Old World Murder (2010) (28 page)

Chloe’s eyebrows went up. “Um, no. I did not know that.”

“I thought Petty might have checked before hiring me. Well, you might as well know. When I was in high school, sometimes I went to antique stores. I was flat broke, saving every penny for college, but I just liked looking around. One day I talked my cousin into coming with me. In one shop I found this great embroidered handkerchief. I studied it for a while, then moved on. Suddenly a cop showed up, and the dealer accused me of shoplifting. He said the handkerchief was in my purse. It was.”

Chloe opened her mouth, closed it again.
Shit
.

“I did not steal it,” Nika said coldly. “My cousin had pinched it and slipped it into my bag.”

“But—but
why
?”

“I never got a straight answer from her. Maybe she just wanted me to have the piece I liked so much. Or maybe …” Nika shook her head. “Maybe she wanted to knock me down a peg. All she wanted to do was get pregnant and quit school. I probably talked way too much about everything I planned to accomplish.”

“Perhaps it was a little bit of both.”

“Maybe. I know I can be intense.”

“Kind of,” Chloe agreed. “But there’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want and going after it.”

“Maybe. But if I hadn’t been so focused on building my career, I might have noticed that my fiancé was struggling.” Nika abruptly shoved the textiles aside, dropped her elbows on the table, and buried her face. “If I hadn’t worked so many evenings and weekends, my fiancé wouldn’t have had so much time to kill in taverns.”

Chloe’s chest ached. What could she say to ease Nika’s burden? Not a damn thing.

No … wait. There was perhaps one thing, one small thing, she could do.

“Nika,” she said. “I think one of your female ancestors actually made the ale bowl. Do you have any interest in pursuing that?”

Nika looked up, her mouth twisted with revulsion. “
God
, no.”

“So you still need a project. A good one. Here’s the thing. I met with Margueritte Donovan this morning. It looks like the cobblestone cottage we thought belonged to a Swiss carpenter, didn’t.”

“It didn’t?”

“Nope. There were actually
two
small buildings on the lot. The records were misleading. The freelance curator who researched the building drew the obvious conclusions. But last week a newspaper clipping turned up that suggests that the lot was divided. Margueritte did some more digging. The cottage Old World acquired was actually owned by a Yankee woman from Vermont. Sally Jenkins. And get this: Sally Jenkins, who evidently never married, had some medical training. Her business notice in the local paper says ‘Dr. S. A. Jenkins.’”

Nika stared at her, mouth slightly open.

“So, how would you like to do the research report and furnishing plan for the Jenkins House?” Chloe asked.

“
Really?
” Nika sat up straight. It was a hint of the old Nika—alert, on the hunt.

“Really.”

“I would like that. Thanks. But … are you in a position to offer me that? Word I heard was that Ralph got the OK to fire you.”

“I met with him first thing this morning. And—well, he’s not going to fire me. At least not today.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I ate a good-sized helping of crow.”

“That can’t have been fun, you being a vegetarian.”

A startled laugh hiccupped from Chloe. A smile twitched at Nika’s mouth, too. It was gone in an instant. A fresh sheen of tears glazed her eyes. But it gave Chloe hope that maybe, one day, Nika would be OK.

That evening, Chloe was
surveying her dinner options—Oreos or peanut butter on crackers—when Roelke called. “Are you doing OK?” he asked.

“I’m working on it.”

“Did you get fired?”

So much for small talk. “As a matter of fact, no. I am still employed.”

“Hunh.” He sounded thoughtful. “Well, that’s good. So. Libby and I are meeting for fish at the Nite Cap Inn in Palmyra on Friday. Six o’clock. Want to join us?”

“Well … sure,” she said. “Why not.”

____

The Nite Cap was a big cream-city brick structure, quintessential Wisconsin, with a bar and restaurant on the lower story and rooms for rent on the second. When Chloe arrived at the tavern on Friday it was jammed, noisy, and full of smoke. She spotted Roelke waving from a corner table.

“This place is nuts,” she said, as she slipped into a chair across from him.

“Their fish fry is famous. I had to order so we could get a table. Libby should be along soon.”

A waitress came to take drink orders. Chloe splurged on a rum and Coke. Roelke ordered a
beer
. “So,” Chloe said, as they waited for their drinks. “I guess everything is about wrapped up.”

“It looks that way. Carlisle’s prints matched a couple that the Dane County boys found at Mrs. Lundquist’s house, so they’re considering Mr. Solberg’s death a closed case as well. The assumption is that Joel broke in searching for—something he thought might help him locate the bowl.”

“I am choosing to believe that Joel never intended to hurt Mr. Solberg.”

“Your call.” Roelke studied her. “I guess I won’t yell at you for acting stupid when Carlisle cornered you at the farm. Going into the barn after the bowl, coming out from the breezeway into the open, diving at—”

“Thanks for not yelling.”

“You were pretty damn accurate with those sheep shears. You could have killed either me or Carlisle—”

Chloe’s cheeks burned. “I was only trying to help.”

“I had things under control,” he said. “But where did you learn to throw like that?”

“I played softball in college. Just intramurals, but I was pretty good.” The waitress showed up with their drinks, and she took a grateful sip.

“When you dove at us, were you trying to keep Carlisle from shooting me? Or were you just trying to catch the ale bowl?”

“Well … I, um, assumed you
did
have everything under control. And Gro’s ale bowl is irreplaceable.”

Roelke rolled his eyes, then took a swig of beer. “So. Are you still feeling OK? Not, you know, depressed?”

“I’m still feeling OK.” Chloe leaned forward so she could keep her voice low. “Stop asking, all right? There’s nothing like being scared shitless to make you realize that you don’t want to die.”

He traced a line in the cold bottle’s sweat with one finger. “Then how would you like to go out sometime? Not with Libby. Not to talk about a crime.”

This was a conversation Chloe did not want to have. “We really don’t know each other very well.”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s sort of the point. To get to know each other a little better.”

Shit. Where the heck was Libby? “I don’t think I’m ready for anything like that,” Chloe said, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “I’m still … sorting a lot of stuff out.”

“Is it that guy from Switzerland? Is he the one in the picture in your bedroom?”

“No. But speaking of pictures, what about the woman in the photograph
I
saw? At the police station? Above your locker?”

“Oh. No. That’s not someone I ever dated.”

The waitress appeared again, looking harried, and deposited plates of cod and walleye, plus homemade potato pancakes, coleslaw, and applesauce. Roelke was still waiting expectantly.

“Look,” Chloe tried. “I just don’t think it will work.”

“Why not?”

Because I don’t trust relationships! she wanted to shout. She’d believed that Markus Meili loved her. She’d thought that Joel Carlisle was a great guy, and that Berget Lundquist was a sweet old lady. She obviously was no judge of character.

“Well?” he prodded.

“For one thing, I’m older than you.”

“Ex-
cuse
me?” Roelke hooted with laughter. “Aren’t you the person who scolded me for saying ‘maiden name’ instead of ‘birth name’? And now
age
is a problem?”

Chloe smoothed a wrinkle in the tablecloth. Agreeing to come this evening had not been one of her better moves, potato pancakes or not.

Libby appeared, and slid into the empty chair. “Sorry I’m late.” She turned to Chloe. “It’s good to see you. You’ve been through the wringer.”

“Kinda.” Chloe stirred her drink, watching the ice cubes whirl.

“So, what were you two bickering about when I got here?” Libby asked.

Roelke smiled. “Whether or not we should go out.”

“You are out, aren’t you?” Libby began filling her plate.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Chloe muttered.

“Chloe thinks I’m too young for her,” Roelke added, sounding a little smug.

“Tell the whole bar, why don’t you?”

Libby rolled her eyes. “You’re both acting like seventh graders.” She grabbed two cocktail napkins and slapped one on the table in front of each of them. “Here. You’ve both been around the block. Write down three pet peeves from past relationships. Things that you can’t live with. Don’t think about it!” she added, as Roelke opened his mouth. “Just do it!” Two pens appeared from the depths of her purse.

Chloe sighed, feeling cornered. Did Markus dumping her because she had a miscarriage qualify as a pet peeve? Probably not. Better to dredge up her pre-Switzerland era. Feeling Libby’s frown, she picked up a pen and scribbled a list.

Roelke wrote quickly, slapped his pen down, and glared at his cousin. Libby snatched both napkins, gave them a quick scan, and handed them off.

Roelke began to read. “One: Leaving the toilet seat up.” He frowned. “Isn’t that a cliché?”

“Not if you find it irritating.”

He returned to her list. “Two: Leaving the TV on as background noise. Three: Being too quick to shut windows and turn on the AC or heat.” He regarded Chloe, gaze inscrutable. “Well, hunh.”

Chloe looked at Roelke’s peeves, written in a tight, slanting hand: “One: Mindless chatter. Two: Foo foo.”

“What’s ‘foo foo’?” she asked, confused by a mental image of the malicious bunny that delighted in scooping up field mice and bopping them on the head.

“You know. Candles that smell. Teddy bears wearing lacy dresses.” Roelke shuddered. “Knick-knacks.”

“Got it.” Chloe looked back down at the list in her hand. “Three: Pulling down the blinds before it’s completely dark.”

She sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly, seeing the exquisite filigree of bare black limbs against a cobalt sky. Something beneath her ribcage tightened.

“O-K,” Libby said, holding up one hand. “I don’t see any insurmountable problems here. I’m going to get a drink. You kids decide what you’re going to do.” She shoved back her chair and headed toward the bar.

Roelke rolled his beer bottle between his palms, regarding her across the table. “So. How about tomorrow? You free for the afternoon?”

Tomorrow? The
afternoon
? Whatever happened to evening dates—a bracketed time span that left plenty of room for “It’s getting late, I gotta go?” Chloe swallowed uneasily. “What do you have in mind?”

“Something fun,” he promised. “I’ll pick you up at one o’clock.”

Roelke was predictably prompt.
As she finished braiding her hair, Chloe watched him survey the living room: a vase with a single white rosebud on top of the bookshelf, next to a framed photograph of the Swiss Alps. A stack of record albums on the floor, her dulcimer on a chair, some books on the shelves.

“This is better,” he said.

“I’m ready,” Chloe said. “Let’s go.”

They drove through Whitewater and continued west. Roelke started humming, exuding an air of actual good cheer. They were headed toward Fort Atkinson … was he taking her to hear bluegrass music at the Green Lantern? Probably not. In profile, even his jaw looked relaxed. Too relaxed for an afternoon of music he didn’t like.

“So,” she said. “What are we doing this afternoon?”

“We’re going sky diving.”

“… I beg your pardon?”

“Sky diving. You. Me.”

“This afternoon?
”

“Yep.”

“No we aren’t!”

“Yes, we are.”

Chloe twisted in the seat so she could face him. “What—you can’t—stop this truck!”

Roelke began to whistle.

“I mean it! Pull over!” Chloe tried to grab the steering wheel. “Take me home!”

“Stop it!” he bellowed. They swerved onto the shoulder before he muscled the truck safely back into the lane. “Jesus, Chloe!”

“Jesus yourself! I’m not going sky diving! I—I have stitches in my leg!”

“Exactly three. You’ll survive.”

“Now, you listen to me, Officer McKenna,” Chloe snapped. “I—”

“No, you listen to me. You found out you didn’t want to die. That’s not the same as wanting to live.”

“Of all the patronizing, arrogant,
manipulative
…” She ran out of adjectives and folded her arms, glaring out the window.

Roelke kept driving. By the time they arrived at Fort Atkinson’s municipal airport ten minutes later, a steely resolve had narrowed her eyes and stiffened her spine. She’d rappelled down cliffs in her day. Belly-crawled through caves. Paddled Class-5 rapids. She could do this. She
would
do this.

Then she would hitchhike home.

Anger and pride carried her through an absurdly brief orientation provided by an enthusiastic instructor named Dave. Chloe tried to listen as Dave demonstrated the mechanics of parachutes and the tandem harness. She practiced jumping from a demo plane door just outside the hangar, learned the basic hand gestures used for in-air communication, and practiced the butt-in, arms-and-legs outstretched position she was supposed to adopt in the air. Roelke, who’d greeted Dave as an old friend, sat through the briefing with an air of wired anticipation. Clearly, Roelke had jumped from airplanes before.

“And don’t forget to smile,” Dave concluded. “Smiling reduces drag and turbulence in your face.”

Facial turbulence. Chloe gritted her teeth. “Super,” she muttered. “That’s just super.”

Chloe tried to ignore the nibbling fear as they climbed into the Cessna. The jumpsuit and harness she’d donned felt strange. Her stomach lurched sickly as the pilot began to taxi down the runway.

What the
hell
was she doing?

“We’ll climb to 8,700 feet,” the pilot shouted.

Chloe, seated directly behind the pilot, swallowed hard. Her heart was in her throat. This was
insane
! She clutched Dave’s arm convulsively. “Wait!”

“You OK?” he shouted.

Chloe hesitated. She could suck it up and jump. Or, she could add a new humiliation to her ever-accumulating train of emotional baggage.

“OK?” Dave shouted again.

With every cell of her being, Chloe hoped that Roelke was regretting his heavy-handed prank. She sucked in a deep breath and looked back at Dave. “OK.”

The plane continued to climb. A patchwork of farm fields spread below, and … was that Lake Koshkonong? What if they landed in the lake? What if—

“Ready, Roelke?” Dave shouted. Roelke buckled a helmet over his goggles and grinned, the bastard. He unfastened his seat belt and eased a foot out the open door, onto the wheel. “Blue skies!” he yelled, and plunged from sight.

A surge of raw, primal panic swept away the last grains of Chloe’s eroding pride.

“OK!” Dave nodded at Chloe. “Our turn.”

Her limbs had stopped obeying mental commands. Dave unhooked her seatbelt and helped her stand. Once she was steady, he stood directly behind her and fastened their harnesses together.

Chloe found herself at the door of an airplane almost nine thousand feet above the earth. Wind punched her body and screamed past her ears. Her knees began to jackhammer uncontrollably. Sweat soaked her shirt. “I can’t do this!” She clung desperately to the vinyl rope.

“Put your leg out!” Dave yelled in her ear.

She inched her right foot into swirling air. Her left leg still shook uncontrollably. Centuries of genetic memory screamed a cellular warning:
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

“Let go!” Dave commanded.
“Do it!”

Somehow, her fingers released the strap. Dave stepped into the air. They plummeted. Everything moved in every direction at once. Free fall.

Then muscle memory pulled Chloe into the belly-down spread eagle she’d practiced on the ground. Miraculously, she was still breathing. She felt a hard jolt when the parachute opened, slowing their 120 mph plunge toward terra firma.

They floated down balloon-like. No plane noise. No wind.

Holy Mother of God.

It took a heartbeat, or perhaps forever, to see the earth rising beneath them. Chloe tried to process information again. Tuck your arms, lift your legs … She and Dave glided down on wet grass, both lifting their feet so they could slide to an easy, standing position.

Chloe felt her heart thudding. The scent of crushed alfalfa filled her nostrils. The world seemed amazingly, gloriously still. Dave began tugging on the clumsy harness straps and buckles.

Then she was free. Free of the harness. Free from Dave. Absolutely free. She didn’t know whether to rise on her toes or sink to the ground. She compromised by bending over, hands on knees.

“Chloe?” Roelke’s hiking boots appeared in her circle of vision. His hand landed on her shoulder. She shook her head, not ready for words.

“Chloe! Are you OK? Did you hurt your leg?”

With enormous effort she straightened. She searched Roelke’s face—the strong jaw, the straight nose, the startling eyes. It had somehow become completely familiar.

“Jesus!” he barked. “Yell at me, cuss at me, but for Chrissakes say something!”

Chloe took his hand and squeezed. “I finally know why birds sing.”

____

That evening she called Ethan. “I went sky diving,” she announced.

“You went sky diving?”

“Yep. Roelke took me. The cop. I know it wasn’t like what you do as a smoke jumper, but still …”

“It’s kind of a rush, isn’t it?” Ethan asked, as if confessing to a guilty pleasure.

“Yeah,” Chloe said, and laughed. She gave him the details, then happened to glance at the clock. “It’s late. I better go. Good-night, Ethan.”

“Chloe? Anything you want to ask me?”

She wrinkled her forehead. “What?”

“Nothing.” For some reason he sounded pleased. “Good-night.”

____

On Tuesday afternoon, the phone rang as Chloe sat on the floor playing with the calico kitten she’d brought home from her landlord’s barn. She tossed a toy mouse to her new fur ball and stretched to reach the phone. “Hello?”

“I’m off tomorrow night,” Roelke said. “Can I buy you dinner?”

“Dinner would be good.”

“Great. See you then.”

“What time—” Chloe began, but the receiver clicked in her ear. Well, he’d call back. Chloe turned to the kitten again. “Come here, you little munchkin—”

The phone rang. Chloe grabbed it. “I can be ready by six.”

Static crackled in her ear. “Hello? Chloe?”

She went very still.

“I’m at O’Hare.” The man’s voice sounded distant. A flight announcement sounded in the background.

Her grip on the receiver tightened.

“Chloe? I just flew in to Chicago.”

The kitten leaped for a fuzzy ball, overshot the target, and executed a flawless somersault. Chloe closed her eyes.

“Are you there?” he asked. “Chloe, it’s me. Markus.”

TheEnd