A Pattern for Murder (The Bait & Stitch Cozy Mystery Series, Book 1)

by Ann Yost

  "Tom?"

  "Doctor Kukka. He's the guy who's in love with her."

  There was a brief pause and then, "I thought that was Erik Sundback, my mother's lawyer."

  "She loves Tom, not Erik. He's younger. He provides healthcare free of charge for the residents of the lighthouse and a lot of other people, too. Tom and my mother are saints and they deserve something."

  "Do you picture me as their fairy godmother?"

  "Why not? You owe her a happily ever after."

  "One that costs me more than five million? What happens if I say no?"

  "I guess I could push you off the gallery."

  I grimaced and put my fingers in my ears. When I removed them, a few minutes later, I was relieved to hear Alex laugh, the door close and the sound of Danny's running shoes on the circular staircase. I was just falling off to sleep again when I heard another knock followed by Riitta's voice. It was soft but, for some reason, I could hear every word.

  "Is it too late to talk?"

  "It's the perfect time," Alex replied. "The witching hour."

  I wasn't sure whether it was true delicacy, the effect of my mother's endless lectures on good manners or just plain fatigue but something prompted me to pull the pillow over my face and provide privacy for the long-ago lovers.

  It turned out to be an unfortunate decision. If I'd stayed awake, I might have prevented a murder.

  Chapter 5

  The sky was light when I awoke, the sun still below the horizon. I figured it was about five a.m. on the shortest night of the year. There was no sound from next door and I figured Alex had either fallen asleep at his desk or stretched out on the rag rug. After the excitement of the night before, I'd slept like one of the rocks on the tiny island five hundred feet offshore where last evening, Alex and I had lit Ukko-kokko, the big bonfire named after the harvest god.

  I pulled on some cutoffs and an old tee shirt that read, 906, which is supposed to intrigue outsiders but, in fact, just refers to the area code in the Upper Peninsula. I scuffed into my red flip-flops and headed down the stairs to the kitchen where I filled bowls of kibble for Larry and Lydia and made the first pot of coffee of the day. Then I let the dogs out back. While I waited for the coffee to perk, I recalled the time I'd spent with Alex out on the lake last night.

  The western sun had gilded the edges of pink, fluffy clouds on one side of the sky and, on the other, far off thunderheads had begun to gather, like troops assembling before a battle. It had felt like the calm before the storm, a time out of mind.

  According to Arvo's plans, the newlyweds, Captain Jack and I were to row out to the island to set a light to the bonfire but when the time came, I discovered Jack snoring away in the hammock on the end of the long, front porch and Alex had been kind enough to offer to take his place.

  He was, naturally, a great rower, moving the little boat ahead with strong, even strokes. His earlier friendliness had been touched by a little wariness. I knew he expected more questions about the fate of the lighthouse and I decided to confound him by holding my tongue on that subject.

  "Did you know there are more than 400 uninhabited islands in Lake Superior?"

  He lifted a golden eyebrow and his lips twitched.

  "As it happens, I did know that. I grew up here, remember? I spent plenty of time on this island."

  I imagined him rowing out here with a girl, a blanket and a picnic and both of them forgetting to eat.

  "Mostly when I was much younger," he said, reading my thoughts, "I collected agates and explored the caves. My mother never knew about my boat trips. She'd have had the proverbial cow."

  "Did your family own the island?" He nodded.

  "Did and does. The island belongs to the light station. I checked on that when I was about twelve."

  "Why?"

  "I wanted to know what my rights were. And I wanted to name it. I called it Agate Island. You can look it up in the state archives in Lansing."

  I squinted at him.

  "I thought the Keweenaw meant nothing to you."

  "It used to be home. It means nothing now. I told you why I came back."

  "You don't like to get fleeced."

  "I don't get fleeced," he corrected. "When someone tries it, I make them pay."

  "Nobody was trying to take advantage of you here. They honestly thought you weren't interested in the lighthouse."

  He rowed in silence for several seconds.

  "What are you doing here, Hatti? This is no place to spend your youth. I don't mean just the lighthouse. What are you doing in the Upper Peninsula? Didn't you ever want to leave?"

  I gave him a thumbnail sketch of my history, omitting the tears and the panic attacks and my failure to feed the crickets.

  "Unlike you, I had a happy childhood. I love Red Jacket and the people here." That may have been a bit of an exaggeration. My mother and her cronies sometimes drove me crazy. "I'm giving some thought to starting a yarn shop," I said, surprising myself.

  "That's a real commitment."

  "Well, Pops, my stepdad, has a bait shop and we have a long tradition of hybrid stores. He'd let me sell yarn and knitting supplies along with the worms." I shook my head. "I can't believe I told you that. It was nothing more than an embryonic thought."

  "What about your love life?"

  "Oh, I don't have one. I'm married."

  Once again, the words just popped out. Alex stared at me.

  "I hope you're not talking about Captain Jack." He said it with such horror that I couldn't help chuckling.

  "No. I was married last year. It didn't work out." Suddenly, I wanted to talk about something else and Alex, bless his heart, seemed to understand.

  "So you're serious about the knitting shop? Because if you are and you need funding, give me a call."

  "For money?" My voice squeaked. He shrugged.

  "That's what I do. I provide startup money for entrepreneurs. I'm an investment banker."

  "You'd give me money sight unseen?"

  "I'd want a prospectus. You'd be a fool to open a shop without finding out whether there was a customer base."

  "I had the idea that we could have knitting classes for kids and set aside one afternoon or evening a week for a knitting circle, you know, like they had in the early days of the American frontier. It could build community."

  "Is that something you need? It always seemed to me, as an outsider, the Keweenaw community was as tight as they come. Probably because everyone is related to everyone else."

  "That isn't true," I protested.

  "C'mon, Hatti. Tell me you're not related to Riitta."

  "Second cousin on my mom's side. But, if you ever took a sociology class, you'd know that community building is always important, especially in this day and age of electronics."

  He shrugged. "You could just open a coffee shop for that."

  "Knitting is not just a hobby, it's part of our culture. For one thing, mittens, socks, scarves and hats are needed in the Nordic countries and here on the Keweenaw. And creating things by hand is personally rewarding and therapeutic. On top of that, the yarns available these days are beautiful."

  He grinned at me. "I'm sold, personally, but let me give you a little free financial advice. When applying for a loan, always stick to the bottom line. A banker doesn't care about building community or finding satisfaction re-creating a centuries-old mitten pattern. All he or she wants to know is whether you can stay in the black."

  "Good to know," I said, a little hurt and trying not to show it. "I doubt whether I'll need any start-up money."

  He appeared to ignore that.

  "I'll give you ten thousand to start."

  I cocked my head to one side to look at him.

  "Why would you give me that kind of money for my personal goals but you won't relinquish the lighthouse which would benefit all of Copper Country?"

  "I told you earlier. I'm not a philanthropist."

  A faint bark interrupted my reminiscences and I realized the coff
ee had finished brewing. I poured a mug and stepped out into the air. There was a faint mist created by last night's storm that turned the pine trees into silhouettes. In just a short time the summer sun would infuse life and color into the landscape but, at the moment, it looked bedraggled and more than a little desolate.

  The dogs had disappeared which was unusual. Normally they headed toward the snow fence that separated the lighthouse yard from the waterfront. I figured they'd found something interesting and hoped it wasn't a carcass of a titmouse or a vole. Anyway, I began to circle the house, heading north toward the landward side. The pine trees in the parking area dripped with water from the storm and the sand underfoot was damp enough to leave footprints. The wicker furniture on the porch, including the ladies' canasta table, was still covered with the tarps we'd laid on the night before. There was no sign of life, human or canine, not until I reached the side yard under the tower. Larry and Lydia were pawing at the earth like a couple of warthogs rooting out truffles.

  "What have you found," I asked. Neither paid any attention to me.

  I knelt to look at the ground but could see nothing but disturbed sand and a few flecks of what might be blood. I figured a seabird had come to grief during the storm and that its body had been carried off by one of the woodland creatures. Then Lydia looked up at me and I saw more of the red substance on her muzzle. It definitely looked like blood.

  My first fear was that she'd found a piece of glass in the sand and had cut herself but she didn't seem distressed and I couldn't find any wound. She wagged the puffball that passes for a tail and licked my hand. Larry, meanwhile, had sat back in his most regal position. I met his intelligent eyes.

  "What? What is it you want me to notice?"

  He turned his gaze to the ground and I followed it.

  "I see the blood. Is there anything else?"

  Naturally, he didn't say anything. Larry believes in the old adage you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it drink. He's willing to help but expects me to do my own thinking.

  "Come on, you ghouls," I said, getting back to my feet. "Let's get in a run on the beach." We headed down to the shoreline on the other side of a sparse dune and then started to jog east.

  I think they enjoyed it. I know I did. There is nothing more beautiful than the glitter of the sun on the waves in the morning. Everything felt fresh and hopeful. I forgot about the blood on the sand and remembered my conversation with Alex about the knitting shop and decided to ask him about it later.

  When we got to the oil house, the small square building that had once housed the fuel for the lantern and was now home to Captain Jack, we turned around. With the sun behind us I could really appreciate the dawn. It was like a colorist transforming the trees to dark green, the water to a brilliant blue and sky to strips of pink and gold. The vista reminded me of the ribbon gelatin my late Aunt Greta used to make for holiday dinners. Each color was vibrant and lovely and discrete. I'd thought the Jell-o was magic. I thought the morning sky was magic, too.

  I was still smiling at the memory when the dogs and I bounded up the front porch steps, into the foyer and through the open paned-glass door into the parlor.

  An outraged shriek greeted us and I remembered, too late, that Miss Thyra Poonjola was scheduled to present what she called a seminar in this room this morning. Her lecture, Lapasat Historia, or the history of mitten patterns and their importance in Scandinavian-Nordic culture was, in Miss Thyra's view, the capstone of the Juhannus celebration. She had arranged for a reporter from Finn Spin, the campus newspaper from nearby Suomi College, to cover the event and she had spent many hours in preparation for it.

  I stared at the blotches in Miss Thyra's long, sallow face, and noted that stragglers from her severe bun had escaped their confines and wisped around her face and I was aghast. Her small, nondescript eyes were pink from fatigue and the harsh lines that bracketed her thin lips were as deep as World War I trenches. She looked both ill and exhausted.

  "Miss Thyra, you should go up and lie down," I said. I'd gotten used to watching for signs of fatigue in the elderly residents.

  "Get those filthy mongrels out of here!" She shouted, ignoring my suggestion. "That one is covered in mud." She pointed a long, bony finger at Lydia.

  "Not mud. Blood."

  The yellowish tone of Miss Thyra's face turned ghost white.

  "Blood?"

  "At the side of the house. I think it was a seabird." I noticed she was still wearing the high-necked, long-sleeved, black cotton dress she'd worn the day before. "Did you stay up all night?"

  She didn't answer immediately. Her flat chest was heaving and she reminded me of a teapot ready to blow its lid.

  "Voi, Henrikki." I'll admit I was a little shocked at her use of the mild expletive. "Of course I stayed up all night. I had to make sure that everything, everything, was perfect for Lapasat Historia." She waved her hand at the beautifully-lettered banner that hung above pocket doors to the dining room and then at the rows of wooden folding chairs she'd lined up in classroom style, after pushing the Victorian sofa and chairs against the wall. Finally, her fingers led my eyes to a length of clothesline she'd rigged above the mantel piece on the fireplace. Some thirty mittens hung from clothespins and it appeared each one was unique.

  Looking around the room I was reminded of the Moomins.

  When Elli and I were in the first grade, we started to read the series of children's books written by Finnish author Tove Jansson about the funny little hippopotamus-like creatures. In each of the stories, one or the other of the characters had a mission whether it was Moomintroll and his attempt to save his beloved valley, or the whole family's effort to save young Ninny from permanent invisibility or Moominpapa trying to find a way to go live in a lighthouse.

  Like the Moomins, Miss Thyra had a mission. She wished to educate people on the importance of knitting patterns as an element of Nordic culture. Elli had a mission, too. Hers was to provide guests with a Victorian-era experience at her bed-and-breakfast. Sofi's was to keep her shop, Main Street Floral and Fudge solvent while she raised her daughter. Providing a home for the elderly was Riitta's mission. Was it my mission to run a yarn market out of Pops's bait shop? It didn't seem very noble. As I scooped up Lydia and headed for the kitchen, I remembered another character, Too-Ticky, and words she spoke in Moominland in Winter: "One has to discover everything for one's self. And get over it all alone."

  "Halt, Henrikki." Miss Thyra sounded like Heinrich Himmler. "I would like you to wear this for the seminar." She crossed the room and handed me a large bundle that was grayish in color and looked a little like a muskrat that had lost in a skirmish with an SUV. Before I could ask what it was, Aunt Ianthe and Miss Irene entered the parlor from the front hallway.

  Both ladies wore summer shirtwaists with polka dots. Aunt Ianthe's dots were bigger, as befitted a bigger person. They were white on a tan background. Miss Irene's dress was blue with a self-belt. Both wore straw espadrilles on their feet and carried white pocketbooks.

  "My heavens, Thyra," Aunt Ianthe said, admiringly, "you have turned this parlor into a classroom!"

  Miss Thyra nodded her head but said nothing and I thought that my aunt had chosen exactly the right accolade.

  "What on earth is that item you are handing to Hatti?"

  "It's a Korsnas sweater."

  "It looks hot," Aunt Ianthe said, a small line between her eyes. "We don't want her to get dehydrated. Don't forget about the baby."

  "Of course it is hot." Miss Thyra ignored the absurd reference to the fantasy baby. "The sweater is double-knit to ensure warmth for sailors on the North Sea. It is an excellent example of nineteenth century Finnish knitting."

  "It is not a mitten," Miss Irene said, stating the obvious.

  "Academic research cannot be constrained by mundane boundaries," Miss Thyra said, with a sniff. "The audience _ and the press _ will find the Korsnas both interesting and historical." She looked down her long nose at me. "Please do not wea
r it with dungarees, Henrikki. A nice wool skirt will suffice."

  I considered asking her where I might find a wool skirt in the middle of the summer at a lighthouse but Miss Irene had already launched into a Bible verse.

  "Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him (for he had been naked) and did cast himself into the sea. The Book of John."

  Simon Peter would definitely have cast himself into the sea if he'd had to wear the Korsnas sweater. I began to think, longingly, of the deep, cool, lake. I turned toward the kitchen.

  "Hatti, dear," Aunt Ianthe called after me, "we expected to see your bridegroom this morning."

  She caught me off guard and the blood seemed to drain out of my head. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.

  "You mean Jace?"

  My aunt looked embarrassed and chagrined. "Oh, no. I didn't mean to remind you about that, then. I was talking about Captain Jack."

  I summoned a smile and made an effort to comfort her and divert myself. "Did I tell you how he proposed?"

  "Do you mean your real husband," Miss Irene asked.

  "Captain Jack," I said, holding the smile. "He asked if I wanted to be buried in the family plot."

  "And you said yes?" I nodded to Miss Irene.

  "Well, dear, it's all for the best then. And I don't know when Ianthe and I have been so happy. A dear, dear little baby."

  "Miss Irene," I said, gently, "the wedding wasn't real. There is no baby."

  "Maybe not yet," Miss Irene said. "But soon. Children," she added, "are a gift from the Lord."

  Chapter 6

  I found Riitta in the kitchen squeezing oranges for fresh juice. I could smell pannukakku baking in the oven. The traditional oven pancake was a universal favorite. Each of the tables in the dining room had been spread with a snowy, white cloth, settings of Riitta's Finnish flatware and a pitcher of lingonberry syrup. The ladies who came for the lecture on mittens would be rewarded with a late breakfast feast.

  I carried the poodle through the swinging door that connects the dining room with the kitchen and headed for the sink where I washed the blood off Lydia's whiskers. As I worked, I explained the incident to my cousin. She nodded but seemed abstracted.