Enchantment Lake: A Northwoods Mystery

by Margi Preus

  “He confessed?” Jeannette exclaimed.

  Had he? Now Francie wondered. What had he said? She’d been distracted, strategizing about who to talk to at the party and wondering whether she’d come back alive from the fishing trip, and then she had been distracted by the Greek god in the lake.

  “It’s hard to say, really. I wish I had been secretly recording our conversation so I could listen to it again. It sure seemed like he was confessing to, if not murder, then whatever almost-murder is.”

  “Manslaughter?” Jeannette suggested.

  “Maybe,” Francie said.

  Had he really confessed? But why would he confess to her? And then on top of it, he’d dropped the bombshell that he knew something about her mother.

  “So if he really confessed,” Jeannette said, “perhaps you should go to the police.”

  Should she? But then she might never find out what Buck knew about her mother. “No!” Francie said, a little too forcefully, so she added, “Not yet.” Quickly changing the subject, she asked, “Why do you think the deaths have something to do with the road? It seems to me to have more to do with the acquisition of property.” She wondered if she should tell her aunts that she suspected Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Smattering had signed their places over to Buck. And the Angells were selling, too.

  “Well, perhaps you’re right,” Jeannette said. “Astrid is the one who’s so convinced it’s about the road. But you know, once the properties are sold, there will be more pressure than ever to get a road, since the folks who like it the way it is will be mostly gone.”

  “Except for us, of course,” Astrid said, coming out from the kitchen with a batch of cinnamon rolls. “And we’re the crucial ones.”

  If it was about a road, her aunts would be under a lot of pressure, since they owned the two properties on each end of the roadless area. She felt queasy just thinking of what it could mean if Buck really had been arranging fatal accidents for people he wanted to get rid of. Perhaps Astrid had been right when she’d said earlier that they were “the prime victims.”

  “Where are they planning to put the road, anyway?” Francie asked.

  “Oh, back there, behind the cabins,” Jeannette said. “Right through the old peat bog.”

  There was an old bog back there, Francie remembered. She and her brother had loved to go there to look for pitcher plants after they learned that the plants were carnivorous. They had spent a lot of time in that bog one summer.

  “Doesn’t that count as wetlands?” Francie asked. “And wouldn’t that qualify the area for protection?”

  “I don’t know. That bog is so old, there’s quite a bit of it that’s not wet anymore. Probably some pretty prime peat, though. I’m surprised someone isn’t digging it up and selling it to Home Depot.”

  Francie sat back in her chair and stared out the window at the lake. Maybe the puzzle picture was of a lake. That would explain why it was all blue. The lake she could see outside the window was not blue at all, but an eerie green, and farther out there were gray patches and almost-black patches where the sun was obscured by clouds. An island about a half-mile out was alternately bright with sun or cast into dark shadow by the shifting clouds.

  This whole mystery was a big puzzle, Francie thought, one that she was as incapable of solving as she was of finding a place for this one puzzle piece she’d been holding all this time. As for the mystery, things seemed as if they should be fitting into place, but somehow— “Something is wrong,” she said out loud. “But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Well,” Astrid said, staring out at the lake with her. “One thing that’s wrong is that island is getting smaller.”

  Jeannette snorted, and that made Francie start to giggle, and soon they were all guffawing like adolescents. She suddenly felt like the grown-up of the three of them. Along with that came a feeling of responsibility toward them.

  Francie put down her puzzle piece, got up, and hugged them both. “I have to go to town,” she said. “There’s something I need to do.”

  15

  The Sheriff’s Office

  The sheriff leaned back in his swivel chair and laughed. “He told you what? He said what?” He laughed so hard he started wheezing. “Listen, little missy, I know Buck. We went to high school together; we go elk hunting in Montana together every year.” He nodded with his head to the big rack of antlers mounted on the wall over his desk. “Buck ain’t no murderer.” He leaned over and scratched his dog—a black lab—behind the ears.

  “He doesn’t seem to have any trouble killing elk,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  Francie eyed the rack. “What kind of a gun do you have to have to kill one of those things?” she asked.

  “Well, me personally, I use a 30.06. Some others use a—now wait a minute. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re off the track. Warren shot himself with his own 20-gauge shotgun, same gun he uses for grouse.”

  “What makes you so sure it was a suicide?” Francie asked.

  “’Cuz he shot himself?” the sheriff said, with not a little sarcasm.

  “What makes you so sure about that?”

  “He left a note.” He shoved a scrap of paper at her. “I’m sorry, but I have to,” it said.

  “That’s a suicide note?”

  “It was found right by the body.”

  “‘I have to’—that could mean anything!” Francie said.

  “It could,” the sheriff said, “but in this case, it was found right next to his body. ‘I have to’ followed by a period. Maybe that’s all he had to say.”

  “It’s so vague. Why wasn’t he more specific?”

  “Like ‘I’m sorry, but I have to shoot myself in the head’?”

  “I don’t know—it just could mean anything. ‘Sorry, I have to go to town. Back soon.’ ‘Sorry, I have to bail the boat.’ ‘Sorry, I have to run over to Ginger’s to fix her pump,’ which is what he told her he was going to do yesterday.”

  “Warren was a man of few words.”

  “Obviously. But was he also a man of no punctuation? Look: that’s not a period, that’s a blood spatter. See? Look at the reverse of the page. There’s no indentation. And, he didn’t sign it.”

  “Looks like a suicide note to me.” The sheriff leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his belly.

  “Do you have a superior?”

  “I don’t know how it works out there in the Big Apple, but in this here Little Apple, I am the superior.”

  “I suppose you think all those deaths that have happened in the last year out on Enchantment have been accidental.”

  “This is the wild northwoods, miss; things happen.”

  “Do things like that happen on other lakes around here?”

  “Sure. Some.”

  “Numbers? Numbers of suspicious deaths in numbers of years?”

  “I don’t have time to keep count. Right now there’s a lot of stuff happening in town. There’s a fishing contest, a historical society conference . . .”

  “Historical society—that means a lot of drunken, late-night knife fights?” Francie said.

  “Anyway, who says the deaths are suspicious?” the sheriff went on, ignoring Francie’s sarcasm. He stood up and poured himself a cup of sour-smelling coffee. “I thought you were supposed to be on vacation from your detective job.”

  Oh, crikey, Francie thought, even he thinks I’m a detective. “Listen,” Francie said, ignoring that, “I’m just concerned for the people of Enchantment. It seems really creepy how many weird deaths there are, and last night Buck all but confessed to arranging accidents for people. He said he never meant to kill anyone; they were just accidents that went awry, according to him, so your theory about him not being a cold-blooded killer is perhaps correct—until now, until Warren.”

  The sheriff sighed and rubbed his head. “I think Buck drank too much and was yankin’ your chain.”

  Francie gave him the look.

  “Okay, okay,
tell you what,” the sheriff said. “I’ll have a little chat with him.”

  “No!” Francie cried. “You have to bring him in and hold him. If you won’t investigate, then I will. I’ll bring you enough proof. I’ll find it and bring it in. Just keep him here before he can kill anyone else.” For a moment, she felt like she was back in her show. She almost remembered the stage directions for that little speech.

  “There’s such a thing as jurisdiction, you know,” the sheriff said.

  “If you tell him I talked to you, I might be the next victim.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? Listen here, now. I know how to use the innernet. I don’t see where your name is listed as a detective anywhere.”

  Suddenly something kicked in. Francie had trained as an actor; why not use it? The sheriff was treating her like a kid, and so would everyone else if they knew she wasn’t really a detective. If everybody thought she was a detective, and being a detective could get her somewhere, why not use it? She put her hands on his desk and leaned toward him. “Do you really think the NYPD would put my name and picture up on their website if I am going to be an effective undercover cop? I don’t know how it works here in this Little Apple, but out there, in the Big Apple, we don’t broadcast that we’re undercover cops. Kinda defeats the purpose, you know what I’m saying? Now you listen. If I turn up dead in your jurisdiction, Sheriff—” (here she made a show of reading the nameplate on his desk) “Rydell Johnson, you’ll have the whole NYPD to answer to.”

  That would give him something to chew on. “Now excuse me. Since you don’t seem inclined to take care of your own criminals, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  It was a bit over the top—like something on a TV cop show. Perfect.

  16

  Babysitting

  Now what?

  First, she canceled her flight. There was no way she was going to leave her aunts alone now. What she was going to do, she wasn’t sure, but she knew she had to stay. Maybe she could still connect with Mrs. Frederickson. And if things settled down in the next few days, she might be able to get back to New York in time for the next audition.

  She checked her phone. Augh! An urgent message from Granddad: “Francesca, call ASAP. Need to talk.” She felt a twinge of guilt and another of anxiety but tossed the phone into her backpack. She’d deal with him later.

  The rest of the afternoon, she ran a few errands for her aunts, then went into the coffee shop, flipped open her laptop, and mulled. Obviously, she was going to have to find proof of Buck’s guilt herself. And fast, before any other people were “accidentally” killed. But how?

  There must be a way of digging up some dirt on Buck. Then again, what if it wasn’t Buck? The sheriff certainly didn’t think so. And when she thought about it, Buck did not strike her as being smart enough or patient enough to orchestrate a string of murders. Still, he was the constant in all of these unusual deaths, or most of them, anyway. Perhaps he was smarter than he pretended to be. That would be something a very clever person could do. She had an actor friend who was one of the smartest people she knew, but he had a steady job on a sitcom playing an ignoramus. “The smart actors play dumb characters better than dumb actors do,” a director had told her once, when she’d squeaked about getting the dumb blonde part (for which she had to wear a wig, of course). That shut her up. So she ought to know better than to make such assumptions.

  Since she couldn’t come up with any great ideas about how to investigate Buck or how to respond to her grandfather’s phone message, she decided to go back to the cabin.

  On Francie’s way up to the cabin from the lake, Ginger intercepted her to ask if she’d mind babysitting T.J. for the evening. She was going out for dinner, she said.

  “A date?” Francie asked.

  “Don’t act so surprised. I’m not that bad looking,” Ginger said.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Francie explained. “I mean, who is there to date around here?” The gorgeous Greek god of the previous night flickered through her mind, but she didn’t even know who he was, so she couldn’t ask. “Sandy?” she said.

  “God, no!” Ginger said. “Stop asking. I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Not Buck Jr.,” Francie guessed. “Please say no.”

  Ginger laughed. “No.”

  “Good,” Francie said. “Who then?”

  “I told you, I’m not going to tell you!” Ginger protested.

  “What? Why? Are you serious?”

  Ginger laughed and flipped her hair off her face and trip-tropped down the path. “I’ll send T.J. over shortly, okay?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, okay,” Francie answered. “I’ll try to get the aunts to cook something normal. What does he like to eat, by the way?”

  “Anything! The weirder the better!” Ginger shouted back, laughing.

  “That’s lucky!” Francie called back.

  Ginger seemed really happy. That was nice. She deserved something nice, Francie supposed, although she wondered if Ginger’s mother would approve of her dating while she was supposed to be babysitting her little brother.

  At dinner Francie played with her mashed potatoes, fwapping them with the back of her spoon. Why wouldn’t Ginger tell her who she was going out with? Francie swirled her potatoes slower. Was she really on a date? Why had she been out when Francie had come by after the party? Had it been Ginger who had been lurking when Francie had gone out to silence the wind chime? Though the evening was warm, a shiver ran up her arms.

  She turned and looked at T.J., who was busy smashing his peas deep into his potatoes. He was distracted, too. He acted uncomfortable. Afraid, even.

  “Is there something wrong with the potatoes?” Astrid said sharply. “For the love of Pete! A couple of disagreeable porcupines would be better company than you two.”

  “Sorry,” Francie said. “Just thinking.” She shoved her potatoes into the shape of a volcano.

  Astrid went into the kitchen, and Francie turned to T.J.

  “So, T.J.,” she said, “where did Ginger go tonight?”

  T.J. lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Dunno,” he said.

  “Who’s her date?”

  T.J. lifted his other shoulder. “Dunno. She didn’t tell me.”

  “Does she go out often?” Francie continued. “Was she out last night?”

  “Frenchy!” Jeannette said, “Don’t you think you’re being a little nosy?”

  “Of course she’s nosy.” Astrid returned from the kitchen carrying some kind of cake. “She’s a detective. That’s what she gets paid to do.”

  “I’m getting paid?” Francie asked.

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” Astrid answered.

  T.J. had taken the opportunity to slip a meatball under the table to Rusty. Jeannette and Astrid pretended not to notice.

  Francie spent the next little while trying to engage T.J. in conversation. She learned not much, as he seemed rather shy. He liked it at the lake. He liked catching frogs. He used to go fishing with his dad but hadn’t gone yet this summer. He professed to like to swim, which Francie contested because it seemed to her he was always filthy. “How do you get so dirty?”

  He gave a cursory glance at his dusty arms and legs and shrugged.

  “Sorry about your friend Warren,” Francie said. “That must be hard for you. I understand you were chums.”

  T.J. looked down. Tears trembled in his eyes.

  Francie, still distracted, started scooping cake out of the pan with a spoon. “Why am I dishing this out with a spoon?” she asked.

  “I can’t find a spatula,” Astrid answered. “Just pretend it’s pudding.”

  17

  The Funeral

  The funeral was short and nondescript. There was a lunch following, provided by the ladies of Enchantment, the same ladies Warren had helped out so many times in the past. A long table in the church basement was laden with Jell-O salads and hotdishes—casseroles—of all descriptions. Frost
ed cakes, plates of cookies, and pans of bars weighed down the far end of the table.

  Astrid and Jeannette were part of the crew of ladies who had brought the food and were now serving it. Francie had given a halfhearted offer of help, but she was shooed away by women who quickly comprehended that she would only be in the way. So she filled her plate, and since she didn’t feel like sitting in the church basement, found her way outside and across the street, where a picnic table offered her fresh air and solitude. Plus maybe a little time to think.

  The day had grown so hot she had little appetite. She ate around the mini-marshmallows in the Jell-O and watched people come and go from the church. Heat wavered up from the sidewalk, making the funeral goers appear to undulate slightly. In the thick air, they all seemed a little queasy. Or maybe it was she who was queasy. She eyed her plate with suspicion. She’d purposely avoided the potato salad and wondered what kind of casserole Aunt Astrid had made. She should have thought to find out.

  A big taupe SUV peeled into the parking lot, somehow managing to kick up dust, came to a screeching halt, and emptied out Buck, talking on his phone. She strained to hear what he was saying but could catch only some disconnected words. She thought of sneaking closer but stopped when he glanced around, unzipped his fly, and aimed into the hydrangeas.

  Francie almost laughed out loud but realized that because he had to talk louder to hear himself, she could now hear what he was saying.

  “Yes, I know. No, now listen. There’s no need for that—don’t—” He paused. “You and I don’t see what’s the big deal, but believe me, a lot of other people will. It’s exactly the kind of thing that gets people all worked up. Yeah, well . . .” he looked at his phone, crammed it in his pocket, and zipped up his pants.

  Then he charged into the church while other people began to file out, heading to their cars. Some stopped to chat; some rushed to their cars; others, not realizing they were being observed, did mildly embarrassing things like picking their teeth or noses. Francie smiled to see a small child spit something out of her mouth into her hand, then toss the hateful thing into the bushes. Sandy came out of a side door and rushed away; it must be hard for him to get away from the resort. Mrs. Smattering tottered outside carrying something wrapped in a towel. She spoke for a few moments with Mrs. Hansen. Mrs. Smattering peeled the towel away and opened the lid of a casserole dish and Mrs. Hansen peered inside. They could be two of the three witches in Macbeth, Francie thought, chanting, “When shall we meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” Then the ladies went their separate ways, now looking more like ordinary women off to run their errands.