Past Imperfect (18 page)

Wylie might as well join the club, McIntire thought. Warner and Wylie, a battle for Lucy's affections between Flambeau County's two most eligible bachelors. He could hardly wait.

McIntire allowed as how a single woman always had to be wary of being taken advantage of, and asked, “Miss Delaney, when the neighbors were here after Nels died, who
did
take your trash to the dump?”

Lucy threw up her hands. “Not you, too! I'll tell you the same thing I told Sheriff Koski—three times—I
don't know
. Almost everybody in the neighborhood came by for a least a short time that weekend to help out. Even our Mad Mailman stopped for a few minutes on Saturday.”

“What about David? You mentioned that he was a big help the day before Nels was buried.”

“David picked up the Paulsons at the train station in Chandler and brought them here. Then he stayed to help out, but to be honest he mostly just hung around listening to that old duffer tell war stories. After Wylie took the Paulsons back to his place—they spent the night there—I guess David left. Wylie must have driven over here in his pickup truck, and he would have taken his company home in the car, so David probably drove the pickup back, and he might have hauled the trash to the dump, but I don't know. I had other things to think about.”

Before leaving, McIntire walked up the hill with the intention of introducing himself to the prime suspect. As he approached, David stabbed his spade into the earth and picked up one of the saplings to plop it into its permanent home. He was thin and muscular, a sullenly handsome youth. “Cute” didn't seem to be the most apt description, but then McIntire had not actually seen a bug's ear. A wave of dark hair fell across his forehead and concealed his eyes as he bent to his task, which he continued to do while McIntire valiantly attempted to engage him in conversation.

“It's a good day to be working outside.”

David produced a pocket knife and reached into the hole to slash at the burlap that enveloped the tree roots. “I guess so,” he said to the tree.

“I imagine Wylie works you pretty hard,” was McIntire's next brilliant observation.

“I'm a good worker.” He began scooping soil into the hole, using the point of the spade to pack each new addition carefully around the roots.

“I know, Wylie told me that.”

The halting of a shovel full of earth poised over the hole indicated a glimmer of interest, and McIntire leapt on it. “He says you're a hard worker, the best he's ever had.”

David flung the hair back from his face with a flip of his head and looked directly at his visitor. His eyes were a clear gray, and communicated an attitude of cool indifference. “He likes me,” he said simply.

McIntire fought the urge to squirm under the youth's penetrating stare. “Cindy liked you too,” he said. “You must feel terrible about what happened to her.”

David turned back to his work, and once again the hair veiled his expression. “It's not my fault if they can't find her. I don't know where she is.” He stomped heavily to pack the earth around the spindly trunk.

“Do you think she might be still alive?”

“The sheriff said she was by the ski jump, but now they can't find her. Maybe she took off somewhere. Dead people don't move.”

McIntire pictured a nine-year-old David keeping his vigil beside the unmoving body of his father. He spoke more softly. “But they can
be
moved.”

The boy again turned his disconcerting gaze on his visitor. “I have to plant the rest of these trees now,” he said.

McIntire accepted his dismissal and walked away. The short conversation, if it could be called that, left him feeling oddly discomfited. It was difficult to tell if David's attitude reflected insolence, furtiveness, grief, or simple indifference. Maybe it was plain old shock. After all, he had supposedly just spent a week lost in the bush, not to mention a day with Pete Koski being more or less accused of the murder of one of his few friends. David could hardly be blamed for not being eager to pass the time of day with a prying stranger. Still, McIntire hadn't gotten the impression that David's antagonism, if that's what it was, was directed at him personally. On the contrary, David's demeanor seemed distinctly impersonal. He glanced back as the slender youth dragged another tree from the bed of the truck. There was something about David that had an unsettling ring of familiarity.

XXII

After leaving David, McIntire checked his watch, his gas gauge, and possibly his good sense and, rather than turning north on Nels' Orchard Road, headed south on the even more primitive route that would take him to the main thoroughfares and eventually north along the peninsula and inland to Painesdale and the home of Laurie Post. He had not much hope that it would be a fruitful venture, but at any rate, the hour-long drive through the countryside would afford a welcome respite from the anguish occasioned by the events of the past weeks. McIntire relished driving almost as much as he did walking. He had seldom found the opportunity in Europe and had never before owned a car. The purchase of the blue Studebaker Champion the previous summer had been one of the high points of his life.

As he traveled between trees with limbs arching to meet overhead, a great blue heron that had been standing in the narrow roadway took wing. For several minutes it continued to fly, silent and spectral, at eye level in front of the car, leading him onward through the tunnel of green shadows, until it finally rose off over the treetops abandoning him to find his own way. McIntire had an impulse to turn back and try to convince Leonie to accompany him on the trip, but by the time she was finished with her newspaper and her Glorious Fourth preparations the day would probably be shot.

He also regretted that he had not taken time to call to let Laurie know to expect him. He had no one but himself to blame when, after receiving directions to her house from the youthful attendant at the filling station, he found that she was not at home.

He was just turning away from her door when a white clad Laurie appeared from around the corner, walking briskly in her nurse's shoes. Here in the outdoors, McIntire could see that she was even more diminutive than she had appeared within the confines of the church, and more ancient. She must already have reached middle age when she first entered the Bertelsen household. He lost what optimism he had that she would be able to give him any useful information.

She regarded him curiously until she was only a few feet from where he stood. Then she smiled, exposing teeth that appeared to be mostly original equipment, and sprang forward to clutch at his arm. “Well, John, how nice. I've been hoping you'd come, but I have to admit I didn't really expect it.”

McIntire patted the bony hand. “I should have called first, but I just happened to be in town. I hope this isn't a bad time.”

She flung open the front door of her narrow mining-company house and urged him inside with the quick, jerky movements of an energetic mouse. “There couldn't be a better time. I've just finished my shopping, and I'm on the late shift this week, so I don't have to be at work until four o'clock.” She deposited a brown paper bag on a chair by the door and unpinned her hat. “You're surprised to find me still working, aren't you? Probably surprised to find me still alive!” She cackled merrily and, after seating him in the living room and being assured that his mother and Leonie were in excellent health, scurried off to the kitchen, giving McIntire ample time to scrutinize his surroundings.

The room did not at all conform to his notion of the parlor of an elderly spinster, if Laurie could be called that. The early afternoon sun produced foreshortened rectangles of light on the faded oak floor and revealed furnishings that consisted of not much more than a sofa and chair covered in fawn colored corduroy with a low table placed between them. Those positions that one could have reasonably expected to be occupied by a montage of mementos and family photos were taken up by a staggering array of green plants. No fussy little-old-lady violets or geraniums but masses of philodendron, diffenbachia, and tropical ferns spilled from pots and baskets, twined over the windows, and created patterns of soft shadow on the chalk-white walls. Simplicity and serenity reigned.

McIntire was on his feet, surreptitiously glancing about, searching in vain for some reminder of Laurie's life with Ole Bertelsen, when she returned with a tray. She lowered it to the table with a rattle of cups and a slosh of milk from the pitcher.

“Is this what you wanted?” She spoke abruptly, and McIntire had no ready response other than to gaze in astonishment. She stared back for the briefest of moments before saying with a little sigh, “Oh dear, I just get so used to asking. Carrying trays is mostly what I do these days. I don't see as well as I used to. But it's good to keep busy.” McIntire was baffled by this statement until he realized that she was referring to her employment. She sat down on the edge of the sofa. “Anyway, I hope this is all right. I thought you might prefer tea. Sorry, but I'm fresh out of crumpets, whatever they are. Have a cookie.”

“Tea is just fine,” McIntire lied, then added truthfully, “and I don't much care for crumpets. You have a lovely home.”

“Oh, thank you, John.” She poured them each a cup of the anemic looking liquid and added a hefty spoon of sugar to her own. “It's a bit spartan, I know, but by the time I bought this place there didn't seem to be any reason to begin acquiring a lot of junk. Travel light through this life, I say. You'll leave less baggage for others to contend with when you're gone.” She leaned forward to peer with cataract-clouded eyes into McIntire's face. “You don't resemble your father much,” she observed. “And not just in appearance, I suspect.”

McIntire braced himself for the glowing eulogy that generally accompanied any mention of the late Colin McIntire, but Laurie's remarks went off in another direction. “I haven't seen you since you were a boy,” she said, “except—where was it?—oh yes, the funeral.” She picked up a Hydrox cookie and separated the two halves. “Nels' funeral was the first time I've been back in St. Adele since Ole died. Being there again brought back so much that I thought I'd forgotten, memories of Nels and the others I left behind, too.” She nibbled at the cookie. “Maybe we have something in common.”

McIntire agreed that maybe they did. “I did my best to keep memories of home alive all the time I was away,” he told her. It was a rude awakening when I came back and found out how little the St. Adele I had concocted in my mind resembled the real thing.”

“Well, I guess we're not that much alike after all,” Laurie responded. “The day I left, I made up my mind to never give the good folk of St. Adele another thought.” She chuckled and brushed a few crumbs from her lap. “But I sometimes feel maybe it was wrong of me to just get up and take off the way I did. Not everybody in St. Adele treated me like a leper. Maybe I was a little too ready to see accusation in every sideways glance. I really didn't give anyone much of a chance to be friendly even if they had wanted to be.”

“Still,” McIntire sympathized, “it must have taken a lot of courage to stay on after Tina Bertelsen was gone.”

“Courage? I don't know about that. I didn't have anywhere else to go, and I didn't care much about what anybody thought. Still don't. Maybe that's the wrong way to be, too. Folks don't care much what I think either…” Laurie's voice trailed off, and she frowned slightly before going on. When she did continue, McIntire was relieved to see that he'd have no struggle to induce her to open up. “It was harder for Ole,” she said, “and, of course, Nels, than it was for me. After all, those people were their friends and neighbors. It was especially bad for the boy, being at the age he was, only sixteen or so. But regardless of the gossip, I don't think he would have wanted me to leave, do you?”

“I'm positive that he wouldn't have.”

“Poor Tina was never able to be much of a mother to him. I hoped to make things a little better.” Laurie's hand fluttered out like a tiny paw to pick up her cup, then returned it to the saucer without drinking. “We never quite know for sure how the things we do will affect others, do we? Nels had already lost a brother years before, and then his sister died the way she did—it was her appendix, you know, and they were just too stubborn to get any help for her until it was too late—and his mother goes off her rocker over it. The next thing you know she's gone, too, and”—she gave a self-deprecating smile—“Pa's got some doxy in her place. He had a lot on his plate for sure, and I have to shoulder some of the blame for his problems. I'm sure he took more than his share of grief on my account…all kinds of teasing and torment… and then there was that tragedy with the younger boy.”

At McIntire's questioning look she explained, “The one who lost his arm.”

“Wylie Petworth,” McIntire said helpfully.

“Yes, Wylie. Funny name. They were good friends, don't you know? Wylie was just a little tad, but he followed Nels around like a puppy. Well, he'd lost both his parents, and he looked up to Nels. Even before all the troubles, Nels didn't have a lot of friends. I think his quick temper kind of led other young people to keep their distance.” At McIntire's nod she continued. “But it didn't seem to bother Wylie. He was a tough little nut, I'll say that for him, always so chipper, and wasn't afraid of anything. Maybe it would have been better for him if he had been.”

Like a lot of older people, Laurie might be getting fuzzy where the here and now was concerned, but she seemed to be able to relate stories of the past without missing a beat. Still, this last comment was perplexing.

“Why do you say that?”

“For all that they spent so much time together, that boy did tend to get Nels stirred up.”

“Well, like you say, Nels wasn't hard to stir up. But even so,” McIntire said, “he and Wylie always stayed good friends. Nels cared enough to risk his own neck to drag Wylie out of that fire.”

“Oh my yes! And a good thing that he did.”

McIntire couldn't argue with that. “And Wylie's toughness gave him the fortitude to cope pretty well with his injury. That must have been terrifying for a young boy.”

Laurie sat back and closed her eyes for a minute, as if making a supreme effort to dredge deeply into her store of memories—or perhaps taking a minute to relish the anticipation of telling her story. “It was dreadful! They'd been fishing through the ice on the bay. They went almost every day after they'd got home from school and done their chores. They had that warming shack on the shore. After the explosion and the fire, Nels managed to come to his senses enough to get Wylie out and away from the shack. He left him lying in the woods and ran all the way home to get help. Ole was off in Chandler, so I had to go—being a nurse, I'd have gone anyway, but Ole would have been a help…”

Her voice grew faint, and McIntire nodded encouragingly.

“We took the team through the woods. When we got there the shack was roaring like an inferno and the dead trees around it had caught fire, too.” Laurie leaned forward and pressed her hands to her chest. “It was like a scene from hell!—flames leaping all around and that poor boy screaming like a banshee. We wrestled him into the sled, and Nels held him down so I could rip his sleeve away and pack what was left of his arm with snow. Sorry they're storebought.”

Where had that come from? “Storebought?”

She shoved the Hydrox his way. “You're still way too skinny. I hate making cookies. Fussing over all those little blobs of dough. I used to work all morning, and Ole and Nels would polish off the whole batch in a half hour. If I wanted any I'd have to hide them. Now I just buy whatever I want, and I have them all to myself.” She moved the plate closer. “Eat.”

McIntire obediently took one, and only one, cookie. “You were telling me, Miss Post, about putting Wylie in the sled. Did you take him all the way to Chandler?”

“Just to the hotel in St. Adele. They had a phone there.” She swung back into her story. “I'll never forget that trip if I live to be a hundred. Nels drove along the lake on the ice; there was no road then. It was pitch dark and snowing like crazy, the horses slipping and stumbling over big chunks of ice, and Wylie screaming and swearing at me every step of the way. Called me names I never dreamed a thirteen-year-old boy would know. I hadn't heard some of those words myself, and I was raised in a lumber camp.” Her throaty chuckle became a sigh. “Well, that was a long time ago, and luckily young men have a forgiving nature—or short memories.”

“But after it was all over he must have realized his pain wasn't your fault.”

Laurie looked curiously at him, the confused frown reappearing.

“No, of course it wasn't
my
fault…well, not directly, anyway. And it sure wasn't my fault if bed seventeen got cornflakes instead of oatmeal yesterday. I just carry the trays, I don't put the stuff on them!” This minor outburst was followed by an expression of dismay, then a self-conscious giggle. “Oh dear, I'm sorry. I'm afraid I get off the track sometimes. What was it?”

“You took Wylie to St. Adele, and…”

“Oh yes, the boy in the fire. So that young doctor came out from Chandler, twenty miles through the storm. My wasn't he just the handsomest man? Anyway, he did what he could. The next morning he put the boy in his sled and took him over to that little lumber town on Keweenah Bay. The water was open there. They got him to the hospital in Houghton by boat. That's where they amputated his arm.”

“It was thanks to Nels and you that Wylie didn't lose more than his arm. And lucky that no one else was hurt.”

“Nels' hands were burned, too, and they were rubbed raw from driving the horses, but he wouldn't let the doctor touch them.”

“Why ever not?”

Laurie threw up her hands. “Who knows? I think mostly he was too stubborn to admit that he needed help, but then, he still sort of blamed Guibard for his sister's dying. Anyway I took care of his burns myself. I was a nurse after all. I still am, regardless of what some people might think!”

She seemed poised on the brink of another disturbing trek into the confusing present, and McIntire hastily raked up a story from the deep past.