by Ann Yost
He didn’t make fun of Aunt Ianthe when she said she’d woken up at exactly midnight with the sudden fear that something terrible had happened.
And when Serena Waterfall said she’d gone down to the kitchen of the Queen Anne around one a.m. to get a glass of milk, he didn’t even ask whether she’d seen anyone, including Mrs. Paikkonen posed in the window-seat.
I was impressed with my old friend’s detecting ability but also alarmed by it. I thought I could read his mind pretty well. Waino was convinced that Lars had killed both Cricket Koski and Mrs. Paikkonen. He had nailed down method and opportunity. All he had to do to pin it on Lars was to find a motive.
And, unfortunately, there was a motive. Waino just didn’t know it yet. But I did.
Cricket had asked Lars to research our family tree and even though he never turned over any results to her, he almost certainly would have run across rumors of the Nazi loot. Lars, like everyone else on the Keweenaw, needed more income and he was planning a big reconciliation with his family which included another mouth to feed even though he didn’t know that part yet. Anyway, what was to stop him from finding the Monet and selling it on the black market?
For all I knew Cricket may have asked for the family tree because she knew about the painting. And she may have confided that to Lars. He’d have every reason in the world to get rid of her. And then these blessed television people had turned up like a fistful of bad pennies, the Ernst Hautamaki letter was discovered and Mrs. Paikkonen was in on the secret. Lars (this is in my version of Waino’s thinking) would have had no choice but to kill Mrs. Pike, too.
Except it was all nonsense. Lars wasn’t a killer. He was a man, Sofi’s once and future husband, who’d always held himself to the highest ethical standards. Except when he’d cheated on Sofi three years ago with a barmaid. And, except when he’d lied to Sofi about that barmaid during the past few weeks. He wasn’t a murderer. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
I felt a flutter of anxiety in my stomach and, in an effort to avoid a full-blown panic attack, I tried an old strategy. I stopped listening to the conversations in the dining room of the B and B and focused on something else. The karsikko sign. The one left by Mrs. Pike. She’d been trying to tell me something, but what?
Like the sign at the funeral home, the one left in my attic had dispensed with the Christian Cross, and in its place, had substituted a fish. It could have been the Christian symbol or it could have been something else. We, on the Keweenaw, have a lot of truck with fish. Underneath the fish were the initials R.R. I was fairly satisfied that the C.K. under the crossed knitting needles at the funeral home were for Cricket Koski but I couldn’t think of anyone named R.R.
Mrs. Pike had been in fear of her life. Had she meant to leave a clue to the murderer and gotten in wrong? It was certainly possible. Maybe she’d wanted to write B.B. and hadn’t closed the loops. I couldn’t think of a B.B., either.
I tried going back a little further. Mrs. Pike had felt uncomfortable at Maki’s. Was it because she’d suspected Vincent Tallmaster of killing Cricket Koski? Or Helena? Surely she hadn’t suspected Harry or Serena since she’d been happy to move into the Queen Anne with them.
She’d collected her belongings from the mortuary and officially moved some time around mid-day. I hadn’t seen her since the early morning but Elli had seen her, and Serena and Harry had seen and talked to her. She’d been so tired she’d taken a sleeping pill during the afternoon. Except if she’d been sound asleep, how could she have left the karsikko message? She’d have had to be quick, agile and fast thinking to leave a coded message. It didn’t make sense.
* * *
“Hatti!”
I jumped at the sound of Waino’s voice. He nodded his head to indicate Sheriff Clump whose egg-shaped head was covered with perspiration and whose cheeks were flushed a dull red and whose too-close-to-his-nose eyes were narrowed on me
“Deputy here says the old lady was killed because of a letter.” I could tell by his tone and his body language that he didn’t believe the story and worse, he hated that he had to appeal to me for information. I explained, as best I could, about the Hautamaki letter and why it was important.
Clump extracted a giant handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his head.
“You tryin’ to tell me this gal was kilt because of a painting stolen from the Nazis seventy years ago?”
“Stolen by the Nazis,” I said, unsure how much Clump knew about the events of World War II. “The Nazis took artwork from galleries and private homes because Hitler wanted it for the museum he planned to build. It’s said they stole about a fifth of the world’s treasures. We think one of them wound up in Red Jacket.”
The beady eyes focused on me.
“So where in the H-E-double-hockey sticks is the letter at?”
* * *
“I would like to know that myself,” said Vincent Tallmaster. “As you may know, sheriff, we intend to use the heretofore unknown relationship between Finland and Hitler as the theme for the world premiere of What’s in Your Attic? The letter from the Finnish soldier in Munich is to be the chef d’oeuvre of our program and thus, we need to find it. And frame it. I think something in the Nazi colors of red and black.”
Helena Tallmaster shook her head and then she surprised me.
“We can’t just continue down this road, Vincent. Mrs. Paikkonen was killed because the letter must have revealed information about the looted painting. It would be very bad taste to make any sort of profit from her death.”
“Bless you, dearie,” Aunt Ianthe said, her eyes moist. “Eudora wasn’t an easy woman but she was a good Lutheran and does not deserve to have her unfortunate death exploited then.”
“An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous,” Miss Irene said, adding, “Proverbs.”
No one had anything to say to that. After a moment, I answered the sheriff’s original question.
“We don’t know where the letter is. I imagine the killer took it.”
“Not that it would do him or her much good,” Harry Dent put in. “Since it was written in Finnish.”
My eyes turned, involuntarily, to Seth Virtunan. He looked pale and depressed. Perhaps he’d liked Mrs. Paikkonen. Or, perhaps, he’d killed her.
“Lars Teljo is Finnish,” Clump said. “He coulda read the letter. Anyways, we know he kilt this one, too.”
I was prepared for that and it still shocked me. Everyone else looked thunderstruck.
Into the ensuing silence, Waino spoke.
“What were your movements last night, Hatti?”
It occurred to me that I didn’t have to tell. I’d gone up to the third floor and gone to bed and in the morning I’d wakened to find Serena screaming on the second floor landing. Jace would never tell. No one would know. The delay didn’t last long. I knew I couldn’t do it.
“I went to bed about nine, I think. Mrs. Paikkonen was in my room so I sacked out in the bed up in the attic.”
Waino kept looking at me.
“You stay there all night?”
“Why not?” Harry spoke in a teasing voice. “Hatti’s got a perfectly good chamber pot up there under the bed.”
I felt the color come up in my face but there was no help for it.
“I came down once during the night,” I said. “I couldn’t remember whether I’d let Larry out and wanted to check on him.”
“What time was that,” Waino asked.
“Two o’clock. Maybe a little later.”
“What time did you get back to the attic?”
I swallowed hard. “Jace Night Wind was sleeping in Pops’ study. He heard me in the kitchen and we talked for awhile.”
Waino didn’t bother to repeat the question. He just waited until my conscience kicked in enough for me to give him the answer.
“It was probably about four when I got back to the attic.”
There was another of those pregnant pauses and if there had been doubt in anyone’s mind about what had
been going on for those two hours, Miss Irene dispelled it.
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother; and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall become one flesh.”
“Indeed,” Harry murmured, under his breath.
* * *
“So I take it that you and your spouse have reconciled,” Harry said, after Clump and Waino had left.
I shrugged. I no longer felt the same comfort with the ex-FBI agent that I’d felt during our trip to L’Anse. I still liked and trusted him. I just did not want to hear any humorous or sardonic comments about my marriage. Besides, I hadn’t had a chance to analyze what that late-night encounter with Jace had meant. I didn’t know whether we were really back together or if that had just been a détente, like the Christmas truce in World War I when the combatants called a cease-fire and British and German soldiers crossed the trenches to wish one another season’s greetings. Harry seemed to understand because he changed the subject.
“Tell me something. When you came back upstairs did you see the old lady in the window-seat?”
“No.” I was chagrinned. I’d been too absorbed in my own business to have noticed anything else. To excuse this lapse, I decided to tell him my theory that Mrs. Pike had been killed early in the afternoon and not in the evening. Naturally, he wanted to know the reason behind my thinking.
“Nobody saw her after she left the Bed and Breakfast. You stopped by the house to pick her up, right? And when you knocked on the door she didn’t answer?”
“She’d been given a sleeping pill.”
“I don’t think she took it.”
He eyed me, strangely.
“What makes you think that?”
I shrugged. “The folks in that generation just don’t take pills. Ask Aunt Ianthe or Miss Irene. If she was tired, she’d have put her feet up for awhile.”
“Ah, but you forget, Cupcake. She told me she’d taken the pill. Do you think she lied?”
That was even more unlikely than that she’d taken a pill.
“No. I can’t account for it. But I think she died sometime in the afternoon.”
* * *
The Attic people went off to talk over their plans or lack thereof, and that left Aunt Ianthe, Miss Irene, Mrs. Moilanen and me to help Elli clean the kitchen. When we’d finished Elli poured cups of fresh coffee and we sat at the end of the farm table. My mind was like a skein of yarn that once tangled was almost impossible to straighten out. I took a sip of the reviving drink and found myself reaching out for help.
“Mrs. Paikkonen left me a message. A karsikko sign.” I didn’t examine the feelings that prompted me to share the information with the ladies when I’d been reluctant to talk about it with Harry. This just felt right.
“A karsikko sign,” Mrs. Moilanen said, thoughtfully. “Eudora must have left it on her way to Tuonela.”
Aunt Ianthe nodded. “A farewell, perhaps? Or something she’d forgotten to say while she was alive.”
Not for the first time I marveled that these women steeped in the tenets of the Lutheran church for scores of years, could simultaneously believe in the pagan myths. Or, maybe they were just comforted by the old traditions.
“I’m pretty sure she drew it before she died,” I said. “I believe she was trying to tell us something.”
I explained about the location of the sign on a strut under the eaves in the attic. I described the simple drawing of a fish underscored with the initials R.R.
“The trouble is that I don’t know what she was trying to tell me.”
“The fish could stand for the church,” Aunt Ianthe said, helpfully. “You will recall that the early Christians adopted the symbol as a code to other like-minded folks.”
“Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” Miss Irene put in. “The gospel according to Mark.”
“But why would Eudora reference the church then,” Mrs. Moilanen asked.
“Edna!” Miss Irene sounded scandalized.
“I understand what Mrs. Moilanen is saying,” I said, hastily. “By my calculations Mrs. Paikkonen didn’t have much time to leave the message. She’d have wanted to convey the most important information quickly. If the fish refers to the church it may be the actual physical place.”
“Then what are the initials, Henrikki,” Aunt Ianthe asked. “Do you think they belong to the killer?”
I frowned. “I can’t think of anyone with those initials except for Elli’s dad, Reino Risto, and he’s down in Lake Worth.”
“R.R.,” Aunt Ianthe said. “Ricky Ricardo? No, no, that can’t be right. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer? Rudi Ryti?”
“Oh, no, dear. Rudi Ryti died years ago,” Mrs. Moilanen reminded her. “He was quite an old man.”
“Our Rudi died, too,” Miss Irene said, with a sigh. “Raffi, too. It was very sad but I suppose it always happens with canaries. Remember you were always so disappointed they never produced any eggs?”
Aunt Ianthe smiled, reminiscently. “I remember saying something to Carl (my stepdad) one day and he was very comforting. He patted me on the shoulder and said, I think, we will have to conclude they are both males. After all, they have beautiful voices.”
Her words triggered a thought.
“I saw a gold-colored cage in a corner up in the attic yesterday. Was that home to the canaries?”
“Oh yes. Carl was kind enough to take it off our hands after they died. We couldn’t bear the memories.”
Elli and I exchanged a look of mutual understanding.
“Did Mrs. Paikkonen know about Rudi and Raffi,” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Remember, Ianthe?” Miss Irene sounded very animated. “We invited her to tea one day and the birds were singing so beautifully.”
“She said she couldn’t imagine keeping wildlife in a house.”
“Let’s say Mrs. Pike was hiding in the attic. She’d have known she couldn’t escape the stalker below but she wanted to leave us some kind of message. What if she spotted the bird cage and she left the initials so that only someone with long roots in Red Jacket would understand?”
“Understand what, dearie?”
“Understand that she hid the Hautamaki letter in the birdcage,” Elli said, on a squeal of excitement.
We left the older ladies behind as we flung on our jackets and raced through the falling snow. By the time we’d climbed to the third floor we were both out of breath with red cheeks and damp hair.
The bird cage was perched on an old highboy that hadn’t been used for several generations. When I pulled it down, dust flew in every direction which was not a promising sign. And it made Elli sneeze. Still, I refused to lose hope. I ran my fingers over the spindles, opened the little door and pushed the swing.
“Come on, Hatti,” Elli urged. “Check the bottom.”
As with all birdcages, there was a kind of screen on the floor to allow the droppings to fall through.
“There’s some kind of paper in there,” I said. My heart was thumping hard and I could hear Elli’s labored breathing. I turned the contraption upside down and released a set of clamps. The paper slid out into my hand.
It was a sheet of newsprint from the Mining Gazette, dated June, 1995. In fact, it was the funnies. It reminded me of the confetti we’d thrown on New Year’s Eve. Disappointment about the possible clue mixed with anxiety about Lars and Sofi and the murder investigation. My voice wavered.
“The clue isn’t Rudi and Raffi.” I knew I sounded as disappointed as a child.
“I know. We’ll figure it out, Hatti. You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
I shook my head. This time I was not so sure.
Chapter 24
Elli and I found Jace in the kitchen. He was slumped in one of the wicker chairs, staring off into space. He looked like I felt; defeated.
“Jace,” Elli said. “Good to see you.” He got to his feet, as if he’d just remembered his manners, and she gave him a brief but sincere hug. A moment later she was gone and we were al
one.
“We have to talk,” he said. There was no flicker of a smile on his face. My heart thundered against my ribs. Maybe this wasn’t about the murder. Maybe, after our little tryst last night, he was having second thoughts about continuing our marriage.
My stomach rumbled, not with hunger but with anxiety. Were we about to have the big conversation? Was I ready for it? I’d given a lot of thought to relationships during our twelve months apart and one thing I’d learned (or thought I’d learned) was that when something’s over, it’s over. That is to say, that when one person is no longer interested, the relationship, in this case, a marriage, is finished. Of course, the events of the previous night could be interpreted as encouraging but I was no Cricket Koski. I no longer believed in Happily Ever After.
However, I was willing to be convinced.
Unfortunately, the mood just seemed to worsen. My sense of doom increased with every silent second. He was going to say he was sorry about last night. (And a week ago.) He was going to say it was time to call it quits.
“I’m sorry,” he said. My heart seized up and I told myself it was for the best. What was he sorry for? I was tired of living in the uncertainty. “I should have called on New Year’s Eve.”
Well.
“So why didn’t you?” I was proud of myself for remaining calm.
“The truth? I figured you were in the midst of a celebration.” He paused. Not good enough.
“I thought there was a good chance you were with Guthrie and it didn’t seem fair to interrupt that.” Better, but still lame. He shrugged.
“I’d abandoned you for a year and you’d moved on. You’d found a decent guy and I didn’t want to intrude.”
Worse and worse. Time to cut through the B.S.
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Were you jealous or not?”
“Jealous. Guilt-ridden. Conflicted. All of the above.”
“Why conflicted?” But I thought I knew.