior, we commend your servant Joe. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen."
Babe sighed heavily and Anastasia leaned over and put her arms around her.
The pastor continued. "As God has called our brother from this life, we commit his body to the earth from which it was made. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
Deb stood huddled beside her friend. Who ever thought of those words? What kind of comfort are they to a family? she wondered.
Deb's glance settled on the big lake down the hill in the distance, and she realized at that moment that she had loved Ashland almost from the minute she had set foot in it. There was something about the lake—actually, a lot of her love of Ashland had to do with the lake. She felt such a connection, knowing that every day when she looked down the street, she would see that deep water. But Deb also loved Ashland for the community. Funny—she had lived in a small town before but it had been nothing like this. When she and Marc were first married, they'd moved to rural Ohio for ten years. She should have liked it. After all, she finished her law degree there, Marc started his first private practice there, their two oldest kids graduated from high school there, and Deb had given birth to their two youngest kids. They'd even tried rehabbing that blasted 150-year-old brick monstrosity. Despite all that, she had never been able to put down roots. I never felt the connection like I do in this town.
As the service droned on, Deb let her mind wander away from the service, instead settling on her first month here....
Within weeks of her arriving in Ashland, the mayor called Deb to ask her to be on the Ashland Park Commission. And then there were the tai chi classes down the street at the Chequamegon Court Club, and the Big Top Show under the big blue tent in summers. Liberally mix in the hospitality of the neighborhood; the ice cream truck and the Fourth of July block party, and even the silly Santa parade in the winter, and the result was a place that was hopelessly nostalgic and "small town" to most city folks, but Deb realized it was all part of Ashland's real secret.
This place—with its sometimes rough exterior but rich history—had one important thing going for it. Anyone who cared to look could find a place here and be nourished by the nature and people who were hardy enough to live here——God knew it seemed a forbidding place for most Southerners.
Deb smiled, remembering that "Southerners" was what the people on the bay called everyone who lived south of the town.
It's remote and isolated and the winters are long and bitter cold, Deb thought. But when the sun shines here, it's more glorious than any place I can remember. That's probably why Joe chose this place—a place where he could fit in and be accepted, even if he was a little crazy. Joe, she thought, as she turned once more to the service, you were a p art of us, and you will be missed.
"Please join me in our Lord's Prayer, and remember that everyone is invited for a lunch and a time to share stories at the Black Cat," continued the pastor. "Our Father, who art in heaven
Pat joined in on the timeless prayer and lost herself in the words she had said so many times before.
After the gun salute, people put flowers on the casket and then hurried to get warm in their cars; Pat, too, went forward, where she whispered her own prayer: "Joe, it was too early for you. I don't know what you were into, you crazy fool, but I'm sorry you left the parade before the last float went by. I didn't know you well—I don't think many did—but know this: you will be missed." She patted his casket. And Deb, standing beside her, dropped her rose, too.
Pulling her coat closer as they walked out of the little cemetery, Pat craned her neck, trying to see
the two guys in the black suits, but they had disappeared.
"What are you looking at?" Deb asked, her voice muffled behind the thick scarf she had wrapped around her mouth.
"Trying to find those two guys who stood in the back."
"What two guys?" Deb asked distractedly as she greeted people along the way to the car.
"What two guys?" Pat echoed. "The two black suits who stood apart from everyone else. You must have seen them. Maybe they came with the army guys, but I don't think so because they would have been in uniform. If this were a movie, I'd think they were FBI or CIA."
"Pat!" Deb chided, stopping in the middle of the path. "Weren't you paying attention to the service at all?"
"I've done that service hundreds of times, I know what he said," Pat said guiltily, walking on. "But what do you really think? Remember how Joe always talked about calling the CIA over this or that?" Without waiting for Deb to answer, Pat continued. "I think they just might have been CIA. Do you know, one of them caught me watching them and stared me down! It gave me the chills."
"It's thirty degrees outside and the wind is blowing like crazy. Of course you have the chills!" Deb was starting to get a little irritated with Pat. "Come on; if you had been listening, you would know that lunch is being served at the Black Cat. Any luck and they'll be serving something hot with brandy in it, in honor of Joe."
They got into Pat's old Volvo, turned on the seat warmers, and followed the line of cars into town. There were so many people attending the lunch that the only parking space Pat could find was two blocks away from the coffeehouse.
"We could have just as well parked at home," Deb grumbled as they started walking the two blocks to the Black Cat.
"You have lived in a small town too long," Pat said, laughing. "This seems like parking close to me."
The place was already crowded and getting steamy, too, by the time Deb and Pat arrived. Anastasia and Helga stood with their brother close to the door, greeting people and shivering as the cold blew in.
Anastasia reached warmly for their hands as Deb and Pat approached her. "I am so glad you could make it," she told them. Turning to her brother, she said, "Spisibo—Jacob—you know Deb, yah? ? And this is her friend Pat. She is the other one that rescued us on Monday."
"Good to see you again, Deb. Thanks for helping us out. And Pat, thanks again for connecting the girls to us," Jacob responded, his face etched with exhaustion and grief.
Even in his grief-stricken state, Pat was struck with how much he resembled his brother, Joe; especially the identical brown eyes with the hint of a twinkle. She looked at Deb with a quick question in her eyes as they moved on to let someone else talk to the family and to find a table where they could sit.
"Don't look at me that way," Deb responded, without waiting for Pat to ask. "I was going to tell you. I just haven't had a chance. Alice and Anastasia came in to meet with me about probating Joe's estate. Actually, it's quite interesting. And I can't wait to tell you about it because it's going to be in the paper some time this week."
"In the paper? Come on, spill the beans. I want to hear it all."
"Not here. Nobody knows yet. Besides, I want to get some of those yummy bread things before they're gone. Come on."
Deb walked up to the counter that was laden with steaming pots of white vegetarian chili, beer-cheese soup, thick slices of sourdough bread, and big urns of hot cider and hot chocolate, served buffet style. Pat followed her, complaining, "That's not fair."
But Deb just smiled and reached for some hot cider. A few of the regulars made room for them at the large front table. Pat looked around for the hot toddies.
Chapter Nine
Pat woke up the following morning to defused silence, the kind of silence that can only come about only when there is snow. Tossing back her blankets, she jumped out of bed and ran to the window in her big old newly purchased Victorian home. She looked out at a scene that only could be called a winter wonderland. Snow was on the trees and on the rooftops, and it was accumulating quickly on the street that was already in need of plowing. And it was still snowing. Deb had assured Pat that once it started snowing, because Ashland was right on Lake Superior, there would soon be a "lake effect," which meant they could expect more snow than regions that were not situated next to the lake.
The snow was so white, it was blinding. "Yippee!" Pat gave a little dance.
"What now?" Mitchell grumbled. "First you do your yoga in bed at 5:30, and yes, before you ask, of course it wakes me up, and then you're dancing around like a kid, and it's what?" He squinted at the clock. "Not even seven? What happened to the 'relaxing time' up north?"
Pat went back to the bed and kissed Mitchell on the cheek. "Oh, you old bear. I do the yoga in bed because it's softer than the floor, and you want me to be healthy, don't you? But the dance— that was the first-snow-of-the-year dance. Come see. It must have snowed six inches already."
Mitchell groaned and pulled the pillow over his head.
Pat stepped into her slippers and Mitchell's old robe and then hurried downstairs——she was meeting Deb at eight for coffee. There had been so many people at the lunch yesterday; Deb hadn't had the chance to tell her what happened with Joe's family. The only thing Deb did tell Pat was that they were having guests for coffee at 8:30, so she had better be on time if she wanted to hear the news before they got there. Pat walked out into the mud room, looking for her boots as her oatmeal warmed in the microwave.
Deb walked her prancing golden retriever on his dailies around Chapple Avenue, then quickly dropped him off at home, leaving the pooper-scooper outside. She was eager to get to the Black Cat to meet Pat.
Deb smiled at Sam, standing behind the counter, as she entered the coffeehouse. "Can you believe this snow?" she asked, tossing her coat on a chair and gathering up the paper to see if there was any mention of Joe's funeral. Taking the cup of Velvet Hammer that Sam offered, she looked around the coffeehouse at the assembled locals and waited for her chronically late friend.
As she sipped her brew, Deb marveled again that the gods must be with her this year. When she'd convinced Pat and Mitchell to move to Ashland it just so happened that there were several magnificent Victorians for sale within a three-block area of her house. In Ashland, as Deb so often told them, it was still possible to get a bargain on a great home. She'd never expected that she and Pat actually would live in the same town—their life choices and circumstances had drawn them in different directions. Now, she loved that she was living her fantasy of walking up the street for coffee or sitting on the porch together and solving the world's problems or having long discussions about the latest book they had read.
Deb was just finishing her first cup when Pat arrived. Deb smiled as Pat came in saying hi to folks as if she had lived here forever.
"What's going on? Is the yoga practice helping you learn to be on time?" Deb teased. Before Pat could respond, Deb, bursting with anticipation, blurted out, "Wait 'til I tell you what I learned yesterday! While you were talking to the neighbors at the memorial lunch, I was sitting with Jacob and his two sisters. They were regaling me with stories about Joe, and apparently, he did win the Minnesota state lottery about ten years ago. He didn't even pick the numbers—just let the machine do it. And get this: he won something like $200,000! After that, he traveled to Florida every winter, but it wasn't until a year ago that he wrote to his sisters, telling them that he would pay their way to come here and get established in a new life."
Pat nodded eagerly, encouraging Deb to continue. After taking a sip of her coffee, Deb went on. "They said that they thought he might have won a different lottery a second time, but they weren't sure about the details of that one. Joe would give little hints during his phone calls that he had come into some more money, but he would always say his phone was bugged, so he couldn't give details. So he never actually said how much money or how he came by it, just that his own little lotteries had been very good to him. Can you believe his luck? What are the odds?
And get this: Anastasia told me that her brother had been decorated with medals three different times for his bravery in Vietnam and that he thought Joe did do undercover work for the army during part of his stint there. And that," Deb finished, settling back in her chair, "is why the women asked to meet here at 8:30 this morning—they are the guests I mentioned. They seem to think we can help them find out what happened to Joe's money. Go figure. Also, they want us to help them look into what really caused his death." Deb sighed heavily. "I guess, being from Russia, they just don't trust the police to do a good job. What do you think of that?"
"I'm speechless," Pat said honestly. "Here we've joked about writing a mystery, but instead we're getting involved in one." Grabbing another cup of coffee, Pat started pulling up a few more chairs.
She never could have guessed that within a few weeks, they would be on a plane to the West Indies, having gotten involved up to their proverbial necks.
Later that day, Detective Gary LeSeur's office phone rang, startling him from his revelry—he'd been thinking about his upcoming ski vacation to Lyons, France, with ten of his friends, all of whom made an annual wifeless pilgrimage to a European ski slope each January.
"Hi, Gary," he heard the voice on the other end of the line greet him. "It's Ruth Epstein. Just wanted to give you a head's up. I got the preliminary toxicology results back from the autopsy on Joe Abramov. Looks like it wasn't accidental. The pathologist is sending the report by mail, but Joe apparently had a high level of a drug called fentanyl. Too bad—for Joe and for you. Looks like you have some work to do."
LeSeur let out a deep sigh, as he tried to decide whether he should put his skis back in the closet.
Chapter Ten
The two Russian sisters came in with a swirl of wind and snow around them, but they didn't seem to mind the cold. Their entrance didn't seem to warrant the locals' stares anymore. In fact, a few who had been at the memorial service raised a hand in a friendly wave, and then went back to the politics of the day.
Bad to the Last Drop Page 5