by Ann Yost
"I've got some bad news on the Erik Sundback front."
"He's the killer?"
"You knew?"
"No. Not for sure. I was hoping I was wrong. He's seemed, I don't know, different, since we've moved in here. Not as kind, you know? More lord-of-the-manner. And I know Miss Thyra's afraid of him."
"Are you very disappointed?"
"Yes. He's been good to all of us. But don't feel sorry for me. I was never going to marry him."
"You'd already decided that?"
"It didn't feel right. Marriage just isn't in the cards for me."
I wanted to argue with her, to point out how well she and Tom Kukka suited one another but it wasn't the time or the place.
"Where are you, anyway?"
"At the lighthouse with Chakra. We've just found some evidence that exonerates Tom and we're on our way home."
"Good," she said. "I'll never be able to thank him enough for what he did for Danny."
"Maybe Danny can find a way to thank him. Alex made him chief beneficiary in his will. The boy's worth a pile of money."
"That's nice," she said. I knew she meant it in just that way, too. She was pleased for Danny but not overwhelmed. Riitta never had and never would be motivated by worldly considerations. "Have you found Jack?"
I made a face. "In the cistern."
"Oh!" She started crying.
"Call Ellwood," I reminded her. "I'll see you soon."
"A false promise, Hatti."
The attorney's deep voice was like a knife to the gut. He was here. The killer. I took a tiny bit of comfort from the fact that I was on the floor behind the desk and he couldn't see me but I knew it wouldn't make any difference in the end. He'd come to kill me. And now he'd kill Chakra, too. I closed my eyes.
"You shouldn't have meddled," Erik Sundback said. "But since you did, you'll have to pay the price. In the meantime, I assume you found the hidden copy of the letter. I'll take it, if you please. Now. And don't expect any assistance from your friend here. She's a bit tied up."
Tied up? I grasped the letter in my left hand and the tightened my fingers around the compass in my right and I lifted my head above the desk. Chakra was standing near the sliding glass door to the gallery and when she saw me she moved enough so that I caught a flash of metal. Sundback had handcuffed her to the door handle.
Geez almighty Louise.
"Don't bother to stall," he drawled. "I called the sheriff's department on my way out here and told them Captain Jack's body was found in the reeds near Dollar Lake. The clown brigade is heading down there as we speak."
That was a blow. Without really thinking about it, I'd assumed Riitta would be able to get Ellwood, at least, out to the lighthouse within half an hour. Stalling had seemed like our best bet. Our only bet, really. Unless I could find a way to overpower a hundred-and-eighty-pound man who had already killed three people.
I stood up behind the desk, although my legs felt like the Sunshine salad my mummi used to make with lemon Jell-o, crushed pineapple and grated carrots.
"First I want you to answer some questions," I said.
"Offhand, I'd say you're not in a position for negotiation," Sundback said. He waved something in his right hand and it felt as if I'd put a wet finger into an electric outlet. The way the pistol gleamed reminded me of his smile. It seemed like pure evil. "But I don't mind giving you some details. What, exactly, do you want to know?" He made a little movement with his head and drew my eyes to the person standing next to him. Or, more accurately, drooping next to him.
"Miss Thyra!"
"The wages of sin is death, Henrikki. But I'm sorry you have to be involved."
For an instant I thought she was going to confess to the murders but only for an instant.
"Miss Thyra, what are you talking about," I asked. "Riitta thinks you've been kidnapped!"
Chapter 35
"She came willingly," Sundback said. He'd lost all of his courteous friendliness and sounded just like a schoolyard bully. "Guilt has taken hold of her. She plans to throw herself off the tower in a fit of remorse. If it makes you feel any better, you are going to try _ unsuccessfully _ to stop her. You will die a hero."
I tried to ignore him.
"Miss Thyra?"
"It was my fault about Alex Martin. And Flossie. I was to blame." I was so astonished I didn't know what to say. I'd suspected she had some kind of guilty knowledge but surely it was the attorney, not Miss Thyra who had killed Alex and Mrs. O.
"I don't understand."
"It was I who hid the body. Mr. Sundback saw me. It was Sunday morning before dawn. I saw something from the dining room window and came out to investigate. When I realized Mr. Martin had fallen from the tower, I panicked. I went down to the cellar, opened the window then fetched the wheelbarrow from the backporch and hefted the body into it. After that I trundled him to the window and deposited him on the coal chute. I haven't felt one moment of peace since my fall from grace. I haven't been able to say my prayers."
"Miss Thyra," I said, still confused, "why did you panic? Why didn't you just call the police?"
"Don't you understand? It was because of my vanity. I knew that if a body was reported at the lighthouse the seminar would be canceled. It was so important to me that the history of mittens be allowed to go on. Too important. I sold my soul for it."
"Then why did you send me down to the cellar?"
"It was a ruse." She sounded exhausted. "I was already sick with guilt. I wanted you to find the body. I was very upset when you came back with nothing more than a clothespin, one I must have dropped when I was depositing the corpse."
I switched my attention to the attorney. "How do you come into all of this?"
"I saw her move the body. I'd gone down to Houghton but had come back to check on my, uh, handiwork, when, to my surprise, I found Miss Thyra struggling with the wheelbarrow. When she was finished and safely back upstairs, I removed Martin's body from the coal chute and hid it in one of the empty steamer trunks, which was no small task. I needed it to be discovered under the tower so there was a chance of a verdict of accident or suicide but, by then, it was light and the house was stirring. I couldn't move the body again until everyone was occupied with the mittens."
"Miss Thyra, did you know who had killed Alex Martin?"
"Not then. Not until you gave me Flossie's mitten. The Arjeplog mitten, blue for a man, the pattern made up by Finnish girls at the workhouse in Swedish Lapland."
"Half Finnish, half Swedish. So when you talked about the thorns on the roses that was just a diversionary tactic. You never thought Danny had killed his father."
"Another sin to add to my account. I was afraid of Sundback. I knew he'd killed Mr. Martin. I suspected he'd killed Flossie." She didn't look at him. "I suppose he killed Captain Jack, too."
"All right," Sundback said, "that's enough chit-chat. Bring me the letter, Hatti."
"Hang on," I said, "I'd still like to know why you killed three people." He didn't respond immediately and I held my breath. He could shoot me or Miss Thyra or even Chakra with a quick twist of his body. Chakra was totally neutralized and he could take Miss Thyra out to the gallery and pitch her into the storm. Except that if he did that, he couldn't control me and I'd be able to lock him out on the gallery. Maybe. I tried to think. There must be a way to save all three of us.
"The old lady had to go. She lip-read a conversation between Martin and me outside the sauna. He'd found out I borrowed some of the trust fund money."
"Two million dollars."
"Ah. I see you found out, too. Well, I had every intention of paying that back and I told him so but he wasn't having any. Martin might have looked like a sun god but he was a vindictive so-and-so. He refused to let me pay it back. He said he'd ruin me, a man who had spent a lifetime building up a reputation beyond reproach."
"Why did you steal the money?"
"A ridiculous question, Hatti. It was there. It was available. It wasn't needed for anything imm
ediate. The lighthouse commission couldn't touch it until the year was up. Why shouldn't I make use of it? That's just good economics. But Martin found out. He accused me of abusing his mother's trust. He accused me of theft. I went up to the watch room and told him I apologized and I was ready for whatever punishment he had in mind. We stepped out on the gallery to watch the storm and I managed to hit him with a rock then push him over."
I swallowed the bile that had risen in my mouth.
"And Captain Jack?"
"Wrong place at the wrong time. He was coming down the circular staircase as I was going up. He didn't suspect me. Why should he? I found him in the kitchen, asked him to help me with something in the cellar and took care of him there."
"With the rock?"
"And the knife in his belt."
Jack's puukko knife. My stomach turned over.
"And then you dumped him in the cistern."
"That's why I couldn't use it the next day to hide Martin's body. The whole thing got too complicated."
"It doesn't seem to me you used much finesse," I pointed out, not sure why I was taking a chance on goading him. "I mean, a caveman could have bashed two people over the head and pushed one off a tower. I suppose you smothered Mrs. Ollanketo with a pillow."
"You suppose nothing of the sort," he said. His voice was a little strained as if he were reining in his temper. "That was a piece of sleight of hand. Kukka asked me to empty the syringe and I did so, right into the bathroom glass. I cleaned out the syringe and later came back and refilled it. It was, as you might imagine, child's play to inject the old lady while she was asleep."
"You think you were so clever," I said, with some bitterness. "You'd never have been able to trick Tom if he hadn't trusted you."
"His mistake. Bring me the letter."
I was out of time. I'd tried stalling but no one had come to rescue us. I tightened my fingers around the compass. It wasn't much, especially against a loaded pistol, but it was something. I had some idea of thrusting the letter at his left hand, the one not holding the pistol, and then swinging my arm up to gouge his eye out. Hopefully, the shock and pain would make him drop the gun and I'd be able to kick it out of the way.
"What about Riitta," I said, as inspiration struck. "Don't you think she'll be a little upset when she finds out you killed all three of her retirement home residents, to say nothing of her cousin?"
"Not my problem," he said. "We are finished."
Of course he'd figured that out.
"Did you ever want her?"
"I wanted to marry her. As soon as I found out Martin planned to leave her the lighthouse and the trust fund. I'd have been home free. If the lighthouse went to the county, I'd have been the one in charge of finances and I could pay back the loan at my leisure. If it went to Riitta, and we were married, she'd have given me full responsibility for the project with the same result."
"But you switched the letters from Alex Martin on Saturday night. You couldn't have known by then that she wasn't going to marry you."
"I knew. She was pretending to think about it but she was fooling herself. She'd never have married me."
He had, I thought, a lot of insight for a murderer.
"Did you care for her?" I had a sudden thought. "Did you steal the money to renovate the house for Riitta?"
"I borrowed the money to buy a new boat," he said. "Life is not a fairytale. Now, if you haven't brought me that letter by the count of three, I'll blow all three of you to kingdom come, starting with the old lady. One... two..."
Was he serious? I had no idea but, considering that he'd already killed three people in cold blood, I couldn't take the chance. I lurched around the desk and toward him, deliberately stumbling so that when I slammed the letter at his left hand, it would look like an accident.
The plan went perfectly. Well, up to a point. I thrust the letter at him, he grabbed at it and then I raised my arm to stab him in the face.
Turns out taking an eye for an eye is harder than you might think. I couldn't do it. As a result, he had enough time to recover his own balance and to swing the pistol around so that I was facing the barrel.
Time seemed to stand still. I was aware of Miss Thyra drooping like a sack of potatoes next to Sundback and of Chakra over by the door. My body felt frozen but my mind was anguished with my missed chance. We were all going to die. And then Chakra Starshine, yoga instructor and widow of Alex Martin, saved the day. She barked a command at me.
"Hatti! Defensive cross!"
Chapter 36
Reflexively I tensed my arms, slammed my elbows together, jerked them upwards and scissor-ed them hard. I distinctly heard the snap of a bone breaking followed by an outraged cry and the sound of the pistol hitting the wooden floor. I'd done it! I'd disarmed him. Miss Thyra sprang to life and kicked the gun out of the way and, at the same time, Chakra once again came to my aid.
"The door, Hatti."
She'd managed to open the slider and the screen and rainwater sheeted into the room. I raced toward the door and out onto the slippery concrete of the gallery.
Once again my mind slowed down but this time I wasn't paralyzed with fear and indecision. I could save us all if I took this one step at a time. The next move was to find the stationary ladder, a series of some six iron rungs permanently attached to the side of the lantern room. I could see virtually nothing and the gallery itself felt like a skating rink but I knew the rungs were located about ten feet away, on the side of the tower that faced the lake. I held my left hand on the wall and counted my steps, moving as quickly as seemed safe.
My hope was that he'd follow me, thereby allowing Chakra and Miss Thyra to hole themselves up in the watch room. Once I'd climbed to the little door into the lantern room, I'd be okay. I could bar the door against Erik. I could call for help.
I felt the first rung with my left hand and my spirits rose even more. In fact, I had to fight a sense of pure invincibility. I'd faced a loaded gun and I'd prevailed. I'd employed a self-defense maneuver and broken an adult man's arm. Ulna or tibia? Did it matter? I raised my right hand to the second rung and swung myself up just as a gust of wind knocked me to the side and lightning flashed. All of a sudden I remembered that I was on a fifty-foot tower trying to balance on an iron rung in an electrical storm. Had I vanquished Erik Sundback only to turn into a Benjamin Franklin science experiment? Geez Louise! I told myself to focus. I hoisted myself upwards, grabbing another rung, climbing from one rung to another with my feet.
I needed to stay calm. I thought about the mighty lake beneath me. I tried to remember the statistics, the numbers of men who had died in the angry waves. Tens of thousands of them. And what of the Painted Rock Lighthouse? It had stood here for a century. It had been active only a part of that time and yet it had stood between sailors and death. It stood between me and death now. I found myself thinking of words from Moominpappa at Sea.
"She found it slow going but somehow she managed. She had time. She had nothing else but time."
An instant later, as I lifted my left foot to join my right on the third rung of the ladder, time ran out. Hard, angry fingers curled around my ankle and jerked my leg. An image of myself battered and broken on the wet sand at the foot of the lighthouse flashed before my mind's eye. I thought of those I'd leave behind: Mom and Pops, Sofi, Charlie, Elli would be sad. Jace would be sad, too. At least at first. In the long run he might be relieved not to have to go through a divorce.
The jerk came again and, along with it, a muttered curse. Rain spanked my face and body. It got into my nose and mouth and made it hard to breathe. I focused the way Chakra had taught us to do, as if the entire world is a tiny camera aperture. All I had to do was shake off the manacle. I kicked back hard but the gripping fingers just tightened. Maybe I hadn't broken his arm. Or, maybe, he had more sisu than I. That thought made me angrier than anything else. Was I going to let him flick me off the tower like an annoying insect? I was not. I had one arrow left in my quiver. One very small arro
w. I was still clutching the schoolboy compass. I steadied myself from the most recent jerk, then swung my arm down, hoping to bury the tin point into Erik Sundback's muscular shoulder.
It would be risky. Once I let go with my right hand, I'd be even more vulnerable. I had to hit the target. I had to inflict enough damage to make him let go of me. I sucked in a breath and went for the Hail Mary moment.
I missed.
Well, not entirely. I'd contacted with his shoulder but he'd brushed off the attack as if I were a spider. I was now holding my entire weight up with my left hand and I needed a miracle. I got as far as "please, dear Lord," when it happened. The dark and stormy night exploded into a fireball of light and the last trumpet, in the voice of an old-fashioned foghorn, blasted the news that the end had come.
And it had come for Erik Sundback. Already off balance from my pitiful attack, he reeled backwards letting go of my ankle to wind-mill his arms in a desperate attempt to catch himself. I glimpsed a look of pure rage on his wide, handsome face.
And then he was gone.
Chapter 37
It was over.
Well, mostly, over. All but the part where I had to scrape myself off the stationary ladder and limp back along the gallery. Now that I could let go, safely, it was hard to do it. The hold that had felt so precarious only seconds earlier, felt secure. I felt an odd mixture of relief (that I was not splatted on the ground like a fried egg) and inertia. My limbs felt rooted in place. My fingers felt numb. Even my eyelids were heavy. I didn't want to climb down. I just wanted to go to sleep.
This would, I thought, be an excellent time for a caped superhero to appear. Superman or Batman or even Aquaman, considering how wet everything was. No one showed up, though, and I supposed I should be grateful for the one miracle and not expect another. I pried my fingers loose from the rung and slowly made my way back down the ladder then I hugged the wall with my right hand. The gallery floor seemed more treacherous than it had with someone chasing me. It seemed to take forever to get back to the sliding door and the shelter of the light keeper's study.