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

by Alida Winternheimer

“Would you ladies like a cocktail before your supper?” The waitress was a tall girl with straight blonde hair and bangs that practically covered her blue-painted lids. The restaurant’s uniform of a long black skirt and white blouse with a high lace collar accentuated her height, making her resemble a boating pole.

  “Oh, let’s.” Marlene leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table and smiled mischievously at Bonnie. “The cat is away, after all.”

  “All right. Why not?” Bonnie looked at the waitress. “I’ll have a Brandy Old Fashioned, please. And a booster seat.”

  “Rum and Coke,” Marlene said, dismissing the waitress from their presence with a wave of her fingers. She settled back into the booth. “Gee, Bonnie, you look adorable with your hair all done up like that.”

  “Thanks. Mary Jo did a nice job, didn’t she?”

  The waitress returned to unceremoniously hand Bonnie a hard little seat covered in Raggedy Ann and Andy-patterned vinyl. Bonnie set it on the booth beside her and lifted Johnny into it.

  “Say, how about some Saltines for the child?” Marlene said to the waitress.

  She looked at Bonnie.

  “That would be nice.” The waitress turned to leave. “And a glass of milk,” Bonnie called after her.

  “That girl’s not working very hard for a tip.”

  “No, but she sure is tall.” The women giggled, because it seemed that was the kindest observation Bonnie could make.

  “I remember being that age. I thought everyone over twenty-five was a nitwit and I was going to rule the world.”

  “And how did that work out for you, Marlene?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She laughed at herself. “I should have left Wisconsin when I had the chance.”

  “Don’t you have the chance now?”

  “Well…” Marlene looked out the window beside their booth. People passed by on the sidewalk, the evening sun glinted off the hoods of cars parked along the street, and it hardly seemed a bad place to be. Marlene looked back at Bonnie with misty eyes. She unfolded her napkin and touched its corner to her cheek. “Starting over would take a lot of work, wouldn’t it? And this isn’t so bad. All the things I just despised when I was a kid, they got to being pretty comfortable, you know?”

  Bonnie nodded. She reached her hand over the table to take Marlene’s, but withdrew it as the waitress arrived, their drinks on her tray. She set them down, along with Johnny’s milk and crackers, then said she would give them time to look over the menus while gazing over their heads and out the window.

  “That’s what I need,” Marlene said after the waitress was gone, brightening at the sight of her cocktail. Any sign that she had been on the verge of crying had vanished. “Here’s to girlfriends.” She raised her glass and Bonnie accepted the toast. Marlene took a big sip of her drink, welcoming the alcohol with a smack of her lips and marking the glass with a bright red print on the rim. “But what about you kids? If John gets the job will you be moving to Madison? That would be a nice city to live in, wouldn’t it? Gee, maybe I’d follow you there.”

  “I don’t think so. John’s territory would include Minnesota, Iowa, and maybe even the Dakotas. We’d be better off here than farther east.”

  “Minneapolis, then.”

  “Marlene! Are you trying to ship us off to a city?”

  “Of course not. Just dreaming, honey.” Marlene tapped the side of her glass with a bright red fingernail. “I still dream about city life, but I know I’m stuck here. It’s better to be somebody important in nowheresville, than to be a nobody in somewheresville.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Bonnie said, and the women raised their glasses to life in nowheresville.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Jess drove up to her house, she couldn’t help feeling dread and it angered her. This is my house, she thought. What right does some dead woman have to scare me out of it? Jess couldn’t stand the thought of losing. She also couldn’t afford to be scared away. She parked in front of the garage and looked at the house.

  It was such a pretty house with its limestone foundation, big front porch, and leaded glass windows. It was homey and inviting with the blue sky above, pretty little cluster of birch trees and the big sugar maple out front. There were planting beds around the house in need of weeding. Jess wanted hostas along the sides and maybe geraniums up front next to the porch steps. She had such plans.

  “I have such plans,” she said. “I have.” She opened the passenger door for Shakti and helped her to the ground. They went up to the front door and Jess reached out, hesitating before touching the metal knob. The door was slightly ajar. When she’d left the house with her wrists bound, she had hardly worried about locking up. Jess shoved the door with her foot and it swung open into the vestibule. Through the small passageway, she saw the hall. It was well lit from the windows above in the landing. It seemed ironic, the sun in the sky, the birds at her feeder, the tranquil house, and her carrying a knot inside. Jess’s heart thumped in her ears and her palms felt damp. She expected to see the red-haired woman come flying at her from every corner. Jess looked at the floor, remembering what she had glimpsed as she fled the house with Shakti.

  There was nothing there now. No bloody footprints. Just a few scuffs and gouges commensurate with the age of the house.

  “Come on, Bear,” she said, and they stepped into the hall. Jess decided to take a tour of the main floor before going upstairs. Nothing was out of place, yet Jess could not get her shoulders to relax and her neck began to ache. She started up the stairs and Shakti stopped at the bottom and whined. When Jess went back to pick her up, she scrambled to get away and Jess almost dropped her.

  “Great. I guess I’ll go it alone up there.” She left Shakti looking anxious at the bottom and took the stairs slowly to the top.

  Jess went into the office first. The lead cowboy sat atop her desk in its usual spot, facing Jess with his six-shooters drawn. She ran a hand over the writing bed and then put her fingers to the typewriter. Over the top of her desk she could see the smokehouse in the yard, its conical roof looking ominous. Jess shuddered. Everything was wrong. She had no business trying to write a book. Even if she could finish it, it would never be read. Nobody had ever heard of Jessica Vernon. Nobody would ever care. She was such a fool for leaving Minneapolis where she knew people and had a career. Jess reminded herself that she had hated her job, and yet right now she was convinced of her failure.

  She placed a new sheet of paper into the typewriter and fed it around the roller. She hit the keys, making a conscious effort with each strike.

  I am a writer.

  It was no use. Why was she kidding herself? She went to the bedroom and paused in the doorway to peer into each corner before crossing the threshold. She grabbed a duffle bag from the back of her closet and tossed in some clothing, then her toiletries. The back of her neck tingled with nervous anticipation. She kept looking over her shoulder, and when she was packed, Jess fled the room. She couldn’t help herself. She ran down the stairs in a panic.

  Excited by the running game, Shakti leapt at Jess when she reached the hallway. The dog threw her off balance and Jess cried out in pain as her back torqued in a funny direction. She glanced up the stairs, expecting to see the ghost. Nothing. Jess patted Shakti on the head to calm both of them. “I’m freaking out, Bear.” Jess grabbed her Macbook and a journal from the music room. “Let’s get out of here.” She set her bag on the porch and turned, reaching into the vestibule to grab the door and close it.

  Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk…Chk. Chk. Chk.

  The sound was coming from upstairs, both carrying down the staircase and through the roof over Jess’s head. It was a sound she knew very well—the sound of the Underwood’s keys striking the page.

  As the typist found her rhythm, the keys struck faster. The sound became insistent. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk!…Chk. Chk. Chk! Jess slammed the door and with a shaking hand got the key in the lock and turned it.

  She ran to the car with Shakti b
eside her. She slammed their doors and got the car headed down the driveway. When she reached the barn, Jess stopped. She kept her foot on the brake, the car in drive, but turned on her seat to look through the rear windshield. It was something she had to do, to prove to herself she wasn’t defeated. Jess found the office window and peered up at it. She had not hung any curtains in that room, but a dark blue curtain hung there now. She knew on the inside of the room, the curtain hung over a little boy’s bed with moons and rocket ships. The curtain moved and the red-haired woman appeared in the gap between the panels. Jess felt the longing of one with unfinished business. Her foot slipped off the brake and the car lurched forward. She punched the brake reflexively, jolting them. Shakti fell forward and back on the front seat with a yip. Jess gripped the wheel in clenched fists and forced herself to raise her foot from the brake slowly and then shift it to the gas pedal and continue on her way like a sane person, not like a rabbit just flushed from a bush. As she turned onto Haug Drive, she glanced back toward the house. The curtains were gone from the window. The yard was beautifully lit. It was again the most appealing house Jess had ever seen.

  She found Beckett in the studio, busy cleaning so it would look nice when the Memorial Day tourists came through, eager to go home with a piece of art. A day off work makes people want to spend money, he had told Jess. He got more orders for sets of dishes on holiday weekends than at any other time of the year. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Terrible. I was terrified to be in my own house.” Beckett came over and gave Jess a sort of hug, keeping his clay-covered hands off of her. She told him about the typewriter and the window.

  Shakti sniffed a piece of clay at their feet and decided it was worth further exploration. She began with a nibble, her little teeth nipping off a corner of the clay. Since that was agreeable, she snarfed up the rest of it and sat down to chew.

  “What’s that going to do to her poop?” Beckett asked.

  “Who knows. And I forgot to get her food from the pantry.” Jess sighed, frustrated for the first time at the lack of amenities in Skoghall. “You know what it’s like?” Beckett shook his head and waited for her to continue. “It’s like getting a divorce. This place that’s your home starts to feel like it no longer belongs to you. I mean, our house was mine as much as it was Mitch’s, but I wanted to get away from him and he wanted to dig in. So…” She sighed again. “He staked his claim to the house, doing stupid shit to annoy me and make it clear I couldn’t get rid of him any too easily. You know? Every day it felt more and more like his house and like I was some kind of intruder in my own home.”

  Beckett put a hand under Jess’s chin and lifted her face to his. Those bright blue eyes just about killed Jess every time she looked into them. If these windows to the soul were honest, then Beckett’s soul was kind, gentle, and generous. “This is different,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “You were ready to leave that house. It was time to move on. Now it’s time to stay. So, dig in. You can be the one who stakes your claim. Just don’t let her win.”

  “That’s easy to say. My ex was scary, but nothing like this.” Jess smiled. It was ludicrous, comparing her ex-husband to her ghost. “Just don’t let her win,” she repeated.

  She sensed Beckett leaning in. His movement was barely perceptible, a slight angle of his head toward hers, a lowering of his eyelids so that his thick lashes came into focus. Jess studied the shape of his goatee and how it framed his mouth. She softened her mouth, preparing…and then he straightened up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  He picked up a towel from his worktable and wiped Jess’s chin. “I got slip on you.”

  “Oh, I didn’t even notice.” She winced as the towel tugged at the skin of her cheek, pulling against the bruise and cut under her eye.

  “Sorry.” He put the towel in Jess’s hands. “How does your face feel?”

  “It hurts. So does my back. But…” Jess’s voice trailed off as something occurred to her.

  “What is it?”

  She looked at Beckett. “I just realized something. The house was built in 1921, right? So the red-haired woman died between 1921 and the last owner, Lora’s friend. She’s wearing a nightgown. It’s not exactly high fashion, so not much of a clue, but it’s summery. And the nursery is decorated with spaceships. That must be after the lunar landing, right?” Beckett nodded his agreement. “And she used Tyler. She made him attack me.” Beckett continued to nod, waiting for Jess’s conclusion. “He called me a gook. The red-haired woman died during or right after Vietnam.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Yes, it does. And she wants me to find him.” Jess met Beckett’s eyes with an imploring gaze. “What if she’s not trying to hurt me or scare me off? What if she has a job she needs me to do?”

  “Find him? Who’s him?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I have a starting point now. I need to know who owned my house in the 1960s and ‘70s.”

  Beckett smiled at her, his eyes bright with approval. “I’m glad to see you charged up, Jess. And that you aren’t giving up on Skoghall.”

  “Me, too.” Jess wanted to touch his face, to have that kiss they had seemed on the verge of having only a minute before. She kept her hands down, hoping he would initiate another touch, wishing she could kiss him, but for the time being, she was dependent on his charity and couldn’t risk things being awkward between them. He finally turned away and scooped up a pile of clay scraps to drop into his bucket. Jess was glad his back was turned in case her disappointment showed. “Can I help you around here?”

  “No, thanks.” He faced her again and kissed her forehead, more of a friendly gesture than a romantic one, but it was something. “You deal with your ghost. I’ll deal with my studio.”

  The Mississippi River flowed by, the dark waters sparkling under the high midday sun. Jess and Shakti liked spending time in the park at the river’s edge. Very few tourists made it down here, probably not realizing there was a clearing behind the old livery and other buildings on this side of the River Road. Jess wanted to avoid Main Street over the holiday weekend. She knew she was the subject of curiosity—the biggest thing to happen in Skoghall for years, according to Beckett. Nobody knew what had happened to Tyler, and his employees had shown up to a closed business. Jess imagined the food inside going bad and the thought of him losing his business because of the red-haired woman added to Jess’s determination to take back her home.

  It had been easy enough to find public records on her house. John and Bonnie Sykes had owned it from 1969 to 1973. After that the house was vacant for two years. It seemed the house couldn’t keep a resident. Someone would settle in and then be gone within a year or two, followed by another period of vacancy. The last owner, Cathy Fenton, had made it through three years. They were pretty good years from the look of things. There were records of the building permits she’d pulled. The garage was there thanks to her. She had a permit to pave the driveway, too, but hadn’t gotten that far. The master bedroom’s closet and dressing area was supposed to be fancier than it turned out. If Jess had to guess, Cathy Fenton finished the job early, settling for what she could do fast and cheap so she could put the house on the market. It didn’t sell soon enough and the bank foreclosed. Jess wanted to talk to Cathy and fill in a few blanks. She also wanted to know more about Bonnie Sykes.

  Jess began to run. Shakti tripped over her big paws as she got going, chasing Jess around the grassy park. Jess ran in circles and loops, evading Shakti. The puppy’s ears flapped as she ran, her mouth curved into that happy smile retrievers wear so well. The wind lifted her fur, making her look even more like a ball of pale down than usual. Shakti’s snout was lengthening along with her legs and she already looked more like a toddler than a baby. She acted like one, too, wanting to always be close to Jess, whining when she wasn’t getting her way, and, like a toddler, teething. Anything was fair game—from Jess�
��s hand to the hem of her skirt. It got on Jess’s nerves and she’d snapped and scolded more than once.

  She doubled back and ran past Shakti, then spun around and dropped to her knees. She held her arms open as Shakti ran full speed into her. The puppy leapt and hit Jess in the chest, knocking her back into the grass. As Jess laughed, Shakti crawled over her to cover her face with kisses. Jess put a hand up to protect her bruise and rolled over. Shakti found her hand with her teeth. “Ow! Dammit, Shakti.” Jess had to pry the dog’s mouth open to free her hand. She shook it out while Shakti sat in the grass with her tail wagging. “I’m not a dog. You can’t chomp on me.”

  “Do you think she understands you?”

  Jess turned, surprised to find Beckett walking through the trees into the park. She hadn’t seen her roommate all day. He’d been busy at the studio with the tourist crowd, while Dave manned the hardware store. “Hi,” she said, “shouldn’t you be selling pottery?”

  “There was a lull. I put a sign on the door. Took a break.” He joined her in the grass and Shakti attacked. Beckett wrestled with her. Jess couldn’t decide who was having more fun, until Shakti bit down. Beckett rolled her over and pinned her. She squirmed against him, but he was firm and held her jaw shut with one hand while the other kept her shoulders on the ground. “No.”

  “You’re good at that.”

  “I grew up with dogs. If you don’t maintain pack order, they’ll take advantage of you for the rest of their lives. And this little girl wants to be an alpha.”

  “I noticed.” Jess looked up at the sky and caught sight of an eagle. “Look,” she pointed. She and Beckett lay back in the grass and watched as the raptor soared beyond the trees then looped back over their clearing toward the river. Jess stared at the white head and gold beak, the massive wings spread for gliding. “What is it about them that’s so magnificent?”

  “I love seeing eagles,” Beckett said. Their hands brushed each other, a light, accidental touch, but it excited Jess all the same. “You and Shakti should come by the studio this afternoon.”