Hunter’s Dance (16 page)

XXIII

I do not think that there was anything hidden or forbidden in their hearts.

Wolves snapped at the heels of the trusty Don Juan as he galloped through the night pulling the sledge carrying Gösta Berling and his latest kidnapped bride. Small wonder Don Juan knew his stuff. Fleeing into the night, with or without a female companion, was becoming a habit with Gösta, and was beginning to wear about as thin as the ice over which he sped. Ah, abductions were not what they used to be. No longer a convenient and romantic escape from a bothersome life. The fictional tribulations of the mad priest held scant interest for McIntire this morning, and as his mind wandered, his eyes followed. So he saw Mia coming long before she reached the house.

She strolled along the path that ran next to the pasture fence. Her plaid skirt fluttered around her knees, showing a bit more leg than it would have on a woman of less stature, and more of Mia's legs than he'd seen in over thirty years. They hadn't changed much.

The two quarter-horses, true to their inquisitive equine natures, trotted to the fence to observe this novel approach of a stranger. She stopped to scratch them under their bristly chins and embedded her face in the thick winter coat on Traveler's neck. Or was that one Spirit? Whichever, his companion began to nibble at the single braid that hung down her back. McIntire wondered how old Mia would have to get before she abandoned that childish coiffure. Gray hair, even that silvery color, wasn't suited to pigtails. It was suited to Mia, though, prettier than the dishwater blond it had been. As he watched, she laughed and tickled the animal's nose with the tail of the plait, causing it to curl its lip in a horsy sneer. When she turned toward the house, McIntire left the window, feeling almost voyeuristic, and met her at the kitchen door.

“Dressed in your Sunday-go-to-meeting duds just for me?” he greeted her.

“No!” She spoke as if appearing in the skirt rather than her usual costume of cast-offs from her husband needed a vigorous defense. Her smile was more of a grimace. “I've been paying a ‘welcome to the neighborhood' call on the Morlens. Bonnie Morlen, that is. I didn't see the mister.”

“Oh, so you only put on your glad rags for snobby Easterners?”

“Lay off it, John. You want to hear about Bonnie or not?”

Mia liked to get to the point, but was generally not quite this brusque about it. McIntire smiled and swept the door wide. “I surely do want to hear about Mrs. Morlen. Step right in.”

Mia handed him her coat and slipped out of her canvas oxfords. She carried a pillowcase containing some long object, which she did not immediately hand over. McIntire led her to the dining room.

“Want coffee? I could use some myself. I was too lazy to make any earlier. The water system's on the blink at the moment, so I have to carry in the water.”

“I thought from the way Leonie's been talking, all your water went to keep Siobhan looking fresh and lovely.”

“She does use her share. The pump keeps blowing fuses. Maybe if it keeps up, Siobhan'll move on to wetter pastures.”

“Well, tell her to stop in and see me one of these days.” Mia looked at the paper-strewn table. “What's all this?” she asked.

McIntire filled her in on Gösta and company.

“John, I hate to dampen your enthusiasm, but I tried to read that once. I got enthusiastic after I saw the movie, and, well, I stuck with it for about three chapters, then gave up.”

“It was a movie?”

Mia's smile was one of genuine satisfaction. “I can't believe it! For once I can tell you something that you don't already know. Nick and I saw it in Houghton.
The Saga of Gösta Berling
. It was Greta Garbo's first movie.”

McIntire couldn't believe it either. “It was Swedish, then? Were you able to understand it?”

“Oh, sure, every word.”

She'd caught him out again. There would not have been much of a language barrier involved in Miss Garbo's first movie.

“Anyway,” she said, “it beat the book all hollow.”

“When you've read the McIntire translation, you'll change your tune. Now what about the Morlens? Why'd they come back?”

“I don't know about Mr. Morlen, I didn't see him around, and his wife says he's not home much. But Bonnie's come back for the obvious reason, to find her son's murderer and to see him—How did she put it?—residing in Hell.” She went on, “I suppose you know she's brought her own detective.”

“Yes, we've met.”

“Well, she doesn't seem to think he's doing much.”

“Then I'd say Mrs. Morlen's no fool. So why doesn't she send him packing?”

Mia shrugged. “I didn't ask. She wants your help.”

“Mine? What does she think I can do? Anyway, when she found out Leonie's married to me, she all but booted her out the door. Does she figure I'll just come trotting along when she whistles?”

“Mrs. Morlen doesn't want you to trot up to the mansion. She wants you to trot around and find out who killed her son and then trot over to tell me, so I can tell her, and she can see that he takes up residence in Hell. She also wants you to find some of Bambi's belongings.”

“What belongings are those?”

“She didn't say, only that some of his stuff is missing, and she's not happy about it.”

“Ross?”

“Maybe.” Mia produced her pillowcase package. “At least I know he had this.”

She tipped a leather cylinder out onto the table. “Maps. Maps in a case. I didn't think I should handle it any more…fingerprints, you know.”

“Ross had this?”

“It was in my truck. I suppose both Ross and Bambi used the maps, but the name ‘Morlen' is on them. And they're all marked up, so maybe they can give some hints about…you know,” she smiled and lowered her voice, “clues.”

McIntire shoved Father Berling out of the way, pulled the papers from the tube, and spread them on the table. There were two geological survey maps showing the sectors south of St. Adele roughly extending from the Slate River on the west all the way to the Huron on the east. The top map was crisp and pristine. The one underneath, that covering the area where Carlson's camp was located, was older. It was smudged, water spotted, and overlaid with a maze of pencil-drawn trails.

McIntire inverted the case. A pencil and another, smaller cylinder landed on the table. He pounced on it. A roll of film.

“Bambi was an enthusiastic photographer, I've heard. Maybe his mother's right about things missing. I haven't heard of a camera turning up.” McIntire tried to keep the kid-in-a-candy-store excitement out of his voice. “Looks like it's been exposed.”

“Talk about clues. Good thing you're the detective here. All I found were the maps.”

“Did you ask Ross about this stuff?”

Mia's answer was long in coming. She pulled out a chair and sat. “No.”

McIntire nodded. Murder didn't only take a life. It left the living looking over their shoulders.

“He's been drafted,” Mia said. “He's scared stiff.”

McIntire looked up. “When?”

“He didn't say when he got the greeting. It must have been a while ago. He goes the middle of November.” She stood up and slipped her arms back into her sleeves. “I better get going. Nick will be home soon. If he's not wrapped around a tree somewhere.” Mia generally referred to her husband's foibles with at least feigned good humor, but this time her tone had a bitter edge to it. McIntire generally avoided making any comment related to Nick at all and did so now.

He walked her to the door. Before she left he attempted to make amends for his earlier transgressions. “I was just kidding before, Mia, about the dress. You look very nice.”

She didn't respond, but bent quickly down to tie her shoes. Her braid, the color of a lake on a hazy day, swung forward and swept the floor. As she stood and turned to the door in one movement, McIntire was appalled to see what looked like tears shining in her eyes.

XXIV

He who will see how everything hangs together must leave the towns for a lonely hut at the edge of the forest.

No one had accused the professor of being absent minded, but he looked genuinely befuddled when McIntire told him his reason for making the trek to his camp. He also looked like he'd been on a three-day toot. His eyes glittered indigo from dark hollows in an ashen face. His faded shirt was damp under the arms in spite of the frosty weather. He'd been sick all night, he explained. The worst was over now, and he was feeling better but not well enough to be doing any work. Nevertheless, he leaned on a shovel, maybe only to keep himself upright. The slingshot protruded from a back pocket of his baggy trousers.

“I brought the stuff Bambi left here back to the Morlens right after he died,” he said. “There wasn't much.”

“Mrs. Morlen seems to think there should be more.”

“Well, talk to your boss, or the state police. They ransacked this place like the Gestapo, and took whatever they damn pleased.” His expression showed exactly in how much esteem he held the position of township constable. “I'm not holding out on you. I have no use for Bambi Morlen's old socks.”

McIntire couldn't think of any reason to disbelieve him. If Bonnie Morlen didn't even know where her son was spending his nights, it was hard to imagine that she'd know what he kept there. He felt a little foolish. “Any idea where his camera might be?”

“He always kept it with him. I'd guess it was in his car. It was a pretty fancy gadget. Worth stealing, I'd say. Find his camera and you might find his killer.”

“We've alerted places that deal in used goods, pawn shops, outfits like that. If anyone tries to sell it we'll nail him.” McIntire had only now thought of it, but it seemed like a good idea. “How's the prospecting going?”

Carlson's grip on his spade relaxed. “Oh, we never tell.” He then burst out in a hearty laugh. “That hard-boiled detective has taken to it like a duck to water. He showed up yesterday all decked out in Levis so stiff it took about five minutes to unbend himself out of that shrunken excuse for a car, which he's been making pretty free with. Questioned me for about three minutes. Well, basically, he asked if I knew who'd killed Bambi. I said I didn't, and he ambled off into the woods. I haven't seen him since.”

Come to think of it, McIntire hadn't seen him for some time, himself. “You don't suppose he's still out there somewhere?”

“Oh, I'm sure Bonnie—Mrs. Morlen—is keeping tabs on him. She'd sound the alarm if he turned up missing.”

“Is she here alone? Didn't her husband come back with her?”

Carlson's clammy brow became even shinier. He covered his mouth with his hand and turned away. McIntire could hardly blame him. Wendell Morlen could have that effect on a person.

Carlson wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Sorry. Wendell's here, too, of course. He might still be spending quite a bit of time in Lansing. I guess that's why he took Fratelli on, to keep an eye on Mrs. Morlen.”

Mia had said Bonnie Morlen told her much the same thing, that Fratelli was there for her protection. Of course “keeping an eye on” could have other connotations, especially where a wife was concerned. Mia had also told him that Fratelli had been the one to approach Wendell with an offer of services, services that he didn't seem to be providing to any extent. Maybe he just wanted free room and board and a Michigan vacation. But why were the Morlens willing to put up with it?

There was nothing about Greg Carlson that seemed even remotely crafty or devious. But McIntire couldn't help but feel that there was more to him than was apparent at first glance. Why had he been snooping around at the Shawanok Club? And why was he still here? The sheriff hadn't spent much time on him and neither had Fratelli.

Carlson leaned more heavily onto his shovel. “I miss having the kid around. Besides that, it's good seeing another human now and then. He had a good eye, and was a real help mapping things out.” He laughed, a laugh that was cut short with a grimace of pain. “Not to mention that the cabin is being overrun with mice since he's been gone.”

“Bambi was a mouser?”

“He was quite handy at catching small critters of all sorts—mice, squirrels, a weasel or two. Devised some pretty ingenious traps. He let them go alive, so they probably came right back in as soon as it got dark. Which gave him the great pleasure of outsmarting them again. And he wasn't above capturing something in my boot or the cracker tin now and then. Gave me a bit of a jolt. The kid got a real kick out of it.”

“Our Bambi appears to have been quite the jokester at times,” McIntire commented and wondered if the young man's pranks always involved small mammals. “But right now we're trying to trace his whereabouts between midnight and about three in the morning on the night he died. We think he was still alive at that time. Did he come back here after the dance?”

Carlson turned his back to lean the shovel against the cabin wall. “No, he didn't come back.”

“Were you here all night?”

“Sure, where else would I be?”

“Maybe he came back for a short time and you slept through it?”

“In a place this size?”

“What can you tell me about these?” McIntire pulled the maps from his jacket pocket. “Maps, Bambi Morlen's.”

Carlson gave a derisive snort. “Hell, I might have known.”

“What?”

“Bambi kept his maps in a fancy leather case. Said it once belonged to Cyrus McCormick. One of those damn cops walked off with it.”

“It turned up somewhere else. It's being looked at for fingerprints. But right now I'm more interested in the contents.” McIntire unrolled the most obviously used of the maps and spread it against the log wall of the cabin. “Do you have any idea what they've marked here? Possible uranium deposits?”

Carlson moved the map into a sunnier spot and studied the markings. “I don't think so. This isn't anything we did together, and the boys didn't have a Geiger counter. This is an old map, and shows some things that aren't marked on newer ones, trails and roads that aren't much used any more. These,” he pointed to some treasure-map style X's, “are old mine sites, gold or silver. They had big plans to rediscover some abandoned gold mine and strike it rich.”

“Which begs the question, why would such a mine have been abandoned?”

Carlson chuckled. “Actually plenty of them were abandoned, gold intact. Getting the ore out cost too much. It's even more expensive now, so I don't expect Bambi and Ross Maki would have done any better. But they had a good time hunting.”

“How did they know where to look?” McIntire asked.

“I investigated mineral rights before I started this project, and let them have the legal descriptions of the locations of some mines and claims. So I recognize some of these places. Not all of them. My guess is that where X marks these other spots, there's an old mine they just stumbled onto.”

McIntire looked at his watch. It was still early. “I might like to see some of these for myself. Do you by any chance have a compass?”

“I'm loaded with them.”

The reply came from behind, and both McIntire and Carlson whirled to behold Melvin Fratelli, Private Eye, resplendent in rigid denim and flamboyant plaid flannel.

Carlson greeted him. “Find anything yet? Pitchblende? Murderers? Poison ivy?”

Fratelli ignored the question and repeated his assertion that he was well supplied with compasses and was chomping at the bit to see a gold mine.

McIntire was glad for the company, so didn't mention that any mine they found would probably amount to a couple of rotted timbers and a weed-covered pile of dirt.

He turned to the now-shivering Greg Carlson. “If we're not back by dark, call out the militia.”