by Jeff Shelby
I found a chair in the back of the room as the kids took roll and started going over their agenda. The kids had participated in 4-H for six years, ever since we’d moved to town, and I still didn’t wholly understand the ins and outs of what they did. It was a kid-led and kid-centered meeting and they were always discussing things like projects and budgets. Will had run for the position of vice-president this year and had run a successful bribery campaign: he’d handed out lollipops with the slogan, “Will WILL Do It!”and had won the position by a landslide. As vice-president, he got to look important and lead meetings when Megan, Carol’s daughter and the elected President, wasn’t there.
Annabelle Kingston came and sat down next to me. I didn’t know her that well, even though I saw her nearly every week at one event or another. She had four boys under the age of ten and always looked exhausted.
“I was so sorry to hear, Daisy.” She set her hand on my elbow.
I smiled. “Thanks.”
She folded her hands in her lap. She wore a pair of black sweats and a purple t-shirt with her church logo emblazoned on the front. She was very religious and I was not so our interests didn’t tend to converge except for the kids activities.
“We saw the police there this morning on the way over,” she said. “The boys nearly came out of the van.”
“They can come over and watch if they want,” I offered.
She laughed. She’d made an attempt to put on make-up that morning but her lipstick wasn’t blended and I couldn’t help but stare at the spot on her upper lip that was devoid of color. “Might be a good learning experience,” she said.
“Yes. Hands-on forensics. Or something.”
She nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled and the bare spot on her lip stretched wider. “We’ll pray about it for you.”
“About the forensics?” I asked, confused. Was she going to bless the instruments, like priests did with the holy water?
“No, Daisy. About…the situation.”
I nodded. “Oh. Right. Um, thank you,” I said awkwardly. I didn’t know—did you thank people when they offered to pray for you?
She lowered her voce. “I heard you knew Olaf.”
“What?” I tried to act surprised but I knew better. In the span of less than a day, I was certain Connie had blabbed what she knew, or what she thought she knew, to every willing listener in town. “Let me guess. You heard about my date with him.”
“It might have come up,” she said vaguely. Annabelle had a little more tact in the gossip department than Connie. She bit her bottom lip. “I…I knew Olaf.”
I shifted in my chair. “You did? I didn’t know that.”
She glanced at the kids for a moment. Megan was talking, a wooden gavel in hand. From the looks of things, they were getting ready to vote on something.
Annabelle turned her attention back to me. “Our families were friends when we were kids. So I’ve known him for a long time. He was a nice guy.”
I nodded. “He seemed like it.”
“He was,” she said. Her hands were still in her lap and she folded them together. “But he was…struggling.”
“Struggling?” My overactive imagination immediately kicked into full gear. Did he have some sort of problem? Addiction? Gambling? He’d seemed normal enough when we’d talked over pizza that night. Maybe his life had taken a downward spiral. Maybe I’d been the one to cause it; another fruitless date that hadn’t amounted to anything.
A sympathetic frown crossed her face. “He was still in love with Helen.”
Helen? Who on earth was Helen?
“His ex-wife,” she explained before I could ask. “They were divorced for a number of years. Don’t think he ever got over it. I’m friends with her, too.”
“She lives here? In Moose River?”
“Yeah, over behind the high school. She’s told me on several occasions how he still wanted to get back together,” she said. “They didn’t have any kids. But apparently he really wanted to stay married.”
Sympathy seeped into my body. I immediately felt sorry for Olaf. I couldn’t get out of my marriage fast enough and I’d probably waited too long, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have the other person walk out on you and still want to be with them.
“About once a month, I guess, he’d show up unannounced and ask her if there was any chance,” she said, shaking her head. “Helen would tell him no and he’d slink away like a shamed dog. I felt bad for him. I prayed about it a lot.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. And then, quickly, “The situation. Not the praying.”
She nodded. “And Helen hasn’t exactly been a wallflower since they separated. She didn’t remarry or anything but she’s been…out there. Dating and whatever else she does.” She pursed her lips and then took a deep breath, as if she was physically reminding herself to not judge. “I remember her mentioning your name when you and Olaf went out. He’d told her. She was hopeful.”
It was like she’d just rolled in a wheelbarrow full of guilt and dumped it squarely in my lap.
“But I think maybe he just told her with the hope that it might spark something in her,” she said, her eyes trained on the kids sitting in a semi-circle around the officers’ table . “It didn’t.”
I turned to look at the kids, too. Hands were popping up and down. But I was thinking about Olaf. He’d mentioned his ex-wife at dinner, but hadn’t said much else and I hadn’t asked. Discussing our divorces was the last thing I wanted to talk about so I hadn’t asked anything about her. I assumed he’d felt the same way.
Sitting there with Annabelle, processing what she’d just told me, I suddenly wondered if I should’ve asked more.
NINE
The strange woman was watching our house.
We’d been home from the 4-H meeting for a couple of hours and, after a quick lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, I’d sent the kids upstairs to play. They’d done enough preening at the windows, watching the goings on around the crime scene in the backyard and I wanted them to do something else. Will had disappeared to play his allotted time on the computer and Grace and Sophie had hightailed it to their room, squealing about Barbies and Polly Pockets. I was in the kitchen, making cookies and thinking about dinner. Emily was due home within the hour and, for once, we had nothing on the evening agenda. I wanted nothing more than to pour a glass of wine and curl up on the couch with Jake and get lost in something else—a movie, a game with the kids, whatever.
I checked on the tray in the oven before turning to the sink to tackle the mountain of dishes that had accumulated. I glanced out the side window and that’s when I saw her, walking by on the other side of the street. She moved slowly, her gaze locked on the house. I washed the dishes and was just finishing the last of the mixing bowls when the timer sounded. I pulled the last tray of cookies from the oven and looked out the window again. She was walking the other direction this time, her head swiveling toward the house as she walked. I bit back a sigh, realizing full well that a driveway of police cars and copious amounts of caution tape draped around the snow-filled year would draw some extra attention.
But as I was putting the dishes back in the cupboards, I saw her again, ducking behind a car on the other side of the street, still watching.
I stacked the bowls inside of each other and stowed them in one of the lower cupboards. I straightened, flopped the dish towel over my shoulder and walked to the window. She was crouched down, bundled up in a purple down jacket, watching intently.
And it just irked me.
I knew the scene was attention-grabbing, but I thought it was rude to just stand there on the sidewalk and gawk. And I thought it was weird and even ruder that she now appeared to be trying to hide herself as she watched.
So I pulled on my jacket and boots and went outside.
The wind hit me full-on in the face and my eyes watered. The morning might have been mild but the temperature had taken a nose-dive. I felt the hairs in my nose freeze and I tucked my
chin into my jacket, trying to deflect the blow of the icy blasts assaulting me. I loved seasons but winter in Minnesota was like winter on steroids. Every year, as the snow piled up and the temperatures dipped even lower, I’d inevitably hit a point where I’d start thinking about warmer places so I wouldn’t have to dress like a sherpa every time I went outside. I was at that point this winter.
The woman didn’t see me come down the stairs off the porch, her hard gaze fixed on the police workers who were traipsing around in the snow. I stood at the hedges for a moment, thinking she would notice me and move on. But she didn’t and, for some reason, this just irritated me more. I crossed the street and came up behind the car she was hiding behind and stood behind her.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
She jumped a foot off the ground and her entire face colored red, both from the cold and the embarrassment of my catching her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”
I took a good look at her. She was about my age and about thirty pounds overweight. Small eyes, pug nose, a small circle of a mouth. Her hair wasn’t visible, tucked inside of a knit beanie. Her coat stretched across her ample midsection and her cotton sweatpants were shoved into the tops of her boots.
“Then why are you staring at my house?”
“I’m not,” she said, glancing across the street, then at me.
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “You’re not? Really?”
She started to say something, but then her expression morphed from embarrassment to anger. “Why did you do that?”
I lifted my eyebrows in confusion. “Do what?”
She pointed a gloved finger at me. “You know what.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Yes, you do. Yes, you do.”
I took a step back. I wondered if she was mentally unstable and if maybe it wasn’t such a good idea that I was confronting her. “I’m going to let one of the police officers know you’re over here. I’m sure they’ll be happy to come speak with you.”
She made a face like she didn’t care. “You go do that.” And then, under her breath, she muttered, “Killer.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said, raising her voice and pointing the gloved finger at me again. “Killer.”
I blinked several times. “I’m going to get the police now.”
“Good!” she said, sneering at me. “Good! Then I can tell them you killed Olaf.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” I said, anger bubbling up inside me. “And who are you?”
“None of your beeswax,” she said. Before I could process her childlike comment, she reached out and pushed my shoulder.
My eyes widened in surprise. She pushed me. She actually reached out and pushed my shoulder, like we were on the playground and we were going to fight over who was going to be the line leader. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been pushed. Fourth grade? Third? I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t sure what my reaction was then.
But this time? After a grown woman had accused me of being a murderer, told me to mind my own beeswax, and then pushed me?
I reached out and pushed her back.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
Her hand connected with my shoulder again, this time harder. “Don’t you touch me.”
I should’ve been the bigger person. I should’ve just walked away and crossed the street and gone back into the house and let the police deal with her. I should not have pushed her with two hands.
But I pushed her with two hands.
She took a step back, her brows furrowing together, her eyes narrowing to the size of seed beads. She steadied herself.
And then she charged at me.
I tried to get out of her way, but she got an arm around me and we both fell into the snow. Wet cold seeped through my jeans and clumps of snow stuck to my hair. The woman reached for my face, her nails poised like small daggers, but I caught her wrists and held her away. We stayed locked in that position, her face contorted with rage, before several officers jogged across the street and pulled us apart.
I got to my feet and brushed the snow off my pants. My chest was heaving and my hands were shaking. I hadn’t been in a fight since…ever. And I was an adult and here I was wrestling with a stranger on the snow-covered sidewalk. Not my finest moment.
The woman’s face was bright red and she was almost vibrating, her jaw locked and her eyes fixed on me. She tried to lunge at me again, but the officer next to her had hold of her and she didn’t make it very far.
The officer closest to me took me by the elbow. He wore sunglasses and an overpowering amount of Old Spice. “What’s going on?” he asked.
I brushed snow from the side of my face. “I came over to ask why she was watching the house. I saw her from inside. She was out here for easily fifteen minutes before I came out.” I didn’t want to mention that she’d called me a killer. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, she pushed me several times. And then we went down in the snow.”
He kept his hand on my elbow but looked at the woman. “That right?”
“She pushed me, too,” the lady muttered, still staring at me like she wanted to hurt me.
My cop looked at her. “Do you have any identification, ma’am?”
She paused, then shook her head. “No.”
“What’s your name?”
“Olga.”
She didn’t offer a last name and, for some reason, the cop didn’t ask for one. “Can you tell me what you were doing here on the sidewalk?”
“Minding my own business,” she said defensively. Her beanie had slipped a little and strands of brown hair were plastered to her cheek.
“Minding my business,” I said.
She glared at me, then turned to the cop who was holding her. “Are you arresting her?”
He looked confused. “Ma’am?”
“For murder,” she said. Her gaze bounced between the two of us. “Are you arresting her?”
The officers exchange confused looks and the one next to me said, “Well, we can’t really talk about the investigation.”
“She did it,” the woman said again. “She killed him.”
“I did not,” I said.
“Liar!” she yelled.
The fact that she was so insistent that I had done it was unnerving. A person I’d never seen before was accusing me of killing someone I hadn’t. And she seemed to believe it so certainly that she’d bet all the money in the world on it. What did she know that I didn’t?
The officer holding onto the woman cleared his throat. “Ma’am, we’re going to ask you to move along at this point. You’re interfering with…”
“She killed my brother!” she said, pointing at me. “She killed Olaf!”
Brother? She was Olaf’s sister?
The officer took her by the elbow and started walking her down the block. She kept turning around, twisting her neck, her face a red mass of fury and anger.
Olaf’s sister?
TEN
“Who was that lady that was yelling at you?” Will asked. He’d parked himself next to the counter and had a half-eaten cookie in his hand.
I shrugged out of my coat and kicked off my boots. “I thought you were upstairs playing?”
He shrugged. “I might’ve looked out the window. And saw you with her and two police officers.”
I frowned. I was fairly convinced he was going to grow up to be some sort of spy.
He reached for another cookie and I swatted his hand away. “How may have you eaten?”
Will subsisted on pasta, cheese and sugar. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. He maintained he abstained from meat for ethical reasons but I didn’t know why he’d decided to become a vegetable rights activist.
“The lady,” Will said. “Who was she?”
“I’m not sure.”
He shoved the last bite of cookie in his mouth and chewed. “Why was she yelling at you?”
“Because I’m
pretty sure she was crazy.”
“But why you?”
I opened one of the cupboards and pulled out a large plastic container. “Will, I don’t know,” I said, trying to be patient.
“Well, isn’t it weird that some random lady shows up on the sidewalk and starts yelling at you?” he asked, his face scrunched up in confusion. “Saying you killed some guy?”
I eyed him. “Opened the window a bit, did you?”
His eyes darted around for a second. “Well, she was yelling kinda loud.”
“Hmm. Right.”
“But, no, seriously. Why was she yelling at you?”
I lifted the lid off the empty container and started layering cooled cookies along the bottom. “I have no idea.”
“No idea?”
“None.”
“Well, that’s weird.”
“It’s all weird. All of it.”
He grabbed a cup from the dish drainer and filled it with milk. “Are you gonna be arrested?”
“No. I’m not going to be arrested.”
“How do you know?”
I reached for more cookies. “Because I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, but all the time on TV, guys get arrested for doing stuff they didn’t do and then someone has to come and save them and prove them wrong.” He nodded, approving of his own words. “Happens all the time.”
“On TV,” I said, pointing a cookie at him. “Happens all the time on TV, which, as I’m sure you’re aware, is not real.”
“Unless it’s a reality show,” he countered. “Then it’s real.”
“Not always and you know that, too,” I said. “But rest assured. I’m not going to be arrested.”
He frowned, but didn’t say anything.
And, in truth, I sounded more confident than I felt. The dead body was found in my house. I knew the victim. And his sister had some reason to think I was the one responsible. I didn’t think she just randomly selected me. She had a reason. I just didn’t know what it was.
“If you get arrested, will we be able to visit you in jail?” he asked, looking out the window.
I turned my attention to the last wire rack of cookies. “Will. Listen to me. I’m not going to be arrested and I’m not going to jail.”