A Double-Pointed Murder

by Ann Yost

  “It’s me, Umlaut,” a voice barked. “Be still and let me get you out of here.”

  Jace! I slipped my arms around his neck and held on tight. A few seconds later, I remembered I wasn’t the only one who needed a knight on a white horse. Or a red fire truck.

  “Harry’s hurt, and Serena Waterfall is in the green room. I’m not sure she can walk.”

  “Waino, check the green room,” Sir Galahad called out. Strange, his voice sounded deeper and more raspy than usual. “Call Arvo and get the hearse. This man needs the hospital.”

  He’d carried me to a door on the other side of the stage and I felt a sudden blast of snow and blessed cold air. I looked up into the gray eyes to thank him but they were amber. For a second, I wondered if I was hallucinating, and then I realized my rescuer wasn’t Jace, after all. “You’re back,” I said to Max Guthrie. “Good thing for you,” he said. “You just couldn’t stay out of trouble, could you?”

  Someone must have already called Arvo because we were still crossing the street headed for the fire station when the hearse pulled up and a cluster of fire fighting volunteers rushed into the building to retrieve what was left of Harry Dent.

  It didn’t occur to me, until an hour later after I’d been pampered, and cleaned up and given a cup of coffee, that the Monet masterpiece had probably been destroyed in the fire.

  Chapter 35

  So we had our murderer. Or, rather, we knew who it was.

  Harry Dent, having expired in the hearse on the way to the hospital, was now en route to Tuonela, the Land of the Dead and I very much doubted he would be leaving a karsikko sign.

  That evening we gathered in Elli’s parlor the way people do after a cataclysmic event or, in the case of Red Jacket, after church on Sunday. This time, though, there was no scent of baking pannukakku or lingonberry syrup. We were there to regroup, to try to make sense of what had happened to us, to try to see a path forward. I’d need to do the same with my own life when all this was finished.

  Jace had shown up at the fire house and he’d brought me home which might seem anticlimactic but actually felt very comforting. He’d checked me out for injuries, probed the goose egg on the back of my head and listened to my lungs, for all the world as if he were a doctor, supervised my shower and told Sofi not to let me go to sleep any time soon since I probably had a concussion. Then he left. As usual. And he didn’t come back. Not for the smorgasbord supper or for the gathering.

  I sat on Elli’s sofa in between Aunt Ianthe and Miss Irene who had finished the pair of socks they’d been working on and were now sitting with their hands folded in their laps. Ronja Laplander, the Hakalas, Mrs. Moilanen, Elli and Arvo and Seth, Sofi, Lars, Max and the Tallmasters were all there.

  Much had been made of the role the Rya Rug had played in the afternoon’s events.

  “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork,” Miss Irene murmured, not for the first time. “Psalm nineteen.”

  I exchanged a look with Max Guthrie who stood next to Elli’s big, stone fireplace with his arm along the mantelpiece. Tall, lanky with a rugged, unhandsome visage and a shock of salt-and-pepper hair, he was a sight for sore eyes and I felt a little flutter in my heart. My Sir Galahad. I realized I’d missed him. I wanted to ask about Sonya, why she’d gone home to New Mexico and why it had taken him four days to drive her to an airport, but this wasn’t the time.

  And then the front door opened and I could barely breathe as Jace Night Wind entered the room with the graceful movements of a professional tracker. His gray eyes with the impossibly long, dark lashes found me at once. He stared at me as he took up a pose on the other side of the mantelpiece.

  Vince Tallmaster stood and cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. When he had it, he began to speak.

  “Our pilot has been bruised and battered but it is not, I think, dead. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, I think we can see this afternoon’s events as a phoenix rising from the ashes.” No one replied to the shocking comment. Not even Miss Irene.

  “What we have to do now is find that painting. Serena will be able to tell us where he hid it as soon as she’s released from the hospital.”

  I made eye contact with Jace and we communicated silently.

  Should I mention that the painting was most likely destroyed in the fire?

  No. Don’t say anything at the moment.

  “I don’t think Serena will have too much to add,” Seth said, slowly. “My guess is that Harry enlisted her help without giving her any real information. Everything I know about Serena Waterfall indicates she’d never condone the theft of a Monet to say nothing of murder. What do you think, Hatti?”

  I thought he was right in general but that, being a guy, he had no idea how badly Serena had wanted to please her ex-husband.

  “I think she would have balked at murder. There was no mistaking her shock and distress when she found Mrs. Paikkonen.”

  Vincent continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

  “This show will have it all,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “Everything from grand theft to love and death to Nazi loot. The ratings will be out of sight.”

  Arvo’s deep voice cut through the horrified silence.

  “No, I don’t think so. This comes to an end now. It would be in bad taste to exploit the tragedy.”

  “I’m afraid I have to agree,” Seth put in. “I really don’t think we can continue.”

  “But my Nazi flowers! I’ve already paid for my Nazi flowers!”

  I realized he hadn’t seen the inside of the theater. The red carnations with the swastikas were now toast.

  A knock on the front door heralded the arrival of Sheriff Clump and Waino.

  “Awright, then,” the sheriff said as Elli took his hat and jacket and guided him to an easy chair. “Since you’re all together we can cross the t’s and dot the i’s and get this report sent off to the state.” He nodded in response to Elli’s offer of refreshments. “Deputy here says that feller that died in the fire, he was the killer. Anybody got any proof of that?”

  The beady eyes of our local law enforcer were on me so I tried to gather my thoughts. Did we have any proof? Except for the fact that he’d tried to kill Serena and me by setting the opera house on fire, the answer was no.

  “He the one that took the picture?”

  “We believe the picture had been hidden inside a double-knotted rug called a Rya. It had been there for three-quarters of a century and we believe that the hiding place was revealed in a letter translated by Mrs. Paikkonen. Harry must have forced the information from her before he killed her. He went down to the opera house with Serena, slit the rug open, took out the Monet, then bound his ex-wife in the Rya Rug.”

  “Where’s that rug at now?”

  “It’s with the evidence from the fire at the fire house,” Max said. “Hatti used the rug to put out the burning man.”

  The sheriff’s beady eyes swung to me.

  “I think you better tell me the whole shebang. Chapter and verse. A to Z.”

  “Soup to nuts,” Aunt Ianthe added.

  “The whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Mrs. Moilanen said.

  “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” said Miss Irene. “First John.”

  Fatigue cascaded down on me like a fall of thundersnow, and, for a minute, I didn’t think I’d get through the story. I glanced at Jace and, once again, we communicated without words.

  I can’t do it.

  Yes, you can.

  Elli read my thoughts, too, and brought me a cup of coffee. Clump stared at me as he worked his way through a plate of brownie bars.

  “The story is that back in 1942, a young Finnish soldier named Ernst Hautamaki who could speak Finnish and German was stationed in Munich as a diplomatic courier of some sort. He came upon this painting by Claude Monet, one of the hundreds of paintings he’d made of his water garden in France. Anyway, we don’t k
now how Ernst got ahold of it but we’re pretty sure the painting had been stolen from its original owner by the Nazis. As of now, it is worth some sixty million dollars.”

  Clump’s jaw dropped revealing a mound of chocolate.

  We believe that Ernst spirited the Monet out of Germany by mailing it to Finland along with a letter asking his family, probably his mother, to protect it by sending it to the United States to his great aunt who was visiting here at the time. Ernst’s mother, who must have been a pretty smart cookie, hid the painting inside the double-knotted Rya Rug and sent it with a note explaining the rug had originally been intended as a wedding gift, but as the wedding was off, she wanted Bengta to hang onto it until Ernst could retrieve it.”

  “Why?” The question came from Waino. “Was Ernst gettin’ married, too?”

  “Maybe. In any case, Ernst never came to get it and Bengta Hautamaki never made it home to Finland. They both died that summer. So the Rya Rug with the Monet masterpiece tucked in between the knotted sides, was here all the time. Pops had it in his study for a long time then when we turned the bait shop into a fishing-supplies-slash-knitting supplies shop, I asked if I could hang it on the wall there.”

  Clump screwed up his face and, for once, his tiny eyes were shrewd.

  “How’s that letter fit in?”

  I nodded. I was feeling better, either because I was nearly finished or because of the caffeine.

  “Good question, sheriff. Elli found the letter in a box of memorabilia in her attic. We were all searching our attics because Vincent and his television company wanted to use World War II as a theme for their pilot. As I said, Mrs. Paikkonen offered to translate the letter but she must have realized there was something secret about it and she kept stalling. Finally Harry Dent took the situation into his own hands and forced her to tell what she knew. And then he killed her.”

  “How’s this square away with Cricket Koski,” Waino asked.

  “Another good question. Harry had met her at a Finnish culture camp ten years ago when she was a camper and he was a visiting speaker. She fell for him and he said he’d be back. I don’t suppose he had this missing Monet in mind at the time but he might have, since his business was lost and stolen paintings. Anyway, he got in touch with Cricket to help him figure out which of the houses in Red Jacket might have the painting.”

  “How in the Sam Hill could she have helped him with that?”

  I shrugged. “He told her to hire a private detective to provide background on the Finnish-American families and she hired Lars Teljo, which was exactly what he wanted. Harry Dent was a master strategist. He’d figured everything out ahead of time up to and including the fact that he’d have to kill Cricket and he’d need someone to frame for it and who better than the guy with whom she’d had the one-night stand all those years ago.”

  “Diabolical,” Max muttered. “I can’t believe I missed all of this.”

  “Why now,” Aunt Ianthe asked. “The Nazis stole a fifth of the world’s art treasures seventy-five years ago. Why did Harry Dent decide to come looking for the Waterlilies now?”

  “I believe I can explain that,” the Reverend Sorensen said. “In the past number of years there have been several academic studies aimed at finding the contact points between Nazi loot that is still missing and various countries. A study in Finland revealed that there were Finnish diplomats in Germany at the site where the loot was kept. The connection with the Upper Peninsula was noted, too.”

  “You asked for proof of murder or intent, sheriff,” Jace said. “Dent certainly intended for Hatti and Serena to die in that fire.”

  I smiled at him but I wondered. Harry was nobody’s fool. He’d bound Serena closely, but he’d barely tied my hands at all and he must have known there was another exit in the Green Room. I didn’t think he’d intended to kill us. He’d just needed time to get away.

  “He got caught in a web of his own making,” the Reverend Sorensen said.

  Naturally, Miss Irene chimed in.

  “They hatch cockatrice’s eggs, and weave the spider’s web: He that eateth of their eggs dieth and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Isaiah.”

  “Why use a knitting needle to kill Cricket and Mrs. Paikkonen,” Waino asked.

  “It might have been intended to cast suspicion upon somebody local, since our community is known for knitting,” Elli said. “Or, maybe it was just handy the first time and he decided to stick with a theme for consistency when it came to Mrs. Paikkonen.”

  I felt sick thinking of Mrs. Pike. I should have been able to protect her and I’d failed.

  “Here’s the sixty-million-dollar question,” Clump said, finishing the last brownie and brushing the crumbs off his massive front. “Where in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is the damn picture?”

  For the first time I felt a wave of grief. We’d had the French Impressionist masterpiece here on the Keweenaw and we’d lost it.

  “There’s one more rabbit to pull out of the hat,” Jace said, producing a standard-sized mailing tube. “Hatti, you should do the honors because I found it thanks to your efforts.”

  I got off the sofa and walked toward him. He’d already cut the tape and the label. All I had to do was pull off the end cap and I did. Then Jace used his long, lean fingers to ease the contents out.

  “What is it, Henrikki?” Aunt Ianthe, as usual carried away by the moment, couldn’t resist asking.

  “If it’s not the Monet,” Sofi said, drily, “I’m gonna want my money back.”

  “What money, dearie?”

  But Aunt Ianthe’s question was forgotten immediately as I carefully unrolled the brittle canvas and held up the small painting, some twenty-four inches by thirty-six inches. The entire surface was water, greens, purples, blues and cream with the sun showing up only as glints in the ripples and on the petals of ballet-pink petals. It was breathtaking.

  “An ode,” Aunt Ianthe pronounced, “to the majesty of art and nature.”

  “I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of thy wonderous works,” Miss Irene said.

  “There’s no sky,” Mrs. Moilanen pointed out. “Just water.”

  “It’s spotted,” Ronja Laplander said. “Like a dalmation.”

  “I’ve never seen colors like that in Lake Superior,” Diane Hakala added.

  “This work is titled A Reflection of Clouds,” I said, reading a penciled note on the back. “Monet was known for his fascination with the effects of light.”

  “And, remember,” Aunt Ianthe said, in her teaching voice, “he was of the Impressionist school. The painting represents his emotions, not what his eye sees.”

  “And to think it was stolen by the Nazis,” Seth said.

  “In the morning we’ll contact the Art Loss Register in New York,” Jace said. “They have a database of missing paintings. But I don’t think there’s much doubt that it is a legitimate Monet and that it was stolen before or during World War II.”

  “That’s ancient history,” Clump said. “What I wanna know is how you came to have it?”

  Jace rolled up the painting and handed it to Waino for safekeeping. I was relieved to see the big deputy handle it with care. Jace looked at me.

  “After the fire Hatti filled me in on what had happened so far. She told me about the Rya Rug, how it must have been the hiding place for the painting for more than seventy years. We constructed a timeline for Dent and it seemed as if he and Serena Waterfall must have slipped over to the theater during the night, slashed open the rug and removed the painting. He drugged his former wife then tied her up and left her there. That gave him a few hours before anyone else was up and about and it occurred to me that he had few options.

  “He could have left it at the theater if he’d planned to come back and collect it and Serena. The fact that he had silenced her but hadn’t really hurt her pointed to that possibility. But what if someone came down to the theater? What if Serena was released and there was no way to sneak back in and get
the painting? No, I figured someone like Dent would have come up with a better solution. So where else could he hide the Monet?”

  “The Lehtinen house?” The suggestion was made by Aunt Ianthe.

  Jace nodded. “Possibly but, he risked someone finding it or, more likely, there being people around when he wanted to go. And why didn’t he go in the early hours of the morning after he’d retrieved the painting and tied up his ex-wife?”

  “I was wondering that, myself,” Elli said. “He could have gotten into Hatti’s Jeep and driven to Canada. He could even have left her a note so no one would look for him immediately.”

  “But we would have looked for him and we would have found him,” Waino said. “They have all-points-bulletin in Canada, too, you know.”

  “And it would have taken a long time,” the Reverend Sorensen said. “He’d have had to drive across the UP, cross the Mighty Mac and go down to Detroit to cross into Ontario or he’d have had to drive through Wisconsin and north through Minnesota to cross the border. He couldn’t have taken a boat, not at this time of year.”

  “The fact is he didn’t flee,” Jace said. “He stuck around and when Hatti said she was driving up to Copper Harbor, he saw his chance. He may have had the painting in his room or he may have stashed it in the back of the Jeep in the middle of the night. I think it was the latter. Then he waited for the perfect set up and he got it when Hatti was talking with the hair stylist and her friend. Dent offered to take the grandchildren to the convenience store-slash-post office. He bought the kids candy and chatted up the postmistress, Mrs. Boykin who packaged it up for him. He sent it to a post office box in New York state.

  “Geez Louise,” I said, suddenly. “I wonder if he got the idea from Ernst Hautamaki. He used the mail to protect the painting and Harry used the mail to steal it.” I looked at him. “How did you know?”