by Ann Yost
The thirty minutes had to accommodate more than just the murder. Alex had told Riitta he was giving her the lighthouse and trust fund but after she left, he changed his mind, wrote a letter outlining his intention of giving the whole kit and caboodle to the county, delivered the letter to her bedroom on the second floor and returned to the watch room in time to die before the rain started. I wondered how often real-life detectives encountered the problem of too many incidents for a small time frame. It seemed like an embarrassment of riches. The problem was that I needed to clear both Danny and Riitta, which meant I needed another viable suspect and it had to be someone Alex trusted enough to accompany out onto the gallery.
I walked, slowly, deep in thought, while the dogs raced on ahead. Well, raced is probably the wrong word. Larry ambled and Lydia scrambled a few steps then stopped to dance around in a circle before scrambling a few more steps. As I reached the fence that separates the lighthouse yard from the lakeshore, I gazed at the water. The mid-afternoon sun in the bluebird sky had turned it to turquoise, the color of Alex Martin's eyes. And Danny's.
A sudden shout pierced my chest like a bullet at close range.
"Umlaut!"
For a split second I couldn't seem to suck any air into my lungs or any sense into my brain. It was Jace's nickname for me. Intellectually, I knew it wasn't my husband, that he couldn't, wouldn't be here on the Keweenaw but emotionally, it felt like schrapnel. I took a deep breath and turned to see Max Guthrie striding toward me across the sand.
"Hatti? Are you all right?" He sounded concerned and I realized I wasn't smiling. I made an effort to lift the corners of my mouth.
"Hey, Max. Good to see you!"
It sounded as forced as it felt and what made that particularly galling was that I really was glad to see him. I really liked Max. More than liked, actually. This business of reacting to a nickname like a third-grader getting blasted with a dodgeball was part of the haunting of the almost ex-husband but there was no way to explain that.
Max had appeared out of nowhere last year. He'd bought the abandoned fishing camp Namagok located between Red Jacket and the Copper Eagle Reservation, and reopened it. He and I had bonded over bait. He was tall, broad-shouldered, loose-limbed and moved like a young man, but the effects of forty years of hard living showed on his rugged features. Max was as craggy as the Marlboro Man and his dark hair, liberally streaked with silver, emphasized the deep tan of his complexion. I especially liked the long, vertical creases in his lean cheeks and the glitter in his chocolate brown eyes. He was that rare combination of a man's man and a guy who liked women and, therefore, understood us.
There were those among my friends, specifically my Pollyanna-ish cousin Elli, who thought a romance might develop between Max and me. Sometimes I thought she was right. Then there were the times, like now, when I let my husband's defection poison the well of my life.
"I guess you heard what happened out here."
He nodded. "Mysterious death. Probably homicide. That's why I came. Thought you could use some back up."
"Me? Why would I need back up?" His grin was pure male and it reminded me that for six months I'd been living like a nun.
"Are you trying to tell me you haven't jumped into this hornet's nest up to your pretty neck? I know you better than that."
"You think my neck is pretty?"
"Definitely. And worth preserving."
"Well, thanks, but I'm not a kid. I can take care of myself."
Max had bent over to rub the soft skin behind Larry's ear with one hand and the curls on Lydia's neck with the other. Both dogs had their eyes closed. Max looked up at me.
"I know you can. But this isn't a TV show, Hatti. When a real person commits a murder it's either because he's a sociopath or desperate. Either way, everybody involved is in jeopardy. Where were you heading when I startled you," he asked. I told him about my errand to the oil house and he invited himself along. "Want to tell me about it?"
I realized I did. Max, along with a magnificently male body, had a good brain. I wanted to tell him what I knew. I wanted to get his thoughts about that crowded half hour last night before the storm.
I started at the beginning with Alex's arrival during the faux wedding.
"He had come back at the eleventh hour to claim the lighthouse and it was like someone throwing a hand grenade into a Sunday school picnic. The festival continued but tension and anxiety swirled around like smoke from the barbecue. One old lady had a seizure. Several people, including me, tried to talk Alex into relinquishing the lighthouse so it could be used as a retirement home."
"Did he agree to that?"
"Basically, yes, but there's some disagreement about how and when. He met with several people last night up in the watch room in the tower and, at this point anyway, we think he was hit with a rock or something and pushed off the gallery around a quarter of one. Before that, there was a parade of people in and out of the room."
"You've learned a lot."
"Bits and pieces. And some of it is contradictory." I told him the theory about the body being moved. "That doesn't make sense and yet, Alex's clothes were damp and the sand under the body was dry. None of it makes sense, especially not the part where he agreed to let us keep the lighthouse but he was killed anyway."
"Sounds like somebody didn't get the memo."
"Yep."
"Some of this will get untangled with the autopsy," Max said, soothingly. "At this point, it's important to collect all the evidence and all the statements and then you can put everything together and sort it out. Is there anybody you suspect? Is anybody acting out of character?"
I contemplated the question before I answered.
"You know, there is someone. Miss Thyra Poonjola. She's generally sharp-tongued but never sickly and all day she's looked like moldy cream cheese and complained of a migraine. And this was her big day. She gave a lecture on mittens and it was so important to her she stayed up all night preparing for it."
Max looked thoughtful. "That might explain her ailments," he said. "Or, maybe, she observed something suspicious in the small hours of the night."
I stared at him. "You mean the murder? You think Miss Thyra is an eyewitness?"
"I don't think you can leap to that conclusion," he said, with a chuckle. "Just find out what she noticed." We walked a moment in silence. "At the risk of stating the obvious, money is usually a pretty solid motive for murder. You might try to find out what happens to the rest of Martin's estate, not including the lighthouse."
It was a heartening thought. It meant we could expand the investigation to Alex's L.A. life and, maybe, just maybe, the murderer would turn out to be someone from the outside.
"Don't count on it," Max said, reading my mind. "The lighthouse is pretty remote. It would have been hard for an outsider to show up and push someone off the gallery without being noticed." He grinned at my woebegone expression. "On the other hand, if you're planning to commit a murder, the Keweenaw is the perfect spot to do it. Very few witnesses, very little law enforcement."
"Great," I said, heavily. "I'll have to tell Arvo. He can start marketing us as the perfect spot for a destination murder."
As we reached the copse where the Wiccans had celebrated the previous night, I remembered something Chakra had mentioned to me.
"Someone told me she'd seen the lighthouse lantern on a couple of weeks ago. It was a weeknight, I think, and the light went on for about ten minutes."
"Captain Jack keeps the antique lens clean, right? Maybe he does an occasional trial run just to make sure the circuits are working. Who saw it?"
"Chakra Starshine. She's the yoga instructor in town. Have you met her?"
"Yeah."
I had to laugh. Of course Max had met her. In a population of less than a thousand people, a six-foot tall woman with silk-like black hair, green eyes that turn up at the corners and luscious lips would not go unnoticed, especially by Max.
"Have you dated her?"
"I'm
too old to date, Hatti. We've talked some."
"About downward dog, sphinx position? Plank?"
He took the kidding well. "What did she tell you about the light?"
"She, and her consort Sebastian, were out here that night and right after they saw the light go on, a small motorboat docked at the oil house. They watched while Captain Jack and the boat driver carried something from the boat to the cabin. Sebastian thinks they're smuggling cocaine from Canada."
Max laughed. "In a small motorboat? I think it's unlikely. And even if it's true, how does Alex Martin fit into that? He only returned yesterday, right?"
I shrugged. "Maybe he got an anonymous tip. Oh, and that reminds me. Someone called the student newspaper over at Suomi College and told them there was a body at the lighthouse. Only it was hours before we actually found a body."
Max looked thoughtful.
"The tip is interesting. Has to be the murderer. I suppose there's no way to trace the call."
"I'll ask Sheriff Clump," I said, "if I can catch him between meals."
"Like that, is it? Poor Hatti. Well, let's see what Jack has to say."
Chapter 16
The oil house, built originally to store the oil that fueled the light source in the lantern and to provide a platform for the long, foghorns that warned ships of the nearby shoals, was small and square and made of stucco with an asbestos shingled roof. The insides had been turned into a cottage some forty years earlier and Captain Jack had lived in it for many years while he did odd jobs for Mrs. Marttinen and kept an eye on the antique lens at the lighthouse.
The metal door was shut and a faded curtain over the front window blocked any view of the interior. Tufts of grass grew unchecked from under the building's concrete foundation. The little house looked as abandoned as any of the dozen and a half ghost towns on the Keweenaw.
I knocked and waited and then knocked again. When there was no answer, Max looked at me.
"Have you got a key?"
My lips twitched at his question.
"You've forgotten our unwritten rule. We only lock our doors if we're going to Florida. Or the hospital. We're way more afraid of locking ourselves out and freezing to death than we are of break-ins. Besides, people are always dropping off hot dishes and plates of bars."
"To Captain Jack?" Max sounded skeptical.
I shrugged. "I doubt there's anything here to steal and, well, we just kind of think it's an affront to our neighbors to lock the doors."
He lifted an amused eyebrow. "Captain Jack is worried about offending his neighbors?" He looked at the lake and the sand and the trees.
I decided it was time to shut down the jokes about our community and reached around him to press down on the door's latch. It opened, immediately. The cabin felt empty. No, more than empty. It felt bereft.
After the brilliant sunshine, the shadows engulfed us. I pulled the chain on the single lamp in the main room that appeared to be both a living area and a kitchenette. Both were sparsely furnished and tidy. A beaten-up recliner occupied the corner with the lamp and there was a bookshelf nearby. A copy of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea sat on the lamp table and next to it was a pair of reading glasses. The spectacles reminded me of Alex and stuck a dagger into my heart. It seemed to me that one of two things had happened. Either Jack had killed Alex Martin and skedaddled, or whoever had killed Alex had also killed Jack. Why I should think that I didn't know, but in that moment, I found myself believing in Option B.
The kitchenette occupied the back wall and included a small window framed with faded red-and-white gingham curtains, a sink and very short counter that held a toaster oven and a hot plate. A college dorm-room-sized refrigerator was tucked underneath.
"I'd say Jack's a minimalist," Max said into my ear. I jumped. I'd forgotten he was there.
"Did you see this?" Max handed me a half-whittled piece of wood. It was clearly intended to be the Painted Rock Lighthouse and it touched my heart and my nerves.
"Simple arrangements," I agreed, "but comfortable. He takes most of his meals at the lighthouse."
The bedroom occupied the other half of the small house. It was even smaller than my room in the lighthouse, the floor space almost completely taken up with a twin-sized mattress. There was no bedframe, no box spring, only a blue-and-white striped comforter and a pair of pillows that had been placed side by each, as Pops would say. Both pillows were dented, an indication they'd been used recently.
"Interesting configuration on the pillows," I said.
Max sent me an amused glance.
"I'd say, offhand, that two people slept here. Only natural when you consider it was Captain Jack's wedding night."
Except that the old man hadn't shared his bed with his bride.
I picked up one of the pillows with the idea of smelling it but I was distracted when something light and silvery flew through the air and dropped onto the long boards of the floor. I scooped it up and stared at the item on my palm.
"Looks like an earring," Max said, peering over my shoulder at the encircled five-point star. "Have you seen it before?"
"It's a pentacle," I said, grimly, "a Wiccan symbol. I saw it last night on Chakra Starshine. Apart from its mate, it was the only thing she was wearing."
"I think we can assume she was not here with Captain Jack," Max said.
"No. I imagine she and Sebastian decided to shelter here when the storm started. But that means..." My voice trailed off and Max finished the obvious thought.
"That means that Jack never came back here last night." His voice was gentle but inexorable. "That's been likely all along, Hatti. It doesn't mean Jack is the murderer."
But it could mean that. Or it could mean he was dead. I shuddered.
"You've got to face something else, too," Max continued. "If Chakra spent the night here, she had the means and the opportunity to kill Alex Martin."
"But there's no motive." I was ashamed of the pleading note in my voice. I cleared my throat. "There's no motive," I repeated. "No reason for Chakra to want to kill him. As far as I know, she never even met him."
Max poked his head into the mouse hole of a bathroom.
"There's no sink and no shower," he said.
"No need," I replied, absently. "Jack could wash his hands in the kitchen and he'd bathe in the lake or the sauna."
"What sauna?"
"Oh, there's a sauna," I said. "Has to be. There must be an outside entrance."
"Let's go look," he suggested. On the way, he asked the age-old question. "When the rest of the civilized world pronounces the word saw-na, why do you Yoopers make it sound like a female pig?"
"Because in Finnish, every syllable is pronounced with the emphasis on the first. The word is properly pronounced sa-oo-na. When we speed it up, it ends up sow-na."
Max lifted his left eyebrow.
"Apart from the fact that Finns almost never speak rapidly, how do you happen to know that?"
I grinned at him. "You aren't the first outsider who has asked the question. I looked it up. Anyway, no self-respecting Finlander like Jack would live in a cabin without a sauna."
"I have no objection to steam baths," he said, "but I don't understand why it's almost like a religion for some of you."
"It is like a religion," I explained, as we walked back into the sunlight on our way around the little cabin. The dogs, who had waited nearby in the shade, joined us. "It's tradition. Finnish pioneers have always built the sauna first and the homestead second. The sauna is a place that's warm and sanitary. Generations of babies have been born in the sauna. Generations of families have spent their Saturday nights there. In our culture, it's a sanctuary."
He grinned at me. "When was the last time you took a sauna?"
"Three days ago. I went with Mrs. Ollanketo. I'll take her again as soon as she's recovered."
"Lucky Mrs. Ollanketo," he murmured, in a voice that brought the color to my cheeks. "Here's the entrance."
The door to the sauna was fastened wi
th a padlock, which surprised me.
"Apparently Jack doesn't welcome food-bearing, drop-in guests to his bath," Max said. He produced a pocket knife, popped the lock and opened the door into another small space, this one covered with red cedar boards. There was a small stove topped by rocks, a bucket and ladle nearby and a built-in bench called a lavat on the wall. There was also a barrel filled with woodchips.
"So this is where the magic happens," Max said. "How hot does it get in here, anyway?"
"Around 120 Fahrenheit," I said. "The tradition is to cool off afterwards in the lake or a snow bank and then go eat a sausage and drink a beer." I flashed on the image of Erik Sundback handing a beer to Alex Martin when the latter had come out of the sauna by the lake. Erik had said he didn't know much about Finnish culture but he'd absorbed more than he'd realized. Or, maybe, he was being a courteous host.
"So the fire is fed with those woodchips and water is poured on top of the stones giving off the steam?" I nodded. "Sometimes the bather hits himself gently with birch twigs to stimulate circulation but I'm guessing all available birch twigs were confiscated for yesterday's Juhannus festival." I stopped, suddenly and Max eyed me with concern.
"What's the matter? What's wrong?"
"Danny and Captain Jack gathered up all the birch twigs and woodchips from here and the lighthouse for the bonfire," I said, slowly. "There shouldn't be any woodchips here."
"There must be an explanation," Max said.
My voice shook. "I can't think of one."
A strong arm came around my shoulder and he gave me a little squeeze. And then he began to dig through the chips, scattering them on the floor. He found what he was looking for a minute later. It turned out to be a corrugated cardboard box, about twelve inches by twenty-four and strapped with heavy-duty packing tape which reminded me of mummi's dress.