Past Imperfect (25 page)

XXXII

McIntire opened Lucy's unlocked door and began to grope his way through the kitchen toward the living room and the telephone. Even in his state of semi-shock he noticed that the room was in an un-Lucy-like state of disorderliness. Unfortunately, he did
not
notice the open oven door until his shin met it with a crack that brought a yelp of agony and sent him sprawling across the kitchen table. Salt shaker, sugar bowl, and a cardboard shoe box stuffed with papers hurtled to the floor. He sucked in his breath and bent to pick up the larger pieces of broken crockery and the scattered papers, papers which he saw were letters, dozens of them. Some were in envelopes; those that were not were headed
Dear Ma
.
Occasional phrases were blacked out, and a few larger portions cut completely away. He'd seen enough of censored mail to recognize it immediately.

He picked up one of the envelopes and examined the postmark. So Lucy had a son in a Missouri state pen. Reason enough to keep her mail from passing through too many hands. Was it also reason enough to make a quick dash back home after absent-mindedly inviting Wylie Petworth into her empty house to help himself to coffee? Did she fear his making this same discovery? McIntire recalled that on his most recent visit to Lucy, she had gone into the house ahead of him and sent him on that water-fetching errand before allowing him to enter.

He stuffed the letters haphazardly into the box and put through his call to the county sheriff's office. Newman was, as usual, holding down the fort. This time McIntire delivered his message with no hedging. He then left the house and crawled into the back seat of his beloved Studebaker, pulling the raincoat over his head and allowing himself to sink into oblivion.

In what seemed like only minutes, he was brought to life by a series of brain-crushing thumps on the car's roof and Pete Koski's thunderous inquiry, “What the hell is going on?”

McIntire got out of the car and pointed him up the hill. The sheriff limped off in his campaign boots with Cecil Newman in his wake. In a few minutes they were both back. “Anybody home here?” Koski asked. McIntire shook his head. “This where you called from?” At McIntire's affirmative nod he headed for the house. The deputy regarded him with a condescending pity. It was clear that his opinion of McIntire's fitness for police work was not altered by the pallid and perspiring countenance the constable presented.

McIntire gripped the top of the open car door with both hands and rested his forehead against them. He made no attempt to explain.

The sheriff emerged, flinching as the tightly sprung screen door slammed behind him with a crack like a rifle shot. “Guibard is on his way, and so is an ambulance. There's no answer at the Culvers'. I'll have to go find them. I suppose they're at that damned picnic. But first we'll take some pictures and get her out of that hole. The state police ain't gonna like it, but there's no way I'll be able to keep Sandra and Earl away for any length of time, and I want that girl out of there and in the mortuary before they show up.” He turned to McIntire. “John, try to pull yourself together, for crying out loud. See if you can find some shovels and a couple of blankets—and gloves if possible. She's been in there a long time and we're going to have to be careful if we want to get her out in one piece.”

Removing Cindy Culver's body from its place of interment did not take long, but by the time it lay bundled under the trees awaiting the ambulance, McIntire was not the only one of the men to have left his lunch in the grass. Only the doctor, arriving just in time to help in rolling the child onto a blanket and lifting her out of her grave, remained impassive.

The sheriff brushed the soil off his sleeves. “Mark, you'd better come with me. Cecil, wait here for the ambulance and don't let anybody on the place, unless the lady of the house shows up. If she does, make sure she
stays
here. John, why don't you see if you can track down our young Johnny Appleseed. I don't mean arrest him or anything. Just find out if he's at home, and try to make some excuse to keep him there until I can get to him. If he gets wind of this he'll be off again, if he can get his hands on a car.”

XXXIII

When Mia returned with her young cousin to the town hall, the crowd inside was as large as ever. Indeed it had grown, since the members of the quartet had reappeared and were now seated at a table with a half dozen other men, casually munching the dregs of the meal. Nick left the group and grasped Mia's free arm. “The sheriff was here,” he gleefully reported. “He asked if David Slocum was around, and then he took off. He must have found something.”

So Nick's exuberance couldn't only be put down to gin. Mia glared furiously at him and moved away with Annie, leaving him to rejoin his friends. A quick look around the packed room showed that this very group was now being subjected to Warner Godwin's appeal, and Mia threaded her way through the crowd to return Annie to her father. The girl suddenly stopped with another tendon-ripping yank on Mia's arm. “Look!” she said. “It's Mister-ter-teer…” Mia tried to follow the child's line of sight. “Annie, do you know one of those men? Mister who, Honey?”

“No!” Annie's voice bubbled with excitement. “That's what Mama said.” Her father waved and started toward them. “But it's a secret,” she whispered.

“Annie—” Mia tried again, but Warner was upon them. “Thanks for entertaining my daughter, Mrs. Thorsen. I appreciate it. Annie, tell your Auntie Mia thank you. We have to be going now. Don't forget to vote!”

“Cousin,” Mia answered in response to Annie's, “Bye, Auntie Mia,” but her eyes were on the circle of variously inebriated men. One of those individuals was familiar to Annie Godwin—and it was “Mama's” secret.

Mia turned away and sought out Leonie to learn what she could about the sheriff's brief appearance. He and the doctor had come in together and had spoken to the Culvers, who had immediately gathered up their progeny and made for the door. The sheriff himself had departed after asking if David Slocum had been there. Doctor Guibard was probably still about somewhere, Leonie said. Maybe he would be able to tell her more.

Mia saw that Guibard was indeed still there, trying valiantly to escape a merciless grilling by Nick and his companions.

Mia wrapped her jacket about her shoulders and slipped out the door. She had had enough and needed to think things through in the open air. She was in no mood to drive home with her drunk and gloating husband who, in any case, did not appear to be in a hurry to leave. As she rounded the corner of the building she heard the door swing open and click shut behind another departing reveler, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps approaching from behind. Nick coming to drag her back? Without looking around, she proceeded briskly down the graveled drive. The sound of steps faded, and she caught a brief glimpse of a hurrying figure before it disappeared between two parked cars. She smiled to herself in relief and at her own absurdity. It was highly unlikely that Nick had even noticed she was gone.

She walked straight across the road and cut between the boarded up hardware store and Karvonen's Grocery to the brushy area behind them. Skirting a collection of junked cars and rusting farm equipment, she continued rapidly along the road that led to the lumber yard and the railroad siding. Her steps slowed as she left the gravel for the familiar trail through the woods. She removed her jacket, slung it over her shoulder and once again picked up her pace, trying not think about the last time she had traveled this path.

She concentrated instead on the men whom Annie Godwin had seen grouped around her father. Mia wasn't sure she could recall who all of them were. She wasn't even sure that she had recognized everyone, but surely one of them had been Nina's Nordic god. One of them had also been Nick. But if, as it appeared, the sheriff had some new information about Cindy—information that led him to seek David Slocum—maybe the identity of Nina's lover was irrelevant.

Imagine Annie's remembering. She couldn't have been more than three or so. And imagine Nina introducing her three-year-old daughter to her lover and then swearing her to secrecy. No wonder the poor kid stuttered! “Mister-ter-teer, indeed!” she muttered aloud. And it needed to be said aloud. She stood motionless and whispered it again. What were Annie's words?—“That's what Mama said.” Could it be that she wasn't talking about a secret friend at all, but rather a secret
name
? The dim spark in Mia's brain glowed and burst into flame. “Oh my God!” she groaned.

XXXIV

McIntire left the orchard with the intention of going straight to the home of Dorothy Slocum and her son. He didn't hurry. If David was at home there was not much chance of his hearing that Cindy's body had been found. Neither the coroner nor the ambulance on its route from Chandler would pass near the Slocum place, and fortunately David and his mother were not members of the telephone party-line loop. The lack of a car would hamper any sudden flight.

McIntire recalled the pickup truck with its load of trees and turned off onto the winding driveway that led to Wylie Petworth's.

Wylie's Buick was absent, but the Ford truck was parked near the garage. A quick dash through the woods would get David here in no time. McIntire parked in the yard and walked up to the pickup. He lifted the hood, grasped a handful of spark plug wires, and gave a quick tug. After closing the hood with as little assault as possible to his throbbing head, he entered the garage. Its interior was swept clean and fastidiously organized, as was everything that fell into Wylie's sphere of responsibility. He placed the wires in an empty cardboard box and stuffed it well out of sight under the uncompromisingly tidy workbench that stood against one wall.

When he left the garage and walked back toward his car, he was struck once more by the sense of contentment and tranquility that prevailed here. Even on this drizzly and somber day—made all the more so by his recent grisly discovery—the old log house showed a warm and inviting aspect. Rainwater glistened on the stone chimneys and on the flagstone walk that passed under the oak trees and meandered between the shrub roses and beds of daylilies to the edge of the yard. There it gave way to the grassy path leading to the pond and the rear boundary of the cemetery where the diabolic Gutter Gulsvagen slumbered. Well, old Gulsvagen could rest easy, his earthly home was being well taken care of.

McIntire walked along the path and through the damp undergrowth to the graveyard. He pushed open the rusty back gate and winced as its hinges gave a protesting screak as if in a desperate attempt to protect the secrets interred there.

A raw wound in the earth was still all that defined the spot where Nels Bertelsen was, once again, buried. A small plaque had been placed in the ground on Ole Bertelsen's grave.

Nearby was a monument about four feet high, a drab white obelisk with no elaborate carving, only Julie Bertelsen's name, the dates of her birth and death, and few lines of verse. McIntire remembered the stir that stone with its accusing verse had caused. “She's slapping God in the face,” had been Sophie's contention.
The Rose was Plucked by a Cruel hand, Before it came to Bloom, We are Left Behind to Weep and Wail, to no Avail.
It was a large monument. He had not thought before about what it must have cost Tina Bertelsen financially to publicly defy that Cruel Hand.

He crossed the wet grass to stand before another stone—the one that marked the final resting place of Colin McIntire. He had visited the grave only twice before—once with his mother and again last Memorial Day when Leonie had dragged him here with a bouquet of lilies. He had not yet said a private goodbye to his father, and he wasn't ready to do so today. Not quite ready to sever the ties that bound him so irrevocably to that angry and demanding man. Colin McIntire had never needed to be present in the flesh in order to dominate his son's life.

McIntire had seen his father only once in the past thirty-two years, on this occasion when he had accompanied Colin on a sentimental pilgrimage to his own parents' native Ireland. They had spent a total of six weeks together in three decades—six weeks during which John McIntire had trailed the ebullient stranger in and out of every pub on the Emerald Isle—had listened to him laugh, exchange endless stories with long lost cousins, and sing
The Rising of the Moon
and
O Donnell Aboo
—and had come to know him not at all. Yet the old Colin McIntire, that spirit that perched on his son's shoulder passing judgment on his every action, was with him still. Death hadn't changed that. It would take more than the simple lack of a physical body to separate John McIntire from the man who had given him life and who seemingly felt that the bestowing of that gift gave him the right—no, the obligation—to control every turn that life took. “You might be proud of me today, Pa. I'm about to nab a murderer. Old Gutter always got away, but I think I can nail David Slocum.”

An image flitted into McIntire's mind, a memory, for once not one buried beneath the dust of the past, but a recent recollection of a feminine scrawl on a page. He strode back toward the gate through which he had entered. The stone was sheltered by a lilac bush and leaning slightly, pushed off center by the encroaching root of a pine tree. He rubbed the growth of lichen from its face with the heel of his hand, and read the weathered engraving. The name, the place of birth, the dates. It all made sense. As McIntire stood in the fine mist, the full import of his discovery came to him. “Oh, my God!” he said to the ghosts.

XXXV

Mia had no sooner uttered the words that accompanied her own revelation than the Nordic god himself appeared, blocking her path. One look at her face was enough to tell him that she had guessed the truth. “So you've finally figured it out, Mia, and it took Warner Godwin's brat to tell you. And now here you are, strolling along, docile as a lamb to the slaughter.” He smiled and shook his head. “There's nothing can compare with the stupidity of a woman!”

Mia made no response except to turn back toward the town. He nimbly stepped around her, again barring her way. “You know I can't let you go. Even you're smart enough to know that.”

“And you're smart enough to you know you won't get away with any of this.” She took a chance. “They've found Cindy's body.”

He didn't bat an eye.

“It doesn't matter by now. They can't prove that I put it there. I didn't like doing that. But maybe you can see why I had to.”

Mia looked at the Nordic god and did see…now.

He continued to watch her, malevolently, like a wolf eying the lamb he had alluded to. “It was smart of me to realize that I couldn't let her body be found, don't you think?”

Mia snorted. “How smart can you be if Cindy Culver was on to you?”

An anger that she had never seen before boiled up into his eyes. “That stupid bitch! She was blind as a bat. She had the evidence of murder right in her hand, and all she could see was that I had a little fling with Nina Godwin. That didn't take any brains to figure out. Nina, true to her sex, was dumb enough to write it all down—and the brilliant Miss Culver figured I'd be willing to pay to get the diary. Well, I got the damn diary, all right, and the greedy little sweetheart got her payment!”

Mia lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “There are four more diaries. Cindy was hoping for installment payments, I guess.”

The gloating face registered dismay, and for a brief moment her accoster's confidence wavered. Mia grasped her jacket, with its stone laden pockets, in both hands and swung with all her might. Years of wielding hammer and chisel had given her strength as well as pinpoint accuracy. Her blow caught him on the temple and brought him to his knees. She turned and fled down the path toward home.

McIntire slipped in the back door of the town hall. A large number of people were still in evidence, no doubt hesitant to leave since some news of the murders appeared to be imminent. Two faces, though, were conspicuously absent. He found his wife in the kitchen where she was stacking speckled gray enamel plates in a cupboard. Mia had left alone, and on foot, Leonie said. She couldn't tell him about anybody else.

“Get Koski back,” he implored her, as he headed for the door.

He was on his feet and after her in seconds. She knew that he was amazingly quick for one of his age, and she would have no real hope of outdistancing him. She ran blindly, her blood pounding in her ears. The path was smooth, but the grade was steep and her skirt wrapped around her legs, hampering her movements. Still, he stayed always a few paces behind, letting her take him deeper into the woods before he closed in.

Oh, why had she been such an idiot? Why hadn't she taken a chance on getting around him and running back toward town? When she felt that her heart would surely burst with one more step, she reached the point where the ridge leveled off and felt a fresh rush of hope. If only she could reach it. There it loomed ahead—that decrepit, beautiful wooden structure—her long awaited escape.

He was close behind her now, almost touching her. She could hear his breath coming in short gasps. She flung herself onto the jump and began the climb. He cursed as he struggled with mounting the slide, but before she was halfway up, the boards began to creak and sway sickeningly as he followed her. She scrambled upward until she had nearly reached the top. Then she looked up at the tiny platform that was the last stop before nothingness and could go no further. She planted her heels behind the wooden cleat and turned to face him.

He was advancing, slowly now, leaning heavily against the rail, his eyes once more fixed unwaveringly on hers.

“Are you going to do me a favor and finally jump, Mia? Or would you rather I took care of it for you? It doesn't really matter. Once you hit the ground no one's going to be able to tell whether you did it on your own or had help.”

He was almost upon her. Her heart seemed to cease in its beat. Tears of terror filled her eyes and blurred his face.

“But thanks for not making me strangle you, too. I'm running out of places to put the bodies.”

She heard the scrape of wood against wood as his foot came down on the loose board. His mirthless laugh became a startled grunt. Gripping the rail with both hands and leaning back, gathering every ounce of her strength, Mia drove her foot into his stomach. The stump of his right arm flailed uselessly before he fell backward, crashed through the railing, and disappeared over the edge.