Betsy smiled. “ ‘I’m Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten-thirty, and saunter along like a toff,’ ” she warbled. He immediately joined in. “ ‘I’m all airs and graces, correct easy paces, without food so long I’ve forgot where my face is. I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow!’ ”
They laughed and then talked about other things they had in common: knitting, live theater, love of horses and old movies, Asian food.
“Say, would you like to learn to golf?” he asked. “I have a feeling I’ve never really given the game a proper chance.”
“No, I don’t have time. But if you want to make Goddy happy, talk golf to him. He’s still a duffer, but he likes the game—and his friend Rafael is passionate about it.”
“About Godwin . . .”
“What about Godwin?”
“I hope you’re paying him what he’s worth.”
“Of course I’m not. I couldn’t afford to pay him what he’s worth.”
“He’s very attached to you, too.”
“We’ve seen each other through some tough times.”
“I tell you what, when we get married, we’ll adopt him.”
“What!?”
Betsy suddenly found it difficult to draw a deep breath. She could feel her blood rushing to her face, and her grip on the steering wheel was so hard that her knuckles showed white.
I’m angry; why am I so angry? she thought. She could not focus on her driving and so she pulled into the next gas station she saw. She stopped the car in a parking area, got out, and went into the store, all without a word.
Connor followed her in a puzzled silence. Betsy bought a bottle of water and paid for it, walked out, and headed for her car. But before she got in, she turned and confronted him.
“How dare you?” she demanded.
“How dare I what?” he asked, smiling as if she were being obtuse about an obvious joke.
“How dare you casually speak of what we’ll do after we’re married? You don’t know if I even want to get married, much less if I want to marry you!”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Want to get married?”
“No, I don’t,” Betsy replied, not sure if that might be true. But having said it, she realized it was. She even knew why. “My life is good right now, and progressing nicely. I don’t need the complication of a husband.”
“Couldn’t I fit in there somewhere?” He seemed a little taken aback.
“Of course you can—and you do. I like you, I like knowing you’re right across the hall, that I can come knocking on the door, knowing it’s you who will open it. On the other hand, I also like that you’re not crowding up my bathroom.”
He blinked and then smiled, because she’d said bathroom, not bedroom. “Ah, I see. The old ‘I don’t want to share a bathroom’ syndrome.”
“Oddly enough, I think that sums it up nicely.” Betsy felt a bit calmer now. She got in the car, opened her bottle of water, and took a drink, letting the cold water cool her heated throat. “Did you ever see Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House?”
He got in beside her, thinking. “Myrna Loy and Cary Grant?”
“That’s right. Remember that scene in the tiny apartment bathroom with the two of them trying to shave, comb their hair, and brush their teeth with only one sink between them? I’ve lived that scene. You’re sweet, Connor, but I love being the only one in the bathroom in the morning when I’m trying to get ready for work.”
He sighed, faux downcast. “And you didn’t think to put two sinks in my bathroom when you remodeled, did you?”
She smiled wryly. “No, I didn’t. Sorry.” Her anger was totally gone now, replaced by a curious emptiness. Was she wrong to brush him off so strongly? She was honest in saying “not right now,” but she did like him. On the other hand, it struck her as cruel of him to make a joke of their still-forming relationship. “We need to be able to go on being friends,” she said. “With my track record, I don’t dare let myself get close to someone unless we’re really good friends first.”
“Ah, machree,” he said in a thick Irish accent, a trick he’d done before, “we’ll be friends and all as long as ye can stand it.”
They drove for a good mile in a comfortable silence, then he asked, “What’s the state of the investigation? What do you know, and what do you hope to find out on this trip?”
Betsy was relieved that the conversation had taken a different turn. “Well, I saw for myself the skeleton in the root cellar of the log cabin that Jill and Lars bought about six weeks ago. We have pretty much decided that it went into the cellar in the form of a German prisoner of war. This was in the late summer of 1944.”
“Why 1944?”
“That’s the year the young man disappeared, plus it’s the date on some jars of canned green beans that were also in the cellar.”
“I take it nobody else disappeared up there that year.”
“Actually, someone did. The cabin was owned by Helga and Matthew Farmer, and he disappeared a few months after Corporal Keitel did. The Army declared Major Farmer a deserter and he was never found.”
“But you don’t think the bones are Major Farmer’s because—?”
“Because an ID tag with Keitel’s name on it was found with the bones. And because the description of Keitel includes a gold tooth and I saw that tooth in the skull with my own eyes.” Betsy was suddenly struck by a new thought. “And because of the buttons. During the war, everyone in uniform had to wear it all the time—no civilian clothes. But the buttons in the cellar weren’t brass; they didn’t come off a uniform.” She smiled, feeling the warm satisfaction that comes with putting a new clue in place.
“That sounds very convincing. So okay, the skeleton is Corporal Keitel’s. What happened to the major?”
“Nobody knows. It’s possible he was mugged on the train to Chicago or, more likely, on the train to California and his body was tossed from the train into a lonesome ravine and never found. It’s also possible that he was frightened by the possibility of losing his safe stateside job and deserted. There was a rumor—there still is a rumor—that he settled somewhere under a new name, sent for Helga, and she joined him after selling the cabin to a family named Nowicki.”
“Have you talked to the Nowicki family?”
“Yes, to the one member willing to talk, but he couldn’t tell us anything useful. I want to talk to a little group of retired men who have coffee every morning at this old general store called The Lone Wolf, to see if any of them can put me in touch with Helga’s family. We’ve already touched base with a daughter of Matthew Farmer from his first marriage, but all she knows is that Helga was years younger than Matthew. Oh, and when she heard about the skeleton, she thought it was her father, and that Helga had murdered him. She seemed disappointed to learn that that wasn’t true.”
“That’s interesting.”
Half an hour later, they pulled up the narrow lane into the clearing in which the log cabin stood. Betsy shut the engine off and they sat for a minute, recovering from the trip and taking in the scene.
“It’s like something in a movie,” remarked Connor at last. “Very pretty.”
“Is there anything like this back home?”
“You mean in Ireland? No, not quite. Oh, there are trees as large as this in great forests, but the landscape is greener and tamer, and has fewer pine trees. And the little cottage would likely be wattle and daub, with a thatched roof.” He gave a sigh. “But that’s not home, not for me anymore.”
“Yet you miss it.”
“No. No, I don’t. I was a seafaring man starting in my teens and for many, many years, which effectively broke most of my ties to a homeland. Killarney is beautiful, but so is Hong Kong, and Port Elizabeth in South Africa, and New York City.” He smiled at her. “So is Duluth, Minnesota—can you tell I love harbor cities? But Lake Minnetonka is very attractive; and Excelsior is a charming little Midwestern town. I’m happy to live here, because someone I’m very fond o
f lives here, too.” He looked at her with those steady dark blue eyes and her heart melted.
“Oh, Connor,” she sighed.
“Now come on, friend, show me around.”
They put their suitcases in the cabin, and the block of ice they’d bought in Outting into the ice box.
“Very snug,” pronounced Connor after Betsy gave him the tour. Looking at the wood-burning kitchen stove, he said, “Do you know, when I was a lad, my gran had a stove like this. She could tell if the oven was the right temperature to bake a pie by thrusting her hand in it for a few seconds. She baked a lovely apple pie.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to bake a pie in that stove.”
“No, but maybe I can try one. Is there a grocery store in the area?”
“That place we’re going in the morning for coffee and rolls is the local general store.”
Connor smiled approval. “Sounds good.”
Betsy decided not to get her hopes up too high for apple pie. Meanwhile, she and Connor explored the rest of the property.
The shed looked very tumbledown, but the roof had kept the rain out and the single window was unbroken. It was infested with spiders and daddy longlegs and other insects, which made them cautious while idling through the stacks of books and old magazines in one corner. There were quite a few ancient editions of the Bobbsey Twins and Hardy Boys among the books, much eaten by insects and chewed by mice. The magazines had been treated equally unkindly, in addition to being yellowed by time.
“Look, these books are pre-World War Two,” said Connor, noting how white the remaining pages were. “Paper went to hell during the war.” He picked up a magazine devoted to knitting, shook it lightly, and its pages crumbled and fell in a pale yellow avalanche to the dirt floor.
The magazines in the middle of the stack fared better, having been protected from the air. One was on crochet, and Betsy opened it with interest.
“Looking for something?” asked Connor.
“There’s a crocheted rug in a chest in the cabin and I hope we can find the instructions in here somewhere. Not in this one, however.” She found and paged through several other old survivors. “Oooh, look at this!”
“Find it?”
“No, but look at this darling shawl!”
He looked over her shoulder at the shawl in the magazine, covered with animal figures. “Looks complicated.”
“Yes, I’ll have to ask Peggy for help with it.”
“You’re going to bring that magazine back with you?”
“Yes. I’ll show it to Jill, of course, but I’m sure she won’t mind—she doesn’t do crochet.”
As the sun settled behind the trees, the air grew chilly and they left the shed and went back to the cabin. There, Connor built a fire in the pot-bellied stove while Betsy lit the kerosene lamps. They made a supper from the cold cuts and hard rolls they’d brought along. By the time they’d finished eating, it was fully dark outside and the lamps made a golden warm glow in the living area.
“ ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it,’” said Connor.
But Betsy pictured the whole hemisphere of the earth turned away from the sun, facing the immense darkness of space, and the little lamps felt like incredibly frail pinpricks against such an appalling void. “‘O Lord, Thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small,’” she said.
Connor chuckled, surprised. “I’ve felt that at sea many a time.”
“Is it a lonesome occupation?”
“I never thought so, but the crews are small, even on the bigger vessels, so it’s helpful if everyone has a talent for getting along. It can be kind of a shock to be at sea with only a dozen other people to talk to for several weeks, then get turned loose in a big city full of tens of thousands of strangers.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
As they were clearing the card table, there came the big giggle that was the call of the loon.
“My God, they sound just like the recordings!” said Connor, turning to look toward the back of the cabin.
They sat up for a while, talking of inconsequential things; then Connor, whose arm had slipped around Betsy without her noticing it, leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss. She kissed him back, and he kissed her again, more warmly. She felt herself begin to respond and yielded to it.
Before she realized it, they were at it like a pair of teens— and then she did realize it and it made her chuckle, breaking the mood.
Connor seemed disappointed by her amusement, even when she explained it, but he understood the concept of a broken mood. He set about rebuilding it, tender but insistent and very patient.
Later, Betsy banked the fire while Connor went out for a bucket of water to set on top of the stove to warm for morning.
They went to sleep to the haunting music of the loons.
Fourteen
IN the morning the bucket of water was only a little warmer than the air, but better than the chilled water produced by the pump. Betsy and Connor did minimal ablutions, dressed, and set out for The Lone Wolf. It was a little after eight, but the sun had come up in summer strength, promising a warm day. Betsy wore white linen slacks, a deep-red bell-sleeved blouse ornamented with five large buttons down each sleeve, and sandals. Connor wore faded jeans, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled back, and deck shoes. They rode in silence. Connor was not a morning person.
They pulled into the rustic lodge-like building with its moribund gas pumps in front and parked on the gravel apron near the steps. Three cars were already parked there.
The steps led up to a wide deck. A separate entrance off to the right led into a liquor store.
They entered through a creaking screen door and stood for a moment to allow their eyes to adjust from bright sunlight to the deep-shade interior.
On their left stood the big, old-fashioned bar and at its near end sat five well-seasoned men. Betsy immediately recognized three of them from her last visit, though she hadn’t gotten their names. The smallest one, who was also obviously the eldest, recognized her, too.
“Wasn’t you in here just a week or so ago?” he asked. “You was with that Larson fellow, bought that cabin they found the skeleton in.”
“That’s right,” said Betsy, stepping forward. “I’m Betsy Devonshire and this is my friend Connor Sullivan.”
“Ralph Olson. Grab a stool if you’ve a mind to. The coffee’s terrible but it’s better than the water all by itself.”
“Now, Ralph,” chided a plump old man in a high, rough voice, “don’t go bad-mouthing things, or Pat will run us all off.” He nodded sideways at the dark-haired young woman behind the bar. “My name’s Don Tjerle.” He pronounced it “surely.” He held out a big, soft hand. Betsy took it and slid onto a vacant stool next to him.
Connor sat down at the end of the group and, with a gesture, ordered a cup of coffee. “Black,” he mouthed.
“I take my coffee with all the fixings,” stated Betsy.
“So what’re they gonna do with them bones?” asked Ralph, after Betsy had doctored her coffee to her satisfaction.
“I don’t know, I was hoping you might tell me.”
“I heard they’re looking for family in Germany to send them home to,” said Don. As he spoke, Betsy noted his high cheekbones and curiously slanted light blue eyes—Finn traits. But Tjerle was a Norwegian surname. There were some who would consider him of mixed blood.
“Why do that? Isn’t there a cemetery right in Remer?” asked the biggest man, both tall and heavyset. He had small, merry eyes and a short nose under straight, thinning white hair. “You know, where they buried the other POWs.” He nodded at Betsy. “Kevin Swanson,” he said by way of introduction.
“Nope,” said Ralph. “None of the other ones died at that camp, they all made it home safe.”
“How do you know so much?” demanded Kevin.
“Some of it I remember,” said Ralph. “The rest I read about in a book, which you could do worse than read.”<
br />
“Ahhhh,” growled Kevin. “I don’t believe you read any book, I don’t believe you know how to read.”
“No, it’s Donny who doesn’t know how to read.”
“Never saw any need to learn how,” said Don with a small, judicious nod. “I hired a secretary who could read, and I practiced law for thirty years without cracking one law book.”
Connor, smiling to himself—he didn’t watch the old men plaguing one another—finished the last of his coffee and signaled for a refill. “Have you got anything suitable for breakfast you can sell me?” he asked in a low voice while the young woman refilled his mug.
“Raised donuts,” she said. “Fresh this morning. Otherwise there’s pairs of hard-boiled eggs back in the chill box.”
“Bring me two donuts,” said Connor and slid off his stool. “Want a hard-boiled egg, machree?” he asked Betsy.
“Yes, please,” she replied.
So long as the young woman was there, she went up and around the curve of the bar, refilling mugs. “And I’ll have a donut, too, thanks,” Betsy said when the woman got to her.
The last man put a big hand over the top of his mug while fishing in his pocket with the other. He pulled out a dollar bill and then two quarters and put the money on the bar. “That does it for me, I’m going fishing,” he said and started for the door.
“Hey, Tony!” called Don.
“What?”
“What did I say to make you go away? So I can say it earlier tomorrow.”
Tony snorted derisively and went out, letting the screen door slap shut behind him.
Connor came back with two packs of eggs. Betsy took one egg—it was already peeled—and put it on the little plate that held her glazed donut. The donut was tasty, the egg was fresh, and despite the warning, she found the coffee strong without being bitter, and warming to her soul. Even Connor was starting to look more aware of his surroundings.
“Did this place used to be a bar?” he asked halfway through his second egg.
“It was a tavern first,” said Ralph. “Man name of John D. Brigham built it, some people still call this place Brigham’s. Later, that room where the coolers are got added, and it became a dance hall, then the addition that’s a liquor store was put on. During the war, this place had the only phone hereabouts, so Brigham had to take telegraph messages about soldiers killed or missing in action and deliver them. Hated that part of it. He got drafted himself toward the end of the war, even though he was in his middle thirties by then. They took him because he was single.” Ralph looked around at the other men, pleased by their attention, then looked at Betsy slantwise. “Take a look at the front door over there.”
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