Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4)

by Debra Gaskill

  Standing in front of her, I felt even more self-conscious about my squat boxy frame. God, I’m built like a damned fifty-gallon drum, I thought to myself.

  “Hi, I’m Addison McIntyre,” I said, extending my hand.

  The Russian woman’s accent was thick and hard to decipher, despite her slow, careful speech and tentative smile.

  “Hello, I am Ekaterina Bolodenka—call me Katya. Welcome to my farm. I call it the Lunatic Fringe. Come inside. We talk there.”

  Stepping inside from the bright sunshine, it took a moment for me to adjust my eyes to the darker living room. The room was filled with worn overstuffed furniture that looked like cast offs from a closed-down motel rather than imports from Mother Russia. The coffee table had deep angular scratches marring each leg, exposing the particleboard heart.

  There were a few hints of Bolodenka’s heritage, however. Here and there, small reproductions of medieval Russian icons sat among family photos on the cheap knock-off side tables, next to several sets of nesting dolls. A picture of a young woman holding a baby girl in front of the colored onion domes of St. Basil’s cathedral on Moscow’s Red Square caught my eye.

  I pointed to the picture. “Your daughter?”

  Bolodenka was quiet for a moment, her graceful smile replaced by a cloak of sorrow. “The woman holding the baby, she is—was—my sister, Svetlana,” she answered, softly. “The baby girl is her daughter, Nadezhda. We called her Nadya.”

  “Are they still in Russia?” I picked up the frame.

  Bolodenka shook her head.

  “No. They are dead.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry.” I sat the frame down and pulled a pen and reporter’s notebook from my purse.

  Bolodenka wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Yes. I-it is very difficult that I talk about them.” Even in sorrow, her grace suffused the odd little room.

  “I understand. Let’s talk about you winning ‘Best of Show’ at the Ohio State Fair instead. Is this your entry here, above the couch?”

  Hanging on the wall above the stained plaid couch was an abstract tapestry done in brightly colored yarns. The yarns, warm browns and grays mixing with lighter colors of reds and blues, cascaded from a large circle in the upper left corner, rolling and tumbling like water escaping a rocky riverbed and filling the canvas with exploding colors before seeming to fall invisibly off the edge of the canvas.

  The effect was elegant and abstract, very much at odds with the cheap, tarnished furniture and Russian knickknacks.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Bolodenka seemed to relax. A tentative smile came across her face. “Yes, yes. This is it. All of the fiber comes from my herd. I shear each animal. I card the fiber, spin it and dye it. Then I weave on tapestry loom.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Here. Touch.” Bolodenka reached out and caressed a corner. “It’s alpaca.”

  “Oh my God, that’s softer than any wool I’ve ever felt! What’s an alpaca?”

  Bolodenka’s smile grew more confident. “Come. I show you.”

  We walked through the living room and out the front door. A short walkway led back to a new metal pole barn and long lines of pristine white fence.

  Beside the barn, just a few steps from the main farmhouse, sat a small pre-fabricated house, a cross between a hunting cabin and a cottage, the kind that some of my father’s friends put up at the lake for their retirement fishing trips.

  “You’ve done a lot with this place,” I ventured, trying to keep up with Bolodenka’s long strides.

  “Yes. I rebuilt the barn that used to be here and added that house for my farm manager. ” She pointed at the small cottage. “You have been in Jubilant Falls long time, yes?”

  “All my life. In fact, I was here the night the original barn burned.”

  The barn had gone up in flames along with a series of other area barns that summer. Some started when the green hay stacked inside caught fire spontaneously; others, like the one that happened here, were arson, set in an attempt to cover a murder.

  Before Bolodenka moved here, the farm belonged to Larry and Denise Jensen, long-time friends of Duncan’s and mine. After the fire, Larry found work at the new Japanese auto parts factory; they gave up farming and moved to town. Both Duncan and I mourned the loss of yet another Plummer County farm.

  My thoughts about the Jensen’s must have shown on my face.

  “Everything OK? Yes?” Bolodenka asked.

  “Yes, just thinking about some things…”

  “Ah. We all have those things that never leave us, yes?” Bolodenka nodded sagely and began walking again toward the pasture gate, where a tall, young black man leaned on his forearms against the fence, his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped in deep thought. He turned and nodded at us as we approached the fence.

  Bolodenka introduced him. “This is Jerome Johnson, my farm manager.”

  “Addison McIntyre, Jubilant Falls Journal-Gazette.” I extended my hand. I caught a sharp look that passed between the two before he returned my handshake. “I’m here to do a story on Ekaterina winning best of show at the state fair.”

  “Just a local story?” Johnson asked sharply, again shooting Bolodenka a hard look.

  “Well, yeah. Why would anyone outside the county care?” I asked.

  “No reason. Just asking.” He slipped his long, thin fingers into the front pockets of his jeans and leaned against the fence.

  This Johnson guy certainly is a bit protective to be just an employee, I thought.

  “Jerome, please,” Bolodenka touched his arm gently. “I was going to introduce her to the girls.”

  She stopped at the fence gate and climbed up a couple rungs. Leaning forward so that her thin legs balanced her against the gate’s top rung, Bolodenka cupped her hands around her mouth and called “Llama, llama, llaaaaaama girls!”

  From the far corner of the pasture came a herd of long-necked graceful animals, each one a different shade of brown, gray, white or black.

  Their faces seemed almost camel-like, except smaller, and unlike any other livestock I’d seen, they had two toes, not hooves. Their ears stood at attention, listening attentively to their owner’s call. Some of the animals looked fuzzy, an odd cross between teddy bear and a giraffe, while still other others had wool that hung in flat curls that floated gracefully from their necks and backs like yards of rope with each step they took.

  In the center of the herd was a larger animal, black and massive, with ears that hooked above its head like two bananas. A huge black ruff hung from its neck to its chest, down the massive shoulders to the front legs. The midsection was shaved around the back and belly, but the same heavy black fiber was allowed to grow at a sharp angle along the lower part of the back legs. Beside it skipped a smaller version of itself, simultaneously lifting all four little feet off the ground with each bouncing step.

  “Oh my God, is that a llama? She’s gorgeous!”

  Bolodenka smiled as the llama pushed her way through the smaller animals and nuzzled her chin. Bolodenka returned the affection by burying one hand in the deep black ruff and scratching the animal’s neck. “Yes. She’s my favorite llama. I call her Dolly. This is her baby, Ramsey. Jerome, he calls him Rama.”

  I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Rama Llama and Dolly Llama?”

  “One is American rock and roll and the other is Tibetan religious leader, yes?”

  “Yes. What are these critters here, though?” I nodded toward the smaller animals. They seemed to be miniature versions of the llama, with spiked rather than banana-shaped ears. There were two kinds of wool that hung on their bodies.

  “These are alpacas. They come from South America and have been in U.S. since the 1980’s. The fuzzy ones are called Huacaya—“

  “What? Say that again.”

  Bolodenka smiled. “I know my accent strong and my English bad. Jerome, you tell her.”

  Johnson seemed to relax. “The first one is pronounc
ed wha-ki-uh. The others, with the long dreadlocks, those are suri alpacas. Both are raised for their fiber, like sheep.”

  “Are they related to llamas? They look like they could be.”

  Bolodenka stopped scratching Dolly’s neck and climbed down from the gate. “They are all what is called camelids. Camels, llamas alpacas, guanacos and vicuñas are all camelids.” The softly flowing Spanish sounded rough and choppy with her Russian accent.

  I reached to caress one of the alpacas’ backs, but it shied away.

  “They’re not real friendly,” Johnson said. “They’re pretty stand-offish if they don’t know you.”

  “Are these the only animals you have on the farm?” I turned to Katya.

  “No, we also raise cashmere goats,” Johnson continued to answer. “We also have a few Blue-faced Leicester sheep as well.”

  Crunching gravel sounds made us turn toward the driveway. Recognizing the pale blue aging Subaru, I waved.

  “That’s Pat Robinette, the Journal-Gazette’s photographer,” I said as the tall pony-tailed man stepped from the small car.

  Jerome shot another disparaging look at Katya. “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” he said.

  “Don’t be in picture then,” she said shortly. “Is there something else you need to do? Clean barn, maybe?”

  Without speaking to Robinette, Johnson spun on his heel, and marched back toward the small modular cottage.

  “I’m sorry for Jerome. He can be difficult,” Katya smiled. “He means well.”

  I introduced Pat and quickly explained the idea behind the story.

  “Would it be possible to include the animals in the shot?” Pat asked. “How about we include your loom?”

  “Oh, no — the loom is almost six foot tall. I have spinning wheel,” Katya said. “I can bring that out and we can set it near fence?”

  “Perfect!” Pat exclaimed.

  Within a few moments, the photo was set up. Katya sat sideways by the fence; the wheel of her spinning wheel turning as Dolly Llama looked over the fence and the alpacas poked their heads through the slats.

  Pat shifted into gear, switching lenses, shooting the scene from various angles as Katya began to spin. There was peace on Katya’s face as she worked. Drawing long strands of carded alpaca fiber, called rovings, from a basket at her feet, she held the end of the stranded fiber in one hand as she began treadling the pedals on the spinning wheel.

  Magically, the fiber attached itself to the yarn, twisted by the turning of the wheel, and wrapped itself onto the bobbin.

  As I watched, Bolodenka’s hands moved back and forth, pinching to pull the carded fiber almost apart, letting it loose for a millisecond for the flyer to twist it into yarn and wrap it around the bobbin. With Zen-like calm, she repeated the process over and over, turning the fiber magically into yarn.

  “So, how did you end up in Jubilant Falls?” I asked, continuing to make notes. I could tell she would reveal more as she spun yarn, relaxing as she moved her hands back and forth from the bobbin.

  “Mainly because my business. It needs land and Plummer County has land,” Katya said. “The farm house was perfect for my home and my studio. The land was wonderful for all animals, the alpacas and the llamas, the sheep and the goats.”

  Mesmerized by the wheel and the sound of Pat’s clicking camera, I listened quietly as Bolodenka began to tell her story.

  “I was born in Moscow. My parents and my sister, Svetlana, came to this country when I was five and Svetlana was seven. We lived in Chicago and we attended St. Volodymyr’s church in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood. The church and her daughters, those were the center of my mother’s life.

  “She never let me and my sister forget Mother Russia. We only speak Russian at home, English only when we are outside of house. That is why my English still so bad. I fall in love with the great medieval tapestries of the Orthodox Church, so I study art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Svetlana, she fell in love with Alexis—he was majoring in political science at University of Chicago. They get married, have baby Nadya and return to Moscow so Alex can do dissertation on the fall of communism. I follow six months later to do my own thesis on church tapestries.”

  Katya’s voice fell to a low, sad pitch. “We should have never left. Six months later, a cab driver, drunk with too much vodka, drive up on sidewalk as Alexis, Svetlana and Nadya are walking home from market. All are killed.”

  “Oh, how awful!” I looked up from my notebook.

  Katya nodded. “The news kills my mother. She has heart attack and dies two months after we bury Svetlana and Nadya.”

  “Is your father still living?”

  Katya shook her head. “No. He died from lung cancer while Svetlana and I are in Moscow.”

  “So you’re all alone, then.”

  “I could not stay in Chicago.”

  “So how did you end up with these llamas? Growing up in Chicago doesn’t seem like it’s much preparation for farm life.”

  Katya smiled. “You are right. I wandered for a bit after my family died. I taught art history in Cleveland and saw my first alpaca and llama while I was driving through the country one afternoon. I bought a few animals, learned to spin my own yarn and decided to put my art background to good use. I learn about the animals, I buy more alpacas, I buy cashmere goats and sheep and then I need farm. Here is perfect farm for me.” She smiled and shrugged. “I make tapestry and decide to enter it in fair. That’s my story.”

  “I got all the shots I need.” With a flick of his wrist, Pat removed the long lens from his Nikon and placed it in his backpack, smoothly switching the camera back to a smaller lens.

  “Well, that’s all my questions. I guess we’re done here.” I reached out to shake Katya’s hand. “I’ll probably put this story in sometime in the next couple days, depending on what the other news is. Can we help you take your stuff back inside?”

  “Oh, no. I can get it.” Bolodenka seemed not so much to stand as to unfold, swanlike, from the small stool she’d been seated on. “Thanks for coming.”

  We exchanged goodbyes. Pat and I walked back to our cars parked in front of the farmhouse, close to Jerome Johnson’s cottage.

  “That sure is a sad story, isn’t it?” I scuffed gravel from the driveway in front of me with each step.

  “If you believe it, yeah. It’s pretty sad.”

  I looked up sharply. “What’s that mean?”

  “Turn around. Slowly.”

  There in the front window stood a hard-eyed Johnson, his fists jammed hard into his jeans’ pockets. A small 35-mm camera hung on a thin back strap from his left shoulder.

  I waved and nodded, then turned back to Pat.

  “He’s watching us. That bastard’s been spying on us!”

  “Yup.” Slowly, Pat opened the door of his Subaru and slid his backpack onto the front seat beside him. His movements were slow and certain and his eyes never left the black man in the window. “There’s something creepy about this guy, Addison.”

  “I’m getting the hell out of here and I’m calling Gary McGinnis the first chance I get,” I said. “I’ve got to find out what this SOB is up to.”

  Chapter 5 Katya

  We Russians are a dark people, down deep, deep in our soul, but still the picture on the front page made me smile. I spread the newspaper across the tousled bedclothes.

  “Look! Isn’t this wonderful picture?” I asked in my bad English. The newspaper article on my farm took up half of Saturday’s front page. I grinned broadly and pointed at the llama that dominated the photo. “See? Doesn’t Dolly look beautiful?”

  “This is the kind of stuff that makes my job difficult. You know that, don’t you?” Jerome slipped a hand inside the loose gray tee shirt I wore, running his fingertips across the small of my back.

  It was Saturday morning. We were in Jerome’s single bedroom in his home behind the barn. I smiled knowingly and pushed the newspaper to the floor. I sli
pped off my cotton pajama shorts and slid underneath the covers next to him, kissing his bare bronze chest and wrapping my arms around him.

  “The picture or me?”

  I knew the answer. I was temptation for him and he was for me. I couldn’t help it — and neither could Jerome. For once, I felt safe with a man. I knew I wouldn’t be struck, and I wouldn’t live in fear—mostly.

  Jerome understood me. He spoke my language, understood my culture and my people. I could talk to him and he could talk to me.

  I knew about the Moscow prostitutes where he sometimes found comfort as a young Marine, stationed at the American embassy. They cost him little more than a few American dollars and some vodka, but brought comfort to a lonely young man in a strange new country. When his commander caught wind of a possible romance, Jerome was sent back to the States before it could hurt his military career.

  So women were his downfall. So what? Isn’t that true of most men? It was for all the men I had known. I didn’t care. We were together now and that was all that mattered, despite the professional relationship we were supposed to have and the difference in our skin color.

  Jerome arrived on the farm the same time I did. I’d been so afraid to be alone that first night. The sounds of that old house creaking, the wind across the fields, they were new sounds and they terrified me. It was late at night when I knocked on the door of his little house, my eyes red with tears and vodka, still mourning the loss of little Nadya and the pain of yet another move under cover of darkness. He’d pulled me into his arms, meaning to be comforting, and a friend. We made love on his worn living room couch that night.

  Jerome hated himself in the morning, and he promised me it wouldn’t happen again. I replied by pulling him back to the bedroom.

  Right now, that first long ago night was far from our minds. I slid one leg across his naked body and nuzzled my face into his neck.

  Before Jerome could speak, I slid on top of him, pinning his arms down and playfully biting his neck, then his shoulders and his chest, casting playful glances up at him. He moaned as I moved further down his stomach, kissing, then licking his skin, loosening my grip on his arms as I came closer to his tightly curled pubic hair.