A Lonely Way to Die: A Utah O'Brien Mystery Novel (Minnesota Mysteries Series Book 2) (9 page)

I waited to see if she had anything more about the stranger that might pertain to my case, but she wandered off and started to polish the counter with her rag.

I turned to Pete and said, “You’re one of the volunteers who help out with school athletics, aren’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know Carol Kramer’s husband? Harold Kramer? I only see him when we go to the high school ballgames. He’s pretty active with the school sports, isn’t he?”

Pete looked down at his coffee and shook his head. “Don’t know much about the man. He’s nuts about hockey, I do know that. My Marcia got pretty close to Carol Kramer, from being on church committees. She didn’t think much of the man.”

“Is he abusive?”

“Not to the kids, as far as I can tell, but the wife—he wouldn’t hit her, I don’t think. He’s a small man, in more ways than one, but he does know how to use that mouth of his. He came to the church picnic out in the park last year, just so he could tell his wife how stupid she was in front of her friends. I was surprised she stayed, but I suppose she’s used to it. It’s not the way to treat somebody, in my opinion. My Rita was there, she could tell you.”

Angie said. “I can’t imagine putting up with that.”

“Maybe she puts up with it for her two sons,” I said, but I couldn’t understand it, either.

She said, “You don’t think Harold did it, do you? Why would he kill that author lady?”

I hadn’t actually considered that possibility. “No, I don’t suppose. From what Pete was saying, it doesn’t sound like Harold’s style, anyway.” I turned towards Pete and said, “Do you remember when Carol Kramer got mad at Gwyneth Price?”

“I do, actually, and I was plumb happy about it. Carol would go off to the city and come back with all these stories about what new thing Gwyneth Price had in her house, what kind of fancy restaurant Gwyneth Price took her to. She’d tell all the ladies at church, and then my Marcia would come home and want all that stuff in our house, too. When Carol stopped visiting Gwyneth, it saved me a lot of money.”

“Did she say what caused the rift?”

He shrugged and shook his head.

“Did she ever tell you that Gwyneth was writing books?”

He shook his head again.

“Do you remember when Carol Kramer’s little brother died? Was there ever any talk around town about it being anything other than an accident?”

He was shocked by the idea. “Of course not. Losing that little boy just about killed Carol’s mother, from the grief. And poor little Emma, she was there, too, but she was too young to know what was happening. The kids were only about three or four years old. Mildred was next door and heard the screams. She told my Marcia about the accident so often, my wife finally had to ask her to stop, because it upset her so much.”

NINE

Oscar was back with his laptop. He sat next to Amy and booted up the computer. Then he looked at me with his eyebrows raised, waiting for the coveted password. The Kruegers gave up their Internet subscription several months earlier.

I turned to Angie and gave her a big smile, with lots of teeth. She looked at me suspiciously, then at the laptop. Her eyes narrowed. “Please?” I begged. “Just this once. Besides, it’s getting cut off in a few days, anyway. What can it hurt? And it’s for a good cause.”

She glared at me for a few more seconds, on principle, and then wrote the password on a napkin and handed it to me. “Next time, they can take their laptop to your place.”

I smiled my thanks, but groaned inwardly at the thought of more people sitting in my kitchen. I crossed to Oscar and Amy’s table and told them what I needed. “Anything you can find that might make someone mad at Sonje McCrae or her husband,” I said. “It’s a stab in the dark, but there’s always a chance you’ll find something.”

“I thought it was a suicide,” Amy said. “I’m sure that’s what they said on the news.”

I shrugged. “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe not.” I thanked them both for their help, and went back to the counter to put down a few dollars for the coffee.

I thanked Angie and said goodbye to Pete. I walked towards the door, but I stopped when I saw the word ‘museum’ on a piece of paper next to the cash register. There was a whole stack of fliers, and they all looked alike. I picked one up.

“Museum of Darwin’s Folly Brings God’s Wrath,” it said, in big type across the top. Below it, in smaller type, it said “Help us Get Rid of the Devil’s Work.”

A grainy photo of my mammoth took up most of the paper below the headlines. Below the photo was a date and time, for next Saturday at ten in the morning. No location was listed for the meeting, which seemed like an important oversight. Maybe they intended to have a protest, with signs and bullhorns, out in front of the museum. It was getting a little too cold for that sort of thing, in my opinion.

I looked up. Angie shrugged and grimaced. “I was going to throw them out. I didn’t expect you to come in so early.”

Pete was studiously looking at the TV set above the soft serve ice cream machine. The TV wasn’t turned on.

“Pete, you knew about this?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I knew. My daughter brought one over to the house a few days ago. Anybody who’s been in the museum knows it doesn’t have anything to do with evolution. Half the people in town helped you build those sculptures, for cryin’ out loud. I gave you a good deal on the lumber, myself, and my crew installed the foam insulation on that roof. I don’t remember the devil asking me to help out.”

Angie picked up the pile and threw the papers in the trash bin below the cash register. She held out her hand for the one I was holding, but I kept it.

“Did the pastor bring this in?”

“No. It was John Meecham,” she said. “He had a silly grin on his face when he handed them to me. He knew he was being a jerk, and he was getting a real kick out of it.”

John Meecham was in the same grade as me, way back when we were in school together. He was a jerk back then, too. Some people can’t help it.

“He never showed any inclination towards religion before,” I said. “What’s going on?”

Angie shrugged. We both looked at Pete. His neck was turning red and he kept his eyes on his coffee cup while he talked. “Meecham started coming to the church with Laura Rey, after her husband passed. Well, you can guess why. I’ve never known a man who had such a hard time remembering he’s married. My Rita saw him there a couple of times, and remarked on it. It was Laura Rey who got that fool idea about the museum, and Meecham is going along with it. She probably thinks he agrees with her, but he’s just having some fun at her expense.”

“Why doesn’t the pastor sit Laura Rey down and explain things to her?” I said. “Isn’t that his job?”

“Probably wouldn’t do any good. She’ll figure it out soon enough. Don’t worry about that flier. There won’t be any crowd with pitchforks outside your door next week. People got more sense than that.”

I folded the flier into a small square and put it in my pocket. “John Owen has been the pastor for a really long time, hasn’t he? Don’t they usually move the preachers around? The Methodists have had at least five preachers that I can remember.”

Pete shrugged. “Owen got attached, somehow. I’m not sure how he did it. The members have talked about getting a new pastor, but he always talks them out of it. I stopped going, after my Marcia died. He just keeps reading the same sermons, but Rita said he’s been adding more hellfire and brimstone lately, to spice things up. I don’t like that sort of thing, myself. They’ll have to close the church if they don’t get more members pretty soon, and a new pastor might be just what that place needs. But John Owen won’t budge.”

“That sounds a little like you, Utah,” Angie said. “Hanging onto that old building of yours, even after the business shuts down. When are you going to move to Sam’s house, so I can invite myself over to watch a movie on his nice TV?”

I smiled, said my goodbyes, and headed home.

TEN

When I walked through the front door of the museum, Sam was sitting on the old love seat next to the sculpture of the American camel, with it’s big, silly two-toed feet. I brought the loveseat into the museum after it closed so I could sit out there and have a cup of tea. It was cold now, in the big unheated space, but I sat down next to him.

He put his arm around me, and I leaned against him. I thought, and not for the first time, how nice it was to be next to a man who was taller than me.

“Your mother’s mad at me,” he said, while looking at the looming dark clouds through the big curved window at the top of the front wall of the museum.

I said, “She was mad at me, too. She said Mort and I shouldn’t go around asking questions about Sonje McCrae.”

Sam’s eyebrows scrunched together in a frown. He doesn’t frown very often. “She took me off to the side after Gabe and I got back with Molly. She said the boy already had enough excitement for the day, and he needed to rest. But the poor kid can’t sit around and mope all day. He needs to be up and doing something. Was I wrong to take him with me?”

I leaned on him again, and put my head on his shoulder. “I can’t see why. I don’t know what’s the matter with her.”

“Maybe she’s feeling left out,” he said. “Remember, last year when you and Mort started looking for Larry Webb’s killer? Your mother was right in the middle of it, working her butt off to help. She even called me and asked me to write that article about the owl in Native American mythology for your blog. Of course, that was because—”

“—it was because she was matchmaking, and you know it, you sly dog.”

He gave me a lopsided grin and his chest vibrated with his rumbling chuckle. “I had to look up all that stuff about the owl on the Internet. It must have been a good article, though, because I got my girl.”

“It was that green plaid Pendleton shirt you were wearing. I’m a sucker for old Pendleton wool.”

“I’ll have to remember to wear it more often.” He pulled me closer with his big paw on my shoulder, and gave me a proper kiss.

When we pulled apart, he said, “I got two good women out of the deal. Your mother’s a pretty special lady—but she’s not real happy today. Can you give her something more to do?”

I thought about it for a second. “We need to go see Pastor Owen. I thought Mort and I would do it, but I’ll try to talk Josie into coming with me, instead. Did you learn anything when you went out with your hound?”

“Not a whole lot, I’m afraid. But I got a chance to spend time with the boy, and he talked. That’s good, I think. He’s real worried that he’s going to end up in foster care. I don’t know what the rules are when a mother dies and there isn’t anybody else in the family except a soon-to-be ex step-dad. Do you?”

“No. But if Gavril Constantin can’t take him, Emma is his nearest relation. She’s a good person, and kids love her. She’s acting a little strange today, but her sister just died. We can’t expect her to be at her best right now.”

“But Mort said she’s only interested in the baby. He said Mildred and Emma didn’t show much concern for where Gabe will go after all this is over.”

That was true. And Mort also considered Emma a likely suspect. I laid my cheek back down on his shoulder and we sat there, watching snow swirling around the mammoth. The dire wolf sculpture in front of us seemed to be grinning at us in the murky light.

“Did Mort tell you about our talk with Carol Kramer?”

He nodded. Then he said, “I remember when Carol and Gwyneth stopped speaking to each other. When the friendship ended, Carol was pretty upset about it. I don’t doubt that Harold is the kind of guy who would stop his wife from having a friend, and I can see why she’d lie to him. But I’m surprised that she thought she had to lie about it to—well, to other people.”

He sat quietly for a moment, watching the clouds. Then he leaned down he kissed me on the forehead. “It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”

I remembered the luggage, covered with snow in the back of the truck.

While we walked to the front of the building, I said, “Last year, after my owl mask was stolen, Josie wanted you to do a smudging to get rid of the bad vibes in the museum. I don’t remember you doing it, though. Did she ask you?”

He raised one shoulder, and let it fall. “I begged off. I tried to learn about the old ways to make my gran happy. It didn’t work. I’m just a town boy. I guess it’s kind of like you, not being Catholic, even though your mother was raised in the church. You probably couldn’t do an exorcism very well, either.”

“No, I don’t think I’d be very good at that.” We both chuckled at the thought.

He wiped a bit of dust off the nose of the American cheetah with his glove as he passed by. “You know, after my gran passed, your mother really stepped in and filled that hole. Josie means a lot to me—I hope she knows that.”

The wind was blowing even harder when we walked back outside, and the cold stung my cheeks. We looked across the street at Sonje’s SUV.

Sam said that according to the old bloodhound, Sonje left her car, went to the front door of the diner, and tried to get inside. Angie polishes the glass on the door every morning, but Molly definitely said that Sonje touched the door up high, as if she was knocking or banging on it.