Witch Cradle (20 page)

If he looked up into those eyes he'd be sucked into their madness. Wherever she was, he'd go with her. He couldn't help himself. He knew he should stay fixed on those fallen overshoes, back out the door and close it. But his gaze was drawn up the emaciated body, past the sticklike arms and bony fingers dangling limp and frozen, to confront those bulging, accusing eyes. The fear and pleading were gone from them, leaving opaque frosted orbs.

“Where is this all going to end?” he asked aloud.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

He made it all the way home and had called both the sheriff and Mark Guibard before the shaking started. Then it wouldn't stop.

Tea splashed on the tablecloth and Leonie took the cup from his hand. She put her arms about his neck and pressed his head to her chest.

“It's all right now. Mr. Koski can take care of it. You don't have to go back.”

“Yes, I do. I didn't tell them where to find her.” He struggled to his feet. “Guibard will only be a few minutes. I have to get over there.”

“Then I'm driving you. And not until you've finished this tea.”

McIntire acquiesced with relief.

The yard was still empty when they arrived. They didn't approach the barn, or speak of what was there, or of anything else.

McIntire carried coal from the meager store in the cellar and set about starting a fire in the leaving room heater and one in the kitchen cookstove. A car rumbled into the yard. He scratched the frost from the window by the table and watched as Leonie spoke to the doctor, waved toward the barn, then plowed her way through the knee-deep snow to the pump.

The two of them entered the house together less than five minutes later.

Guibard pulled off one glove, then replaced it. “Sad business.”

“Who would know how to contact her children?” Leonie dipped water into a teakettle and poured the rest into a chipped enamel basin. She slid the stove lids aside and placed the kettle and the basin over the fire. Her lips were blue.

Guibard shook his head. “Don't know.”

Leonie put her hand on McIntire's shoulder. “Can you look around? There must be something with their addresses.”

“Koski will search the house.” McIntire sat at Nelda's creaky table while his wife plunged hair-coated cups into boiling water, brewed her ever-present tea, and set about scraping flakes from a thin bar of Fels Naptha soap into the basin. She silently began emptying cupboards and scrubbing surfaces.

The kitchen grew warmer. Probably warmer than Nelda had known it. No need to conserve coal now. Frost on the windows melted, puddles formed and were sponged up by the rotted sills. Odors oozed from every corner.

McIntire left the cutting down of Nelda Stewart's frozen remains to the sheriff and Cecil Newman. It didn't take long. Newman scurried off to notify the undertaker.

“Christ!” Koski sucked in his breath as he came in the door, his bulk filling the tiny kitchen. “If this is the way that woman lived, I can't say I blame—” He glanced in McIntire's direction. “It was like picking up an armload of popple sticks.”

Just a crazy woman, reduced to an armload of popple sticks.

“She leave a note?”

McIntire shook his head.

“Well, I'll have a look around.” He turned sideways to pass through the doorway to the living room.

McIntire heard his shuffling about, followed by an extended period of silence, then the first tentative step on the flimsy stairs. Soon the footsteps sounded overhead. Leonie looked up and moved from directly under the creaking boards. She picked a filth-encrusted rag rug from the floor and carried it through to the living room. McIntire heard the door on the heater open and close, and the rush of a draft up the stovepipe.

“Do be careful, Mr. Koski.”

“I'm holding my breath,” the sheriff replied. He sidled back into the kitchen, clutching a few sheets of paper. “What the hell do you make of this?” He placed a folded sheet on the table in front of McIntire. “It was on the bed, under her clothes.”

The paper was thick and had a ragged edge, the fly leaf torn from a book. The handwriting flowed in bold loops and delicate flourishes:
All that I know about lying in jail is that the wall is strong; And that each day is like a year, A year whose days are long.

“It's a poem,” McIntire said, “slightly paraphrased. She copied it from a book upstairs.” They were McIntire's first words in over an hour.

“I guess it puts a cap on things.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? No maybe about it. Mrs. Stewart goes over to say goodbye to Rose and finds her in bed with Mr. Stewart. Bang. That's all she wrote.”

“Wouldn't that be a bit of a coincidence? Nelda deciding to pay a call on Rosie just at the time her husband happens to have the same impulse? She couldn't have planned that mine accident.”

The sheriff was dismissive. “Coincidences do happen, you know, but I don't see that this is one. The mine
did
flood at the time Rosie was home alone getting set to leave. That would be the normal time for Nelda to make a visit. There's a thirty-two Plymouth rusting away in back of the barn. It probably belonged to her husband, so she'd have had it back then.”

“Maybe,” McIntire said again. If Nelda had killed herself because of guilt, or fear of being exposed as a murderer, he might be able to feel a little less guilt himself.

“Only funny thing is, she had clothes laid out on the bed. Good clothes. Could she have been planning to go somewhere?”

“Yes.”

Koski stared for a moment. “Oh, ya. I guess maybe she was.” He strode out the door, giving an audible gasp when he reached fresh air.

Leonie picked up her coat. “We'd better go, too. I can come back later. We don't want those children coming home to….” The choking of her voice brought McIntire back to life and to his feet. Tears welled up in huge drops before finally spilling down her face. Her body convulsed in a single great sob and she buried her face in his jacket. McIntire had never seen his wife cry in earnest before. Only the occasional bright eyes at sad movies or letters from home. Now she appeared to be making up for years of restraint. She finally turned her head to speak, still resting against his chest. “I wonder how much time she put into it.”

“What?” Knotting the rope? She would have had plenty of time to think things over.

“Choosing what she wanted to be buried in.”

That couldn't have taken long. McIntire was sure of it.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Nick dropped the phone onto the hook. “It was Nelda Stewart.”

“Why? What's wrong? Where's she calling from?”

“She's not. Guibard and the hearse. It was Nelda they were going to get.”

“Nelda's dead?”

“She hung herself in the barn.”

“Because she killed her husband?” Mia felt shame that the tears that sprang to her eyes were those of pure relief. Whatever her father might have done, she'd known he couldn't have committed murder.

“So it seems.”

“Don't you believe it?”

“That woman was crazy. She could have killed herself over anything, or nothing.”

“But she didn't. Not until people started asking about Jack.”

Nick nodded. “I think I'll go lie down a little while before I get back to work.”

It was only after he'd tottered from the room that the full impact of his words hit her. Nelda, hanging in the barn. All these years, struggling to survive, raising her children, had she been tormented by memories of blowing their father's head away? How long had she hung there? Who had found her?

She heard a thud and a long sigh. Nick had made it only as far as the living room davenport. It would be chilly in there. He might want a blanket. He could get it himself; he wasn't completely helpless. Yet. At least he wasn't on crutches. Yet. She struggled. She wasn't sure if it was conscience or martyrdom that won out, but she pulled herself up and stumped past him to the bedroom. By the time she came back, dragging the patchwork quilt, he was sound asleep. She spread the cover as well as she could manage while balanced on the crutches. He needed to get to the barber; hair curled thickly around his ears. The lines of his forehead were smoothed away, leaving a serene and confident aspect. Contrary to the usual cliché, it was the wide-awake Nick who looked vulnerable. And it would only get worse.

They'd had their problems, but most of their life together had gone smoothly enough. He'd not demanded much of her, and she'd forgiven his many trespasses. Maybe she could forgive again. Someday. She looked away.

She jumped at the knock on the door. She hadn't heard a car. She hobbled to the window. There was a car. A car and a half. A sleek black sedan, steam rolling off its hood, sat at the end of the driveway.

A man stood on the back steps, shuffling his feet and slapping his gloved hands together. When he raised his head to knock again, she recognized the private detective who'd been with them on that terrible day in November. Now, according to John, he was an FBI agent in Marquette. What could he possibly want with them?

He knocked again. She glanced at Nick curled under the quilt and at the remains of their dinner fighting for space on the kitchen table with the remains of their breakfast. The FBI was something she only heard about on the radio. Curiosity overcame pride and nerves. She swung off with sweating palms to open the door.

“Remember me, Mrs. Thorsen? Special Agent Melvin Fratelli.” He flashed a printed card before her eyes. “Sorry to disturb you at such a time.”

What time? Was this something about Nelda Stewart's death? She saw his gaze on the soiled cast. “Oh, this happened weeks ago. What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping I could use your telephone.” The hysterical private detective of the previous fall was lost in a voice as smooth as chocolate pudding. “I need to make a rather important call.”

Mia nodded and stepped out of the way. He went straight through to the kitchen. “Don't worry about your boots,” she said to his back.

The phone call amounted to a few not so important sounding mumbles. The man thanked her and got to what was no doubt his real business.

“As I'm here, do you think we might talk for a bit?”

“About what?” More likely it was
who
. She resisted the urge to wipe the dampness from her hands.

“Just some general information.” He slid his heavy coat from his shoulders.

Mia aimed the agent toward a chair. He had the face of someone in a magazine ad and was dressed as if he was on his way to a funeral, black suit and white shirt. At the sight of the tops of his ears, blistered with frostbite, a few of her stomach butterflies closed their wings.

He whipped out a notebook and a pencil. “I understand that Theodore Falk was arrested in your home. Is that true?”

“No.”

The agent cleared his throat. “He didn't come to see you?”

“He came to see my father. They'd been good friends. He didn't realize my father is no longer with us.”

“What's your father's name, Mrs. Thorsen?”

It was a question Mia hadn't expected. What interest would he have in her father? Was he investigating the murder, too? She couldn't keep it a secret. “Eban Vogel. He passed away several years ago.”

Apparently it wasn't the right sort of name to interest Mr. Fratelli. He lowered his pencil.

“Who else was present when Mr. Falk was here?”

“Are you investigating Mrs. Falk's murder? Because if you are, that's been solved.”

“We're just looking into a few things. Who else was present?”

“My husband. He's resting now. He's not—”

“Anyone else?”

The agent's demands were becoming more irritating than intimidating. “A sheriff's deputy, Cecil Newman. He was waiting outside. He planned on arresting Teddy.”

“John McIntire?”

Mia'd been waiting for it. She wasn't sure why. Should she just tell the agent to go fly a kite? She didn't think she had to answer his questions, but she couldn't help wondering what they would be. John might be interested in hearing what the detective was asking about him.

“He was here.”

“Why?”

“Teddy wanted to see him, to thank him for finding Rose.”

“That's all?”

“I wouldn't know. What else would it be?”

“What language did they speak?”

Inge had asked Nick that, too. “I don't know,” Mia answered, “I couldn't understand a word they said.”

Fratelli gravely lifted his pencil.

“I'm kidding!” Mia stayed his hand. The agent's expression clearly said that G-men don't take kindly to jokes. “They talked in plain old English. Or as plain as Mr. Falk can manage, anyway.” That wasn't quite true. John had greeted the prodigal Teddy with some outlandish word.

“Did they mention how long it had been since they'd seen each other?” The agent stretched his legs and affected a casual tone, letting Mia know that they were getting to the nub of his questioning.

“Far as I know, they never met before. John left ages before Ted moved here.”

His brow wrinkled. “I understand you've been acquainted with John McIntire a long time.”

How had he come to that understanding? Had he been asking questions about her, too? “All my life. He was born in this house. So was I.”

“And you stayed close friends, you might say?”

What was this about? Mia didn't know how to reply, or whether to reply at all, and Fratelli didn't wait.

“So you might be better acquainted with him than anyone outside his own family.”

Was she? She often didn't feel she knew John in the least. “I wouldn't know about that. We both lived here, in this house, when we were small children.” The intervening years were none of Agent Melvin's business. “I didn't see him at all from the time he left for the war, that's the First World War, until he came back a little over a year ago.”

“Did you keep in contact when he was away?”

“No.”

“Still, you know him pretty well.”

“Pretty well.”

A throaty chuckle accompanied his confidential smile. “Have a lot of stories to tell, does he? About his time in the service?”

“Not to me.” John had never mentioned a word about his time in the Army to anyone, so far as she knew.

“And I guess he'd be pretty interested in the changes in the area since he left. All the mining and such.”

“Mining? There's nothing new about that.”

“I imagine it was quite a surprise to everybody, when he moved back here after so long away.”

He imagined correctly, but Mia wasn't about to say so. “He was retired. This was his home.”

The agent put his hands together and leaned toward her in a poor imitation of a gossipy housewife. “Anything else about him ever seem funny to you?”

Funny? “Anything else? I didn't say anything was funny about John.”

“Strange…you know, odd.”

John McIntire? Odd? Mia tried to keep the laughter from her voice. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Retired army officers of his rank don't get a big pension. He and his wife travel quite a bit. He might seem to be living beyond his means.”

If what she'd heard was true, the McIntires weren't living anywhere near beyond that wife's means. “I wouldn't know,” she said again.”

“What about his family?” He leaned even closer. “Any history of mental problems?”

“Mental problems? What is this all about?”

“You knew his parents.”

“You knew his aunt.” Melvin Fratelli and John's exotic Auntie Siobhan had been quite an item. But Siobhan wouldn't have troubled herself to answer nosy questions about her relatives, not even from a good-looking G-man.

Mia had apparently uttered the magic words. Fratelli cleared his throat and got to his feet. His conspiratorial tone disappeared. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Thorsen.”

She watched the big car reverse into the road. Why would the FBI be asking questions about John? And why ask her, of all people? Mental problems? The McIntire family seemed about as sane as they come. Were people ever what they seemed to be?

It
was
strange, though, the way John had gone off for thirty years without so much as a postcard and then suddenly turned up to stay. He'd never said much of anything about how he'd spent those three decades. Why would Fratelli think John and Teddy Falk had met before? Had they? No, outside of John's first words—and Teddy hadn't responded in kind—there was nothing about their meeting in her living room to hint that it wasn't the first.

Nick whimpered softly in his sleep. People could be very good at concealing things. She knew that.