by Ellen Hart
“You agree?” asked the cop, switching his gaze to Butch.
“I don’t know. No more depressed than me.” It wasn’t saying much, since he alternated between excitement and a feeling that what he wanted most in life would be forever out of reach.
When Eleanor appeared on the front porch, the officer excused himself.
“Poor old woman,” said Novak. “It’s been one damn thing after another with that family. Makes you think they got bad karma.” His eyes slid toward Butch. “Hey?” He turned to face him. “You crying?”
Butch scraped at his cheeks. “Life’s a bitch sometimes.”
“Oh, don’t I know it,” agreed Novak. “But then, what goes around comes around.”
“Meaning what?”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I get philosophical at the weirdest times. Anyway, I better get back to the wife before she files for divorce. She don’t much like my block-captain status.”
Butch spent the next few minutes standing with a group of onlookers, neighbors who’d come out of their houses to see what all the flashing lights and sirens were about. Nobody said much, which was fine with him. He wasn’t interested in conversation.
Lena’s face looked pale and waxy when she was finally rolled past him. Once she was loaded into the back of the van, people began to drift back to their houses, leaving Butch alone on the street. Eleanor had gone inside, but one of the renters, the one named Jane, stood on the sidewalk by the front steps talking to one of the cops. Butch ambled up to them to see if he could find out more information on Lena’s condition. He nodded to the guy, but didn’t interrupt.
“You found the woman?” asked the officer.
“That’s right,” said Jane. “A friend ended up in the hospital last night, so I didn’t get home until around five thirty. That’s when I found Lena outside in the snow and called 911.”
Butch didn’t remember her all that well from the first few times they’d met. He recalled nothing more than an ordinary looking middle-aged woman. Standing next to her now, her face lit by the soft porch light, she seemed far more attractive. Her hair was dark and shiny and her eyes were large, intense and pretty. Her best feature by far was her smile.
“Name?” said the cop, removing a notebook from his back pocket.
“Jane.”
He shot her an annoyed look. “Last name.”
“Lawless.”
“How long have you lived here, Ms. Lawless?”
“Less than a week.”
“Where’d you live before you moved here?”
“Well, ah—” She glanced at Butch, smiled. “In Linden Hills.”
“Minneapolis?”
“That’s right.”
“Another rented room?”
“Actually … I have a home there.”
The officer stopped writing. “You own a home in Linden Hills and you’re also renting a room in that house? Care to explain?”
She removed a billfold from the back pocket of her jeans and took out a business card. “I’m a PI.”
The officer took the card and examined it, moving backward, closer to the porch light.
Butch hadn’t expected that. By the startled look on the cop’s face, neither had he.
“You working on something?” asked the cop.
“Yes.”
“Look, you’re gonna have to give me more. I’m not sure what we have here, but if it turns out not to be an accident, you’re going to have to answer questions down at the station. You might as well give me the details now.”
Butch watched the woman process the request. She seemed hesitant. Finally, she said, “Lena—”
“Lena Skarsvold,” said the cop, paging back through his notes. “The woman we just took to the hospital.”
“She has a niece. That’s who I’m working for.”
Butch recalled being introduced to her last Sunday night, when she’d been having dinner at the house. He remembered her saying that she was staying at the Marriott Courtyard on the West Bank. He had no idea what “the west bank” meant, but assumed it was close to the university, where she was attending a conference.
“And?” said the cop.
“Well, the niece, she remembers meeting a cousin here when she was younger. A boy named Timmy. Lena’s son. She even has proof that he existed. The Skarsvold sisters—Lena and Eleanor—insist that she’s got him mixed up with someone else. That there never was a Timmy. She hired me to find out the truth.”
“Have you?”
“I’m working on it.”
Paging farther back in his notes, he said, “There was a fire in the garage at this property a few days ago. Human bones were found, if I’m not mistaken. You think your investigation might touch on that?”
“It’s possible,” said Jane. “The niece, Britt Ickles, and I talked to a Sergeant Corwin of the PPD on Wednesday. Yesterday, she gave a sample of her DNA. Corwin could probably fill you in on details I don’t have.”
He nodded. “The Skarsvold sisters know you’re a PI?”
“No,” said Jane.
“It’s probably gonna come out.” Turning to Butch he said, “And you are?”
“A neighbor.” He pointed to his house. “Butch Averil. I’m a friend of Lena’s. I was just wondering if you could tell me anything about her condition.”
“Sorry,” said the officer, clicking the top of his ballpoint pen. “The hospital might be able to give you some info, but more likely, you’ll have to talk to her sister.”
Butch figured as much. His gaze traveled to the spot where Lena had been found. “I can’t imagine how she accidentally fell out of her wheelchair.”
“Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” said the cop. “I hear she’d been drinking. Then again, ladies her age, her condition. I’d say there’s a chance it was attempted suicide.”
“Nobody is ever going to convince me of that.” He’d blurted it out without thinking. The way the cop looked it him now made him instantly regret it.
“You suggesting someone wanted her dead?”
“All I know is, she had plans. She wanted to sell the house and move into an apartment of her own. A few days ago she asked me to find a place in town where she could get a tattoo.”
“Are you kidding me?” said the cop. “That ancient old lady.”
“Old ladies can’t get tattoos? Is that written into the law somewhere? I even found a place yesterday and stopped by to tell her. She was so excited. We were going to make a day of it. Lunch somewhere, the tattoo parlor. She was like a kid with a new toy.”
“She was in a wheelchair, pal,” said the cop.
“So? I planned to carry her out to my car. Load the wheelchair into the back. She talked about doing some Christmas shopping. She asked me to find a tree for the house. Why would she do all that if she planned to kill herself?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a plan,” said the cop. “Maybe it was just an impulse.”
Butch shook his head.
Hooking a thumb over his belt, the cop studied him. “Well,” he said finally. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Hearing a car door slam, Butch turned to see Eleanor’s pastor friend walk toward the house. He took it as an opportunity to excuse himself. Wading through the snow back to his front steps, he went inside the house and walked straight to the refrigerator, finding a can of beer and cracking the tab. He didn’t have much time left to find the “genuine Jenny,” as he was beginning to think of her, and yet, for the moment, his thoughts were filled with nothing but Lena.
The Skarsvold house had seemed like such an inviting place to him the first time he walked in the front door. Warm and comfortable. Worn, to be sure, but full of the smell of baking bread, wood fires, or homemade soup on the stove. The two battling sisters were at the heart, with Eleanor’s dolt of a son, slovenly and underachieving, on the periphery. They fascinated him. And yet, as he got to know them better, he’d begun to detect shadows in their relationships, drops of pure, corroding acid that suggested a sickness at the
core. The keener his observations became, the more he wanted to understand them. Now, with Lena holding on to life by the thinnest of threads, perhaps he never would.
28
After talking to the police, Jane concluded that it was time to come clean to Eleanor about her real reasons for renting the upstairs bedroom. She’d grown fond of the older woman and felt increasingly ill at ease deceiving her, though she also understood that it was part of her job. She would have taken her aside as soon as the police left, except that Eleanor had immediately left for the hospital with Iver.
As Jane entered her bedroom to pack her overnight case, she was seduced by the sight of the bed. It looked so comfortably soft and inviting. She propped herself against a couple of pillows, thinking she’d shut her eyes for a few minutes. Several hours later, she woke to the sun streaming in through the window blinds. She couldn’t believe she’d slept so soundly, partly because she was worried about Lena, but mostly because of her concern for Julia. She held her phone up in the air and saw that she had a couple texts from Cordelia and another couple from her restaurant manager. Nothing that couldn’t wait.
Swinging her legs out from under the covers, she tapped in the number for the hospital and asked to be connected to the ICU. A woman’s voice answered.
“This is Jane Lawless. I’m calling about Julia Martinsen.”
“Oh, yes. This is Betsy Williams. I’m the nurse who was just coming on when you were leaving this morning. I’m happy to report that your … friend … is feeling better. She’s sitting up in bed and, at the moment, she’s having a light breakfast. Dr. Reid is in with her right now.”
Jane was happy to hear it. “Do you know if any of the test results are back?”
“Not yet,” said the nurse.
“Could you tell Julia that I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“She’s scheduled for more tests this morning. If you want to spend time with her, I’d say you should wait until after lunch.”
Not what Jane wanted to hear. She thanked the nurse and hung up.
Grabbing a towel and her toiletry kit, she padded barefoot across the upstairs landing to take a shower. She stood under the water, allowing the heat and the steam do what several hours of sleep had been unable to do—loosen the tension in her muscles. Feeling reasonably refreshed, she toweled off, pulled on her bathrobe and headed back to her room. As she passed the stairway, she heard the front doorbell chime and, a few seconds after, Eleanor’s voice saying, “Come in, Sergeant Corwin. I’m so glad you could come by so quickly.”
Jane bent her head to listen.
Iver offered the police officer a cup of coffee.
“No, thanks,” came Corwin’s voice. “How is your sister doing?”
“Not well,” said Eleanor. “She’s in a coma. We came home because I forgot to take my medications.”
Jane removed the towel from her wet hair so that she could hear more clearly.
“So, when you called,” said Corwin. “You said you had important information you wanted to give me.”
“Yes,” said Eleanor, her voice firm. “I do.”
Jane wished she could see the old woman’s face. At least this conversation wasn’t being whispered.
“This has all been weighing on me,” continued Eleanor. “Lena, too. It’s something we agreed we’d never talk about. A family secret. One we’re terribly ashamed of. It’s led to so much hurt. You see—” She cleared her throat. “It’s about the bones that were found in our garage.”
“Go on,” said Corwin.
“I understand my niece gave you a sample of her DNA yesterday. Or was it the day before. I get mixed up.”
“What about the bones?” asked Corwin, sounding impatient.
“Eleanor,” said Iver, a warning in his voice.
“No, I have to do this. You have to let me. The bones … you see, they belonged to my niece’s—Britt’s—father. Stew Ickles. Stewart Neil Ickles. He was married to my sister, Pauline, Britt’s mother. He … you see he—” She stopped speaking.
“Please, continue,” said Corwin.
Again, she cleared her voice. “Shortly after Stew and Pauline became engaged, we found out that Stew and my other sister, Lena, had been secretly involved. Stew was a truck driver for a national company. When he would come through town, they’d sneak off together. When Pauline called to tell us she was pregnant, Dad and I were thrilled. That is, until we learned that Lena was pregnant, too, and that Stew was the father. Lena was furious with Stew, though she swore us to secrecy. She spent days stomping around the house yelling that Stew had betrayed her, used her, that she hated him. Hated Pauline. Hated the world and everyone in it. And then, without telling us where she was going, she left. I didn’t see her again until my father died in June of ’78 when she and the boy she’d given birth to came back for the funeral.”
“And what about this Stew Ickles?” asked Corwin. “Did he come for the funeral, too?
“No. By then, he was dead. You see, in February of that year, four months before my father died, Stew came through Saint Paul and stopped at our house. My son, Frank, and I were living here at the time. When Stew arrived, Dad took him out to the garage so they could talk privately. Stew asked my dad to loan him money. A lot of money.”
“Eleanor,” interjected Iver. “Please stop.”
“No,” said Eleanor. “You have to let me finish. Stew used Pauline and Britt as leverage, said that if my father really loved them, he’d bail Stew out of some sort of bad financial situation. They ended up in an argument, one that became more and more heated. Somehow—I wasn’t there, so I don’t have all the details—it got physical. My father was merely trying to protect himself. You have to understand that. Stew … well, he was injured. Mortally. He fell and hit his head. It wasn’t my father’s fault, but he panicked and buried the body in the root cellar. I’d heard their argument so he had to tell me what had happened. He made me promise I’d never tell another living soul, but when he died a few months later and Lena came back for the funeral, I confessed what I knew.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Corwin. “Your father and Stew Ickles had an argument in February. The upshot was Stew’s death. Didn’t Pauline suspect something was wrong when her husband didn’t come home?”
“By that time, they’d been married for six or seven years and the relationship had deteriorated to the point where she wouldn’t see him for months at a time. She more or less assumed that he had girlfriends all over the country. When she came for the funeral, she was talking about divorce.”
Jane couldn’t believe her ears. Was Eleanor actually lying to the police? Some of it fit with what Britt had told her, but much of it didn’t.
“So, you’re saying your father accidentally killed Stew Ickles and hid his body in the garage.”
“That’s right,” said Eleanor. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. Lena and I talked it over. As I said, it was weighing hard on both of us. I may be wrong, but I think what happened last night with my sister was an attempted suicide. We’re all so deeply ashamed of what’s happened in our family. We all played a part and so, I suppose we all share a piece of the blame.”
Silence followed her comments.
“Well,” Corwin said finally. “That’s all very interesting, but I’m afraid your story doesn’t fit the information I was given by our forensic examiner.”
“What do you mean?” asked Eleanor, a slight tremor in her voice.
“Stewart Ickles was the victim of a homicide, Mrs. Devine. You got that much right. But not by an inadvertent bump on the head. The man was slaughtered. It was an act of rage. Of obliteration. I’d say that, if your father was responsible, he lied to you about what happened.”
“No,” came Eleanor’s voice. “No, that’s not possible. My father would never do something like that.”
“However it all shakes out, we’ll need an official statement from you. For that, you’ll need to come down to the station.”
&
nbsp; “But I can’t right now,” said Eleanor. “I have to get back to the hospital to be with my sister.”
“Understood,” said Corwin. “Give me a call when you can and we’ll set up a time for someone to take your statement.”
Jane heard chair legs scraping against the floor, but wasn’t quite ready to go back to her room. Until this moment, she would never have considered the possibility that Eleanor could lie so easily and convincingly.
From downstairs came the sound of the front door closing and a bolt being thrown.
“How could you do that?” came Iver’s voice.
“I had to,” said Eleanor. “Don’t you see?”
Before he could respond, the phone rang.
“Will you get that?” asked Eleanor. “I’m not feeling very well.”
Iver’s voice now came from the kitchen. “Hello?” he said sharply, almost angrily.
“Who is it?” called Eleanor from the living room.
“I see,” said Iver. “Yes, thank you. I’ll let her know.”
Jane leaned against the banister and closed her eyes.
“It’s Lena,” came Iver’s voice, weaker this time, all the anger drained away. “I’m afraid … she’s gone, Eleanor. She was pronounced dead a few minutes ago.”
The house grew deathly silent. Jane was afraid to move for fear that she’d give her position away. It seemed like an eternity before Eleanor began to cry.
“I’m sorry, Eleanor. So very, very sorry.”
“Oh, Lord,” she cried, her voice thick with tears.
“I’m afraid you and I both have a lot to answer to our maker for.”
“I never should have involved you.”
Jane couldn’t help but wonder what that meant. How was Iver involved? What on earth was going on in this family? Whatever it turned out to be, it was far darker than Jane had ever anticipated. She would need to be careful. So would Britt.
29
Frank’s meeting with the artistic director at the publishing house was, despite his current state of gloom, a smashing success. He left the office in a great mood. He couldn’t wait to tell Wendy what he’d learned, the shape his new career as children’s book artist was going to take. There would be more money, but even more importantly, his status in the world would soar. Sure, he was in the midst of even more personal chaos than normal, but he made a decision as he went out to his car. He would put that behind him and move into the glorious uplands of his future. He would become the man he’d always known he could be.