In Sheep's Clothing (11 page)

It wasn't long until Colin had a nibble, and then almost before I could get the camera aimed, he brought the fish up out of the water and I snapped the picture. An hour or so went by and I was just enjoying the lap of the water against the boat, smelling the water … and okay, the fish smell was a little irritating, but I tried not to let it bother me. Rudy finally caught a fish, and I got to snap a picture of him, too. Then I asked Colin to take one of me and Rudy. He took three or four.

“Hey, you should get your picture made with Colin,” Rudy said. “I don't think there's a picture of the two of you since his wedding.”

“So?”

“Come on,” Rudy said. “Get over there.”

“Oh, all right,” I said. I scooted over by Colin and put my arm around him. “Hi, Dad.”

Rudy snapped the picture just as Colin rolled his eyes. “I can't believe you share the same genetic material as my wife,” Colin said.

“Oh, I don't pretend one bit that my mother didn't get all the good genes, because she did. My mother's perfect,” I said.

“Well, as perfect as a woman can be,” he said. At first I thought he was serious and I had my fist all balled up and was ready to just knock him into the water when he started cracking up laughing. “Sorry. I tried to keep a straight face.”

Things went back to being quiet. I kept looking through my camera lens trying to find just the right picture of the lake. I snapped a few pictures and then we were ready to head in for lunch break. As we approached the marina, I couldn't help but notice how quaint it looked. It would have been a classic piece of Americana if it weren't for the falling-down boat shack on the property next to it.

We got out of the boat and I stretched and screamed. “Oh my God, I have a crick in my back. Oh, jeez, oh, jeez, oh, jeez.” Rudy rubbed the middle of my back with the palm of his hand, while Colin just rolled his eyes and waited patiently. “I'm sorry, I'm not used to sitting in one position all day.”

I hobbled into the marina to find a different man standing behind the counter. I tried to remember how Aunt Sissy and Roberta had described Brian Bloomquist. He didn't seem all that bad. I walked up to the counter and smiled. “Mr. Bloomquist?”

“Yes,” he said. “I'm Brian.”

He was about forty or forty-five, really tall and really blond, with dark, smoky eyes. “Hi,” I said. “I'm Torie O'Shea, and I'm here from St. Louis, visiting my aunt.” Since St. Louis is the closest city of any size to my hometown of New Kassel, I always just tell people that I'm from St. Louis when I'm on vacation. It's too hard to explain exactly where New Kassel is.

“Glad to have you,” he said.

“Yes, and I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

“What sort of questions?” he asked. “You can tell Kimberly Canton my answer is still no.”

“Uh … this has nothing to do with that, whatever that is. This is a more personal matter,” I said.

“What did she do now?”

“Who?”

“My ex-wife,” he said.

“No, it's not that personal,” I said.

“Well, then, what the hell do you want?” he asked. He was obviously confused, and the lines between his eyebrows sort of gave that away.

“I was wondering how much of your family tree you know?”

“What, like my great-great-grandpa and all that crap?”

“Yes,” I said. Okay, maybe he wasn't the best candidate for ownership of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old diary. “On the Bloomquist side. I was trying to track down somebody in a particular branch of the family.”

“Is there money involved? If so, I'm descended from whoever I have to be,” he said and smiled.

“No,” I said.

The expression on his face fell from the pure elation just moments ago when he thought he might actually have money coming. “Oh, uh … I know that my grandpa's dad, my great-grandpa, he was mayor of Olin back in, like, the turn of the century,” he said.

“Which century?”

“Oh, you know like 1902 or somewhere around there.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Mmmm, boy, let me think,” he said. He looked at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Seems to me I wanna say John.”

“Is that as far back as you know?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Any other tidbits of info? Any family legends that you know of? Anything you can give me will help,” I said. “I'm trying to figure out if it's the same Bloomquists. Like, do you know where your family came from originally? Where they lived?”

“Mmm, Dad told me once that the Bloomquists were from Sweden, and that they'd lived here for a long time. Well, my dad grew up in town, but I think somewhere back there somebody owned a farm—but like that's a real help. Most people before 1900 owned a farm, right?”

“Right,” I said.

Brian looked around the room, his gaze landing on a few customers. I knew that he was getting antsy and wanted to take care of business.

“Well, thank you, Mr. Bloomquist,” I said.

“Oh, call me Brian.”

“Brian.”

“Did I help any?”

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn't sure how much. “Still haven't made the connection yet, but if I do, I'll let you know.”

“Great,” he said. “In the meantime, enjoy the lake.”

I caught up with Rudy and Colin at the front door. “Well, did he know who Anna was?” Rudy asked.

“Nah,” I said. “I just asked how far back he could go on his family tree and he remembered that his great grandpa was once the mayor of Olin. John was his name. That's probably one or two generations removed from Sven, still.”

“Oh, that's too bad,” Rudy said.

“So, what are you going to do with the manuscript?” Colin asked.

“Well, I think I'm going to check out John. If he was mayor, there has to be some information on him somewhere. I want to find out who his parents and grandparents were. If he is descended from Sven, then I want to try and find other descendants, other than just Brian.”

“Why?” Colin asked. “Can't you just give the manuscript to Brian?”

“I think what Torie is trying to say,” Rudy said, “is she wants to find somebody more appreciative.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Brian was really only interested in what I had to say because he thought I was going to have long-lost money for him.”

“Oh,” Colin said. “Well, what if you don't find anybody who is appreciative enough?”

“I don't want to think about that,” I said. “I'm also going to check out the Evil Parson.”

“Huh?” Rudy asked.

“You know, the bad guy from the diary. It sucks, hating some anonymous jerk. I want him to have a name. So, I'm going to find him one,” I said.

We all walked out to the truck, my stomach rumbling all the way. I was as hungry as Colin lately. The tumbledown shack on the land next to the marina caught my attention again. “Hey, how much do you think lakefront property is worth up here?”

“Oh, a lot,” Colin said. “Why?”

“I just can't figure out why somebody would let a piece of property like that go,” I said. “I mean, if you can't afford to keep the building painted, why not just sell it?”

“Who knows?” Rudy said. “Does it bother you that much?”

“Well, it's such an eyesore. I mean, look at all the rest of the lakefront. It's beautiful. It figures, there has to be a bad apple in every bunch,” I said.

“So, where're we eating?” Colin asked.

“Pancake Palace,” Rudy said.

Twelve

Instead of going back out on the lake with Rudy and Colin, I decided to look around the town a bit. I agreed to be back at the marina at five to pick them up from their day of fishing. I drove to the city limits and parked the truck and walked through town. In the center of Olin was a public notice board with messages posted on it. They were mostly things like fliers announcing that bingo night had changed, a pet had been lost, a baby-sitter was needed. A bright orange and black flier advertised the strongman competition this weekend. And there were a few other more official-looking notices about an estate, and an auction. Then, right there in the middle was one that just leapt out at me. It was an announcement of a monument that was to be erected during the festival this week in honor of the founder of the city of Olin.

I walked over to the historical society and hoped that Roberta would be there. Out front was sitting the same little red Geo Metro that had been there yesterday, so I knocked on the door and entered.

As I barreled through the door, I saw Roberta suddenly jump. “Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” I said.

Roberta looked past me and I glanced over my shoulder. An attractive woman stood behind me, inspecting a photograph that hung on the wall. She turned and smiled at me. She was breathtaking to look at. Very fresh-faced and earthy, and yet exotic at the same time. “Oh, hello.”

The woman smiled at me and said something about it being a nice day, to which I couldn't do anything but nod and agree with her. Roberta came over to me then. “What can I do for you?”

“I just saw a public notice about a monument being erected for the founder of the city,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Well, it made me think to ask you about him and ask you…” I glanced over at the woman. “… about a lot of things. Would you happen to have a book of biographical sketches?”

She looked confused. Maybe she just didn't know which of my questions to answer first, but I explained what I was looking for.

“It's a book that is usually made up of biographical sketches of important leaders of the community: political, parochial, educational. I mean, you may not have one just for Olin, but you might have one for the whole county,” I said.

“Of course,” Roberta said. “Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.” She walked over and pulled two books off of the shelf behind her desk. They were ancient. The one was at least a century old, the other about eighty years old.

“Oh, please tell me they're indexed,” I said. I get so irritated with these old books, because they are rarely ever indexed and you have to look at every page to find what you need.

“Well, the older one isn't indexed, but it is in alphabetical order. I'm afraid the other one is not indexed, nor is it in alphabetical order. I'm not sure how they put the book together. Somebody told me once that they thought it was geographical. That the author just started at one end of the county and went to the next. Pretty strange way to put a book together.”

“Boy, I'll say,” I said. I glanced over at the guest once again. “Can I just stand here and look through these?”

“Certainly,” Roberta said.

I tackled the alphabetical one first. I'd have been an idiot to do otherwise. In the meantime, Roberta sat back down at her desk. The problem was that this book was written far too early to have anything about John Bloomquist, since he didn't become mayor until around 1900. Of course, one thing I've learned since becoming a genealogist is that rarely do people ever get dates or names correct when talking about their ancestors. Unless they are genealogists, too. So, I checked anyway.

There was something on Sven. I couldn't believe it.

“Roberta, do you have a copier here?”

“No, 'fraid not. You'd have to go over to the post office.”

“The post office–grocery store?”

“Right.”

“Can I take this book over there?”

She shrugged. “I'm really not supposed to let you,” she said. “I can give you paper and pen and you can copy it down.”

“Yes, but there's a photograph in here I'd like to get a copy of.”

“Oh…”

“Please? I swear to you I will bring it right back.”

“All right,” she said. “But only because I know your aunt will deliver you to me if you go back on your word.”

“Thank you,” I said. I tried to remember some of the other names that I had looked up in the land records. I couldn't remember the dates that any of them had owned the house that my aunt now lived in. But I knew the Hujinaks didn't come along until later. Hendrickson. That one I could remember. I looked it up and there wasn't a chapter on that last name.

“Roberta, do you remember the list of people who owned my aunt's farm before her? I just can't remember everybody's name.”

“Um, the Olsons, the Hujinaks … Reed. Wendell Reed.”

“That's right, but I don't think he moved in until after 1900 sometime. Then came the Hendricksons. And then there was one other between them and the Bloomquists.”

Roberta cleared her throat and appeared a little antsy. “I believe it was Rogers.”

“That's right. So blasted simple, of course I forgot it.”

Just as I was about to check the book for the Rogers name, the woman who had been observing the photographs on the wall thanked Roberta for her help, told her to have a nice day, and left.

“James Rogers,” I said to myself, and turned the pages to the R's. “James Rogers, wealthy banker from Philadelphia, moved his family to Minnesota just at the outbreak of the Civil War. He bought a lumber company and prepared to make a fortune here on the frontier. His oldest son went off to war and died at Gettysburg. After that, Mrs. Rogers, a God-fearing and good woman, began a coalition for grieving parents of Union Veterans. James, whose family was English in origin, started his business along the St. Croix River. He bought the old farm and house on the old Pine Road, where tragedy had befallen the Swedish family of Bloomquists just a few years before. He rebuilt the house and settled his family in for the long haul.”

I stopped and worked my lip between my fingers.

“What's wrong?” Roberta asked.

Her voice startled me, because I had totally forgotten that I was standing in her office or that I was reading out loud. “Nothing, it's just that Aunt Sissy said the house was rebuilt in 1878, which would have been when the Hendricksons owned it.”