Old World Murder (2010) (21 page)

Chloe tried to count to ten before responding, and only made it to three. “First, I’d like photocopies of this transfer form and notes. Please.”

Ann silently took the folder, disappeared, and returned with the photocopies.

“Thank you. Second, I’d really like to see the other two pieces in the original donation.”

“You’ll have to talk to Greg about that.” Ann sat down at her desk.

“OK, here’s the thing. I’m new, I’ve never met Greg, and I don’t know my way around.” Chloe scrounged up a smile that she hoped might qualify as congenial. “Could you direct me to his office, please?”

Greg was a plump middle-aged man, completely bald, wearing a Hawaiian shirt printed in vivid reds and blues. “Sure, no problem,” he said affably, after Chloe explained her quest.

Chloe refrained from hugging him. Within minutes, Greg gently placed a large wooden plate on a worktable. “Here’s the first one.”

The plate—what her mother would call a
smorgåsbord
—was painted with swirls of brown and orange and green. Chloe leaned close. “It’s stunning!”

“It is,” Greg agreed.

“Can you identify the artist?” she asked hopefully.

Greg shook his head, staring at the plate. “No. It has a Telemark feel, though. See the asymmetrical design, and the main C scroll?”

“Yes,” Chloe said, although he’d already lost her.

“But there’s a unique quality, too. And I don’t think the piece is old enough to attribute to one of the Norwegian masters.”

Chloe shot him a glance. “Made in Wisconsin?”

“That’s quite possible. And definitely before the twentieth-century revival.”

“So that makes this plate pretty rare, right?” Chloe felt a flicker of hope.

“It does.” Greg nodded. “Let me find the other donated piece.”

Chloe studied the
smorgåsbord
while she waited. Who had held the brush that made this flourish, that scroll? Could it possibly have been the gruff-looking Halvor Haugen? She struggled to reconcile this glorious example of creative expression with the man posed so stiffly.

Greg emerged from the ranks of shelves with a second
smorgåsbord
in his gloved hands. It was similar to the first, with flowing flowers and curlicues. But this one had Gothic Norwegian lettering around the edge. Chloe turned her head to make out the words … and sucked in a harsh breath.

Vi maa uddanne vaare dötre
.

She pointed. “Can you translate this?”

“Sorry. I don’t speak Norwegian.”

“Is there anybody on staff here who does?”

“Not that I know of. I’m sure someone at the university could help you. Want a campus phone directory?”

Chloe accepted the offer with a growing sense of urgency, and dialed the listed number. “Sorry,” said the receptionist who answered the phone. “No Norwegian classes are scheduled for the summer session. Professor Gulbrandson is in Norway.”

Shit! Well, another phone call to good old mom was in order. Chloe hung up the phone and turned to see Greg regarding her with a slight frown. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Not really,” Chloe lied, scrabbling for a response that wouldn’t leave this nice man thinking that the new curator at Old World Wisconsin was nuttier than banana bread. “We ended up with a bowl from the same donor transferred to Old World, and I—I’m just curious about that phrase.”

“Ah. I see,” Greg said, although his dubious expression said that he didn’t—not really.

“My mom’s a rosemaler,” Chloe added. “I’m familiar with some of the more common expressions painted onto plates.
Takk for maten. Hunger er den beste kokke
. This one is new to me. I’ll ask her about it.”

Chloe took a moment to carefully copy the lettering on the
smorgåsbord
. If she was remembering correctly, the words painted on this old plate exactly matched the lettering embroidered on the apron Nika had so carefully set aside in the basement of St. Peter’s Church.

____

Chloe puzzled over the day’s revelations as she drove out of Madison. She didn’t believe that seeing
Vi maa uddanne vaare dötre
on an old Norwegian apron one day and on an old rosemaled
smorgåsbord
the next was a coincidence. Mrs. Lundquist, though, had not donated any textiles to the State Historical Society. Chloe had seen the donor files. One ale bowl, two plates. No question about that.

So, what was the relationship between the apron and the
smorgåsbord
? And what was Nika’s role in all this?

When Chloe reached Fort Atkinson, she angled east toward Eagle instead of continuing south toward home. She needed to see that apron again. She would check its accession number, drive back to the trailer, and see what she could learn from the donation form.

She reached Old World Wisconsin’s main gate well after closing time. A few vehicles were still parked under the pines—probably visitor center staff tallying the day’s ticket and gift shop sales. Nika’s car was not among them, and it wasn’t parked at St. Peter’s Church, either. Good. Nika was gone.

But so was the apron. It was no longer on the desk, or on the worktable, or anywhere else in plain view. Chloe scanned the gray archival storage boxes stacked on shelves, found one labeled “aprons,” and pulled it down to the worktable. After pulling off the lid she hesitated, contemplating the textiles packed with extraordinary care. No way could she paw through this box without Nika, if she happened to look, knowing that someone had messed with her work.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Chloe muttered crossly. “You’re her boss. You are allowed.” She dug gingerly through the aprons: 1940s gingham and 1880s lace, immaculate and patched, child-sized and tent-like. No Norwegian apron.

After returning the box to the shelf Chloe balled her fists in frustration. She didn’t know where else to look. Defeated, she locked up.

As she drove past the empty administration building on her way home, she swerved at the last minute into the small, empty parking lot. She might as well check her mailbox while no one was here. Much better than taking the chance of running into Ralph Petty during regular office hours.

The row of plastic mail holders used by permanent staff was posted just inside the door. Chloe grabbed her handful of stuff and got back into her car before shuffling through it. An ad for window treatments that protected historic interiors from ultra-violet light. An all-staff memo from Byron about July Fourth programming. A letter from a tinsmith, wanting an appointment to show his reproduction wares.

And a special delivery envelope from her mother: “Here’s the basic genealogy, as far as I’ve gotten. I’m just showing the direct line to your donor, but have info on aunts and uncles, etc. if you want it. Still digging.”

Chloe ran her finger down the page, following the lines of her mother’s careful printing, muttering as she read:

“Nels and Gro Skavlem emigrate from Norway to Wisconsin in 1845, five sons born before their only daughter, Astrid Skavlem (Nelson), arrived … Astrid’s daughter Brita Nelson (Haugen) born 1888 … Brita’s daughter Berget Haugen (Lundquist) born 1912. (1914, Emil Haugen born.)”

So much for Halvor Haugen. Halvor was evidently irrelevant, since the bowl’s provenance went back further than any Haugens in Berget’s ancestral line. Chloe had checked for a “Skavlem” file in Iconography before leaving the historical society, and hadn’t found anything. But at least she now had confirmation that Berget was descended from Gro Skavlem.

Curious, that with five brothers, Astrid had ended up owning three rosemaled pieces that had belonged to her parents, and that through two more generations, the family heirlooms had passed from mother to daughter. “Score one for the ladies,” Chloe said—

The answer hit her like a
lefse
stick to the head.

Ladies.
Dötre
. An embroidered apron. A rosemaled bowl which incorporated carved cow heads into the design, instead of the more traditional dragons or horses.

Chloe jumped out of her car, ran back to the administration building, wrestled with the lock, dropped her key, cursed loudly, got the door open, and grabbed the nearest phone. She dialed the Eagle Police Station first. It rang several times before she heard a click as the call was redirected to the county line.

She didn’t want to talk to the county dispatcher. She hung up and dialed Roelke’s home number. No answer.

Well, nothing to do but to try again later. Her thoughts still tumbling, she headed for home.

____

By eleven P.M. Roelke still was not answering his phone. In desperation Chloe called Libby, who said that no, she had no idea where he was.

Chloe’s parents didn’t answer their phone, either. In desperation Chloe called her sister Kari, who said that no, she had no idea where their parents were.

Where on earth was everyone? Chloe kicked one of the unpacked boxes before admitting defeat and going to bed. But after a couple of hours of restless sleep she found herself awake again, tossing this way and that, kicking off the sleeping bag she was still using in lieu of sheets, then grabbing it back again. Her body couldn’t decide if it was exhausted or buzzed.

Eventually she gave up and got up. Her head was in danger of exploding if she thought any more about Norwegian heirlooms, Mrs. Lundquist, and Mr. Solberg. She needed a distraction, something that would still her mind. She picked up
Time and Again
, put it back down. The book was a favorite. She already knew what was going to happen.

Then she remembered the thick stack of photocopies she’d made in the microforms room that afternoon. At this point, even delving into Aldrick Tobler’s oh-so-Swiss life was more appealing than other options. She padded to the living room, grabbed the papers from her briefcase, turned on the floor lamp, and settled down to read.

It was boring stuff, mostly—notices of land sales, advertisements, reports from local social clubs—all reproduced in tiny, blurry fonts. Chloe felt her eyes growing gritty with fatigue. Good.

She kept reading. She knew she was too tired when words began to literally not make sense. She rubbed her eyes and forced herself to read the small business notice in her hand again.

She sat up straight, suddenly wide awake, and read it one more time.

Then she turned off the light and went to stand at the living room window, trying to let the darkness soothe her eyes and her nerves. This simply did not make sense.

Nothing was making sense. Alone in her big dark farmhouse, staring at the still night, she wondered if her tentative grip on emotional stability had truly been strained to the breaking point.

Then the night exploded, in a crashing and tinkling of broken glass.

Roelke felt an odd
sense of
déjà vu
as he roared into Chloe’s driveway. This time, though, every light in the farmhouse was on. Chloe was sitting on the front step, her blonde hair shining almost white in the porch light’s glare. She wore shorts and a long T-shirt and, he was glad to see, sandals. She didn’t move when Roelke got out of his truck, but her landlord emerged from the house and came to greet him.

Roelke was operating in that strange half-buzzed, half-exhausted state that comes from too little sleep and too much adrenaline. He had worked the three-to-eleven shift the night before, and had been about to go off-duty when he spotted a clearly inebriated driver weaving north on Highway 67. By the time he’d made his arrest, taken the asshole to the Waukesha County jail, finished his paperwork, and headed home, it was almost two o’clock in the morning. He heard his phone begin to ring as he trudged up the staircase to his apartment.

When he grabbed the receiver, an unfamiliar man’s voice greeted him. “Officer McKenna? It’s Gene Holsworth. Chloe Ellefson’s landlord? We met that time—”

“What happened?”

“She’s OK,” Gene Holsworth had said. “But I think you better come down here.”

Now Roelke gripped the farmer’s hard, calloused hand. “What happened?” he asked again.

“Somebody threw a rock through a window. I was up with a sick calf, and heard it.”

He pointed. Roelke stared at the savage hole. The bastard had hit Chloe’s bedroom window.

“A county deputy has come and gone,” Gene was saying. “I tried to get her—” he cocked his head toward Chloe—“to wait over at our place, but she wouldn’t go. She didn’t even want me to call you.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Chloe frowned at the two men. “I can hear you, you know.”

Gene Holsworth leaned closer and muttered, “The wife and me, we just didn’t think she should be by herself.”

“I’m
fine
,” Chloe announced.

Roelke decided to ignore her for the moment. He helped Gene cover the jagged pane with a piece of plywood brought from next door. “That’ll do ’til I can get the glass replaced,” Gene said, stowing his hammer back in the loop on his overalls. “It was probably some kids out drinking beer or smoking dope or something. I don’t know why they keep hitting this old place, though. I bet this’ll kick my insurance up another notch.” He shook his head. “Well, if that’s it, I’ll head on home. I’ll be milking before too long.”

When the older man was out of earshot, Roelke planted himself in front of Chloe. “Why the hell didn’t you call me yourself?”

“Maybe it’s because the last time somebody broke into my house, you scolded me because I
did
call you.”

“I didn’t—that’s not—you know I—
Jesus!
” He glared down at her.

Chloe stood, neutralizing his advantage. “I’ve already called you twice to come rescue me. Maybe I’m sick of playing the distressed damsel.”

Roelke had control of his temper; he absolutely would—
not
—grab Chloe’s thin shoulders and shake her. But he really, really wanted to.

“Would you use your brain, then?” he snapped instead. “The person who murdered Bill Solberg may very well be the person who came here tonight, in the dark, and—”

“But he
didn’t
hurt me. I think he just wanted to scare me.”

I will find him, Roelke thought. I will find him and put him behind bars.

“I was in the living room when it happened,” Chloe was saying. “It could have been much worse. I won’t say it didn’t freak me out.” She shuddered. “But I’m OK.”

“What you say may be right. But I’m still angry.”

“Well, I’m angry too! I’m angry at whoever killed poor Mr. Solberg and probably threatened poor Mrs. Lundquist until she had a heart attack. And if you’re done yelling at me, I would like to tell you some things I discovered today.” She looked at her wrist; no watch. “Well, no, that’s stupid, it’s very late, and—”

“Would you stop trying to be so damn rational?” Roelke was aware instantly of how irrational
that
sounded. “Get your keys. Lock up the house.”

She looked wary. “Why?”

“I don’t want to talk here. Nothing’s open at this hour, but we can at least get away from this place.”

For a moment he thought she was going to argue, but with uncommon good sense, she refrained. “OK,” she said. “Let me just grab the files I was looking at.”

Five minutes later Roelke parked his truck in the tiny lot at the La Grange crossroads, usually used by people switching to bicycles to explore the Kettle Moraine State Forest. He felt better ensconced in the cab, on Highway 12, close enough to a street lamp that he could see anything coming. His revolver was in the glove compartment and his tank was full of gas.

“OK,” he said. “Start at the beginning and tell me what you learned.”

Chloe began to rapidly outline her discoveries. “Wait,” he said. The adrenaline rush was fading. “Start over. Leave out words like ‘accession’ and ‘iconography.’”

“Berget Haugen Lundquist donated three rosemaled wooden pieces to the State Historical Society in 1962. Two plates and an ale bowl. In 1977, one of those pieces—the ale bowl—was transferred to Old World Wisconsin.”

“Right, got it. Go on.”

She told him about the embroidered apron and the rosemaled
smorgåsbord
, Andreas Dahl photographs and Mrs. Lundquist’s family tree. “Berget Lundquist’s ale bowl was passed down from her great-grandmother, Gro Skavlem. But the odd thing is that it was a straight matrilineal line of succession—”

“Would you
please
try to keep it simple?” Roelke longed for a cup of coffee.

Chloe looked at him triumphantly. “I think Gro Skavlem was the rosemaler!”

“So?”

“
So?
Don’t you get it? Rosemaling was not a traditional women’s art. All the known rosemalers from the nineteenth century were men. Rosemaled pieces that date to the period between the first wave of immigration and the twentieth-century revival are rare to begin with, but if we can prove that a
woman
painted the bowl—”

“Wait, back up. What makes you think this Gro woman painted the bowl?”

“It’s just a hunch,” she admitted. “But here it is. First, the curator who talked with Berget Lundquist in 1962 noted that the pieces ‘were from’”—she used her fingers to indicate quotes—“Gro Skavlem. Now, that could be interpreted as ‘handed down from.’ But I think it also could be interpreted as ‘made by.’”

“Wouldn’t the curator have noted that down?”

“Today, absolutely. But record keeping wasn’t always as thorough back then.”

A pair of headlights appeared in the west. Roelke watched them approach. A Dodge Mirada. “I don’t know,” he said, when the car had flashed by.

“Then there’s the notation that the ale bowl we’re looking for was decorated with a cow head motif.” She looked at him expectantly. “Cows! Get it?”

“Obviously not,” he growled.

“Historically, in Norwegian families, dairying was
women’s
work. It was probably a holdover from Viking days, when men sailed off and left all the chores to them. Women milked, made cheese, tended the cows. See?”

Roelke chewed that over, blew out a slow breath, shook his head. “It’s possible, I suppose. But it still feels like a stretch.”

“Well, I think Gro made the bowl,” Chloe said stubbornly. “I just have this gut feeling. Instinct.”

Roelke imagined trying to explain Chloe’s line of reasoning to Chief Naborski. “I need facts.”

Chloe frowned and looked out the window for a moment. “Well, there’s also the Nika connection. Nika desperately wanted to find a good ethnic woman’s artifact that she could research and write up.”

“But how would she have even known about the ale bowl?”

“She was here for a whole week before I was. She could have gone through the accession books. Somebody tore out that page …” Chloe sighed. “Although it is hard to believe that Nika would get so obsessive about the ale bowl based on just the sketchy information on that accession form,” she admitted. “I didn’t understand the bowl’s significance myself until I saw the genealogy my mom sent, and realized that the rosemaled pieces had passed from mother to daughter for four generations.”

Roelke pressed his knuckles against his forehead before speaking. “Even if Nika
did
decide to look for the ale bowl after she started working at Old World, why had Berget Lundquist suddenly decided she desperately wanted the ale bowl back? You said Berget Lundquist had started in on that before you
or
Nika started working at Old World, right? And if Nika had actually found the bowl, and wanted more information from the donor, wouldn’t she just have called Mrs. Lundquist and asked? It seems to me that Nika finding the bowl, and figuring out what she could about its history, would be all she needed to write her article or whatever. Someone has been trying to
steal
the ale bowl, presumably to sell. Your Nika theory doesn’t add up.”

“Well … maybe.” Chloe scooched down in the seat and propped her feet on the dashboard. “What doesn’t line up for
me
is the apron. It shows up in Nika’s workspace, and then it disappears. I don’t know where the apron originally came from. But with the same Norwegian phrase as Berget’s plate? No way is that a coincidence.”

“Is there any way Nika might have seen that plate?”

Chloe’s shoulder’s drooped. “I don’t know. Shit! How stupid is that? I was there, and I didn’t even ask the curator! I didn’t think of it.”

“The curator would have mentioned it though, don’t you think? If someone else had recently asked to see those very pieces?”

She thought about that. “Yes. But they have interns up there too, student workers … the person who helped me in Iconography today was probably a work-study student. It is possible that someone other than the curator showed Nika the
smorgåsbord
, especially since she was there on a Saturday. Unless they’ve got a big exhibit launch coming up or something, museum curators generally work regular office hours. And the artifact storage area isn’t public, so they don’t keep a visitor log the way they do in Iconography.”

Roelke leaned his head against the window. “You’ve spent time with this woman. Do you think Nika is capable of getting mixed up in something … unethical? Illegal?” Another car came and went on the highway, this one traveling west. A Ford, driven too fast. Roelke reminded himself that he wasn’t on duty.

“I’ve come to like Nika,” Chloe said slowly. “And in a lot of ways, I really respect her. But she’s lied to me, and she’s sometimes evasive. She’s got an explosive temper. She’s driven. Her fiancé mentioned once that Nika has a lot she wants to accomplish, but also some things to leave behind.”

“What’s Nika’s last name?”

“Her full name is Tanika Austin. She’s going to grad school in Illinois, but she grew up in Milwaukee.”

“Hunh.” Roelke chewed that over. Then he reached across, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out a couple of index cards so he could make notes.

“I think that once Nika sets her mind on something, some goal … she’s probably capable of doing whatever she needs to do to get what she wants.”

“If nothing else, she may have stolen the apron,” Roelke said. “Could it be identified?”

“It would be marked with an accession number. Unfortunately, I didn’t write the number down when I had the chance. But the embroidery makes the apron unique. I’d know it if I saw it again.”

A murder investigation, Roelke thought, and a missing apron. If there was a link between the two, he couldn’t find it. “There’s something here we’re not seeing. Some incident that started a domino reaction.”

“I know.” Chloe pushed her hair behind her ears. “Did I ever mention that Nika got her tires slashed in Eagle one night?”

“That was Nika’s car? I heard about that at the station.”

“I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but it could.” She was silent a moment, considering. “Maybe two different people are hunting the bowl.”