by Ann Yost
Caarina. With a “C”.
Caarina. Dearly beloved. Someone, sometime, had loved Cricket Koski.
“Both of the foster parents died during our senior year and Cricket moved in with my family. There were seven of us squished into a trailer smaller than this one but we made do. After graduation though, Cricket took off. She worked at different restaurants and bars in the UP and ended up at the Black Fly. She came to visit three times and each time she only stayed for an hour. I spoke with her on the phone a few times over the years, too.” Cloud sighed. “I was always worried about her.”
“Did she ever mention any friends,” Harry asked.
“Not really.” The young woman hesitated. “Just one. It was a guy. She called him her Prince Charming.”
The name hit me like a blow to the chest. Prince Charming?
“What can you tell me about him?”
Cloud looked at me with her opaque, dark eyes.
“Not very much. I never heard his real name. He was a guy she met at camp.” She paused and backed up. “That last summer in high school, the Little Mooses were able to get Cloud a scholarship to a Finnish camp, one of those where they teach about Finnish culture and stuff. She was there for six weeks and when she got back she said she’d met her destiny, her Prince Charming. She was in love and she said he was in love, too, but he was older. He told her he’d come back for her when she was grown up and he had gotten out of his marriage.”
“He was married?”
Cloud nodded. “I know, I know. Bad news.”
“I’ll say. Sounds like he was a con man.”
“I thought that, too. But then he never contacted her. He never showed up. So I figured there was no harm done. In fact, I never heard about him again until last Saturday.”
I stared at Cloud. “Saturday, the day she died?”
“She called me. In the afternoon. She was so excited. So manic. She said it was all happening. Everything she wanted. The guy, the money, a ticket off the Keweenaw.”
“Did she,” I asked, almost breathless with excitement, “tell you who the guy was? I mean, was it the one from camp all those years ago?”
“I don’t know,” Cloud said. “She called him her love but she never said whether she’d known him before.”
I sensed the uncertainty in her.
“Cloud, if you have to guess, would you think it was the shyster from ten years ago?”
She considered her answer carefully.
“I would. There was something about the way she spoke of him. And then, she called him her prince.”
I stared at Harry.
“We need to get a list of campers from that year.”
“It was called Camp Kaleva and it’s near Ontonagon.” Harry slipped his phone out of his pocket and called information. The camp, he was informed, no longer existed.
“Damn,” he said, disconnecting the phone. He looked at Cloud. “Did Cricket ever give you any clues about the guy? Did she describe his looks?”
“No. Like I said, he was a bit older and,” she broke off. “Oh, excuse me for a minute.” She left the room and was gone several minutes. The baby stirred on my shoulder.
“Oh! I hope he isn’t hungry.”
“Or wet,” Harry said, with a wink.
It turned out he was both. Cloud came back to an agonized screech. She took the child and, at the same time, handed me a photograph. It was one of those large, group shots taken with a wide-angled lens. The subjects in the front two rows, all of them blond and blue-eyed, were easily identifiable but those in the back rows were much smaller and harder to discern. The photo paper had been folded and creased and, if I was any judge, had spent many nights under Cloud’s pillow.
“Which one is Prince Charming?” Harry asked. I could hear the excitement in his voice. We were on the verge of a major breakthrough.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. I think he had warned her not to tell anyone. Excuse me, again. Time for a diaper change.” She disappeared and the room got quiet again. Harry and I stood at the table hovering over the photograph.
Suddenly Harry dropped back into his seat and drew a hand across his forehead.
“What? What is it?”
“Do you see Cricket? Second row just to the right of center.”
I had to squint. I’m supposed to wear glasses for reading and driving but I nearly always forget them. He pointed a finger and I noticed it was trembling.
“Oh, right. There she is.”
“Look at the boy next to her.”
“They must have been friends. She’s smiling at him. He’s in three-quarter profile but his cheek is crinkled, as though he’s smiling back at her.”
“Anything else?”
I stared at the picture.
“Geez Almighty Louise,” I breathed. “That’s Seth Virtunen.”
Chapter 18
By the time we got back to Red Jacket it was after twelve so we parked in the alley behind Calumet Street and headed straight over to the Bed and Breakfast. I was glad to get there and not just because of the howling wind and the swirling snow on the interstate. Harry and I had argued nonstop during the sixty- minute return trip and things between us were tense the way they get when people who have been on the same wavelength, suddenly are not.
“The mere fact that Seth attended a camp on the Keweenaw ten years ago does not make him a murderer,” Harry maintained. Whereas I could not imagine anything else that would account for this coincidence.
“It’s not like I want him to be the killer,” I’d argued. “But they were clearly friendly ten years ago and here he is on the Keweenaw just after she’s been killed. You said he came up here by himself. He could have lied about when he arrived. Heck, he could have been here all the time. Face it, Harry. If this were an episode of Law and Order, no one on the force would question Seth’s guilt. The fact is, he was the Prince Charming of long ago and, without a doubt, he’s the Prince Charming of now.”
“Seth’s only about thirty. Cloud said the guy was older and married.”
“That’s a two-year age difference which can seem like a decade to a teenager. And who says he wasn’t married?”
Harry blew out a breath.
“All right. Take it from a different angle. Why would Seth have killed her?”
“He was after a treasure. He wanted her help to find it but he couldn’t let her live afterwards.”
“A treasure? You’re talking about the mythical Nazi loot?”
“We don’t know that it’s mythical.”
“Okay, say he used Cricket to find out which of the attics housed the painting. Then he found it and killed her. Why the hell’s he still hanging around in Red Jacket?”
“Oh, come on, Harry.” I knew my exasperation had as much to do with my disappointment in Seth as anything else. He looked like every boy I’d gone to Sunday school with. He could have been my brother. I didn’t want him to have killed Cricket Koski. “Seth’s cover for being on the Keweenaw is the television pilot. How would it look if he just disappeared? He has to stay until the rest of you leave. Then he can slip away and enjoy his ill-gotten gains.”
Harry shook his head. “I can’t believe this rush to judgment. There’s no proof that he did anything wrong. I’m assuming it’s not illegal to go to Finnish camp.”
We were not on speaking terms when we entered the back door of the B and B. Elli was stirring a pot on the stove and Harry took an exaggerated sniff.
“Something smells extraordinarily good,” he said. His heartiness sounded forced.
“Pea soup,” she said, absently. “Perfect for white-out conditions. Help yourself. There’s fresh banana nut bread, too.”
My cousin turned to look at me. “I’m worried about Mrs. Pike.”
“She told you about the karsikko sign?”
Elli shot a quick look at Harry who was busy ladling the fragrant soup into one of her blue-rimmed bowls.
“Don’t mind him,” I said, with more disdain th
at was strictly necessary. “He’s helping with the investigation.” Elli grinned at the former art theft cop.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to deal with murder and ghosts when you signed up for this gig.”
“Surprises,” he said, after tasted a spoonful of soup, “are the spice of life. Speaking of spices, what did you put in the soup? It’s amazing.”
“Marjoram. And a dollop of hot mustard.” She turned her attention back to me. “I think there’s something else bothering Mrs. Pike. She popped in about fifty times this morning, looking for you. She wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t leave a message, just said she’d speak with you later.”
“Where is she now?”
“She was going next door to put clean sheets on your bed then down to the opera house with Seth.”
“Seth?”
Neither my voice nor Harry’s was raised but the name came out of our mouths simultaneously and Elli’s eyebrows opened up like a drawbridge. An explanation was required but I could hear voices in the hall and it wasn’t the time to get into the story of Cricket and the Finnish camp.
“Just the two of them?” She shook her head.
“Serena Waterfall went too, and Diane Hakala. They were going to do an impromptu séance. They heard about the karsikko sign and they figure that Maud’s their best bet to communicate with Cricket’s spirit.”
“That makes a certain amount of sense,” Harry said, grinning at me, “if you believe in the afterlife.”
It’s odd how someone’s clever comment can rub you the wrong way. Yesterday, I’d probably have laughed at the joke. Today it just sounded offensive. No doubt because I was unhappy with Harry Dent.
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you,” Elli said, as she turned from the stove to the island countertop. As she spoke, she deftly removed half a dozen loaves of the fresh bread from their pans, sliced them and arranged them on serving dishes. “Serena asked if I thought you would mind videotaping the segment about the Rya Rug down at Bait and Stitch. She thought using the yarn shop as background would add to the ambiance.”
“That’s fine,” I said, automatically.
“There’s more.” She gave me a quick, ironic smile. “Aunt Ianthe got to talking about the knitting circle and how, at least on Thursday nights, the shop seemed like the center of the community. The comments inspired Serena who spoke to Vincent and, the long and the short of it is, they want to videotape the knitting circle at the shop this afternoon. Aunt Ianthe’s not too happy about it.”
“Why not?” Harry asked, reaching for a slice of bread. “Seems like it could be good publicity for the shop and the town.”
“The name of the group,” Elli explained, “is the Thursday Night Knitting Circle and today is Tuesday. We Finns are very literal. I can’t imagine what Einar will have to say about it.”
Einar Eino, a short, bald, gnome-like octogenarian has been the assistant at the bait shop since before I was born. He is the repository of all the Finnish male eccentricities from Sisu and a strong work ethic to a well-hidden, soft heart. He guards both his privacy and his words, sticking to a regimen of uttering as few syllables as possible each day. He is an acknowledged expert on the local weather and fishing and, to my everlasting relief, he is always willing to handle the live bait. He is fond of Sofi and Elli and me but he is not a fan of change and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised when he put up no real resistance to my plan to sell yarn in the bait shop.
“He’s not gonna like turning his store into a stage set,” Elli said. “And then there’s the very real possibility that Vincent will try to tie you in to the Nazis. Maybe you should give him the afternoon off. He can go take a sauna.”
The reference caused Harry’s and my eyes to meet. I remembered how much fun we’d had the previous afternoon both in the sauna and in the attic. I remembered why I liked him. I supposed it was only natural that he defended Seth who was, after all, a colleague. I realized that the distaste in my mouth and the uncertain sensations in my stomach were not because Harry and I were feuding but because I was upset by Seth’s apparent involvement in the murder.
We heard the front door, followed by voices and footsteps.
“Here comes the cavalry,” Elli murmured, as the ladies, Aunt Ianthe, Miss Irene, Mrs. Moilanen and Mrs. Sorensen trooped into the kitchen. Each was carrying a plate, a bowl or a pan of home-cooked food. A few minutes later the smorgasbord was set out again as the Tallmasters, Serena, Diana Hakala and Seth arrived. After he’d stomped his boots on Elli’s well-placed mat, hung up his coat and rubbed his reddened fingers together for warmth, Seth sought me out. He was wearing his usual friendly smile.
“Mrs. Paikkonen wants to see you, Hatti. She wanted to get the sheets out of the dryer and onto the bed next door, then she’ll be over.”
We filled our plates and sat at the long farm table. It was a cozy scene, with half a dozen different conversations going on, silverware clinking, bursts of laughter. The view outside the arched, latticed window looked like a snow globe and the inside felt warm and cozy. At least it did if you could forget about the murder.
I listened with half an ear to Miss Irene’s discovery of a box of antimacassars crocheted by some distant relative and, until this morning, neglected in the duplex’s attic but most of my focus was on Seth. He was making himself useful by refreshing the coffee and replacing empty serving dishes with full ones. I saw him follow Elli through the swing door into the kitchen and watched as she laughed over her shoulder at something he said. It was obvious she liked and trusted him and that was unusual for Elli, who usually avoided eligible men. She would be sick when she found out about the Camp Kaleva picture.
I could only imagine how vulnerable Cricket Koski had been. After years of living in other people’s homes, she’d been at a camp, swimming and sailing, running and folk dancing. She hadn’t been the only blond in a high school of Native American kids. For once in her life, she’d looked like everybody else. And a guy had liked her. It must have felt like a magical summer. No wonder she’d fallen in love.
I was a million miles away from Elli’s dining table when someone said, “you gonna eat that bite, Cupcake?” I realized there was food on my fork and Harry Dent’s fingers, too. Before I could respond, Aunt Ianthe’s shriek split the air and everyone froze.
“Voi kahua! You are trying to poison Henrikki, then?”
I closed my eyes. This had happened many times before but never right after an actual murder. I set the fork back on my plate as Miss Irene quoted the book of James.
“But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
“Deadly poison?” Harry sniffed. “That’s vinegar cabbage.”
I set the fork down and pulled myself together.
“I’m fine, Aunt Ianthe,” I called out. “I wasn’t going to eat it.” Talk broke out up and down the table which gave me a chance to explain to Harry.
“Years ago my face swelled up after a church potluck at which Aunt Ianthe claimed I’d taken a bite of Mrs. Moilanen’s vinegar cabbage. My mom explained that I’d caught the mumps from the Hautala twins but Aunt Ianthe never believed it. She’s convinced I have some unique allergy to the cabbage. The whole thing is ridiculous, of course. I never tasted the stuff as a child and I’ve never tasted it since.” I shuddered. “I can’t stand the smell.”
“Then what, may I ask, was it doing on your fork?”
It was a good question and I had no answer.
“Search me.”
“Now that we know Hatti is going to live,” Elli said, pleasantly, “please help yourselves to dessert. We’ve got strawberry snow, chocolate pudding, applesauce meringue, almond log bars and dark chocolate caramel bars. And, of course, fresh coffee.”
After lunch I bussed the dishes out to the kitchen, filled the dishwasher then went to work on the serving pieces of Arabia crockery. I never minded doing the dishes because it made my finger nails clean and, more importantly, it gave me a few minutes to think. And t
here was a lot to think about at the moment.
It was Harry who had suggested the murder was connected to the cast of What’s in Your Attic? Now it was Harry who was insisting the killer could not be one of the cast members, Seth Virtunan. Why was he taking polar opposite positions on this? What did he really think? I felt a sudden, vicious longing for the days of the St. Lucy murder when I’d had all my friends around. And Jace. Especially Jace.
I felt that annoying prick of potential tears behind my eyeballs. Dang. There was no time for self-pity. I hung up the towel, grabbed my parka and headed for the door.
I needed to talk to my sister.
A few minutes later I was climbing the steps to Sofi’s door and letting myself in.
The lights were off and this time there was no ribbon of light under the bedroom door. After a quick, fruitless search, I fished my phone out of my parka pocket and punched in Sofi’s number, prepared to leave a message. It turned out not to be necessary.
“Main Street Floral and Fudge,” she said, “Specials of the day are forced bulbs and maple coconut.”
“Maple coconut?”
“It’s an experiment.”
“You’re at work?”
“Of course I’m at work, Hatti. Mom and Charlie are out of town and Lars is in the pokey. Someone has to earn some money here. Why did you call?”
I’ve known my sister a long time. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly but she’s not usually short tempered with me. On the other hand, she had a lot of reasons to be upset.
“I wondered if you were feeling better.”
“Of course I’m feeling better.” I pictured the little notch between her sky blue eyes. “I told you it wasn’t the flu.”
“All right, all right. Do you need some help? I’ve got some time on my hands.”
“I thought you were investigating the murder.”
“I am, but…” I paused and she interrupted, irritably.
“Never mind, never mind. Yes, you can help me. I’ve got a special order from one of your television people.” I didn’t bother to remind her that they were not my television people. “Vincent Tallmaster. He wants twenty-four flower arrangements by tomorrow morning to be delivered to the opera house. I need you to go to Shopko. Bring me all the carnations they have. And then drive down to the hobby shop at Lake Linden for the pipe cleaners and spray paint.”