Old World Murder (2010) (7 page)

“The Eagle’s Nest.” The chief picked up a pencil and let it slide through his fingers until the eraser end bounced from his desk. “Evidently somebody’s taking bets on craps or NASCAR or anything else that moves.”

The Eagle’s Nest was a new bar on the outskirts of the village. “Hunh,” Roelke said.

“You been in there yet?”

“I did a few walk-throughs the first week they were open. Found a couple of underage drinkers. A couple more with fake IDs. I’ve mostly been on first shift.”

“Pick up a couple of later shifts, then. Switch with Skeet.” Naborski bounced the pencil off its tip, turned it over, and let it begin another slide.

“Did the kid provide any names? Any other details?”

“Not to Ginger. He only ’fessed up to his parents because he needed to come up with the money. His father forked over the cash so his kid could walk away, then called his sister, the village board member. You can talk to the kid yourself. See if he’ll tell you anything else.” Naborski handed him a piece of paper with some notes scrawled on it. “How do you want to play it at the bar?”

Roelke considered. Up-front, in uniform? Hanging out in street clothes first, trying to blend in, keeping his eyes and ears open? “Up- front, to start,” he decided. “I can make it clear that we’ve had a complaint. That might be all it takes.”

“Do it,” Naborski said. “We need to shut this thing down fast. It’s probably some bookie moving out from the city, thinks he can fly under the radar out here.”

“Right.”

Roelke left the chief in his office, wished Marie a good afternoon, and headed out to his patrol car. But before signing in with dispatch he allowed himself one last thought of Chloe Ellefson. He knew she’d been irritated and frustrated by the time she left. There’s nothing you can do about it, he told himself, which didn’t make him feel even a little better.

Chloe retreated to bed
that evening with Jack Finney’s
Time and Again
and a glass of wine. Her mind kept drifting, though, from the novel’s plot to the missing artifact transfer record. Who could have taken it? Nika had admitted to being in the trailers recently. And Byron had mentioned a specific artifact in the pink trailer, so he’d been inside recently as well. But why would either one care about one ale bowl? Other people on staff had access, too. Maintenance chief Stanley Colontuono, for one. Director Ralph Petty, for another.

The bedside telephone’s ring startled her. She checked her watch—almost eleven—and eyed the phone with suspicion. Only two people were likely to call at this hour: Ethan or her mother. Quite a gamble. She took a sip of wine. The phone rang again, and kept ringing well beyond the point of politeness. Decision made. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

She sighed and relaxed, snuggling farther down on the pillow. “Ethan. Hi.”

“I called to see how you were doing.”

A lump rose in her throat, and her eyes welled with unexpected tears. “Thanks,” she said simply. “OK, I think. I feel like I’m underwater. I always seem to be a step or two behind everyone else. But OK.”

“Everyone feels like that when they start a new job.”

“I guess. How are you?”

“Good. I’m likely to get called out on a fire and I wanted to talk to you before I left.”

Chloe clutched the receiver as if it were his hand. “Where?”

“California. Didn’t you see it on the news?”

“I must have missed it.” Since Chloe hadn’t bothered to plug her television in yet, that wasn’t surprising. “You know, most of the people we graduated with took nice, safe jobs with nice, destructive, paper companies.”

His low laugh rippled through the wire, over the miles. “Yeah. Go figure. So. Are you getting to know some of the people you’ll be working with?”

“A little. It’s quite a crew.” She curled on her side and told him about Byron and Stan, Ralph and Nika. “There are only ten or twelve permanent employees, so I’ll get to know the others. Most of the work is seasonal.”

“Yeah.” Ethan knew all about seasonal work. “Well, give ’em a chance, Chloe. I worry about you being isolated out there.”

Chloe looked around the bedroom—empty shelves, empty bureau, stacks of cartons—and on to the dark, silent rooms beyond. She was living alone in a nine-room farmhouse on a lonely rural road. Yep, pretty isolated. And so different than the small house she’d shared with Markus, which had squeezed European-style between two others in Brienz, within walking distance of almost everything they needed. That little house had overflowed with life: music drifting from the stereo, two collections of books tumbling from over-crammed shelves, the aroma of baking cheese and fresh bread spilling from their tiny kitchen, window boxes dripping with flowers each summer.

God, she missed Markus.

“Chloe?”

“I was back in Switzerland,” she admitted. “It was just so damn easy there, you know? Markus and I—the day we met, it was like we’d known each other for years.” While Chloe and Markus lived together they’d spent some vacation days touring other outdoor museums and historic sites, interviewing elderly people on remote farms, attending conferences. Other days they laced up hiking boots and disappeared into the mountains with nothing in their daypacks but bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine. Markus and Chloe belonged to a folk dance group. She encouraged him to submit his account of his efforts to stabilize populations of two rare goat breeds,
stiefelgeiss
and
fauengeiss,
for publication. He encouraged her to pursue her long-held, mostly secret wish to write an historical novel. She—

“Chloe?” Ethan asked again.

She reminded herself that although Ethan was gay and oblivious to the charms of historic sites, he was one thing Markus was not: an ever-faithful best friend. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m here.”

“You need to get out of the house. Go do something cheerful. Remember that bluegrass bar you took me to that Christmas I came home with you?”

“The Green Lantern. It’s near Fort Atkinson.”

“Go listen to some music this weekend.”

“Maybe I will,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t.

“You feeling better about that car wreck thing?”

She hesitated. Her bedroom window was open, and a cow in the pasture just beyond the driveway snorted and stamped. “Well … There’s something going on here that I don’t understand.”

“Why are you worrying about it?”

“I promised Mrs. Lundquist I’d find the bowl.” She flexed her toes. “She came to me for help. I can’t help wondering if someone was bullying her about that ale bowl, somehow. Pressuring her to get it back. What if that’s what caused her heart attack?”

“If that’s the case,” Ethan said, “then I
really
don’t think you should get involved in it. You can’t bring her back. You have a new job to get a handle on, and your health to take care of.”

He was right, of course. The Old World collections, the interpreters and their artifact-related needs—she had overwhelming responsibilities. There was no time for unnecessary side trips.

“… so don’t try to take this on by yourself, too. You need to get out with other people more. Join a club or something.”

“A club?”

“There must be some kind of adult sports league or something around there. Get on a softball team. Didn’t you pitch on your dorm team?”

“That was a million years ago.” Another person, another life.

“Well, look into it, OK? And get a dog.”

“
What
?”

“Get a dog. They’re great companions.”

“I can’t get a dog,” she said slowly.

“Why not?”

“They’re—it would be too much responsibility.”

“What responsibility? You feed it, you take it out for walks. In return you get exercise and company and unconditional love.”

“I’ll think about it,” Chloe lied. A dog implied commitment. She couldn’t get a dog.

“Listen, girl, I should let you turn in. It’s late.”

“OK.” Chloe stared at the photograph of her and Ethan perched island-like on the empty bookshelf. She loved Ethan for loving her, through good and bad. She also cherished the living link to her life before her gradual unraveling. Ethan reminded Chloe of her old self—energetic, focused on growing a career, passionate about hiking and paddling and skiing into wooded hills. Content. Normal.

“Thanks for calling, Ethan,” she said. “You be careful on the fire line, you hear? Call me when you get back.”

“I will on both counts.”

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you still gay?”

He laughed. “Good night, Chloe.”

____

Chloe got lost on Friday morning while trying to find Daleyville, but she’d been so sure of getting lost that she still arrived fifteen minutes early for Mrs. Lundquist’s funeral. The old stone church stood on high ground, overlooking farm fields rolling piously into the distance. The string of homes that comprised the village seemed inadequate to fill the imposing church. Chloe’s Pinto brought the total of cars in the parking lot up to a mighty three, and the minister and organist presumably accounted for the other two. Evidently very few people mourned Mrs. Lundquist’s passing.

Once inside, she felt obligated to slide into a pew near the front. A simple white coffin was positioned in front of the altar rail—closed, thank God. Chloe sent a private nod to Mrs. Lundquist, wherever she was:
I’m so sorry I wasn’t more helpful. I wish I’d asked you more questions, learned why you were so upset. I’m trying to find your ale bowl, and to figure out what was troubling you.

Three elderly ladies walked silently down the aisle and took seats together a few pews in front of her, all wearing proper black or navy blue dresses. Two wore hats. It hadn’t occurred to Chloe until that morning that she shouldn’t show up at a funeral in chinos and a polo shirt, and a frantic scramble through suitcases had resulted in a wrinkled denim skirt and dark green cotton blouse. She had no idea where her iron was—did she even still own an iron?—so she’d laid the clothes over her kitchen table, dribbled water on the worst of the creases, pressed them flat with her fingers, and pulled them on.

She was grateful for a quiet moment to gather her thoughts. Dust motes danced in a stream of light pouring like molten gold through a window. Sober organ music filled the air. Chloe tried to remember when she’d last been inside a Lutheran church. As a child, she’d attended Sunday School and worship services with her family at Christ Lutheran Church in Stoughton. Markus was an agnostic, but that hadn’t mattered to her—not living in a place where Lake Brienz sparkled on one side, and the Alps soared heavenwards on the other—

“Hello.”

Chloe jumped; she hadn’t even noticed the elderly man who’d taken a seat in the pew beside her. “Good morning,” she murmured back.

He was very thin, and wore an old but tidy black suit. He removed his fedora with fingers that tremored with a slight palsy. A fringe of white hair circled his head just above ear level. “Who are you?” he whispered.

“Just a …” Just a what? “I only met Mrs. Lundquist recently,” Chloe told him. “Were you a friend of hers?”

“We were next-door neighbors for twenty-seven years. Years ago me and my wife and Berget and her husband used to get together every Friday night to play Sheepshead.” The man waved one trembling hand in a gesture part resigned, part helpless. “No more card games, now. I’m the only one left.”

Chloe pressed his hand briefly. There were too damn many lonely people in the world. “I’m sorry,” she said, and introduced herself. “I work at Old World Wisconsin. I only met Mrs. Lundquist once.”

“I’m Bill Solberg.” He gave her a searching look with blue eyes that looked pale, as if age was leaching even that color from him. “It was good of you to come.”

“I wanted to. She—she came to see me the day she died.”

“About that ale bowl.” He nodded. “She’d been fussing about that for weeks.”

Chloe sat up a little straighter. “Do you—”

The minister, who had stepped unnoticed to the pulpit, chose that moment to begin the service. Chloe forced herself to swallow her questions.

The service was brief and, with the exception of mentioning Mrs. Lundquist’s dependable presence at Sunday service, impersonal. After the organ postlude, the funeral ended.

Mr. Solberg sat immobile, staring at the coffin. The three elderly women followed the minister down the aisle. Chloe glanced after them, wondering if they had been friends of Mrs. Lundquist … and was startled to see Officer McKenna standing by a back pew. He caught her eye and nodded.

The old man sighed heavily. “I’ll miss her.”

“I’m glad she had a friend like you,” Chloe said. “When I met her, she seemed very distressed about that ale bowl. And then the police told me they couldn’t find any relatives. I’ve been very sad about it all.”

“Were you able to help her?” Mr. Solberg said.

“I’m afraid not. It was my first day, you see, and …” Chloe took a deep breath. “The form she showed me said she had legally donated the ale bowl to the State Historical Society in 1962. I’m afraid that kind of thing really can’t be undone.”

“I told her so, but she was determined to try. I can’t recall seeing her so worked up about anything since her husband died.”

“Do you know why she was so upset?” Chloe asked. “What made it so important for her to get that ale bowl back?”

Mr. Solberg shook his head. “She never said. She was a classy lady, never talked much about personal stuff. Not like most nowadays.”

“Mr. Solberg, I haven’t been able to find the ale bowl. It was transferred from the state collection in Madison to Old World Wisconsin in 1977, and it seems to have disappeared. I’d really like to find that ale bowl, and to learn why Mrs. Lundquist was so worried about it. If you can think of anything she ever said about it, anything at all, it might be very helpful.”

He turned sideways in the pew, a frown creasing his forehead. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I feel badly that I wasn’t able to help your friend when she came to see me. I promised her I’d find the bowl. Even though she’s gone … I’d like to honor that promise, and to put the bowl on display in one of the Norwegian houses.” That much was true. Chloe chose not to mention her fear that someone might have been pressuring the old lady to produce the artifact.