Old World Murder (2010) (18 page)

Roelke gulped some coffee. It was evidently hotter than he’d expected; he jerked, and a few drops spilled on his hand. He managed to set the cup down without further disaster. “You’re right,” he said finally. The sky was threatening rain and Roelke’s sunglasses, thank God, were nowhere to be seen. “But I hope that
you
can see that—that I’m the cop here. I don’t know what’s going on—”

“I don’t know what’s going on either,” Chloe said, “but I deserve to know when something happens.”

“I don’t want you mixed up in this.”

“Excuse me? I’m already mixed up in this, remember?”

“It’s police business!”

“It’s
my
business!” Chloe retorted, then noticed Dierdre frowning at them. “It is my business,” she repeated more quietly. “Wait—are the police really getting involved?”

Roelke tried his coffee again, this time with more care and success. “No,” he admitted. “We would if the director of your museum filed a formal theft report. Have you talked with him?”

“With Ralph Petty? Yes. And he told me to forget about the ale bowl. I ignored that, but despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find the bowl. I suppose I could try talking to Petty again …” She chewed that over, then shook her head. “All I have is this feeling that something’s not right.”

“Yeah,” Roelke admitted. “When you add everything up … something’s not right.”

“So,” Chloe said. “I really think we’d get farther if we cooperated. Communicated. That sort of thing.”

Roelke stared into his mug as if searching for answers.

“I’m a big girl,” Chloe added. She saw again Mrs. Lundquist’s pleading gaze. “And I’m the one who didn’t ask Mrs. Lundquist enough questions. If I’d only tried a little harder … I might have learned something that—”

“It’s not your fault she had a heart attack.”

“She gave me the impression that I was her last hope. I disappointed her. I was too self-absorbed to ask the right questions.” Chloe hitched her shoulders. “If I had, we might at least know
why
she was so desperate to get the piece back. And that might tell us if someone was threatening her, and who’s trying now to find the bowl.”

Roelke leaned over, forearms on thighs, head down as if protecting his thoughts. Dierdre began singing to the pony. A chickadee zipped in to one of the feeders.

Then Roelke straightened, slid a hand into one pocket and pulled out several dog-eared index cards. He put them on the iron table at Chloe’s knee.

Chloe felt a spark of satisfaction as she realized what she was reading. She retrieved her notebook, opened it to her page of notes about possible motive, and passed it to him. They both read in silence until one particular line of Roelke’s printing caught Chloe’s attention. “What’s this about upstairs?”

“At the Kvaale house there were footprints in the dust upstairs. They could have been left by one of the guides. But … maybe not.”

Chloe glared at the page. “I knew it. I looked for that ale bowl at Kvaale right after Mrs. Lundquist died, but it didn’t occur to my feeble brain to look on the second story. By the time it did occur to me—
he’d
already been there.”

“If it
was
an intruder, I don’t think he found what he was after. The line of tracks stopped at the doorway to the back room, as if the person had gone that far just to check.”

“Well, it was a long shot.” Chloe frowned again at his notes. “It’s the ‘no-sign-of-forced-entry’ that really bothers me. It happened at the trailer, too.”

“Remind me: who else has keys to those buildings?”

“A few permanent staff members, that’s all. I had to check my set out from the head maintenance guy.”

“Stanley Colontuono?”

“Right. He’s a jerk.”

“Who else would have easy access?”

“Ralph Petty, obviously. He’s a jerk, too. And Byron, who is something of a jerk as well.”

“Nice people you work with.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me what your beef is with those guys.”

Chloe gave him a condensed version of her encounters with Stanley, Ralph, and Byron. Roelke pulled more index cards from another pocket, one for each man.

“And I suppose you could add Hank DiCapo to the list,” Chloe added. “He doesn’t like me.”

Roelke tapped his cards on a patio table to even the edges. “Any other workplace encounters you want to tell me about?”

Chloe pulled one heel up to her chair seat and wrapped her arms around her knee. “I don’t think so.”

Roelke shuffled through his pile of cards, reading slowly. “Hank DiCapo, security guard—insisted open trailer was your fault. Byron Cooke, curator of interpretation—argued over training—”

“Don’t roll your eyes,” Chloe interrupted.

“I didn’t roll my eyes.”

“Byron was really pissed, and didn’t care who knew it. And he mentioned once that he’d been in the storage trailers recently, where he’s got no business being.”

Roelke sighed, made another note on Byron’s card, and moved on. “Ralph Petty, site director—on your case. Stanley Colontuono, maintenance chief—asked you out.” He shook his head. “If there’s some connection here to your missing bowl, I don’t see it.”

“I don’t either.”

Roelke put his cards away. “OK, one more thing. This ale bowl—what is an ale bowl, anyway?”

“A bowl, carved from a single piece of wood, often very decorative. During wedding celebrations or other special feasts, they’d get filled with ale, and passed around. So I’m told.”

“Hunh.” Roelke took that in, then picked up her notebook. “All right. So, you’ve come up with these possible motives.” He pointed to the reference about someone famous once owning the bowl. “That’s one I hadn’t thought of.”

“I don’t know how information like that would have suddenly come to light, though. Even if that info was in the accession record—the one that got ripped out of the ledger—somebody knew to go
looking
for the record. I can’t believe it was random.”

“We can’t make assumptions.”

“OK, OK.” Chloe poured herself another cup of coffee. “Well, I’m still digging. My mom is doing some library research—”

“Your mom?”

“My mother has connections in Norwegian circles like you wouldn’t believe. And maybe I can find some evidence of a long-lost relative. I’m going to visit Mr. Solberg again today—”

“The neighbor?”

“Right. I met him at the funeral.”

Roelke frowned, and one knee began to jiggle up and down. “It’s not smart for you to be asking questions so openly.”

“I’m going to visit a lonely old man,” Chloe said. “That’s all.” She didn’t explain that she’d called Mr. Solberg because she needed action, and she didn’t know what else to do.

Libby came out the kitchen door, carrying a plate of cinnamon rolls. “You two OK?”

“Yeah,” Roelke said. “Where’s Justin?”

“Watching a
Mork and Mindy
rerun. He’s all right. He just needs some space.”

Chloe surprised herself by eating two of the rolls, which were hot, moist, and not ruined with frosting. Finally, reluctantly, she carried her dirty plate and mug into the kitchen.

“Just leave them in the sink,” Libby told her. “I have to empty the dishwasher.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said. “For everything.”

Libby smiled. “No problem.”

Back outside, Roelke was waiting for her. “Where’s your car?”

“At the beach,” Chloe said. “Long story.”

“I’ll walk you over.”

Chloe was grateful that he didn’t ask why she’d left her car at the beach. They walked in comfortable silence. Two boys zoomed past on bicycles. A bell chimed from a nearby church, calling the faithful. Chloe thought about the big church in the little village of Daleyville. One less congregant, now.

“Do me a favor,” Roelke said when they reached her Pinto. “Call me tonight. Let me know what you find out.”

He’d put on his sunglasses, and his favor was inflected as an instruction, not a request. But Chloe didn’t want to get tangled in those dynamics again—at least not right away. “Will do,” she promised her double reflection, and got into her car.

When Roelke got back
to Libby’s house he found his cousin in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. “Chloe get off OK?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Roelke looked around. “This place got quiet.”

“Justin went to play next door. Dierdre’s having a tea party with two dolls and a teddy bear. You want some juice? I’m out of OJ, but I’ve got cranberry.”

“Sure.” Roelke sat down at the table and accepted the glass without looking Libby in the eye.

“Hey, you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to piss you off the other day.”

He shrugged. “OK.”

She leaned against the sink, regarding him as she wiped some hard water spots from a plate. “But I care about you, Roelke. And I can’t just not say anything when I think I see you making a mistake. Especially when it’s because of me.”

Roelke loved Libby, but swear-to-God, there were times he wanted to shake her. “Libby, just
stop
. Stop talking. Stop telling me what to do. You don’t – know – everything.”

Libby put the plate away. “I do know you. I know how excited you were when you got hired on in Milwaukee. And I know the only reason you’re still hanging around Palmyra is me and the kids—”

Roelke’s glass shattered against the cellar door. Cranberry juice ran down white paint. In the seconds of stunned silence that followed, Roelke thought he could hear it dripping to the floor.

“Mama?” Dierdre called.

“It’s OK, baby,” Libby called, managing an almost-normal tone. “I just dropped something.”

Roelke shoved his chair back with such force that it clattered to the floor. In two strides he was out the back door. He strode around the house, climbed into his truck, slammed the door.

Then he sat. Jesus holy Christ.

He imagined Libby cleaning up the shards of glass, the angry stain. Four or five minutes passed. Then the front door opened. She walked across the lawn, arms folded, body rigid. When she reached the truck she opened the passenger side door and got inside the cab.

“I won’t have that shit in my house,” she said.

He studied the dashboard. “I know.”

“You think my kids don’t get enough of that from their father?”

“I
know
.”

A little girl next door wobbled down her driveway on roller skates, the cheap kind that clipped onto the bottom of regular shoes. Roelke and Libby watched her make progress, trip, fall. It took her three tries to get up.

“OK,” Libby said finally. “I’ve got to get back inside. I don’t want Dierdre to wonder where I am.”

“You’re not always right,” Roelke said. Something ached inside.

She sighed. “You want to tell me why I’m wrong? Fine. But come back into the house.”

She opened the door, got out, slammed it behind her. She was halfway across the yard before she realized he wasn’t following. She stopped, then walked back. This time she came around the truck and stood by his open window. “Roelke? Are you going to sit and sulk, or are you coming back into the house?”

“I think it’s inside me.”

“What’s inside you?”

The ache in his chest tightened to a knot, squeezing, cutting off his air.

Libby glanced back toward the house. “Roelke?
What’s
inside you?”

“I think … sometimes I think I’m like my father.”

Her shoulders slumped. Then she reached into the cab and put her hand on his wrist. “You’re not.”

“You don’t know—”

“Yes, I do,” she said firmly. “About this, I know.”

Maybe she knew him better than he knew himself. Maybe she didn’t. He stared at the little girl on roller skates. She was getting her stride, now. Roelke became aware of a thickening in his throat, the sting of tears in his eyes.

“You are not like your dad,” Libby said. “You broke a glass. He broke your mother’s arm. Big difference.”

“But—”

“Would you ever hit me?”

Roelke finally looked at her. “I swear to God, Libby, I’d chop my hand off before I ever hit you, or the kids.”

“That’s what I know,” she told him. “Yeah, you’ve got a temper. You’ve got to deal with that. But I’m not afraid of you, OK? And remember, I do know what I’m talking about. I was afraid Dan was going to smack me long before he ever did.”

Toxic, Roelke thought. Men can be so toxic. Women could be too, for sure. But most often, it was men. And the thought that he might have even a trace of whatever—

“Come inside,” Libby ordered. “Come on. I don’t want you driving like this.”

Roelke sucked in a deep breath, exhaled very slowly. He wanted to go inside and pretend that the last half hour hadn’t happened.

He put the key in the ignition instead. “I’m sorry,” he told his cousin. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”

____

The clouds began to drizzle rain as Chloe drove toward Daleyville, replaying the morning’s conversation in her mind. It was freaky to discuss her co-workers as possible suspects. “I hope it’s Ralph,” she muttered, amused by the mental image of Roelke McKenna putting Petty in handcuffs. He’d actually ordered her
not
to inventory the collection. What sense did it make to raise funds for a storage building without knowing what there was to be stored?

Chloe thought that over, unease growing with every slap of the wipers. Ralph could be erratic and irrational. Was he just an autocratic megalomaniac, or was some secret fueling his volatility? She’d mention all this to Roelke when she called.

Just as Chloe eased her car into Mr. Solberg’s driveway, the rain turned torrential. Of course. Since she had not been home since the day before, she did not have an umbrella or jacket along. Of course. After killing the engine she sat for a moment, watching water cascade down the windshield. The front door stayed implacably shut.

“So it goes,” Chloe muttered, and plunged out of the car. She trotted across the small yard and up the front steps—which did not, of course, have the protection of a portico—and knocked on the door.

And waited, and banged again, and waited, T-shirt already sodden against her skin, heavy braids beginning to drip. A light burned in the room to the right of the door, visible through drawn curtains. Maybe Mr. Solberg hadn’t heard her over the driving rain. Chloe stepped down to the grass. As she leaned toward the window, she heard the sound of a television. She knocked firmly on the glass, then visored a hand above her eyes, waiting to see palsied fingers pull the curtains aside.

No luck.

A passing car sprayed a fan of water over the lawn. Chloe retraced her soggy steps and frowned at the front door indecisively. Should she leave? But what if Mr. Solberg was ill?
I take seven different medications,
he’d said. She suddenly felt a chill that had nothing to do with the rain.

She put a tentative hand on the doorknob. It turned easily. She cracked the door open. “Mr. Solberg?” she hollered. “It’s me, sir. Chloe Ellefson.”

No answer but rain drumming on the roof. She pushed the door open wider, called again. No response. She imagined him lying on the floor, paralyzed by a stroke or fall, alone and unable to call for help. “Oh, God,” she whispered, and stepped inside.

“Mr. Solberg?” she yelled. “Mr. Solberg!” No answer but the muffled raindrops. She quickly scanned the living room: floor lamp burning by an easy chair, a Zane Grey novel left open on the floor, what looked to be a talk show flickering in black and white on a small television.

Chloe hurried from room to room. Dining room: table piled with old magazines and a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. Kitchen: dirty saucepan waiting in the sink, porcelain canisters shaped like Dalmatian puppies. No Mr. Solberg.

Calling his name, her wet sandals slapping, she ran up the stairs. One bedroom: neatly made bed, large photograph of a gray-haired woman on the dresser. No Mr. Solberg. Second bedroom: a lifetime’s accumulation of stuff crammed in bushel baskets and suitcases and old beer cartons. No Mr. Solberg. Bathroom: blue towels and shower curtain. No Mr. Solberg.

Don’t over-react, she told herself as she slapped back down the stairs. The man probably went to visit a neighbor.

And left his television on?
I never turn the darned thing on during the day,
he’d said when she’d called.

Oh, God.

Chloe plunged back into the streaming gray afternoon. She ran down the steps and across the yard to Mrs. Lundquist’s house. Her shorts plastered themselves to her thighs and her bare arms prickled with goose bumps. She slowed to climb the front steps, past the geraniums in their tubs. They were almost dead now, brittle skeletons bobbing angrily from the force of the rain.

Chloe shivered as she put her palm on the doorknob. It too turned easily. She eased it open, moving slowly now, silently. She stepped inside—and staggered backward from the slam of negative energy that had replaced her earlier perceptions of quiet calm in this house. “Oh, God,” she whimpered, her heart thumping beneath her ribs.

She took one step and looked first to her right, into the kitchen. Nothing. Then she looked to her left.

It was the soles of his shoes that caught her eye, scuffed and oddly visible. The soles were attached to sturdy black lace-ups, the kind elderly men wear. Chloe took another step and she saw ankles in dark socks. Then gray trousers.

Legs, she told herself numbly. Legs jutted from behind the desk.

Two more steps and she shuddered violently, pressing a hand over her mouth. She closed her eyes, but it was too late; she’d already seen Mr. Solberg lying on the floor, the back of his head a bloody mess.