The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies (7 page)

Chapter Ten

What a strange little girl. And she
was
little—no bigger than her younger brother. Mary Frances had said that her daughter was eleven years old. She'd looked more like eight or nine to Mia, until she got close enough to see her eyes and those huge dark circles under them. Mostly she looked uncared for. Mia would have given her right arm to take a brush to that hair. And the boy was scratches and dirt from top to bottom. Poor ragamuffins. What would become of them now?

But right now Mary Frances Hofer's children weren't nearly so interesting as her visitor. Or potential visitor. Mia wasn't surprised that Mrs. Hofer had shown no wish to talk to just any flashy-looking woman who came waltzing in claiming to be an old friend of her late husband's.

“I've no idea who she could be, and I'm not up to chatting with strangers, now,” was all Mary Frances said.

Mia hadn't liked to ask how her husband might have come to know Wanda Greely, but if Reuben Hofer hadn't been so much the stranger here as everyone thought he was, the sheriff should know about it. She dropped the dish towel and stepped out onto the porch.

Nick sat at the wicker table, wiring a new cord onto the toaster. She touched his shoulder, “I think I'll go out for a short walk.”

He nodded. “When you get back, I'll make you a piece of toast.”

She struck out on the same path she'd taken that morning to the Hofers', turning off where it skirted the fence that kept Leonie McIntire's horses in their pasture.

When she got to the point where she had to cross that fence, she hesitated. She hadn't seen John McIntire in weeks. The easy relationship they'd formed in the months following his return to St. Adele had, by increments, fizzled since the previous fall. She once again felt as awkward in his presence as she had when he'd first come back, a virtual stranger, a ghost of her past that she hardly recognized. Now, with his wife away, she was even more reluctant to knock at his door. Maybe she'd get lucky and he'd be outdoors. Or gone off somewhere.

She held the strand of barbed wire tight against the woven fencing and swung her leg over. Being tall had definite advantages.

The quarterhorses stood on the shady side of the barn, nose to tail, twitching at flies and stomping their feet.

Leonie had only been gone a couple of weeks, but her absence was already taking its toll. The lawn mower sat abandoned at the side of the yard, grass growing up through its blades. A few red colored hens lay half-upended close to the foundation of the pump house, dug into the dry soil of one of Leonie's many flower beds. Nearby, the infamous leghorn rooster stood guard but gave only a slight raising of his hackles and a couple of half-hearted scratchings as Mia passed by. In the stillness, the place had an air of desertion, but John's car, and Leonie's as well, were in the driveway. No chance of just leaving a note.

Maybe he was asleep—taking a siesta to avoid the heat of the afternoon. Hot weather didn't bother Mia the way it did most other people. Ninety-five degrees every day of her life would get no complaints from her. But John had spent most of his life in England, where seventy was a sweltering heatwave. He was probably suffering. She hoped he'd be decently dressed. Not lazing around in his undershorts or less.

He appeared behind the screen. “Are you just here to admire the paint job on my door, or are you planning to knock on it?” He looked happy to see her. Maybe he was getting lonely.

“I thought you might not be home. It's so quiet.”

“I haven't reached the point of talking to myself yet.” He held the door open. “At least not too much. Come on in.”

“I just stopped for a minute.”

“Well, if you stopped to see me, it will have to be in out of the sun.”

It wasn't a whole lot cooler inside. The shades were pulled, the kitchen almost dark, but it only made things seem more closed in and stifling. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, and a black skillet on the stove contained a quarter inch of grease.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Water?”

“I think I could rustle up some gin if you'd prefer that.”

“No thanks, I'm not thirsty.” Before he could respond, she began. “I went to see Mary Frances Hofer.”

“Did she stand up?” He didn't even smile when he said it.

“No.”

“Do you think she can?”

“Of course she can! She'd have to be able to get up. But I can't figure how she manages to….” Mia didn't like to think about all the things Mary Frances would have trouble doing. “It must be awful. How could a person get to such a state? She must not always have been like that. I mean, she's got the four kids….” It was time to change the subject. “But that's not what I came to tell you. While I was there, somebody else came over.”

That at least brought a spark of curiosity, but John only said, “Nothing like a murder to bring out the visitors, even total strangers.”

“She wasn't a stranger exactly. I don't know her personally, but I recognized her name. It was Wanda Greely.”

“Should I recognize it, too?”

“I don't think so, but Leonie might. She's a beautician. She's got a shop in Benton. Wanda's Cut'n Curl.”

“She cuts ‘n curls Mrs. Hofer's hair?” John moved from the door toward the table like he was intending to offer her a place to sit. Sitting might have been less awkward than standing facing him in the small kitchen, but he didn't go farther than his hand on the back of a chair. “Can't say I think much of her handiwork, but it's nice of her to call.”

“No, she's not responsible for Mrs. Hofer's coiffure. She doesn't know Mrs. Hofer. She said she was an old friend of Reuben's.”

“Another one?”

“I wouldn't know about that. Are there more?”

“They seem to be coming out of the woodwork.” Despite his obvious interest, he sounded tired. “Did Wanda say how they happened to meet?”

“No, but I doubt it was in her professional capacity. I just thought you—or the sheriff—should know that Reuben must have been here before. Not that I think Wanda Greely is a murderer. Although if looks could kill, I'd have been flat out on Hofers' doorstep when I wouldn't let her in.”

“It turns out that Reuben
was
here before, incarcerated in the Gibb's Bay CPS camp. If he got chummy with people outside the camp too, that puts things in a different light. I'll let Koski know.” He pulled out the chair.“You sure you won't sit down? Have something to drink?”

“I better get back. I've left Nick alone long enough.”

“Mia—”

“Say hello to your wife.”

He looked into her eyes, long and hard enough to make her feel like squirming, or screaming.

“I'll be sure to do that,” he finally said.

If she left on that note, the stiffness between them would go on, get worse. Before she went out the door, Mia found the courage to turn back and ask, “Have your heard anything about what the family will do? The kids are a pair of lost waifs, and up until now they've had two parents. That woman can't possibly take care of them on her own.”

“Reuben's sister was here. According to her, they managed to get along just fine without him for years.”

“That girl is hardly more than a skeleton.”

“Mia…,” he said again, this time with a smile.

“Oh. I know I wasn't a
robust
child, but at least somebody combed my hair now and then.”

“The mother's not very well. I expect they'll end up with the aunt.”

Mary Frances had mentioned her sister-in-law, what a great help she was. She wasn't married and probably had no children of her own. Mia also gathered that she was a member of a strict religious community—the one that had produced her late brother. It might not be the best solution.

Chapter Eleven

The day began as the last one had ended and as the night separating them had been. Hot. Ugly, sultry, sticky, blistering, sweltering, hot. Maddeningly hot.

Maybe that was it. Some poor soul had been driven mad by the heat and blasted his neighbor off a tractor. Wasn't that what happened with Lizzie Borden, it was the heat that compelled her to administer those whacks?

Why did Reuben Hofer die? All through the night, McIntire had been over and over it in his head. Even the short snatches of sleep had seen Kelpie's snoring transpose itself into a rumbling chant that dominated his dreams, “
Who killed Cock Reuben?
”

It shouldn't be that difficult. Once they found the bullet, they might even be able to stick it under a microscope and match it up to the very weapon it was fired from. They'd at least know what sort of gun it was. In this neck of the woods people knew the guns at least as intimately as they knew their owners. They'd easily find out who owned the right kind of firearm, and, among those, who had the wrong sort of alibi. They could figure out what direction the shot came from and from how far away. It would then be a simple matter of matching up all the information and, bingo! Easy as the Sunday crossword.

That was if the killer was somebody from the neighborhood, which McIntire didn't believe for a minute. Unless it was an accident and the perpetrator was afraid to come forward, it was simply not credible that Reuben Hofer had antagonized one of his neighbors to the point of premeditated murder. Unless that neighbor was among those who had known him during his earlier sojourn here.

Bruno Nickerson denied knowing Reuben was back in Michigan until he heard about his being killed. What about Wanda? That made two possibilities, and there were certainly this more. His widow might know some of them. He probably should make it a practice to check in on her, every day or so.

***

The pup ran yipping around McIntire in ever shrinking circles, made a quick dash to nip at his pants cuff, but disappeared with a whimper at his, “Beat it!” Feeling satisfied with himself, McIntire knocked at the door.

The garden produce was gone, and the table was piled with worn clothing, most of which seemed to be of a size to have belonged to the late Mr. Hofer. Mary Frances sat in her designated spot, attacking the shirts and overalls with a scissors, cutting out the useful pieces, discarding the remaining shreds in a heap on the floor beside her. It seemed rather early to be ridding herself of her husband's belongings, but there was probably little enough she could do to keep herself occupied, trapped in her body as she was.

She switched off the radio and called to her daughter. This time the girl came down the stairs and tiptoed into the kitchen. Without a word she picked up the coffee pot, sloshed in a dipper of water, swirled it around and dumped the resulting slurry into a slop bucket by the door.

McIntire waited until the fresh coffee was poured, a plate of brownies was on the table, and the unkempt sprite had gone out of the room. The whisper of her footsteps ended just beyond the doorway, but a thin shadow stayed on the floor. McIntire didn't suppose he was going to say anything she shouldn't hear anyway.

Why hadn't Jane Hofer taken over the hostess duties?

Reading his mind, Mary Frances said, “Jane has gone into Chandler on the train, to take care of the arrangements.” A lank strand of hair dropped over one eye. She blew at it ineffectually. “I don't know what I'd do without her.”

“You have neighbors, Mrs. Hofer, ready to help. Your sister-in-law didn't need to take the train to town. I'd have been happy to give her a ride.”

“Jane would never ask for help.”

Except when it came to sidetracking the investigation of her brother's murder. “Well, I hope if you need anything, you won't hesitate to ask me or most anybody else.” McIntire picked up one of the brownies with its signature pecan embedded in gooey frosting. “Lucy Delaney for instance.”

“You are quite the detective!” Mary Frances laughed, then sobered quickly. “I expect that's why you're here.”

“Only partly. I was thinking, wondering if your husband had looked up anybody he knew from the camp here?”

“No. Not a soul. He did go to have a look at the old camp once.”

“Did he ever mention anyone? The guy that was here yesterday, maybe, Bruno Nickerson?”

“No, I've haven't heard that name before. I'm sure Reuben never brought him up or that woman that turned up in the afternoon.”

“Was there anybody else?”

Mary Frances snipped thoughtfully. “I thought about it after the sheriff asked, but no, Reuben didn't talk about anybody in particular, not by name.”

“Would he have said anything to your sons? Would they be likely to remember?”

“Mr. Koski asked that, too. I doubt it, but you can ask.”

“Did he never talk about the past at all?”

“He talked about it incessantly. The distant past. Growing up in Prairie Oak. Paradise on earth, to hear him tell it. But he didn't want to think about all that came after he left.”

Mary Frances was part of what came next. A big part. McIntire cringed at his mental pun. “Why did you decide to move here? Your husband must have found something he liked.”

“He would rather have gone back to
Californ-i-ay
.” McIntire was learning to distinguish genuine laughter from the self-conscious chuckle by the amount of jiggle in her chins. “But farmland there is far from cheap. I'm not sure why he picked here. He knew something about the area, I suppose, after being in Gibb's Bay. The federal prison was in Michigan, too. Reuben had some money saved up, and we bought this place for next to nothing.”

She gripped the tails of a threadbare shirt, bit her lip, and pulled. The stubborn seam gave with a resounding rip, “No!” It was triumphant. “There
was
somebody I know about. Gary Cooper. That's why I remember, who could forget that name? His name…and because of what happened.”

“Which was?”

She picked up the scissors and smoothed the fabric on the table. “One of the ways you could get out of going into combat service was to volunteer to be a guinea pig for medical experiments. Reuben was furious because Gary Cooper gave in, as he saw it, and tried to get into some sort of starvation experiment. He was turned down, but later, when they'd been in Gibb's Bay for a few weeks, they took him after all. Reuben said he hoped they'd starve him to death.”

She shook her head and peered into McIntire's eyes, like the rest of her story lay there. “But I don't think I knew that then. I couldn't have, could I? I didn't hear anything much from Reuben when he was in Gibb's Bay.”

“Did he tell you about it later then?” That was about all the help McIntire could give, and it didn't seem so hard to figure out.

“No. He never talked about any of that stuff.” She squinted and snipped at some loose threads. The wheels were turning agonizingly slow, but at last she nodded. “It was when they took me to the hospital. I'd been getting sick for a long time, and I couldn't afford to see a doctor.”

McIntire tried to look pointedly toward the slim shadow visible through the living room doorway.

Mrs. Hofer glanced briefly ceilingward and went on, “No, that's not strictly true. I did go to the doctor in Waverly. He more or less said I was imagining things, that my hair falling out was just nerves, and that if I lost weight I wouldn't be so tired all the time. Things got worse and worse, and eventually I just collapsed, couldn't do anything. They took me to the hospital at the University of Minnesota.”

“That's right,” McIntire said. “That's where the starvation studies were done.” Had they tried cutting off Mary Frances Hofer's meals? Is that how she came to meet Mr. Cooper?

“Gary Cooper worked there. I think he was some sort of nurse. A male nurse.”

Some of the conscientious objectors had ended up as attendants in psychiatric wards. Is that what Mary Frances' tee-heeing meant? But Cooper probably hadn't done both starvation and mental hospitals.

“Anyway, when Reuben came to take me home, they met in the hallway, and that was how it all came out.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A couple of years. Not quite that.”

So Mr. Cooper could still be working there, and if he wasn't, somebody could probably tell them where he'd gone.

McIntire stood to take his leave, and, to his great shock, Mary Frances gripped the edge of the heavy table and heaved herself to her feet in a single movement that, far from being the awkward walrus-struggle that McIntire would have expected, was almost graceful.

She moved a pan of boiled potatoes from the stove to the table. “Would you like to stay to dinner? I'm going to fry some potatoes.” She didn't make any inane remarks about his wife not being around to feed him, for which McIntire was grateful.

“Another time, perhaps. Right now, I think I'll try to track down your Nurse Cooper.”

As McIntire went out the door, he heard her raspy whine, “Claire, where's the black skillet?”

***

Getting through to the University of Minnesota Hospital and finding out that Gary Cooper was still employed there was a breeze. He was not any a nurse of any sort, but an X-ray technician. Talking to Cooper himself was another matter.

“He comes on duty at four. I'll let him know you called.”

“It is urgent. Can you give me Mr. Cooper's home phone number?”

It turned out that Mr. Cooper didn't have a telephone, but his aunt, who lived across the street, did. The protocol was to leave a message with Aunt Julia, and Cooper would call back when, and, most likely, if, he happened to feel like it.

McIntire left his message. Despite tossing in the carrot that his call concerned a homicide investigation, he had time to sweep the floor and write a three page letter to Leonie before the phone rang.

“I take it this is about Reuben Hofer?”

Murder wasn't something that happened every day, but, still, McIntire was surprised that news of the shooting of an obscure farmer in St. Adele had already made it across two states.

“I understand you knew him when you were both in the CPS camp in Gibb's Bay.”

“I did know him then, and for a few years before that.” A door slammed in the background, and a female voice announced that it was “like the Congo out there.”

“Here too,” McIntire volunteered.

“That right? I thought the lake would cool you off.”

“That's only in theory. You didn't spend the summer here, I take it?”

“Yes, I did, and you Yoopers don't know nothing about heat, but, no, I wasn't in Gibb's Bay very long.”

“I understand that you got out by volunteering for a medical experiment?”

“That I did.”

“And then you just stayed on at the hospital?”

“They owe me.” The tone changed from passing-the-time-of-day to curious. “What did you want to know about Reuben? I doubt that I can tell you much that will help you find your murderer. I didn't sneak up there and kill him.”

“What sort of person was he? Easy going? Hard to get along with?”

“I got along with him fine, if that's what you mean, until I volunteered to get starved. He thought I was taking the coward's way out.” Cooper's laugh had a bitter edge. “I was naive enough to think so too. If I'd had any idea what hunger was going to be like, I'd have gladly had done my time in Alcatraz.”

McIntire had heard that the food in Alcatraz was almost worth getting sent up for. “Reuben must have been different from the other men in the camp.”

“Not really. His background was less affluent than some, and he wasn't well educated. Neither was I for that matter, but it seemed to bother him more. But we all had the same outlook, you might say—political and social leanings. I first met up with him when we were in Patapsco. We got to be pretty good friends.”

He was the first person to admit to a friendship with Hofer, with the possible exception of the hairdresser. McIntire asked, “One of the old supervisors told me he wasn't so ‘ornery' as the rest, but he figured him to be an instigator. Do you think that's true?”

“Instigator? Not from what I knew of him. He just more or less went along with things as they came. He did what he felt had to be done, but he took his licks, accepted his punishment, too.” A smile was apparent in his voice, “But now that you mention it, he had some downright ingenious ways of turning things to his advantage.”

“Was there much of any punishment? The supervisor I spoke with said they didn't have any real authority.”

“That didn't stop them trying, and Reuben never put up a fuss. If they told him to scrub the floor, he'd get a bucket and a toothbrush and spend the rest of the day sitting with his back against the wall, brushing away. After one of the major…revolts, you might call it, they put us to work filling in a swampy spot by the barracks, shoveling sand from a big dune and carting it across in a wheel barrow. It would have taken ten years to do what they could have done in a day with a back hoe and a dump truck. After the first couple of days, most of the other guys refused to go, me included. There wasn't anything they could do to force us. But every day Reuben got sent out to dig that dirt, and every day he went, dragging—He'd made this ball and chain, and—”

“Yes, I heard about that,” McIntire said.

“Anyway he'd head out first thing in the morning, dragging that damn ball and chain. He fiddled around out there forever, sitting on the ground, digging with a teaspoon. He never hauled more than a half a wheel barrow load in a day, but he kept at it. Just to be stubborn.” He gave a grunt. “And it got him out of doing his share of any real work.”

“Meaning that the real work got left for the rest of you? Did that cause some aggravation?”

“Only for the supervisors. The rest of us were as bad, if not worse.”