I sighed as the Studebaker started to run smooth and warm, comfortable air pushed out of the heater vent. I tried to keep Hank from disappearing, but in the blink of my mind’s eye, he was gone, the field as empty as the seat next to me. I was alone, holding the Central Flyway page proof, my mind in the past but fully rooted in the present, considering the life of a curlew.
I hadn’t realized that the female abandoned her chicks so early. The curlew’s sole duty was to give birth and move on to live out the rest of her life without the bother of the children she’d brought into the world. I sat the page proof down, confronted by a more pressing question than I had considered before taking up the page about the curlew. One I was certain that I would have stumbled across sooner or later.
If Nils Jacobsen was Joey’s father, then who was Joey’s mother?
CHAPTER 28
I left the Grafton State School with more questions than I’d had when I first arrived. Questions that I had not considered, and I was sure Guy hadn’t, either. Meeting Joey Jacobsen had changed everything. I had to reconsider all that I knew about Nils, which was, to say the least, not much. I only knew the basics of his life, one that seemed devoted to the Red Owl and his family. No secrets or scandals associated with Nils came immediately to mind.
I remembered a whisper of the conversation that I’d had recently with Anna in her gloomy bedroom about Nils. “The sheriff knows things about people that no one else knows. Nils did, too. Did you know that?” she’d said.
I had to wonder what else Nils knew about people other than the occasional shoplifting. I wondered what else Guy knew about Nils.
Hopefully whatever was in the two envelopes would help Guy solve Nils’s murder and find Tina Rinkerman. For all I knew, he had already done that. My trip would be for naught if I arrived home and everything was solved. That would be okay with me. Everyone needed answers.
The afternoon sky was covered with a wafer-thin blanket of gray clouds that slightly obscured the sun. There was no threat of bad weather on the horizon that I could see. The forecast had called for a calm day, above-zero temperatures, little wind, and no snow. I wanted to get to I-94 before nightfall, giving me a straight drive home, not the turns and curves that I faced on the state highways as I headed south. Once the open country greeted me, I felt like I could almost breathe again.
My mind, of course, swirled with even more questions arising from the seeds that had been planted in Grafton.
Was Anna Joey’s mother? came to mind quickly. But something about a yes answer to that question didn’t add up to me. A quick answer felt wrong. A yes seemed impossible, somehow. Anna wasn’t the kind of woman who would leave a child behind, abandon him to the state. She was frazzled with three normal children—and I hated to think of them that way, normal, but I couldn’t think of her children any other way after meeting Joey. Even with that, Anna kept house, was diligent about the children’s care, and may or may not have been pregnant again. She loved her children regardless of being overwhelmed by them. I didn’t know, and could never know, how difficult life would be raising a child with a severe disability. Joey Jacobsen was never going to be normal.
What would I do if I gave birth to a child like Joey Jacobsen?
To be honest, I couldn’t answer that question. How could anyone know how they would react until they faced a situation like that? Until you held that baby in your arms?
Could I hand a baby to a nurse knowing that I would never see him again?
I was pretty certain I knew my answer to that question. No. I would try to raise the baby regardless—but maybe Anna and Nils had faced the unthinkable at a young age and they’d decided that the best place for Joey was in Grafton.
Someone would have known.
Anna wouldn’t have hid her pregnancy; she wouldn’t have known about Joey’s condition until he was born. I suppose they could have told everyone that the baby had died in childbirth, but I was sure I would have heard that story by now, and I hadn’t. There’d been no mention from either of them about a lost baby or the existence of a less-than-normal one. Anna being Joey’s mother didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t make the story add up. My assumptions led me to answer that question with a near-definite no. Anna Jacobsen was not Joey’s mother.
I drove on, focused on the road ahead of me. There was little traffic coming or going. I figured there would be more cars and trucks on the road once I hit I-94.
If I remembered correctly, Anna and Nils had been married for ten years, and that’s where the real doubt settled in my mind. Joey looked like a teenager, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Nils was older than Anna, maybe by four or five years. I think she’d been out of high school when he’d met her in Stanley. Maybe she’d still been in high school for all I knew. That would have made Nils twenty-three or twenty-four at the time, and Anna around eighteen, plus some time for their courtship, so maybe nineteen when they’d married. I didn’t know either one of them well enough to know exact dates in their lives, but I needed to find out, or put Guy onto this bit of information and questioning.
That was a good question. As an indexer, I included everything in an index that I thought the reader would look up. Everything in a book is connected in one way or another, by topic or association. Life and murder investigations were another matter altogether. But were they really? How could I know who and what was connected? Guy was looking for a killer. Did he know the motive for the murder? If Nils had betrayed someone, had stolen from someone, had lied to someone who was angry enough to seek revenge—or vengeance—that would be motive, point to the killer. Betrayal seemed unlikely from what I knew of Nils. But that was before I’d met Joey. Now I didn’t know what to think.
What other secrets did Nils have?
Was it possible that he’d had a child with another woman? Another girl most likely, considering their ages? Yes. I answered my own question as I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.
It was most definitely possible that Nils had had a relationship with someone else. But who?
As I drove south on the barren highway, the sky started to turn grayer—enough to cause me some concern. On top of that, my gas gauge tilted heavily toward empty. Between working my way through the questions that had spawned from my visit to the State School and keeping an eye on the road, I hadn’t paid any attention to the level of fuel in my tank. I was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fallow fields and rolling prairie land. This was not a place to run out of gas.
I was still on Highway 45, a good ways from my turn onto I-94. Cooperstown was the next big town I’d come to. I had to turn west on Highway 200 there, then catch Highway 1 south to I-94. I knew there was more than one gas station in Cooperstown.
I turned on the radio but got nothing but static. I turned the knob, scanning the dial slowly, in search of a strong signal. I was in need of voices outside of the one inside my head—I really needed to revisit my personal index and write down my thoughts so I could see them clearly. But more than anything, I wanted to hear an updated weather report. The clouds had shifted from the west to the north. I had enough experience at reading the sky to know that there was snow and wind building up in the roiling gray puffballs pushing overhead. Something had changed.
I finally found a radio signal strong enough to settle on. The station played music all the way into Cooperstown. I pulled into the first gas station I came across, a small white building with a faded Richland Oil sign teetering over the door. I didn’t care what brand of gas the place sold; I was relieved that I wasn’t going to run out.
I crossed over a thick black air hose laid across the flat, packed down snow and ice and came to a stop next to the first of only two gas pumps. A bell, triggered by the hose, would alert the attendant to my presence.
A thin young man hurried out the door, putting on a red flannel coat as he came toward me. He didn’t wear a hat but wore his hair over his ears like so many of the boys did these days. That mop head style would take some gettin
g used to. He looked to be in his early twenties, about the same age as Nils Jacobsen before he married Anna.
I rolled down the window and said, “Fill her up, please.”
The attendant yanked a gray toboggan cap out of his pocket and slipped it on his head. “Check your oil, ma’am?”
“Yes, you better go ahead. I’ve been on the road for a while.”
The boy unscrewed the gas cap. “Regular or Ethyl?”
“Regular’s fine,” I said.
I looked away to the sky and watched the puffiness grow darker. I must have missed something in the weather report, or the forecasters had. That happened more often than not. The joke in North Dakota was if you didn’t like the weather, wait ten minutes and it would change.
The boy came to the side of the truck with an expectant look on his face. “Yes?” I said, rolling down the window.
“Looks like you’re about two quarts low on oil, and the front right tire is a little low.”
“Good, thank you.”
“Forty weight?”
“Yes.”
He started to turn away to get on with my service, but I stopped him. “Excuse me,” I said.
“Yes?”
“Have you heard a recent weather report? I thought we were going to have a calm day.”
“Well, that’s how it goes, aye. A clipper’s bustin’ down through the middle of the state. The temperatures are gonna drop twenty degrees, and that’s before the wind gets ahold of it, then all bets are off, you know. Has more snow to drop, too. I hope you don’t have far to drive.”
“Dickinson,” I said.
“Lordy, lady, you’re a ways from home.”
“I know.”
“You might want to think of pullin’ over, and ridin’ this one out.”
“There’ll be something else tomorrow.”
“You’re right, but you might think about takin’ a room at the hotel.”
“I have to get home.”
“You know best.”
“I think I do.”
The attendant went back to the engine to feed it some oil. I was tempted to reconsider his advice, especially when I saw the first snowflake strike the windshield.
CHAPTER 29
Before leaving Cooperstown, I decided to call Guy and tell him what I’d found out, that I had the reports in hand, and that I was heading home. Luckily there was a phone booth in the corner of the Richland Oil gas station lot, south of the building.
I pulled the Studebaker in front of the booth, gathered up my purse, then dashed to the phone as carefully as I could. The pavement was covered with snow and ice, hard as a rock, probably three inches thick. A fall would complicate my day even more.
Once I was inside the glass box, I dug into my purse, past my Salems and hairbrush, and found my little change purse. I only had a few quarters. The little worn pouch contained mostly nickels and pennies. The phone didn’t take pennies. There were only three slots to deposit coins in: nickels, dimes, and quarters. I wasn’t sure that I had enough money. I really didn’t know how much money the call would cost, and I was sure the Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t accept a call if I reversed the charges.
I dialed zero for the operator, and waited.
“Operator. How may I help you?” A woman’s nasally, no-nonsense voice asked.
“Long distance, please,” I said, staring out of the phone booth. The snow was starting to fall more steadily, with small, hard flakes, almost as hard as pebbles, hitting the ground. The pebbles almost looked like sleet. I sighed with fear and regret. I was still a long way from home.
“Number, please,” the operator said.
“701-555-0150.” I had the phone number to the sheriff’s office committed to memory. Another advantage of my indexer’s brain. I usually retained information, especially phone numbers, if I used them more than once.
“That will be forty-five cents for two minutes.”
I opened my change purse and inserted the money into the slots. My worry was for nothing. I had plenty of money to make the call. There was nothing but a hum in my ear as I went about the business of calling Dickinson.
“One moment please,” the operator said, followed by two loud clicks. “Thank you for using Northwestern Bell.”
Like I have a choice, I thought. With two more clicks the operator was gone, and the phone rang on the other side of the state. Technology never ceased to amaze me.
George Lardner answered the phone on the second ring. “Stark County Sheriff’s Department. Dispatch desk. How may I direct your call?”
“Hello, George, this Marjorie Trumaine. Could I speak to Sheriff Reinhardt, please?”
“Oh, hey, there, Marjorie. Sheriff’s out of the office. Can I take a message?”
The hum that was there when I was waiting for the operator to accept my money grew louder. “When do you think he’ll be back?”
“I can’t hear you, Marjorie.”
I repeated my question, only I raised the volume of my voice.
“Can’t rightly say,” George said. “Where are you at, Marjorie? I’m still havin’ a real hard time hearin’ you. You sound like you fell down a well.”
“I’m in Cooperstown. I’m coming back from the . . .” I stopped. George didn’t know about my errand to Grafton. No one did. I’d almost let the cat out of the bag.
“Whatcha doin’ in Cooperstown, Marjorie? There’s a storm cuttin’ down that side of the state. Didn’t you check the weather before you took off?”
“I had some urgent business to take care of, George.”
“Must be important.”
“Can you tell the sheriff that I called and that I’ll try back later?”
“You sure you don’t wanna leave a message, Marjorie?”
A beep interrupted, and I sighed at the difficulty I was having talking to George. We were both yelling.
“No, that’s fine, George. I better go. I’m in a phone booth. That beep you heard is telling me I have ten seconds before the operator comes back on and asks for more money.”
“Okay, then. You drive careful out there. I’ll tell the sheriff you called.”
“Thanks, George. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
We both rang off, and I hung up the black receiver, happy that I hadn’t told George any more than I did. I’d try calling Guy again later, in hopes that he would be in the office so I could tell him about Joey Jacobsen. There were questions that the sheriff needed to ask, and the sooner they were asked the better.
The look of the sky worried me, but I knew I had to keep driving. There was no turning back now. I shook off the phone call, then stepped out of the phone booth. I had to wait for a car to pass as it pulled into the Richland station. The poor attendant hadn’t had time to warm up from my purchase.
The road stretched out before me, covered with snow. I used the tracks of the cars and trucks that had gone on before me as a visible guide to stay out of the ditch. What little traffic there was had their headlights on, cutting through the gloomy afternoon with welcome brightness and presence. The back and forth movement of the windshield wipers made the road a little more difficult to see. The wipers squeaked with an annoying noise that I could hear over the radio.
A radio announcer interrupted the music, drawing my attention away from the road. “The National Weather Service is issuing a severe storm warning for the eastern part of the state. North to south, from Bottineau to Bowdon, until 10PM this evening. Be advised that the wind is rising up to sixty miles an hour and possibly higher due to the latest Alberta Clipper. Near-blizzard conditions are expected.” The announcer, a calm man with an even baritone voice, took a breath, then continued on, “This storm is part of a larger system, and there is a strong possibility that the system could manifest into a rare panhandle hook as this shortwave system meets a longwave system making its way up from Texas and Oklahoma. The most memorable panhandle hook was responsible for the Armistice Day Blizzard in 1940. One hundred and forty-five
people perished in that storm. The weather service does not know if this storm has the same potency as the Armistice Day Blizzard, but there is a seriousness to the warning. Travel is not banned at this point, but discouraged. And now a word from our sponsor, Magnavox, with an introduction to their new Magna-Color television.”
Great, I thought, that’s all I need. This couldn’t be a normal blizzard. If there was any consolation, I was west of the line the radio announcer had drawn for the warning. Not too far west, but far enough to miss the worst of the storm. At least, that’s what I was counting on. Maybe the storm would be a mild blizzard instead of a panhandle hook . . .
The sky got darker as I continued to drive, and the snow started to fall in heavier bursts. For a while, as I drove on, there were no cars to be seen at all. I was alone, closed in a pocket of snow that blew directly at the windshield in waves. I wasn’t sure how far I drove before I saw another car. At least fifty miles or so. This time the car was behind me.
The car—or truck, I couldn’t tell which for sure—had the high beams on, four bright lights that cut through the snowy grayness with precision. I had to flip the rearview mirror to the night-side of the glass to take off the glare of the lights. That didn’t concern me. What concerned me more than anything was the speed at which the car was traveling. There was nothing I could do, no lane to change to, no way to pull over and get out of the way. If I did, I’d end up in the ditch.
I dropped my latest cigarette into the ashtray and stiffened my grip on the steering wheel. Some old-timers drove fast no matter the weather. They knew their vehicle’s capabilities, had tested their skills on the snow and ice, and weren’t afraid of losing control like I was. They probably knew where they were, too—the lay of the land, how the pavement reacted to wind and salt on the road—and I didn’t. The landscape all looked the same to me.
The high beams continued to draw closer. I looked up and down, to the rearview mirror, then out the windshield. There were no red taillights to be seen in front of me, and there was nothing behind me but two white-hot circles growing larger by the second. I let up on the accelerator and slowed down. I wanted this person to drive past me. I didn’t want to be a deterrent to their byway.
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