The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1)

by Alida Winternheimer

  At the bottom of the hill, they crossed the River Road and walked onto the small jut of land that extended Skoghall to the edge of the Mississippi. The few buildings on this side of the River Road were half empty. Beside the old livery stood a creamery selling the cheese and miscellanea of area dairy farms. Beside that was a tavern Jess had never gone into. As far as she could tell, it catered to the Harley riders who toured up and down the River Road. She walked Shakti past the livery and across the train tracks. A few old houses fronted a clearing designated as parkland on the way to a small boat launch.

  They stood on the gravel landing, looking at the Mississippi. Shakti lowered her snout to sniff just as a small wave rolled to shore and wet her face. She jumped backwards, snorting and spraying water from her nose, her eyes wide. She looked at Jess for reassurance before lifting a paw over the water. Shakti held it in the air as though deciding whether it was safe to go back in. She finally lowered her paw, dipping it in the water, then springing back. Jess laughed out loud and it felt good. Laughing unwound the muscles that had been clenched throughout her body.

  A fishing boat with an outboard motor buzzed down the river. Shakti froze, staring after this new beast until its wake sent a wave rolling in to shore. It splashed against Shakti’s legs. She yipped and leapt back, turning and sprinting for higher ground. Jess ran after her dog, the leash stretched between them. Shakti tumbled in the grass, her surprise turning to playfulness. Jess ran with her, keeping a hand on the leash, but using it’s length to allow for a game of chase. They ran in circles, leaping and jumping, until Jess had exhausted herself and sprawled on the grass. Shakti flopped onto her chest and covered her in kisses. Jess laughed until spent and hugged Shakti. They lay in the grass, one of them staring up into the big puffs of cloud overhead.

  When the damp of the grass seeped through her shirt, it was time to go. They made their way up the gravel road at an ambling pace and crossed the railroad tracks. Approaching the livery from the back, Jess noticed a large domed brick oven in the middle of a dirt yard. She wondered if it was a forge from the days of heating iron to shoe horses and mend tools. As she stood there, considering the structure, Beckett stepped out of the back of the livery.

  “How do you like my kiln?” he asked.

  “Of course. I forgot that your studio is here.” Jess and Shakti left the road to meet Beckett in his yard. “Impressive. Was it hard to make?”

  Beckett shook his head. “It was hard work, but not difficult.” Shakti left Jess’s side to sniff Beckett’s feet. He knelt and she put her paws on his knees to better reach his face. Beckett extended his chin, offering his cheeks in turn. Shakti lapped at him eagerly. “Who’s a good girl?” he said. “Who’s a good girl?”

  Jess watched Shakti wiggle with joy. “She likes you.”

  Beckett straightened up, smiling with those brilliant blue eyes. “I liked hearing you laugh.”

  Jess’s cheeks colored. “You heard that?”

  “It was great.”

  Jess looked back the way they had come, wondering if Beckett had a view of the park through the trees on the other side of the tracks.

  “Would you like a tour?” Beckett held the door open, and she walked past him into his studio.

  The old livery had a poured concrete floor, a high ceiling that sloped from a large center beam toward each side wall, and the original doors that opened wide enough to admit a carriage or wagon. By the back door was a large gas kiln, and near the front doors, he had display tables neatly covered in black cloths. The pottery on display showed a care missing from the workspace. The old forge in the center of the room had been converted to a fireplace, and two potter’s wheels sat nearby. Buckets of slip, scraps of clay, various tools, and a few unfired pots ready to be trimmed were strewn across a large, central work table. Beckett led Jess through the building, explaining it had been a diner for a time in the late 1970s, the walls decorated with horse tack and branding irons. The old horse stalls became dividers between booths. The tables in the few remaining booths were covered with bisque pottery, or stacks of bats, and various shaping tools thrown into bins. One table near a window was clear, except for a book and a coffee mug. Past the booths, at the far end of the building, was what remained of the diner’s kitchen. The restaurateurs had gutted it after they closed, leaving only the sink and cabinets. It was there, Beckett explained, that he stored his clays and powders. He mixed glazes in large buckets on the stainless steel countertops with a paint mixer attached to an electric drill.

  Having ended the tour in the kitchen, he offered Jess a cup of coffee. She didn’t actually want coffee, but she didn’t want to leave either, so she accepted. Beckett grabbed a mug from one of the cupboards, a beautifully shaped piece with a blue glaze that melted into a honey base, turning green where the colors overlapped. He rinsed it out and poured Jess’s coffee from a carafe she hadn’t noticed before. There was also a fridge humming in the corner, and Jess realized he must spend most of his time here and so would have a number of creature comforts on hand.

  They sat in the booth where Beckett’s own mug waited. “What are you reading?” Jess asked as she pulled Shakti up onto the red vinyl bench beside her.

  He flipped the book over so the cover showed. “Alice Munro, Selected Stories.”

  Jess bit her lip to contain her excitement. “You make these,” she held up her mug, “and you read Alice Munro. Be still, my beating heart.”

  Perhaps Alice Munro was to blame. Perhaps the melting blue glaze on the coffee mug. Or even the fact that Beckett had said he enjoyed hearing her laugh. When he inquired about her house and her settling in, Jess told him about the red-haired woman in her bedroom. She told him about the lead toy cowboy and Shakti peeing in her crate and the woman watching her go to sleep before walking through the wall. She did not tell him about the vinegar or that Tyler had even been in her home. But she told him enough to feel a great relief at having told someone, and if he did not believe her, then he would only be her hardware salesman. There would be nothing much lost. When she finished talking, she lifted her gaze from the coffee mug and met his eyes.

  He appeared deeply concerned. “You’ve gone white,” he said. “You’re really scared.”

  Jess looked out the window at the brick kiln behind the studio. “I think…” She took a breath, preparing to say the words aloud for the first time. “…that my house is haunted.”

  Beckett was quiet. He did not laugh or ridicule her, though in the time spent waiting for him to speak, Jess became nervous. Finally, he said, “I think that woman died in your house. Or on the property.” He closed his eyes and put his fingers to the center of his brow, then spread them out as though smoothing the lines from his forehead. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, but the woman who owned the house before you…I think she had some issues there.”

  “Issues? Like a ghost? Like those kinds of issues?”

  Shakti stood on the bench and shook herself, hairs flying from her back and drifting toward Jess’s open mug. She lifted her paws to the window sill and gazed outside. A squirrel bounding across the dirt yard caught her eye, and her ears lifted.

  “I don’t know, Jess. What I heard was second-hand. I think that woman had big plans for renovating the house and then got scared away. But she couldn’t find a buyer fast enough, so she abandoned the house. Left it for the bank to foreclose on.”

  Jess’s head raced with implications. If she was scared away…foreclosed on…

  Beckett reached across the table to touch her hand and Jess startled. When her nerves settled, she was glad she hadn’t jerked her hand away from his. His knuckles were chapped, his fingertips slightly rough, his touch reassuring.

  “But I don’t know what happened.” He locked his eyes with hers. “I really don’t.” He shook his head as he withdrew his hand. “Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’re thinking the worst.”

  “Um. I…yeah, I am thinking the worst. I’ve sunk everything into this house. I q
uit my job to start over as a writer.” Jess’s throat was suddenly dry. “And I haven’t written anything. If I can’t make a go of it here, I’m screwed.”

  “I’m sorry. You were laughing. You sounded like you were having such a good time, I wanted to run out there and join you. And now look what I’ve done.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” he continued.

  “No. It’s fine. I mean, if the place is haunted, it’s haunted whether you tell me about the last owner or not. Right?”

  “Do you still want the stove brought into the house?”

  Jess had forgotten about the stove. To continue to make that place her home now seemed ludicrous, and yet she did not have a choice. To move on would be to abandon her life before it even began. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  “It’s a pretty big job, I’m afraid.” Jess had left her sunglasses in the car and was squinting at Beckett and Dave, the OCD hardware organizer. They looked more comfortable with their baseball caps shielding their eyes. Jess had been expecting a high school kid; Dave was easily in his forties. He looked like he pumped as much iron as he drank beer with the girth of his arms in direct proportion to the girth of his gut. Half Irish and half Norwegian, he got his red hair from both sides, and exuded a jocular masculinity prone to jokes about clergymen, bars, and genitalia. When he wasn’t arranging pipe fittings by width and thread type, he was either cleaning and oiling his hunting rifle with a cotton swab or pairing his socks and rolling them into balls before lining them up in his dresser drawer. He and Beckett had arrived in Dave’s pickup truck, a rust-bitten workhorse with a dent in the fender. The bed was loaded with bricks and the tools they would need to build a hearth for the stove.

  “Come on. I’ll show you.” Jess led them into the house and upstairs to her office. She explained her vision of putting the bookshelves now in the music room up there with the stove. “Am I crazy?” she asked. “Is it too much?”

  “Yes,” Dave answered without hesitation.

  “It depends,” Beckett said, “on the floor joists, where the load-bearing walls are, all that.”

  Dave walked over to the roll top desk and slapped it soundly. “This baby is pushing two-fifty. That parlor stove in the smokehouse is over three-hundred if it’s a pound.” He scratched the stubble on his jaw. “I sure wouldn’t put all that plus books up here in one room.”

  Beckett was about to disagree, but Jess cut him off. “I’m convinced. I do not want my floor caving in. What about putting it in the music room downstairs?”

  “That would be a heck of a lot better,” Dave said. “We could add a support in the basement if we need to.”

  “Great.” Jess led the way downstairs. She had crated Shakti so she wouldn’t get in the way and the puppy whined and scratched at the floor of her kennel whenever they passed the living room’s doorway.

  “Can I let her out?” Beckett asked.

  Jess shrugged why not and followed Dave outside to look at the stove again. It became clear why Beckett let him take charge of organizing the hardware store as he went over everything they would have to do, from scrubbing layers of soot off the stove to shoring up the floor. While they stood in the smokehouse, planning the stove’s relocation, Tyler pulled into the drive. He had offered to come by and help if the café was quiet. Jess left the smokehouse to greet him.

  He put a hand around her waist and pulled her into a hug before giving her a kiss hello just as Beckett and Shakti came out of the house. Shakti leapt off the porch steps and ran as fast as her little legs would go around the sugar maple. Jess caught Beckett’s eye and thought she sensed disapproval. Was Beckett helping her because he was interested, or was he just a nice guy? She hated ulterior motives as much as she hated feeling caught in an awkward situation. Shakti zoomed over to Jess and leapt against her legs, ricocheting and changing course to run a lap around Dave. The impact jolted Jess into Tyler,. He caught her and made a show of getting her steadily on her feet again. She thanked him and stepped away, feeling Beckett’s gaze still on her as surely as she felt the pink rise in her cheeks.

  “Hey, Tyler,” Dave said. “Here to do some heavy lifting?”

  “Whatever’s needed.”

  Jess wanted to protest, to remind Tyler how moving the desk had hurt his back, but realized that was probably not okay in the company of men, men who, she had the uneasy feeling, were somehow rivals.

  “The more the merrier,” Dave announced and, as though oblivious to any tension between Beckett and Tyler, began issuing orders. “All right, we’ll get that stove out into the yard. Then Jessica can start cleaning it with a steel brush while we lay the hearth in that little room. And we’ll check the basement for support.”

  Jess looked at Beckett, trying to read his expression. Tyler slipped his arm back around her waist, and Beckett turned away. “I’ll look at the basement,” he shouted over his shoulder as he went inside. Jess watched him disappear into the house, feeling the loss of something small but real.

  “Come on, Tyler,” Dave shouted. “Let’s get this baby out in the sun. See what we have to work with.”

  Jess knelt in front of the stove, small rocks, clots of dirt, and scraggly blades of grass dug in, imprinting her flesh. When Jess stood up to stretch and crack the joints of her hips, she had to reach down and brush several small pebbles from her knees. The stove had collected layer upon layer of soot and grime after its many years in the smokehouse. Her rubber gloves were mostly black and somehow she’d smeared soot across her tank top. Shakti roused herself from a nap at the base of the sugar maple, stretched, and picked up her ball. She trotted over to Jess and sat, her tail thumping the ground.

  Jess put her hand on the blue rubber protruding from Shakti’s mouth. The puppy seemed to be smiling even as she clamped down on the ball. “Give,” Jess said, and Shakti shook her head side to side. Jess had to pry Shakti’s mouth open to release the ball. As soon as she was relieved of the ball, Shakti jumped sideways and back, took a bow, and wagged her tail expectantly. Jess threw it toward the house and Shakti tore after it with remarkable speed for one on such short legs. Jess couldn’t help laughing any time she saw Shakti run, especially from behind. Her rump swung side to side and her tail stuck straight off her back like a fuzzy handle.

  Tyler thrust himself onto the porch and let the screen door slam behind him. He lumbered down the steps like something had just given out. Jess meant to yell a warning, but her mouth got it wrong. She gasped and stuttered ineffectually, one hand waving at Tyler and the other at Shakti.

  Tyler clutched at his back as he lurched off the bottom step, his foot landing just to the side of Shakti’s head. She scrambled, her hips slapping Tyler’s booted ankle as she tripped over his foot. Tyler stumbled, cursed loudly, and landed on his knees in the dirt. He rose with surprising haste and furiously pushed his hair away from his face.

  Jess wanted to scoop Shakti off the ground and check her for wounds or soothe her after a fright or whatever worried parents did, but Shakti was already carrying the ball with a prance and a wiggle in her step. “Are you all right?” she asked Tyler, hoping he hadn’t noticed her impulse to comfort the dog first.

  “I’ve got to get back to the café.”

  “Oh…all right. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I guess my brick laying isn’t up to Beckett’s high standards.” He stared at the house, his face constricted.

  Jess didn’t know whether it was fury or pain wrenching his features. She touched his cheek and turned his gaze back toward her with a gentle pressure.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” He pecked at her, a kiss so fast she didn’t have a chance to respond, and went to his truck.

  Jess watched him drive away before calling Shakti to her and going inside. She found Beckett and Dave bent over their work in the music room. Dave’s fair skin had flushed a nice red and the back of his shirt showed the damp V of perspiration. He sat back on his haunches and rested his hands
on his thighs while Beckett set the mortar between two bricks.

  “What happened?” Jess asked.

  “Phew!” Dave said. “And people say I have a temper.”

  She waited for more, but Dave just sat there, looking between her and Beckett. Beckett finished with the brick and sat back, taking his time to look at Jess. “Tyler didn’t like hearing that his work could be improved.”

  “That sounds like half the story. Or less.”

  “Tyler was sloppy with the mortar,” Dave said, “and Beckett pointed it out to him. Standard pissing contest, that’s all.”

  “Thank you, Dave,” Beckett said. “How concise.”

  Dave shrugged. “I thought it was obvious.”

  “Jess, I think you should be careful.”

  “What does that mean?” She set Shakti down and put her hands on her hips. The puppy sniffed a crooked line over to the hearth and Dave lifted her into a cuddle to keep her out of their work. He scratched her ears and she twisted her head every which way to try to lick some of the brickwork off his hands and wrists. Jess stared at Beckett.

  “I think the guy has issues. I don’t know what they are, but I think they run deep. That’s all.”