A Double-Pointed Murder

by Ann Yost

  “She caught an early morning jet.”

  “A jet? From the Hancock Airfield?”

  Elli hesitated, as if she didn’t want to explain.

  “She flew out of O’Hare,” she said, then blurted out the rest before I could ask. “Max drove her down to Chicago.”

  “Max? Max Guthrie? My Max? I thought those two were sworn enemies. Anyway, why would he go to Chicago without telling me?” Max, a forty-year-old outdoorsman with way more than his fair share of sex appeal, had bought Namagok, an old fishing camp. We’d bonded over bait, a shared sense of humor and (what I’d thought was) a mutual attraction.

  This time both Elli’s delicate eyebrows lifted.

  “That’s over, remember? You’re back with Jace now.”

  I hadn’t remembered. I wondered now why the recollection brought with it no warmth.

  “Anyway, it was just a ride.”

  “Huh. Anything else I should know about?”

  As she was shaking her head I heard my name shouted at maximum decibel level. My real name. Henrikki. I tensed and grimaced at my cousin. I called out, reluctantly.

  “In here, Mrs. Paikkonen.”

  The door from the corridor swung open and a black-clad wraith-like figure exploded into the room. The Wicked Witch of the West incarnate. All she needed was the pointed hat. She shook a long, bony finger in my face.

  “You, missy,” she hissed, “have a problem.”

  I was vaguely aware of Elli kneeling by the quivering basset hound and of my great Aunt Ianthe, tall, large-boned and majestic, with her head full of snow-white curls and her magnificent bosom like the prow of a ship as she surged into the room behind Mrs. Pike. Miss Irene, following in her wake, like a small, neat, tugboat, wore her snowy tresses in a coronet on top of her head.

  Elli and I had spent many hours of our childhood in the aunts’s old-fashioned parlor. They’d taught us to knit and play canasta. They’d provided a haven from the cruel world of grammar school. They’d always been around to protect and defend us and they were doing it again now. Whatever I’d done, whatever I was guilty of, they were the cavalry, here to help.

  “My land, Eudora,” Aunt Ianthe said, trying to force the witch’s attention away from me. “What on Earth is the matter?”

  * * *

  Mrs. Pike refused to be distracted. She bore down on me, her long, spindly arms cartwheeling, her steely gaze so close to my face that my eyes crossed. I expected her to utter something unforgivable, like an accusation against my sister and I found I was holding my breath.

  And then she surprised me.

  With a black scowl on her long, thin face, Mrs. Paikkonen gripped my upper arm with a surprising strength for a woman in her seventies. She hauled me through the kitchen and dining room and into the corridor that led to the foyer where Elli’s handsome, stained-glass, double front door stood open. I glimpsed the airport van parked at the curb. It was disgorging passengers. Very fish-out-of-water passengers. They looked as if they’d come from Oz and gotten dumped in Kansas.

  Or Upper Michigan.

  I heard Elli’s soft Finnish curse.

  “Voi kahua. Guests? Didn’t they get the memo? I’m closed for the month. The plumbers have already started renovations on the bathrooms.”

  “Maybe it’s an alien invasion,” I said, making a weak joke.

  “Nonsense, Henrikki. These are the television people,” Mrs. Pike said in the same tone she’d have used to say, “these are the heathens.”

  “Television people?” Aunt Ianthe repeated. She and Miss Irene had followed us to the door. “Didn’t anyone tell them we don’t have a television station on the Keweenaw?”

  “They are here,” Eudora Paikkonen said, “to film a television show.” At that, a small bell dinged in my memory.

  “Arvo,” I breathed. “This is one of his schemes, isn’t it? Something he told us would put Red Jacket on the map?”

  Arvo Maki is our funeral director. He holds a string of leadership positions in the community from Head selectman to president of the Library Board and the Historical Society. He is chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. In short, he is the face of Red Jacket, our Grand Pooh-Bah. He had undoubtedly arranged for whatever this was and normally, he’d be in the thick of it. But he was uncharacteristically missing in action because of our last murder.

  “They’re here now and somebody besides Arvo is going to have to deal with it,” I said.

  “Not somebody,” Mrs. Paikkonen said. “The acting vice chair of the chamber of commerce. You.”

  “Me?” I stared at her.

  “We held an emergency executive meeting before Arvo left town,” Mrs. Pike continued. “You were unanimously elected to the post.”

  I wanted to protest. I didn’t have time to deal with one of Arvo’s crazy schemes for putting us on the map. I had to find out who’d murdered Cricket Koski. I had to help Lars. I had no time to deal with show biz people. But said people were now mincing their way up the shoveled path to Elli’s front door and, really, there was no one else to handle this.

  Did I mention that, here on the Keweenaw, we all have to wear multiple hats?

  Chapter 4

  The couple that reached the front door first looked like figures off the top of a Northern-Exposure Barbie-and-Ken wedding cake. They were both tall and slim. His expensively cut, black wool overcoat, white silk cravat and helmet of dark hair, styled with product and sealed with hairspray were complemented by the expressionless countenance of his neat, symmetrical features. Barbie, clinging to his arm, was a vision in winter white, a snow princess clad in an ankle-length coat with a gigantic fur hat with twists and curls of fur as white as the midnight sun. Her features were lovely, small and well-cut and, if not for the sullen scowl on her face, she’d have been beautiful. She batted, ineffectively, at the falling snow.

  Oh dear.

  The gentleman flashed a mouthful of brilliant white teeth at me when he got close enough to speak.

  “I,” he said, miraculously holding onto his smile as he spoke, “am Vincent Tallmaster.”

  The following pause indicated that I should recognize the name. I replied with my name only and he redoubled his efforts to impress.

  “You will have seen some of my documentaries, two of which, I have it on good authority, were on the long list for the Academy Awards.” He quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Skin: The Secret of Reducing Arm Flab, and, even more recently, The True Story of Bryan Mole.”

  “Who is Bryan Mole,” Elli asked, after stepping to the door and introducing herself.

  “Bryan Mole,” Tallmaster said, with just a touch of impatience, “invented the light bulb.”

  “I thought that was Thomas Edison,” Elli said.

  “That’s a common misconception,” Tallmaster sniffed. “Perpetrated by, among others, the U.S. Patent Office.”

  “Oh,” she said. “What is the secret, by the way? About reducing arm flab, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “Stop eating. Exercise. There’s no magic bullet.”

  “I’m Helena Tallmaster,” the woman said, clearly annoyed, whether by the conversation or the weather, I couldn’t tell. I soon found out.

  “What’s with all the snow?”

  I didn’t bother to explain that we were in the forty-seventh parallel and bounded by great lakes which meant we frequently experienced two hundred feet of snow during the season.

  “We get a lot of it,” I murmured.

  Elli decided we’d done enough fencing and invited the Tallmasters to come in. A moment later three more newcomers approached the porch. The phrase motley crew came into my head. I forced a smile and an apology.

  “I’m afraid you’ve caught us at a loss but please come in and get warm.”

  Elli, turning away from the Tallmasters, seconded the invitation and added the offer of coffee and pancakes.

  “Pannukakku?” The familiar word helped me untangle the trio as it was spoken by a slim, blond man of about my age. He noted my s
urprise and laughed.

  “I’m Seth Virtunan. I have an antiques shop in Royal Oak, down by Detroit, but I spent summers in the UP.”

  “Do you always get this much snow?” The question came from the most colorful woman I’d ever seen. She wore a voluminous cape of many colors. Bright red hair curled up and away from her round face. She looked like a cross between Medusa and the bird lady from Mary Poppins. She was short and plump and introduced herself as Serena Waterfall, a textile artist from New York City. Her question was inquisitive without being critical and I grinned at her.

  “You wouldn’t ask if you could see the municipal budget. Most of it is used for moving snow from one side of Main Street to the other.”

  The final newcomer was Harry Dent, a middle-aged man of average height with a decent, compact build, copper-colored hair and penetrating amber eyes. His easy smile seemed to break down all barriers. It was as if he knew my faults and accepted them, as if we were already friends. The seductive twinkle in his eyes sent a not unpleasant shiver up my spine and I wondered what on earth Arvo had let us in for.

  “We apologize for what must seem like an invasion on New Year’s Day,” Harry said, when everyone had eaten and we were settled in the parlor. The local ladies, including Miss Irene, Aunt Ianthe, Mrs. Paikkonen, Mrs. Moilanen and Mrs. Sorensen, had taken up their knitting projects. I winced when I noticed they were all working on socks which meant double-pointed needles. Harry continued.

  “Our arrangements were made some time ago with Arvo Maki, your mayor?” He looked at me for corroboration.

  “Something like that,” I murmured. I couldn’t help returning his smile. Mrs. Paikkonen was less charmed.

  “Mr. Maki is away on unavoidable business,” she said, overhearing us. “In his absence, Ms. Lehtinen will serve as your local liaison.”

  I swallowed a groan.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “you would like to give us some idea of why you are here.” Harry Dent winked at me and read my mind.

  “And what in the heck we want from you, right? That only seems fair. Here it is. Vincent and Helena are producing a new regional television series. The idea is to visit towns off the beaten path and encourage the locals to bring their treasures to be evaluated by experts. We,” he said, indicating Seth, Serena and himself, “are knowledgeable about everything from military history to dishes to jewelry to textiles to art. Arvo agreed to let us videotape the pilot here in Red Jacket.”

  “Excuse me,” Vincent Tallmaster said, getting to his feet. He deliberately peered at each of the dozen or so people in Elli’s parlor, waiting until the knitting ladies looked up from their work before he spoke. He held his hands in a dramatic pose and intoned a question.

  “What is in your attic?”

  As his gaze had landed on Aunt Ianthe, it was she who spoke.

  “Bats. Probably some mice.”

  “And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing and the bat,” Miss Irene said, adding, “Leviticus.”

  Harry Dent seemed to be choking back a laugh.

  “What Vincent means,” Serena said, in a kindly voice, “is what kinds of treasures are stored in your attics? That’s the name of our show, What’s in Your Attic?”

  For a moment I wondered how anyone in his right mind would choose a place to search for treasures where the twenty-two percent unemployment rate had held steady for years and then I remembered the persuasive powers of Arvo Maki. No doubt he’d emphasized the uniqueness of our town and not its poverty.

  “Harrumph,” Mrs. Paikkonen said. “Sounds like an Antiques Roadshow knock off.” Vincent frowned at her.

  “That’s the idea,” Seth said. “The twist is that our show will focus on rural areas, rather than cities. We want to showcase the real America.”

  “We will be counting on all of you to help us come up with the theme in the next day or two while we get the message out to the community and get our cameras set up,” Vincent said.

  “Cameras set up where, dearie?” Aunt Ianthe asked.

  “Perhaps the church’s social hall,” Mrs. Moilanen said.

  “Or the high school auditorium,” suggested Diane Hakala, the wife of our pharmacist.

  “The theater!” Aunt Ianthe clapped her hands, pleased at the brainstorm. “We have the oldest opera house in the state.”

  “I don’t know,” Miss Irene said. “Someone would have to call Ollie to turn on the heat and the lights. The building hasn’t been used since the Salute to Sibelius at last year’s Heikkinpaiva Festival.”

  “Heikkin-what?” The question came from Helena Tallmaster.

  “It’s a mid-winter festival,” the Reverend Sorensen said. “It is to celebrate the bear rolling over onto his other side. In other words, it commemorates the beginning of the end of winter. We have a parade, smorgasbord, a polar dip and a wife-carrying race.”

  Harry Dent broke into the moment of awed silence.

  “The opera house sounds like the perfect venue. I’d like to thank you for your cooperation and your hospitality. We hit the jackpot when we decided to set the pilot on the Keweenaw.”

  I wondered if he would still believe that when he found out we’d become the murder capital of the UP.

  “It shouldn’t be hard to come up with a theme,” Seth said, smiling at Aunt Ianthe. “This is the land of sauna and smorgasbord and pasties.”

  Vincent favored him with a cold look.

  “It’s pronounced pasty,” he said, making the vowel long, “and my show will not include a reference to anything as off-color as a strip tease.”

  “Pasties,” Elli said, coming to Seth’s rescue and pronouncing the word correctly, “are pocket pies. Vegetables and meat are baked into a crust. They were invented, originally, for miners who wanted a hot meal in the middle of the day when they were underground.”

  “I doubt whether you will find any treasures in the Keweenaw attics,” Mrs. Moilanen said. “More like to find antlers and paintings of dogs playing poker than a Monet or a Picasso.”

  Harry chuckled. “I’m very fond of dogs playing poker.”

  “And that’s saying something,” Serena chimed in. “Harry was on the FBI’s art theft investigation squad. He is a bona fide art expert.”

  “You know, there could be forgotten treasures in our attics. There’s almost no new housing stock and families hang onto their homes for multiple generations,” I said, thinking about it. “The attics are seldom emptied out.”

  “Excellent,” Vincent said, looking a little calmer. “But I don’t want to just do some ethnic theme. We need a better hook.”

  No one had anything to suggest. Eventually Helena Tallmaster spoke.

  “If we are going to stay in this godforsaken icebox, I’d like to get settled in my room.”

  Elli’s eyes met mine. She began to explain the renovations but Helena cut her off.

  “Bottom line. Where am I supposed to sleep tonight?”

  After a short discussion we decided to put the crew members, who were scheduled to arrive in the afternoon, at the Leaping Deer and to feed everyone there. The cast members were divided between my house (Harry and Serena), Aunt Ianthe’s house (Seth) and the funeral home (the Tallmasters.) Mrs. Paikkonen agreed to serve as hostess at the latter although she did so with pursed lips and narrowed eyes.

  As we finalized the arrangements I wondered how I’d ever find the time to investigate Cricket Koski’s murder. I also thought about the possible ways to punish Arvo if he ever came home. Boiling oil, bamboo shoots under his fingernails and the hoisting of the Swedish flag on the flagpole at the park came to mind.

  Chapter 5

  It was early afternoon when I drove the visitors down to Main Street. The snow had started to fall harder and, for once, I was glad. The fresh fall hid a multitude of sins including discolored brick and faded paint and even buckling rooflines. Our downtown, drab and uninspired in June, looked like a Dickensian village.

  Since I’ve made such a point of our economic problems
I should probably explain that it wasn’t always this way on the Keweenaw.

  Back at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Finns and others arrived to work in the mines, the Keweenaw supplied something like ninety-five percent of the world’s pure copper. The community coffers had overflowed and the town fathers used the profits to build, among other things, a medieval cathedral that would have attracted Quasimodo, two downtown blocks adorned with Victorian bric-a-brac and a spectacular library. They’d also built the opera house at the end of the second downtown block on the west side of the street next to the high school and across from the fire station.

  Much has been written about our theater, the first one in the state. It is from the Renaissance Revival School, constructed of yellow-brown brick on a foundation of red sandstone from the nearby Jacobsville quarry. There’s a copper dome and cornices and a porte-cochere in front where I parked the van. Both the exterior and the inside have been renovated in recent years and the town’s historical committee (Arvo) had been careful to ensure that the original color scheme of scarlet and cream was maintained. Plush seats face the stage and proscenium arch and a magnificent chandelier hangs over the audience. Off to the right of the stage, behind the wings, is a green room.

  “It’s beautiful, Hatti,” Serena said. “A little jewel box.”

  “Stinks of dust,” Helena sniffed.

  “Limited seating,” Vincent said, a note of disapproval in his voice. I stared at him.

  “It seats 700. For a town with a year-round population of 800 some of whom are infants.”

  “The theater will be perfect for us,” Seth said.

  “It’ll be perfect,” Harry said, “if it’s haunted.”

  “Some people believe there’s a ghost living in the cheval mirror in the green room,” I admitted. “An actress named Maud who played here around 1900. She comes back to prompt actors who have forgotten their lines.”