Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

by Diana Dempsey

  “What do you mean, ‘so-called Priscilla’?” Maggie demands.

  “Let’s just say she’s not who she says she is.” I don’t want to get into all the details. “I think she was trying to use you to get information.”

  I bet “Priscilla” was watching the house and followed Maggie. After all, Maggie and my father are the only current residents of Damsgard who don’t know who “Priscilla” is; she knows she can’t get any useful information out of my mother, Trixie, Shanelle, or me. So she got us where we’re weak.

  “Priscilla was not using me!” Maggie cries. “She thinks I’m fascinating, that’s the word she used, and she wants to be friends with me. She wanted my cell phone number and everything.”

  I watch my mother grip her cutlery as again she succeeds in remaining silent. She must really think she has a chance of getting my father back because it’s very rare that I see her exhibit this much restraint.

  My father turns to Maggie. “I’m with you, Maggie. I’m sure there are lots of people in this town who wish you’d never moved away, including this Priscilla.”

  Immediately a smile breaks over Maggie’s face. “Thank you, Lou.”

  I watch the two of them exchange warm glances across the table. My mother sees it, too. I can almost see her spirits fall. For the first time it occurs to me that it may not be good for my mom to be in such close proximity to Pop, even if only for a few days. It’s dangerous to her wellbeing to believe they might reconcile. Despite what Mario says, I still think their getting back together is a long shot.

  “Just so everybody knows,” Pop says, “I called the airline this morning. I’m trying to get Maggie and me on a flight that goes out Tuesday night.”

  “Really?” This revelation stops me from eating. “This is the first I’m hearing about that.” From my mother’s startled expression, I gather this is the first she’s hearing about it, too.

  “No reason to stick around,” Pop says.

  “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with the lawyer to wrap things up,” Maggie says. “Get a check from her to pay the funeral expenses, that sort of thing. I’ll squeeze that in after Lou and I get back from ice fishing,” she adds, giving Pop a conspiratorial wink.

  That cozy interplay dampens my mother’s mood even further. Apart from the food, the rest of lunch is a pretty sullen affair. After we queens rise to clean up, my mother wordlessly disappears into her room and Maggie returns to her fruitcake making, this time with Pop at her side. They’re enjoying a joke when my cell phone rings. It’s Detective Dembek.

  I take the call upstairs in my lovely bedroom, telling the detective everything new that I’ve learned. On the “so-called Priscilla” front, I now understand why she wanted to break into Damsgard: to steal the Erskine, which turns out to be tremendously valuable. I also suspect, but don’t know for sure, that she’s lying about her identity.

  “She befriended my father’s girlfriend to try to get information about when we’ll be leaving Damsgard,” I add. “I wish I knew where she was staying! It’d be great if you could question her but how can you if we can’t find her? I do have her cell phone number. Would that help?”

  “I would have to get a warrant to force the carrier to pinpoint her location. It would be hard to justify at this point though I’ll certainly keep it in mind.”

  Thus thwarted, I move on to my information about Peter, which is even juicier. But to my dismay, Detective Dembek dismisses the Mob connection. “I really don’t think so, dear. The Mafia does operate in Minnesota; that’s true. In fact, the main family is the third most powerful criminal organization in the entire Midwest, after the Chicago and Detroit families. But if Peter Svendsen were involved, we would know about it.”

  “But how do you explain the whole bagman thing, which his wife confirmed just this morning? And the prison cell on the third floor of Damsgard?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you about the bagman references but Peter Svendsen has told me he has no knowledge of the prison cell. And I must say I believe him.”

  “How does he explain the cell then? Wait; don’t tell me. He thinks it’s more of his stepmother’s craziness.”

  “That pretty much sums it up. Dear, you are discovering some very interesting things. I am finding your information quite useful. Continue to be careful and we’ll talk again soon. I’m so glad you’re staying in Winona for the time being.”

  The call ends. The detective was extremely gracious but I know a brushoff when I hear one. To cheer myself up, I call my daughter. “How the heck are you, Rach?”

  “Pretty good. For one thing I aced my physics test.”

  “That’s great!” Then I have to bite my tongue.

  Of course my rocket scientist of a daughter can tell. “Don’t say it, Mom. I don’t want to have to get into it again.”

  I glance out the window, where across Windom Park a young mother is bundling her baby’s car seat into the back of a minivan. As draining as caring for an infant can be, I often think raising a teenager is more challenging. When a baby pushes your buttons, it’s an accident. Sometimes I think teenagers do it for sport.

  “Rach, it’s just that when you do so well in school, I hate it even more that you’re not going to be putting those smarts to use.”

  “I will be putting them to use. And they won’t disappear. My grades won’t, either. After I’m overseas for a year or two—”

  “Two?” I shriek.

  “—I’ll be an even stronger applicant for college. You have to distinguish yourself to get into a good school, Mom, you say that all the time.”

  I hate when she throws my own words back at me.

  “So let’s talk about why you really called,” she goes on. “Dad’s new job. He’s totally psyched about it, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “He can’t stop talking about it.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m really psyched for him but I’m already sick of hearing about it and he hasn’t even started yet.”

  “Are you happy he’s going to tell Zach yes?”

  “He should totally take this opportunity. And so should you.”

  From the day she could talk, my daughter has been bold about voicing her opinions. “I just don’t get how you can be so blasé about us moving away from the place where you’ve lived your entire life.”

  “That’s because I’ll be moving away myself. Look at it this way, Mom. You’re going to go crazy missing me. This way you’ll have something new to obsess about.”

  I dread the day my daughter moves away from home. I’ll be so proud of her but I’ll be a basketcase, too. How ironic that all this will happen in September, the very month I’ll have to relinquish my Ms. America crown.

  “Besides,” Rachel goes on, “if he doesn’t like it, he can quit and you can move back to Cleveland.”

  She makes it sound so easy. “But I’d have quit my job and we’d have sold the house and—”

  “You don’t have to sell the house. You could put everything in storage and rent it out. Then give yourselves a year to decide if you want to stay in Charlotte. If Dad likes his job and you both like the place, you’ll want to.”

  I hadn’t thought of renting out the house. It’s a good way to hedge our bets.

  “Grandpa will be okay,” Rachel goes on. “He’s got Maggie. It’s Grandma I’m worried about. All this will freak her out. And I don’t like to think of her by herself.”

  “I know what you mean. But she has friends. And now she has a job. Not to mention Bennie Hana.”

  “He doesn’t count.”

  On that, too, Rachel and I agree. “I have thought of asking her to move with us.”

  “Only one problem. If she lives with you, Dad will freak.”

  She’s right. Jason and I could land in divorce court if he’s forced to reside with my mother. Or I could be solving a murder case that hits very close to home.

  “You’ve got to decide soon, Mom,” Rachel reminds me.


  “I know.” I try to ignore my stomach clenching. “Tell your dad I’ll call him tonight.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A few minutes later as I’m brushing my teeth—I usually brush after lunch; it’s good for the pearly whites—I force myself to stop thinking about my own life and to start thinking about Ingrid Svendsen’s.

  In every murder case I’ve solved so far, the victim was involved in something that got him or her into trouble. In some cases, it was in no way the victim’s fault. In others, the victims were taking risks that eventually landed them in serious trouble.

  I don’t have a strong basis for it but I believe Ingrid wasn’t living her life entirely on the up and up. Call me crazy but I’m suspicious of someone who has a prison cell on her third floor and who has such a beef with another individual that she hires a P.I. to ferret out dirt about them.

  I cannot shake the feeling that something gnarly was going on in Ingrid Svendsen’s life. I wish I knew what it was. What the heck could it be?

  And where would there be evidence of it?

  I’ve already snooped around the desk in the library. The police pored over her files and computer, I know, and if they turned up anything crooked Detective Dembek hasn’t seen fit to share it with me. Shanelle and I did a thorough search of Ingrid’s bedroom and the only thing we found that was remotely odd was the receipt from the body shop in Minneapolis. Where else should I be looking?

  As the obvious answer hits me, I want to slap myself upside the head. Sometimes we beauty queens deserve our reputation of being a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

  I head downstairs to the secret room. I must be hopelessly bourgeois because while I admire the painting above the mantel, what I really enjoy are the festive Christmas decorations: the tree in the corner all done up in red ornaments and bows and the cheerful Santas straddling the rolling bookshelf ladder. I unlatch the secret room, prop open the door, switch on the standing lamp, and begin my examination. Because if I were Ingrid Svendsen and I had secrets, I’d hide the evidence in my secret room.

  Wouldn’t you?

  The problem is, I soon realize, there’s not much in this room. Hence it’s tricky to hide anything. There’s the fabric-covered shrine, with the candles and gold vases and small animal sculptures and lump of amber, and then there’s the bookshelf, loaded with leather-covered volumes. There is an aged oriental carpet but nothing on the walls.

  I start with the shrine, scrutinizing each item, and then make sure nothing is hidden beneath the carpet or amid the capacious fabric that crashes to the floor. Sadly, I come up empty. I’m about to move on to the bookshelf when I hear Shanelle call my name. “I’m in the secret room!” I holler.

  She joins me and sets her hands on her hips. “What you up to, girl?”

  “I don’t know. Hoping against hope that I’ll find something that’ll help me crack the case.”

  “Well, do it fast, because your mama is raring to get the fruitcake bakeoff started.”

  “I wonder why.” She knows she’ll blow Maggie out of the kitchen and can’t wait for her moment of triumph. I’m not as convinced as she is, though, that Victory in Baking will win her Pop’s heart back. “Remind her we have to wait for Mario to get here. We can’t have an even number of judges.”

  Shanelle sidles closer and lowers her voice. “In my opinion it doesn’t much matter how many judges we have.”

  True enough. Not with the lopsided results we’re all expecting. “Let’s wait anyway.”

  “I’ll tell the troops.” Shanelle departs. I regard the bookshelf. There’s Robinson Crusoe, which I started the other day, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles, into which Trixie dipped. Then I spy a book I’ve never heard of before. Peace Within. I don’t know who wrote it because there’s no author’s name on the spine. The only other book I know of like that is the Holy Bible.

  I slide it off the shelf and frown.

  Wow. This is weird. This sure looks like a book—it’s got a red leather cover with fancy gold lettering—and it even sort of feels like a book, except that it’s oddly lightweight. But this is not a book.

  I encounter the tiniest bit of resistance lifting the cover and then find myself staring into a small box lined with crimson felt. The box isn’t empty, either. It contains papers. And these aren’t any old papers, I soon realize. This is a bank statement.

  For a moment I stop to catch my breath. Yes, I do believe I’ve found something interesting at last.

  I set aside the faux book and unfold the statement. It has Ingrid’s name and address on it and it’s from last month. There’s only one account listed, a standard savings account. I eye the bottom line and inhale another sustaining breath.

  That’s a pretty stout balance. $169,326.46. I look at the transaction history. Only one transaction is noted in the entire month: a mongo deposit in the amount of $84,652.31 that is described as VIGILANZ TRAC PAYMENT 03582 3104177433 INGRID SVENDSEN.

  Everybody’s heard of Vigilanz. It’s a major life insurance company. There seems only one conclusion to draw from this: Ingrid was the beneficiary of somebody’s life insurance policy. I would guess Erik’s. As his widow, there’s nothing bizarre about that. But why in the world did she keep this lone bank statement in this fake book in her secret room? When all her other bank statements and important papers were filed in the desk in the library?

  It sure looks to me as if she were trying to hide that statement.

  I grab my cell and call Detective Dembek. Happily, she answers. I relay what I found, and where.

  “That is very strange,” she allows. I hear papers rustle and computer keys click. “Tell me again the name of the bank? And please read me the account number.” Half a minute later the detective again speaks, this time with something like excitement in her voice. “This is the first we’re hearing about that account, Happy. It’s especially odd because Ingrid Svendsen did all her banking elsewhere.”

  “So does that mean you didn’t know about the life insurance benefits, either?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Wow.” I can’t help feeling a frisson of pride at my discovery. “So Ingrid had a lot more money that we realized,” I add, just as my mom barrels into the secret room with Maggie at her heels.

  “I don’t want to wait, I want to do the bakeoff now,” my mother says before she realizes I’m holding my phone to my ear.

  “What do you mean, Ingrid had a lot more money?” Maggie grabs my arm. “Who’s that you’re talking to on the phone?”

  “I’ll send an officer right over to pick up that statement,” the detective tells me.

  “You’ll get a warrant to make the bank tell you more about this, right?” I ask. “And the life insurance company, too?”

  “Yes,” Detective Dembek says as I spin away from Maggie to prevent her from snatching the bank statement from my hand. “But today’s Sunday, so the soonest I can get in touch with them is tomorrow. Excellent work,” she adds, which is much nicer to hear than the mild brushoff that ended our last conversation.

  “I want to know who you were talking to.” Maggie points to the bank statement in my hand. “Let me see that. I’m Ingrid’s sister and I have more right to that than you do.”

  I hold it against my chest. “The police are coming by to pick it up.” But not before I jot down the account number. I make for the desk in the library, Maggie trailing me as closely as a puppy terrified of losing its mistress. She watches over my shoulder as I jot notes. I hear her suck in an enormous breath.

  “A hundred sixty-nine thousand dollars?” she chokes.

  My mother arches her brows. “That’s a lot of pedicures.”

  I suppose Maggie does have a right to know about this. I straighten. “Yes. From a life insurance policy, apparently.”

  “That means I’ll get it.” Maggie’s face lights up so bright she could guide an aircraft in for a landing. “I’m getting that other life insurance policy of Ingrid’s but that one is only five thousand d
ollars. Oh, my word.” She clutches her hands to her chest, fully on display thanks to yet another Dolly Parton V neck sweater. “Donovan and I will be set now.”

  “You won’t need Lou’s pension,” my mother points out.

  “Oh, my word. I’m going to call Donovan.” Maggie spins out of the library faster than a dervish on steroids.

  The doorbell rings twice in rapid succession, the first time to herald an officer from Winona P.D. and a second when Mario arrives. I have to believe the day will come when my heart does not thwack against my rib cage every time I see him. But I’m not there yet.

  I wink as I relieve him of his to-die-for overcoat. “Any ghosts today?”

  To my surprise he doesn’t wink back. Nor do his dimples flash. His expression remains as grave as I’ve ever seen it. “That’s no laughing matter, Happy.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m like Trixie now. I don’t want to set foot anywhere near Heffron Hall ever again. But I have to go back tomorrow.” He shudders. He literally shudders. “The entire crew was freaked out shooting there today. There is the oddest vibe at that place. And then—”

  “What? What?”

  He swallows. “We kept hearing footfalls on the floor above us even though we were absolutely positive nobody was up there. Not only that, when we checked our videotape we saw that we had captured these filmy white, I don’t know what they are, formations that nobody can explain.” He brushes his hair back from his forehead with a jerky motion. “The suits at the network are thrilled. They think I’m brilliant to come here, like I pinpointed the hottest paranormal vortex in the country. But at the rate we’re going I’ll have to stay till New Year’s.”

  I’ll be gone well before that time, whether I solve Ingrid’s murder or not. Somehow I’m more optimistic now that I will. I feel I’ve made a breakthrough.

  Even though his story is pretty darn spooky, I give Mario a have-no-fear pep talk as we repair to the kitchen for the fruitcake bakeoff. Trixie and I move aside the poinsettias that festoon the island and set the fruitcakes side by side. Even merely from an appearance point-of-view, my mother’s offering seems far superior. For one thing, she baked her fruitcake in a sculpted Bundt pan rather than a boring rectangular dish. For another, hers is a lovely golden color with candied fruit pieces artfully arranged on top. Maggie’s is a dark brown lump. It bears an unfortunate resemblance to a half-burnt log.