Husbands And Lap Dogs Breathe Their Last (20 page)

Howard Oliver sat at the desk reading a Superman comic book.

“Cummings!” Howard said enthusiastically, looking up as Cummings entered the space. “How nice to see you! Welcome to the Maine Ephemera Museum.”

“Thank you, Howard,” Cummings replied.

“Have you visited us before?” Howard asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“Let me give you the tour.”

They started in the toothpick exhibition. This involved various examples of the toothpick makers’ art from woods indigenous to different places in the Western Hemisphere. Each artifact was carefully arranged on white china placed atop white pedestals. Howard slowly explained the provenance of each toothpick, resulting in the most boring thirty-seven minutes Cummings had ever experienced.

Finally they emerged from toothpick purgatory and walked past another partition into the permanent exhibit: umbrella covers. These were pinned to cork boards mounted at eye level. Howard’s narration continued.

The umbrella covers that Howard had mentioned at Omurtag Farm all seemed to be displayed. They ranged in color from faded red to dirty beige to worn gray, but no black. Further, there appeared to be only one umbrella from England or thereabouts, and it was a Burberry plaid.

“Your interest is only the covers, not the actual umbrellas? Is that correct?” Cummings asked.

“Yes. We keep the covers and dispose of the umbrellas.”

“How do you dispose of them?”

“I give them to Genevieve Bolduc. Do you know Genevieve? A very talented craftsperson! She uses the umbrella skins to make grocery bags and recycles the aluminum into garden ornaments.”

“Do all of your umbrellas come in as donations? For example, from the proprietors of Omurtag Farm?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what happens.”

“Do you keep records? Who donated what? Where each umbrella was manufactured?”

“Well, we try. Truthfully, recordkeeping isn’t my strength. I’m more of an inspiration person.”

“And this is the entire collection? Everything is on display?”

“Well, no, not all of it,” Howard replied. “Genevieve usually helps me clean and mount the new umbrella covers as they come in, but she had a baby about six months ago. I haven’t seen much of her. There’s quite a backlog of umbrellas waiting in our storage room.”

“Can I see those?”

“I don’t see why not.”

They walked to the back of the warehouse, and Howard unlocked a door. The store room was lined with steel shelves on which were piled umbrellas of every color, size and shape. Cummings did his best to look through them and noticed at least a dozen that matched the general description of the Babka murder weapon.

“Where are these from?”

“All sorts of places.”

“Are any from Eastern Europe or the United Kingdom?”

“Some might be.”

“Do you know which ones?”

“Like I said, I’m not much on recordkeeping.”

Sometime after midnight Cummings was awakened by a commotion too loud to ignore. He got out of bed and looked out his window. The sky was illuminated and smoky. A building was on fire in the village.

He dressed quickly and went downstairs. There he found Ernestine in her bathrobe.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Cummings asked.

“There’s a fire. Don’t you smell it?” she responded.

Cummings nodded and left the house.

Walking to the village center, Cummings saw the Horeb volunteer fire department, as well as volunteer firemen from three surrounding communities, rushing toward the Maine Ephemera Museum. The Museum was a mass of flames.

A number of townsfolk stood watching in dismay. One of them was Deuteronomy.

“What happened?” Cummings asked, approaching him.

“No one really knows,” Deuteronomy said. “The building just started to burn.”

“Any idea of the cause?” Cummings asked.

“Who can say? They heated the place with propane. Perhaps the tank exploded. Perhaps it was something in the wiring. I doubt Howard’s done much updating. Or it could be arson.”

“Isn’t arson a rather extreme solution? Even if the Babka umbrella was in there, why go to all the trouble of setting the building on fire? Surely such evidence would never be discovered. We’re talking about an eccentric museum in a tiny village in Maine that is visited by almost no one.”

“Do you recall what I said about dangling participles? The CIA doesn’t like them,” Deuteronomy said, “and neither does the KGB.”

“Yes, but surely ...” Cummings saw from Deuteronomy’s expression there was little point in continuing the sentence, let alone the conversation. Deuteronomy’s mind was made up.

They stood together in silence, watching the blaze for a long time. Shortly after dawn Elektra came for Deuteronomy and took him back to his house. Cummings went back to Ernestine’s and made some tea. He sipped it thoughtfully.

Cummings returned to Chicago just in time for the Fourth of July. Cummings and Odin got up early and drove toward the center of Illinois to spend the day with Odin’s sister, Rosaline.

Odin’s parents were gone as the result of a car accident, and Rosaline was his only living sibling. “It’s important to keep those family ties knotted,” Odin liked to say. Cummings was never sure if this meant that intimacy should be maintained with one’s biological family at all costs or that all family connections were inherently tangled. Whichever, Odin felt a need to see Rosaline occasionally. Cummings, as a good spouse, went along.

About two and a half hours south of Chicago, Odin turned off the highway to a secondary road. Some minutes later he veered onto a tertiary road, then another even more tertiary. Finally he turned onto a bumpy and dusty dirt road slicing through densely planted corn fields.

Eventually the corn parted, revealing a worn Victorian farm house with an adjacent barn surrounded by acres of prairie grasses. A winding gravel driveway led from the road to the house, passing a neatly fenced vegetable garden that appeared well tended and fecund.

Several dogs ran toward the approaching car, barking, as a sturdy middle-aged woman with her hair in pigtails came out of the house. She was tall but much stockier than Odin, though her facial features were similar enough that one might easily deduce they were related.

“You found your way,” she said flatly as Odin and Cummings emerged from the car. “Thought I might get a call saying you were lost.”

“I remember how to get here,” Odin replied.

She nodded. “Come in then,” she said, turning toward the house.

As he always did, Cummings scanned her waist to see what kind of gun she was carrying. It wasn’t that he was concerned his sister-in-law would kill him; it was the reassurance of observing natural order. As surely as the sun rose and set on a schedule, Rosaline got up every morning and put on a gun. They were her totems. This particular afternoon, a .45 was holstered around her midriff and jiggled menacingly as she walked.

Inside, the house was comfortable and cozy. The room was painted a light gold color with a medley of throw pillows in florals, stripes and patterns strewn randomly on old and shabby overstuffed furniture. Four leaf-patterned dog beds lay at the compass points of the room; one was next to an old and shabby gun rack, overstuffed with firearms. Cummings was pleased to note there was a padlock on it.

Rosaline made lemonade, which she brought out in a pitcher with mismatched glasses.

“We’re very shabby chic around here,” she said, putting the drinks down on a side table. “Help yourselves.” She plopped into a side chair, put her cowboy-booted feet up on the table and picked up some knitting from a wicker basket on the floor.

“What are you making?” Cummings asked.

“Piggy socks for my little piggies,” she said, snorting and showing a half finished sock to Cummings. It was pink with a striped motif of alternating pigs feet and pigs tails. “I like piggies. Thought about starting a hog farm, but it’s too messy. The runoff’s poison. It’ll make you sicker than the government.”

“I have a new job,” Odin said, changing the subject. “Product testing. It’s only temporary and part-time, but they might hire me full-time.”

“What are you testing?”

“Tampon strength, the water tightness of disposable diapers, that sort of thing.”

“I thought you did something with computers,” she said.

“I’m using my engineering degree,” Odin said defensively. “They also test other products. Tires, for example. This could lead to something better.”

“Did you hear that we bought that old warehouse building in Blue Mound?” Rosaline asked.

“No, I don’t think you told us,” Odin replied.

“It was real cheap, and I thought we might make some money renting it out. Some people turned up and said they wanted to put in a day care center, so we leased them the place. They paid their rent on time, but after a while Baxter noticed there weren’t no children. So I went over there. It was a meth lab. I had to call the Illinois Watchmen of Freedom to get them out.”

“Did you lose a lot of money?” Odin asked.

“Hell, no. I started a business.”

“What kind of business?”

“I’ll show you.” She ran upstairs and returned with several furry doll heads in the shapes of various animals.

“Stuffed animals?” Cummings guessed.

“Not exactly. We put them on carry bags. Their little heads just pop over the top of the bag. We make a doggie bag, and a kitty carry all and a bunny bag and a tiger tote. And see, they all have little pockets for hand guns. Aren’t they cute? Little girls love them. I have them in stores all over Central and Southern Illinois.”

“That’s impressive,” Odin said.

Rosaline sat. There was a pause in the conversation, then she said to Cummings, “You’re from Maine, aren’t you?”

“I lived there for a while,” Cummings replied.

“Do you know the Maine Sons of Liberty militia?” she inquired.

“I don’t believe so,” Cummings said.

“My friends moved up there, Grant and Betsy Jackson. You remember them, Odin?”

“Abraham Jackson’s younger brother,” Odin said. “Wasn’t he in prison?”

“No. The government dropped the sedition charges. You guys shoot? Come down here and hunt when you like,” she said cheerfully. “The land’s still half yours, Odin.”

“We’re not much on hunting,” Odin said.

“Must be something to hunt in Chicago. The mayor, to start. You know, we have almost two thousand acres here,” she said to Cummings. “I’ve been letting the Illinois Patriot Militia do weekend maneuvers.”

“How are Baxter and Parker?” Odin asked, changing the subject again. He was referring to his nephews.

“Fine, just fine. They’re supposed to be home any minute.”

As if on cue, Cummings heard a door open. This was followed by some mumbling and heavy footfall, as if a large animal was lumbering into the house. A few seconds later, two males appeared, one about Rosaline’s age and another, a lanky teenager with a small amount of acne and a large football helmet. The teenager had his arm around the older man, supporting him.

“I can walk just fine,” the man said, sloppy drunk, trying to push the teenager away.

“Maybe, maybe not,” the teenager snapped back. They headed toward the stairs.

“Damn, if we weren’t just talking about you,” Rosaline said. “Moab, where have you been?”

“I got to take a nap,” the man mumbled in response, hanging onto the stair rails as he hoisted himself along. The teen returned after delivering his burden to the bedroom. He plopped down into a chair and took off his football helmet.

“Hello, Baxter,” Odin said, awkwardly extending his hand to shake. “You remember your Uncle Cummings.”

“Haven’t seen you for a while,” Baxter observed.

“Not since Christmas,” Odin responded.

“There’s some lemonade,” Rosaline said, pointing. “There’s more in the refrigerator. Where was your father?”

“He was heading to Cousin Mike’s.”

“That’s Moab’s drinking buddy,” Rosaline said, mostly for Cummings’s benefit. “We think he sells heroin.”

“How did you know where he was going?” Cummings asked.

“I got him on GPS,” Baxter replied proudly. “I bought a tiny transmitter and super glued it into his wallet. So now, any time he goes on a bender, I just track him and pick him up in my truck.”

Delighted laughter exploded out of Baxter, and his mother started laughing, too.

“He’s smart like you,” she guffawed, smacking Baxter on the side of the head affectionately. She looked at Cummings and Odin and asked, “Either of you want some Jack in your lemonade?”

“Jack” referred to Jack Daniels whiskey, of which Rosaline was quite a fan. Rosaline and Cummings had several servings. Odin abstained, as he was driving.

During the drive home Cummings received a phone call from Winky Carmello.

“I’m afraid the police think Crandall killed Therese,” Winky exclaimed.

“Has he been arrested?”

“No, but they’ve been here twice. They just left. He doesn’t know I’m phoning you. He thinks I’m overreacting. They said they found bee stuff at the crime scene.”

“Traces of beeswax?”

“That’s it. They think it came from Crandall’s hives.”

“That’s not compelling evidence. Bees are common. So are beehives. I don’t think you have much to worry about, at least not now. However, I do have a question for you. Did you invite Tom to go to the auction with you, the one I saw you at a few weeks ago?”

“No. I just ran into him there.”

“I see.”

“How are you coming with your investigation?”

“It’s going slowly.”

“Does that mean you don’t know who killed Therese yet?”

“That’s correct,” Cummings conceded, “but I’m working on it.”

A few minutes later Rockland phoned.

“Where are you two?” Rockland asked.

“Driving back to Chicago from Odin’s sister.”

“Did she shoot you?”

“Fortunately, no.”

“Do you want to come for drinks tomorrow?”

“I don’t see why not. What are you two doing?”

“Luther and I are having our traditional Fourth of July celebration,” Rockland said with marked sarcasm. “Right now we’re raising our mint juleps to the Dred Scott decision. Later I’m going to do a dramatic reading of the Indian Removal Act of 1830.”