by Loretta Ross
Wren chose her words carefully. “We did wonder if that was a possibility. From what we heard, your father said he saw her on the lakeshore here at the time she disappeared, and she was wearing clothing like that.”
“He thought he saw her,” Larsen said. He shifted uncomfortably. “It’s highly unlikely he actually did. How much do you know about her and about what happened when she went missing?”
“Not a lot,” Wren admitted. “I’d be interested to hear about it, if you want to tell me. If you don’t, of course, I understand.”
“Oh, no. I’d love to tell you. My family tells this story, still, to anyone who’ll listen. After all these years we’re still hoping to find someone who can help us find out what happened to her. It’s a bit of a long story, though.”
“Then there’s no need to tell it standing here in the hall.” She’d noticed he looked stiff and sore, as if standing was hurting him. “Would you like to come into the other room and have a seat?”
“Yes, thank you. I’d like that very much.”
They returned to the dining room and helped themselves to seats at a small, round table. Wren introduced Robin and he apologized for the appearance of the room.
“It’s okay,” Larsen told him. “I remember when things like this were in style. You should see the clothes that went with them. And God help me if my daughters ever find my high school yearbooks. I had an honest-to-God Afro my senior year.”
“Your sister,” Wren began. “I’m sorry, I can’t recall her name.”
“Ingrid. Her name was Ingrid.”
“Ingrid. That’s pretty. It was back in the seventies when she disappeared, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, in ’78. She was seventeen.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“It was the end of July, the summer between her junior and senior years in high school. I was in my first year at the University of Missouri, but my family lived in Columbia, so I still lived at home. Ingrid was planning on coming to Mizzou as well. She was mad about the Viking stuff. She did volunteer work with the MU museum—my dad arranged that—and she wanted to be an archaeologist. Of course, this was before the Viking Reenactors got together and built Arnhold. I think of her every time we come down. She’d have loved this place. She belonged to the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, though. Through them, she got a chance to be a performer in a traveling Renaissance faire. On Independence Day, she left for Chicago with the SCA president and his wife. That was the last time we saw her.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know. The last weekend in July, one of the other professors Dad worked with invited him to go boating down here. The man who owned the yacht club then was a history buff and his favorite history was anything to do with northern Europe.”
“Claudio Bender,” Wren said.
“Yes, that’s right. Have you met him?”
“No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”
Jacob Larsen laughed a little.
“What?” Wren asked.
“Sorry. It’s just that people don’t generally describe meeting Bender as a pleasure. I mean, he can be very generous for a good cause if it strikes his fancy. But he expects to be treated like royalty in return. Literally. He and his son come down to Arnhold sometimes and we have to treat them like a visiting chieftain and his court.”
“You have to?”
“We coddle them for monetary purposes,” Jacob said ruefully. “We’re sluts that way. A lot of our members are connected with various colleges or museums. The Benders are obsessed with their own history. A lot of times it’s possible to sweet-talk them into backing research or education or conservation projects, so we try to stay on their good side. That’s what Dad was doing here in ’78, in fact.”
“Sweet-talking the Benders into backing something for the university?”
“A summer dig in a bog in Belgium. It was a joint venture with a private museum back east. The chair of the department brought Dad along to push the Viking angle on the dig. They were talking Vikings all weekend, so it’s a safe bet that Dad had Vikings on the brain to begin with. That Sunday afternoon he was on a sailboat with some other men about twenty yards offshore when he thought he saw a woman in full Viking costume standing just inside the trees.”
“Just a woman?” Wren asked. “Not Ingrid?”
“Not right then. He only got a quick glimpse of her as he was turning his head. By the time it registered what he’d seen and he looked back again, she was gone. They scanned the shore with binoculars, but there was no sign of anyone. A couple of days later, someone from the Ren faire called and asked us if Ingrid had come home.” Jacob paused. “A group of performers were camping on the fairgrounds in Cincinnati and it seems my sister never made it back to her tent that Saturday night, and she never turned up to perform on Sunday. Dad reported her disappearance to the police. Because she was a minor, they started investigating immediately, and Mom and Dad and I drove up there and searched too. We never found any sign of her, nor anyone who admitted to having any idea of what happened.”
“Who was the last person to see her?”
“We don’t even know. She was roaming freely through the faire, in character as a Viking maiden, directing people to the shops and performances, posing for pictures and answering questions. Even then, right after it happened, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly when she disappeared. The police thought she simply ran away. To be honest, that’s what Mom and I thought too, though we always hoped that someday she’d come home. She’d had a rough junior year and I know she wasn’t looking forward to going back to school in the fall. And I thought then, and think even more so now, that we could have been more supportive of her. But Dad, she was his baby girl. He just couldn’t accept that she’d ever leave him. As time went on, he convinced himself that she’d been killed and that she’d visited him in spirit. After all these years, it’s still something my parents never speak of. Neither of them can handle the other one’s point of view.”
“You say she had a rough junior year,” Wren said. “Why is that?”
Larsen looked down, his mouth tight around the corners and an unhappy glint in his eye. He ran a hand through his thinning hair.
“Ingrid got cornered at a party.” He made it sound like an admission. “She was a cheerleader and a bunch of kids were out in somebody’s field having a bonfire to celebrate winning some football game. One of the players got her alone in a wooded area and got fresh. Pinned her to a tree and was kissing her. Got handsy. She punched him in the throat and got away and left. But she wasn’t willing to leave well enough alone. She reported it to the police and to school officials. Wanted something done to punish him. But he was a football player. That carried a lot of weight back then. Everyone told her that boys will be boys, and that a girl who goes to those kinds of parties should expect that. Nothing ever happened to him. But Ingrid got thrown off the cheerleading squad and she was ostracized as a troublemaker.”
“That’s horrible!” Wren was aghast.
Larsen lifted his shoulders, unhappy. “That’s the way it was.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
They sat for a long moment in silence while a wind off the lake whistled around the building and dust motes danced in a beam of light from the room’s single high window. It was Robin who finally spoke again.
“So you don’t think she could have come here?”
“No. How would she get here? And why would she want to? She had no way of even knowing Dad was down here.” He sighed and shook his head. “Tell me about this costume you found. I went by the sheriff’s department but they’d already sent it to the state crime lab, so they couldn’t let me see it. Do you remember what it looked like?”
“Well,” Wren said, “there was a simple dress that was probably white or cream-colored. It was hard to tell
what color it was originally. It had yellowed badly, but I don’t believe it was nearly that yellow when it was new. And then there was a dark blue overdress, kind of like a pinafore. And a circlet with a veil attached that I took to be a headpiece.”
“And the dress was stained?” Larsen persisted.
“It was absolutely caked with blood,” Wren said, her voice soft with regret. “There were holes rotted in the fabric because of it, but there was still enough that you could see what the garments had originally been.”
Larsen thought about it for a moment, then nodded to himself. “You know,” he said, “I think you probably did find evidence of a crime, but not the one you’re thinking of.”
“Oh?”
“We’re reenactors. We wear the clothes and use the tools and follow the customs of our ancestors who lived twelve hundred years ago. Everyone in the group takes it seriously to some extent. You have to, just to justify the expense and time commitment. But some take it more seriously than others. One thing that was a common part of life in the 800s that we seldom do now, certainly not in the same manner, was hunting. Norsemen and women hunted their food, dressed out the kills, butchered them and prepared the meat.”
“You think someone was hunting.”
“Probably, yes. Now, I don’t know that for a fact, nor who it would have been. Though I can think of a couple of likely candidates over the years.”
“But why would they hide the bloody clothes?” Robin asked.
“Because they were hunting out of season,” Wren said drily. “Or without a license.”
“Or both.” Larsen nodded. “Anyway, we’ll know eventually, after the crime lab runs the tests on the blood.”
“I wonder how long it will take to hear back,” Wren said.
“The deputy I talked to said three to six months.”
six
Death drove slowly past the Sandburg house, taking in the autumn-bare lilacs massed in front of the wraparound veranda, the turret rising over the treetops, and the broad lawn neatly manicured under a coating of red oak leaves. The road got bumpy as soon as he passed the driveway and he divided his attention between steering and studying the house, trying to get a feel for it before he went to look at it up close.
The rosebushes were concentrated in the side yard. Some of them climbed trellises and there was a wooden arch covered with thorny canes and a wrought-iron bench to one side. He could just make out the stone in the middle.
He passed the yard, looking for a place to turn around, and was surprised to find a beat-up old pickup parked off to his right in a short, unkempt driveway just beyond the edge of the pasture. A familiar figure was sitting on the tailgate.
Death parked in the middle of the road and went over to talk. “What are you doing out here?” he asked.
East Bledsoe Ferry Police Chief Duncan Reynolds was out of uniform, dressed comfortably in faded overalls and a flannel shirt with holes at the elbows. He held up a cigar box in his right hand.
“I’m holding the box,” he explained.
Death went over closer. A sheet of paper lay on the tailgate next to him, covered with the outlines of leaves and natural objects. Before he could speak, the weeds rustled and a small, towheaded boy came out of the woods carrying an acorn like it was a holy object.
Death dropped down to one knee. “Hey, Mason! What have you got?”
The child, without speaking, held the acorn out for his inspection, then pulled it back against his shoulder as if he thought Death might try to steal it.
“I see. Is Grandpa helping you with your schoolwork?”
Mason nodded.
“Whatcha got, Tiger?” Reynolds asked.
Mason went up to him and stood on tiptoe to lay the acorn on the sheet.
“Okay, which one is that?”
The child found the outline of an acorn and his grandfather nodded gravely. “Good job. Mark it off, now.”
Mason used a purple crayon to cross out the acorn and dropped the actual acorn in the cigar box his grandfather was holding.
“What are you going to look for now?” Reynolds asked.
Mason pointed to one of the outlines and Death looked over his little shoulder.
“That’s an elm leaf,” he offered helpfully. “There’s probably one—”
Mason gave him a dirty look. “I can do it.”
Death stepped back and raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. Sorry. I’ll stay out of your way.”
“Ah ah!” Reynolds said. “What do you say?”
“I can do it!” Mason insisted.
“I know you can. But Mr. Bogart offered to help you. What do you say?”
The little boy frowned up at Death fiercely, scrunched up his face, and said, “No thank you anyway.”
“We’re going to work on that delivery,” his grandfather said. “Go on, get your next leaf.”
Mason scampered away into the edge of the woods again and Death laughed.
“He’s independent. That’s not a bad thing.”
“He’s contrary,” Reynolds said. “He’s just like his mother was at that age.” He laughed. “Grandchildren are a grandparent’s revenge on their own kids, you know? Every time Debbie calls me to freak out over some mischief he’s gotten into, I just laugh and laugh.”
Death smiled, but he was hit with a wave of sadness as it was driven home to him, not for the first time, that any children he had would never know their grandparents.
At least, not their grandparents on his side.
“Chief,” he said, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Reynolds nodded at the truck. “Pull up a hunk of metal and tell me your troubles.”
Death took a seat at the other end of the tailgate. “Do you know Wren’s parents?”
“Not well. I’ve met them. Wren’s dad was a conservation agent, which I’m sure you know. I think he and Salvy are pretty good friends. And I think my wife knows her mom, but I don’t really. Why?”
“Just curious.” Death kicked his feet in the air and looked down at the dirt below him. He sighed. “She told her mom that we’re engaged. They’re on their way back here to meet me.”
“Ah.” Reynolds grinned. “Nervous?”
“A little. I don’t think her mom’s too happy with the idea.”
“Well, Wren’s her baby. Her being grown up doesn’t change that. You’ll understand that someday.”
“Yeah, I know, but …”
“But what?”
“What if they hate me?”
“What if they love you?”
“That would be nice.”
“Look,” the chief said, “you love Wren, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, they raised her. They get a lot of the credit for the person she turned out to be. You’ve just got to give them a chance.”
“That’s not the question. The question is, will they give me a chance?”
“I kind of think Wren will insist on that, don’t you?”
Mason coming back with another leaf interrupted them. Death waited patiently while the boy marked it off on his sheet, deposited it in the box, and picked out something else to search for. When he’d vanished back into the edge of the trees, Reynolds turned to him.
“You didn’t come out here looking for me to hold your hand. What are you doing out this way?”
Death tipped his head back toward the Sandburg house. “House hunting. Wren likes that place. She wanted me to take a look.”
They didn’t have a clear view of the house from there, just a chunk of the corner visible through the trees. Reynolds studied what he could see of it.
“Nice place. I could see you two living out here. Is it in your price range, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I think we could swing it,” Death said. “We wer
e crunching the numbers last night. With both our incomes, it should be within reach. Especially if we can find a buyer for the house where she lives now.”
The chief nodded. “If you like it, go for it.” He shifted on the tailgate, yawned, and stretched. “Oh, by the way, did you know there’s a body in the rosebushes?”
When he’d called, Death had arranged to meet Myrna Sandburg at three o’clock. He crossed the porch and knocked at two minutes to the hour. While he waited, he studied the porch. The flooring was sturdy under his feet and the railing looked sound, though he noticed a couple of rails that would need to be replaced. The veranda seemed to be made for a porch swing. There was no actual swing in sight, but he found a pair of hooks on the ceiling that were obviously there to hang one from.
Brisk, light footsteps sounded inside the house and a little old white-haired lady opened the door and studied him.
“I don’t know you,” she announced.
He blinked. “I’m Death Bogart. We spoke on the phone?”
“Oh, I know who you are. But I don’t know you. My momma always said that if you let strange men in the house they’ll ravish you. Are you planning to ravish me?”
“Uh, no ma’am.”
“Well, why should I let you in then?”
Death gaped at her, open-mouthed, and she cackled suddenly. “Look at you! You’re blushing! And you’ve got dimples. Now that’s just adorable. I can see why that little girl thinks you’re a keeper.” She opened the door farther and stepped back. “Come on in and take a look around.”
He stepped past her into a short hallway. There was a beautiful stairway rising on his right, and on his left the room opened out into a spacious living room that was the most hideous shade of pink he’d ever seen.
“You don’t like the color,” Myrna said, watching his face. “I know it. Doesn’t anybody seem to like the color but me.”
“It’s certainly … intense,” Death said, trying to be diplomatic.
“The realtor said it’s the color of a chapped baby’s butt. He wanted me to paint it. Wasn’t no sense in that, I said. I had no way of knowing who might buy it or what color they like. I might have painted it a color you hated even worse.”