“That’s good of you,” Joan said. “But I don’t think so. Later, maybe.”
“Call me when you need me,” he said. “I’ll be home. I wasn’t going to the dinner anyway.”
Joan nodded, remembering. Ken Spencer, her minister husband, had ducked most such invitations, too, back when Rebecca and Andrew had been small. As little as she’d attended church in Oliver, she didn’t know anything about Eric’s family, she realized. Never mind. Paying no attention to her grown children now, she walked with Fred out to his car.
On the way home she realized he was saying something.
“At first I thought it was Mom because of all the blood.”
“What? Fred, I’m sorry. I spaced out.”
“I’m not surprised. I was telling you I thought Mom was hurt when I first saw her. But she was fine.”
“I’m glad.” It would have been harder to lose Helga Lundquist than Dave Zimmerman, she thought. Was that disloyalty? But Helga had given her life to her family. Dave . . . she didn’t know what Dave had given his life to. She hated to think. “So why did you think it was your mother?”
“You didn’t hear a thing I said, did you?” He patted her knee. “Her apron had blood on it. Then I saw the knife.”
“Knife?”
“She was holding a big kitchen knife.”
For the first time, Joan was horrified. “Fred, you don’t think she . . .” She couldn’t say it.
“I don’t know what to think. But that’s why I can’t be in charge, even if Dave weren’t your brother.”
Chapter 8
It was beginning to sink in. Someone had stabbed Dave in Ellen’s kitchen. Then why wasn’t his only sister feeling anything?
“You’re sure he’s really dead?” Joan asked Fred in the car on the way home.
“The EMTs thought so when they took him to the hospital, and Ketcham says he was pronounced DOA there.”
She sat still. “Am I supposed to go there and identify him?”
He pulled up to the house. “Not unless you feel the need to see him yourself. There’s no doubt about who he is. I saw him. And I’m even a relative. So it’s up to you.”
“No, I don’t need to see him.” She felt a little lost, though, as if having a job to do would make some kind of difference.
Had Fred’s mother really killed Dave? She couldn’t imagine it of Helga, at least as she had been when they visited her and Oscar in Bishop Hill a year ago. But why had she been holding the knife?
“Did she say anything?” Joan asked as they climbed the steps to their front porch.
“Only that she had to take it out, or it would have killed him.” He held the front door for her.
“But wouldn’t that . . .” Doctors would have been very cautious about removing a knife stuck in a wound, she knew, for fear the bleeding would increase.
“Probably.”
“You don’t think she knew?” Joan pulled her coat off when the indoor warmth hit her. She didn’t bother hanging it up, but tossed it on the sofa.
“Not these days.” No, Helga didn’t know much of anything these days.
“You home already?”
Joan jumped when Gary, the boy she’d hired to watch the house, came down the stairs, but she pulled it together enough to talk to him.
“We’ve had a family emergency,” she said. “We don’t know what time the dinner will be.”
“Want me to come back? It’s no trouble.”
“Thanks. We’ll call as soon as we know.” She wondered what else she’d forgotten.
Fred closed the door behind him.
This whole business was upside down. She’d been worrying Dave would do something to harm someone else, and instead someone had killed him.
Ellen had said Dave was being very good with Helga, working together with her to make the salads. There was no way that cooperation could have turned into a murderous rage. But something had happened. Who could have barged in on them? Laura had been minding the front door, but what about a kitchen door? Joan tried without success to picture it. And who else had been in the kitchen? She didn’t know that, either.
“You going to be all right?” Fred looked concerned.
She was standing in the middle of the living room, still feeling lost. Like Helga, maybe. She could see why Helga welcomed something to do with her hands.
She plopped down on the sofa, and he joined her. “Oh, Fred, I don’t even know. I don’t know how I feel about Dave, but this is all wrong.”
“Yes,” he said. “It always is.”
“And with your mother . . . and Rebecca’s wedding . . .” She couldn’t think how to end her thought. Maybe that was because she had no idea how any of it would end, or how it had started.
He stood up and started pacing.
“What about you?” she asked. “This has to be hard for you, too. Do you want to go back there, check on your mom?”
He shook his head, but he kept pacing. “Walt’s with her, and Ketcham won’t give her a hard time. She’s probably forgotten the whole thing by now.”
Maybe she has, Joan thought. But Fred hasn’t, and he can’t distance himself from it by doing his job. Doing nothing has to be hard on him, too.
* * *
“Time to change, if you’re going to.”
“Huh?” She sat up straight, rubbing her eyes. How had she managed to fall asleep?
Fred was putting his phone into his pocket, but she hadn’t even heard him talking on it. “Ketcham just called. He said the crime scene was so messed up by the time the EMTs left that they’ve got about as much out of it as they can. He told Ellen to go ahead with the dinner.”
“Oh.” Could she even face the dinner? And the rest of it? But for Rebecca . . . How could she not?
“You go ahead and get ready.” He nudged her gently. “I promised to call Elizabeth.”
“You know where they’re staying?”
“Ketcham told me. Elizabeth’s been on his back.”
Joan smiled then. “She would be. Bad as this is, I can’t help being glad it’s Ketcham and not you.”
“Come on, get ready. I’ll call Gary back, tell him we’re leaving in what, fifteen minutes?”
“I can do it in ten. I hadn’t planned to change again.” But she hadn’t planned to sleep in these clothes, either.
“Take fifteen. Knock ’em dead.”
She kissed him and ducked into their room. She checked the little makeup she wore, smoothed her hair back into the twist she’d chosen for the evening, and tucked a simple, pleated silk blouse smoothly into the skirt of her best winter suit. She’d worn the skirt to the rehearsal, but with a sweater. Neat, but not gaudy, as her mother used to say. She swiped the toes of her shoes with the brush from Fred’s shoe polishing kit. Nothing much she could do about the look on her face.
No, that wasn’t true. This was Rebecca’s party. She’d worried for weeks that Dave might do something to mess it up. Dying wasn’t what she’d expected of him, but it wasn’t fair to Rebecca to let his death ruin her wedding. Think about her, instead, she told herself. The notion of Rebecca fooling Elizabeth Graham about her New York designer gown brought the smile she needed. Slipping her suit jacket on, she stuck some extra cloth hankies in her pocket and joined Fred and Gary, who was already back.
“You sure you’re up to it?” Fred asked.
She nodded. “I’m not going to let Rebecca down.”
“All right, then.” He held her coat for her, shut the door behind them, and kissed her solidly. “If you change your mind, I’m on your side. You know that.”
Tears stung her eyes. “You’re a good man, Fred Lundquist.” Taking his arm, she felt ready to face the world, even Elizabeth Graham. “Let’s walk over. It’ll feel good.”
Conversation in Ellen’s living room died suddenly when they came in. Rebecca ran to greet them.
“We didn’t know whether you’d come!” she cried.
“I’m so sorry,” Joan said, and hugged her
. “I didn’t want anything to spoil your wedding.”
“Don’t worry about us. Are you all right?”
“I’m going to be fine. How is Ellen holding up?” She could hardly imagine putting on a dinner of this size after having the last-minute preparations interrupted by real disaster, much less finishing those preparations in a room even Fred said was bloody.
“She’s amazing.”
The conversational buzz picked up, but not before Joan heard Elizabeth at it again across the room. “I don’t know why we didn’t simply call it off. The dinner’s bound to be ruined.”
When her husband said something to her, she subsided, but the look on her face left little to the imagination. Joan was relieved to see Ellen come into the room and speak to them.
“Dinnertime,” Dr. Graham announced. He held his arm out to his wife, and they led the way into the dining room.
At least this room hadn’t been disturbed. Joan’s stomach lurched at the thought of what had happened only a few feet away. How could she possibly eat? She willed herself to concentrate instead on the banquet table, which she had never seen opened out to its full length or set with formal linens and shining glassware and silver. Neat place cards told them all where to sit. At one end, Bruce and Rebecca took their places side by side, flanked by their parents. Joan and Fred also sat side by side, but across the table from the Grahams for easy conversation, if such a thing were possible with Elizabeth. On Fred’s other side, his parents were surrounded by their sons and Walt’s wife. Good. That should help Helga’s inevitable confusion. For the moment, at least, she looked cheerful and was chatting with Oscar as if they were at home. She’d obviously forgotten all about what had happened in the kitchen. Beyond the Grahams were what must be relatives and close friends of theirs. The young people, including Andrew, Sally Graham, Tom Graham, and Kierstin Lundquist, sat at the far end of the table.
Joan was grateful to be directly opposite Dr. Graham—she’d have to start thinking of him as Don, which she knew was his name, but so far this was her first chance to exchange two words with him. And how could she make small talk now, much less here? His eyes looked kind, she thought.
“You must be very proud of your son,” Fred said to Bruce’s mother.
Of course. “I felt so lucky to hear him play in the violin competition,” Joan said to his father.
“You heard him?” Elizabeth pounced. “We’re not allowed to, you know.”
How could she have forgotten? Rebecca had told her he didn’t let his family hear him compete. A sore spot, obviously, though now that she’d met his mother, Joan could see why he didn’t want her anywhere around. “That was probably my last chance,” she said. “After tomorrow, I’ll be family, too.”
Don Graham smiled at that, but Elizabeth frowned.
They were spared further attempts at conversation by the arrival of the main course. Chrissy and an older woman who looked familiar, probably her mother, from what Ellen had said, began serving the plates at their end of the table.
“Beef bourguignon!” Bruce exclaimed. “My favorite.”
“Mine, too,” Rebecca said. “What a great choice.”
And one that could survive the wait, Joan thought. Sure enough, the beef was fork-tender and still moist, the mushrooms fresh, and the sauce delicious. The vegetables on the side must have been cooked at the last minute. Instead of the individual salads Ellen had said Helga and Dave were fixing, there were fresh fruit plates for the table to share. Last came baskets of hot rolls, three or four different kinds.
“Wonderful, Elizabeth,” Joan said, and meant it. “Thank you for this lovely dinner.” Even Elizabeth looked satisfied.
Peace reigned for a time.
“So,” someone down the table on the Grahams’ side asked Fred, “what do the police think happened here?”
“They’re not telling me,” he said. “I’m at a party.”
“But won’t you—”
“Not with his mother here!” someone shushed the questioner.
Helga seemed oblivious to the exchange. Good, Joan thought. It might make the job of the police harder, but she doesn’t need to be involved.
“Isn’t this delicious, Mom?” she heard Walt say.
“It doesn’t taste very Swedish,” Helga answered, and all the Lundquists laughed.
“We all know you’re the world’s best cook,” Oscar told her. “But this will do fine. I don’t think most of this crowd would enjoy Swedish lutefisk.”
“Especially me!” Kierstin said from the far end of the table, and they laughed again.
“Isn’t that the horrible stuff you people do to fish?“ Elizabeth said, but Don shut her up with a couple of quiet words Joan couldn’t hear. How could he stand being married to her?
They got through the rest of the dinner pleasantly enough, but Joan was glad to escape as soon as it was over.
“You don’t think anyone minded that we left?” she asked Fred on the walk home.
“Not a bit. Sets ’em free to talk about what’s really on their minds.”
“At least no one came up and said sorry for my loss.”
“No.”
“We’ll get through the wedding, and then I can collapse.”
“And a funeral?” he reminded her.
“Do we have to? I don’t know who’d even show up.” That hit her hard. “Oh, Fred, he may not have a friend left in the world. Maybe the guy he worked for, wherever that was. But I don’t know how we’d let him know. And I didn’t really know Dave at all.” She grabbed for the handkerchiefs in her pocket, but they were hidden by her coat.
“Here,” he said and offered her the big one he pulled from his coat pocket. Why were the few women’s hankies she could find to buy these days so small, anyway?
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose hard before sticking the sodden thing in her own coat pocket. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
The funeral would be the least of it, she thought as they walked. The police would be talking to her before then, she knew. And she had no idea what she could tell them. “I wanted to kill him myself” would hardly do.
When she could see their house, she didn’t recognize the car in front of it, but Fred clearly did.
“Ketcham’s here,” he said.
Chapter 9
Johnny Ketcham swung his car door open when they approached. “Fred, Joan,” he said.
“Come on in,” Fred told him.
“I rang the bell, but the kid who answered the door told me you weren’t back yet.”
“Yeah, we walked.”
Ketcham nodded and got out of the car.
“I’ll pay him,” Joan said. She ran up the steps and went in.
Fred stayed behind. “You getting anywhere?”
“I couldn’t tell you if we were,” Ketcham said. “But we spent some time with your mother. She was more out of it than I expected.”
“She’d revived some by suppertime, but all she talked about was food.”
“Figures. She have a diagnosis?”
“It’s gotta be Alzheimer’s. I don’t know that Walt and Carol have had her worked up yet. Joan keeps pushing me to get them to do it. Can’t see it’ll make much difference to put them all through the tests. They can’t be sure until she dies, anyway.”
“Could be something treatable. You know that.”
“Yeah.” Fred didn’t want to tell his brother how to manage their mother. Not from southern Indiana, so far away from them. “So anyhow, where do we stand?”
“We aren’t having this conversation,” Ketcham said.
“Right.”
“Okay, then. The knife your mother was holding did the job, all right. A regular knife out of Ellen’s drawer—seems she makes a point of keeping them good and sharp. All kinds of prints on it. Your mother’s on top, of course. We’re taking prints from everyone who works there, but she rested her bloody hands on the table top, so we got almost a full set and don’t have to bother her. Only
question is whether we’ll find prints unaccounted for by the kitchen workers.”
“Unless one of them did it,” Fred said.
“Yeah.”
“Access from the outside? Is that back door locked?”
“Nope. Seems it never is when people are working in there. Handy for taking the garbage out. It’s the one they use when they arrive, and the one delivery people use, so as not to bother the guests.”
“Somebody sure bothered the hell out of Dave Zimmerman.”
The boy came down the steps and left. Joan stuck her head out the door. “Are you going to stand out there in the cold forever?”
“Be right there,” Fred called. “Anything else I oughta know?” he asked Ketcham.
“You’re not supposed to know any of it. But we’re just getting started. We gave you time for the dinner. I’ve got people over there now asking Ellen and her staff preliminary questions while they prepare for the reception and meals tomorrow, and I’ll go back shortly. I wanted to talk to Joan myself, thought it might be easier on her if I came here first.”
“Thanks.” Fred had known Ketcham would understand.
“You think she’s up to it?”
“So far.” Fred waved Ketcham ahead of him, and they went into the house.
Joan was back on the sofa, but this time she’d stashed her coat somewhere. Her color looked better, too. She smiled at them. “I won’t ask what brings you here.”
“I’m sorry to have to come,” Ketcham said.
“Thanks. Have you had anything to eat? The leftovers are over at Ellen’s, of course, but I could—”
“I’m fine.” He looked more awkward than Fred could remember seeing him. Fred pulled up a chair for him and sat down with Joan.
Ketcham sat, but he didn’t take out his notebook. Instead, he took out a handkerchief, wiped his wire-rims, and slipped them back over his ears. “What can you tell me about your brother?” He leaned forward and began to look more like himself, his face relaxing, the glasses somehow contributing to his usual calm.
“So little it’s sad,” she said, but without tearing up. “I mean, I remember how much trouble he got in when we were growing up, and I wasn’t really surprised when Fred told me he’d been in prison, but I’ve been out of touch with him for years. When he arrived, he told me right away about being just out of prison, but he promised he was going straight now–said he didn’t ever want to go back there. He was his sweetest self with me and with the old people at the center, and I found I was glad to have him here, after all.”
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