by Ann Yost
“Can you remember when it was?”
“Last few days.”
I could hardly catch my breath.
“Was it on New Year’s Day?”
“Maybe. Days kinda run together. Might have been then. Or before.”
I tried to stay calm.
“Wanda, could you see who the man was who was driving the SUV?”
She took a long drag on her cigarette then blew the smoke out in a series of perfect rings. I prayed Harry wouldn’t come back with the kids until I’d gotten what I needed from Wanda.
“No. The driver didn’t get out.” My heart fell. “I could just see a kind of outline from the back, you know?” I nodded. “It stuck up in all directions, like your hair when you got here.”
“My hair?” She nodded.
“It coulda been a guy wearing a parka hood, I guess, but, to tell the truth, it looked more like a woman’s hat. One of those fancy ones with lots of fur.”
I stared at her. A woman’s hat? Had we been searching all this time for the wrong gender? Helena Tallmaster had a big, furry hat. On the other hand, Serena Waterfall’s hair could look like a furry hat under the right conditions.
I was floored. And confused. How did Prince Charming fit into all of this?
The door opened. Harry, looking like a mother duck followed by a pair of ducklings, stepped through the door.
“Nice hair cut, Cupcake. You look like a baby starfish.”
Chapter 33
The snow had started to fall again and when Harry offered to drive, I let him. He made a U-turn on Fifth and a right on the interstate. I glanced at the convenience store.
“A penny for your thoughts, Cupcake,” he said.
I wasn’t ready to tell him about Wanda’s sighting of the SUV. Whether Serena or Helena was implicated in this, that implicated Harry, too. He’d been married to both of them.
“Did you have a good time at the UP version of a Seven-Eleven?”
He grinned. “A great time. The boys got Twizzlers and pop rockets and gummy worms and I got to meet the delightful Mrs. Bjornsen and her dog, Puck. Puck, I have to tell you, was not named after the character in a Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I’m from the land of hockey, remember.”
“What did you learn from Pat?”
“Not much. Pat’s not much of a talker and, anyway, Cricket didn’t get her hair done on Saturday. So I guess this was a wasted trip.”
“Not a bit of it. I got to try a gummy worm and I got to spend time with you.” I turned to face him.
“That flirting’s just kind of automatic isn’t it?”
“Long habit,” he admitted, “but I really do like spending time with you, Cupcake. You’re so delightfully guileless.”
“You mean naïve?” He laughed.
“In a good way. A conversation with you isn’t a game of chess. You say what you’re thinking. I find it refreshing.”
“Thanks.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes and then he shocked me.
“Would you go away with me?”
“Away?”
“Somewhere hot and warm, Italy or Brazil. Somewhere we could lie around on the beach and wait for your hair to grow out.”
“Geez Louise,” I gasped. “You really had me going there for a minute.” He didn’t laugh.
“It’s a real invitation. We’ll all be leaving the Keweenaw very soon. I feel the need of some sunshine. I think you could use some, too.”
I could, of course. But not with him and he seemed to know it. He let the subject lapse.
We were halfway back to Red Jacket when I spoke again.
“Harry, the murders were committed with a knitting needle, right? Did you ever consider that the killer might be a woman?”
“Because of the choice of weapon? I’m not sure a woman would have the strength to plunge a needle into someone’s heart. Maybe so, if she used the element of surprise.”
“There was no surprise in Mrs. Paikkonen’s case. She knew the killer was after her the whole time she was hiding the letter in her corset, fleeing to the attic and drawing the karsikko sign.”
“I’d like to think it was Vincent,” Harry said, after a moment. “I’ve never liked the guy and I’ve come to loathe him. Helena was a fool. But the evidence points elsewhere, Cupcake.”
“You’re talking about the Camp Kaleva picture.”
“That and the fact that he’s the right age for Prince Charming. He knows about art and antiques and, perhaps, most importantly, he knew where Mrs. Paikkonen was sleeping that night.”
Except, I thought, she wasn’t killed during the night. She was killed in the afternoon.
“How many times have you been married?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“It’s a curiosity question. A getting-to-know-you question. You came up to the Keweenaw with a party of five of which there were two women and you were once married to each of them.” He chuckled.
“I went through the motions with them because they wanted it. A hippie friend of Serena’s did the deed in a backyard and with Helena, it was a justice of the peace. None of that Cinderella wedding followed by happily-ever-after for me.”
His comment triggered a twinge of recognition. No Cinderella wedding for him. Ernst Hautamaki had sent his Aunt Bengta a wedding gift for a couple whose names started with the letter R. What if that, like the dog allusion, was a kind of code? What if there hadn’t been a wedding gift at all but something meant to look like a wedding gift? What if the wedding gift was the cover?
And as I stared out at the lightly dusted roadway, the bits and chips of information in my mind shook and rattled and settled into a kaleidoscope image and I knew.
Ernst Hautamaki had sent Monet’s priceless waterlilies home to his family and asked them to ship it to the U.S. in the perfect disguise; inside a double-knotted rug destined as a wedding gift. A Rya Rug. R.R.
Adrenalin shot through me and I unrolled my window hoping the cold air would take the heat out of my cheeks.
“You getting a fever, Cupcake?”
“Just a little warm.”
“Well, since turnabout’s fair play and since I know you’ve only been married once, why don’t you tell me how many times you plan to be married?”
“That’s a joke, I know, but some folks up here know all that stuff. How many times they’ll be married, how many jobs they’ll have, how many kids. It’s kind of reassuring.” Harry made a face.
“If I knew all that in advance, I wouldn’t bother to live through it.”
The phone interrupted us. It was Elli.
“Hatti! You’ve got to get back here on the double. All hell is breaking loose. Vincent said Helena was throwing up all night so he called 911 and they’re on the way to the hospital now.” She paused. “Listen, Seth thinks the Tallmasters killed Mrs. Pike, found the painting and are now escaping.”
A picture of Helena Tallmaster driving the SUV with Cricket Koski flashed through my head.
“Wait? They’re escaping in an ambulance?”
“They took their luggage. All of it. Anyway, it’s not a bad strategy. Who would stop an ambulance? Vincent will probably insist that they airlift them both to a hospital downstate. Then, while she’s being attended to, he can slip away and unload the painting. You know, he could put it in a bus locker or, or, mail it to a post office box somewhere.”
“You’ve been watching too much television. For one thing, the hospital isn’t going to order a helicopter on Vincent’s say-so. For another, there’s no reason to think they’ve got the Monet.”
Harry had been driving steadily through the snowflakes, his eyes on the road but when he heard my words he glanced over at me.
“Somebody found the painting?”
I shrugged and then returned to my conversation with Elli.
“Look, just let Jace know what’s going on, and Waino. We’ll be there shortly. I want to stop at the t
heater first.”
“Don’t bother. There’s no one there. Vincent canceled the pilot. Big surprise. At least Arvo will be happy when we get rid of the swastikas.”
When I hung up I gave Harry the news.
“Hmm,” he said. “So it was Vincent all along, with assistance from my former wife. Shocking. Where to now? Back to the Leaping Deer? Looks like there’s nothing left but the crying and cleanup. And, of course, lunch.”
His lighthearted tone rubbed me the wrong way. We were talking here about major crimes; robbery and the most heinous sin of all, murder. I wished I were alone. I wished I could go down to the opera house by myself to check out my hunch. But I’d let Harry into the investigation and into my life and now I had him. Life, I thought, again harkening back to the Moomins, was all about accommodation and acceptance. Things are so very uncertain and that’s exactly what makes me feel reassured.
“I’d like to stop at the opera house.”
For once Harry’s eyes contained no laughter.
“You gonna tell me why?”
I didn’t want to. For one thing, it would entail too much explanation. For another, well, I just felt protective of my idea and Harry had a tendency to be scathing.
“Tell you what,” I said, finally. “I’ll show you.”
His lips twisted as he looked back out at the road way.
“Sure, Cupcake,” he said. “As always, your wish is my command.”
My imagination kicked into overdrive as we stepped into the theater in which some efficient person (Ollie Rahkunen) had already turned off the heat. Already the place smelled musty and felt abandoned. And what if the Tallmaster theory was right? What if they’d already taken off with the Waterlilies? Suddenly, I was glad I hadn’t shared my Rya Rug theory with Harry. A low-wattage stagelight had been left on and, as we started down the carpeted aisle toward it I could see the outlines of the curtains and the posters we’d hung of Rosie the Riveter and G.I. Joe. I could see the shapes of the tables decorated with Sofi’s flower arrangements. In the semi-dark they looked as curly as the fur on Helena Tallmaster’s Russian hat. I was aware of the presence of a building tension and when I heard Harry’s sharp intake of breath, I realized it was coming from him. I turned to him.
“What? What is it?”
He pointed a finger at the stage.
“Your rug is gone.”
I stared at the spot where the rug had hung. Holy Geez Frickin’ Louise! He was right. The clothesline was still in place. But the rug – with the sixty-million-dollar painting in it? – had vanished.
Anger galvanized me and I ran up the stage steps to find a pile of white wool that looked as if someone had recently sheared a very small lamb. Whoever took the rug had slashed it open. Of course.
“I’m sorry, Cupcake,” Harry said. They were familiar words from him but not a familiar tone. He was breathing hard and sweat had popped out on his face. The tension I’d felt before was suffocating now. “We’ll have to report this to Sheriff Andy and Deputy Dawg. Let’s go.”
The fact is, I wanted to go. Being in the empty theater was giving me the creeps and, I realized, it was less about the rug and more about the heightened mania of the man with me. In silence, we turned to head back up the aisle. That’s when I heard a faint moan.
“Harry!” I clutched his arm. “Did you hear that?”
“No.”
“There it is again. It’s kind of ghostly.”
“The ghost is gone, remember? You’re imagining things.” He took my hand and headed toward the theater doors.
It was the third sound, a kind of muffled thump that made me pull away from him and head back toward the stage. I heard him calling my name but I didn’t stop until I’d opened the door to the green room. I froze and stared at the Rya Rug. Someone had slit it open and wrapped it, like pasty dough, around a body. The red hair flaring at one end made a ridiculous picture, like a bulky rocket igniting into the air and finally, finally, I understood.
“I’m sorry you had to see this, Cupcake.”
It was Harry’s voice in my ear. And it was Harry’s strong hands that captured mine and bound them, painfully, behind my back.
Of course it was Harry. He was the one with the contacts in the art world. He was the one who coveted the works of Monet. He was the bored soul on a never-ending quest for adventure. He’d undoubtedly had the help of Serena. Had she been complicit or a useful idiot? I guess we’d find out.
Well, somebody would find out. It looked like I was going to be tied up for awhile. A shudder ran down my spine. Who was I kidding? He couldn’t afford to let me or Serena live. How was he planning to kill us? Another knitting needle? Maybe someone (Jace) would think to look at the theater. I wished and wished I’d told Elli my plan to come down here. Sooner or later they’d start looking for me but would it be too late?
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “How did you know Cricket?”
“Is this a stall tactic or do you really want to know?”
I answered him truthfully.
“Both.”
“You know that if I tell you I’ll have to kill you.” He turned me around to face him. I was pretty sure he intended to kill me anyway, and Serena, too.
“I want to know.”
“Sure. I was a guest speaker at the camp. They’d asked for some from the FBI and, since I was in the Detroit office at the time, they sent me. I gave a couple of lectures on crime. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand why you were interested in a seventeen-year-old.”
“C’mon, Cupcake.” He sounded bored. “She was tall, blond and all over me. That explain it?”
Was he really that shallow? That much of a sociopath? How had I failed to see any of this?
“Did you really tell her you’d come back to find her after you’d gotten a divorce?”
“It’s a bone, you know? Keeps them from hounding you with pleas.”
My phone rang and Harry betrayed his tension by digging his fingers into my upper arm.
“Don’t answer that.”
I didn’t bother to point out that with my hands tied behind my back, I’d have had to answer it with my tongue.
When the ringing stopped, he retrieved the phone from the pocket of my jeans and asked for the code to hear the message. The call had been from Seth and he sounded worried.
“Hei, Hatti. I was thinking about those days at camp and I remembered that we always had so-called experts in their fields who came to talk to us about possible careers. On a hunch, I borrowed a magnifying glass from your aunt, then found the picture at your house. To tell you the truth, I was looking for Vincent Tallmaster but I found someone else. I guess I owe Vincent an apology. Call me as soon as you get this.”
I swallowed hard. If there had been any hope, it was gone now.
“Well, hell,” Harry said, softly. “I’d best get a move on. I’ll have to take care of Seth, too.”
“One last question.” My throat was dry with fear and it was hard to talk. “Did you devise this plan because you value a piece of art over human lives or was it because you were bored?”
Chapter 34
“A little of this, a little of that. Sorry, Cupcake.” He quickly and efficiently hooked his foot under my leg and dropped me to the floor where my head hit hard enough to make me see stars. By the time I’d recovered my focus he was gone and my cellphone, too.
My first thought was that we, Serena and I, would be all right. He’d left us bound but not mortally wounded. Someone would look for us here and find us, but I didn’t wait for that to happen. I started to wiggle my wrists to try to free them from the strip of cloth that bound them.
“Is he gone?”
Serena sounded less relieved than heartbroken. At least she was conscious.
“I think so. I conked out for a minute there. He closed the green room door. Don’t know if he locked it.”
“You can’t lock it,” she said, dully. “He checked when he retrieved the painting. Just
before he knocked me out.”
“I’m sorry. Are you all right now?”
She didn’t answer but there was no need. She’d adored Harry Dent and he’d abandoned her. She’d never be all right again.
I was so surprised and pleased to be able to wriggle free of the cloth binding my wrists that it didn’t occur to me to wonder why Harry had done such a lackluster job. I should have known that, as usual, there was method in his madness. I staggered to my feet and then to the door where I met a fog of smoke and heard the crackle of flames.
That’s when I understood. Harry intended to burn down the theater with Serena and me in it. I beat back the panic that exploded inside me, closed the door and hurried back to Serena. He’d wrapped her as tight as an enchilada in the Rya Rug and I worked, feverishly to loosen the fabric. And to keep the fear out of my voice.
“Can you stand? The theater’s on fire.”
She didn’t answer and things were moving fast. The smoke started to seep under the door and billow into the room in ominous gusts. I tried to make my fingers work faster. All I had to do was free Serena from the rug and dash for the door on the opposite side of the green room – the door that led to the outdoors and safety. The sound of the fire got louder, like a jet taking off overhead but I got the other woman to her feet and, even though she stumbled as the circulation came back, I knew we would make it.
At least until I heard the anguished howl from the stage.
“Geez Louise.”
“Harry,” Serena said, on a sob.
For an instant (of which I’m not proud) I considered sticking to my plan but five hundred-plus Sundays of being taught to do unto your neighbor as you would yourself kicked in. I let go of her, grabbed what was left of the rug and plowed toward the stage door.
Normally there’s little visibility in the scene of a fire and even less when the lights are out. I met the dark plumes of smoke but the stage was lit up like a macabre theater marquee with licks of flame running across and down the curtains. Harry was at center stage flapping wildly at flames that had leapt onto his clothing and skin. I hurried toward him and tried to cover him with the rug, hoping to douse the flames but, as he was whirling and jerking like a man possessed, I wound up swatting at him over and until the fire was subdued. I was gasping for breath and leaning against his kneeling form when a geyser of water slammed into me knocking me onto my back. An instant later I started to kick and struggle as I was scooped up into a pair of strong arms.