May Day (7 page)

The library was officially
closed for the rest of the day while the state police investigated and then the local janitorial service sanitized the building. Actually, the local service was just Mr. Bethel, who cleaned cabins and businesses during the summer, and I wondered if he had the proper dead-removal products. He wouldn’t need much. There was very little blood on the scene, including Jeff’s clothes. Before Chief Wohnt left, I asked him what he thought of that.

“I think he was shot somewhere other than the library, his clothes changed, and then his body brought here.”

That Gary Wohnt was going to make detective yet. After he drove away and I was convinced I was alone, I went to my car and yanked the envelope out of my waistband. “For Your Eyes Only,” embossed in an elaborate green script, were the only words on the creamy envelope. I pulled out the silver card inside and flipped it open, surprised to find that it was an invitation. A smaller version of the ornate script scrawled out this message:

You are invited to a Class of ’82 party to be held on Friday, 15 May. Come masked. You cannot enter without this invitation. One invitation per person. Go south of Battle Lake on 78, east on Eagle Lake Road 2.7 miles. On left, blue house, white mailbox. C U there!

I did a little math and had a tickling at the back of my brain. This card was telling me something, and I wasn’t going to let the English major in me be distracted by the annoying, vanity-plate-cute “CU there!” on an otherwise elegant invitation to a masquerade being held in three days. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t make sense of it, so I stuck it in my glove compartment for later study.

Suddenly, I felt lost but couldn’t think where I wanted to be. I craved a huge drunken bender, but I’d been doing so well curbing my drinking. I settled for a chocolate binge, and I knew just what kind I needed.

To the uninitiated, the Nut Goodie isn’t much to look at. The frenetic pine-green and clown-red wrapper yells of old-fashioned candy stores where you could dig your hand into a jar and pull out ten waxy pop bottles for a dime. The Nut Goodie itself looks like a rubber gag toy, the kind you wouldn’t want to find next to your cat. The whole bar is as big as the palm of a grown woman’s hand and consists of a domed sugar-maple center with peanut halves sprinkled on thick. Then, there is brown, waxy chocolate spilled over it all and hardened in a free shape around the outside. It looks like the unfortunate result of a bad meal, but it tastes like heaven.

If you’re a Nut Goodie newbie, I suggest you start with one of the chocolate lips that has spilled off of the whole. It’s just chocolate-covered peanuts, and it’s a good way to get your feet wet before biting into the so-sweet-it-makes-you-cry maple center. The maple concoction is the magic in a Nut Goodie. It’s not gooey like caramel. It’s a nice, staid, Minnesota middle, the texture of thick buttercream frosting—one bite would kill a diabetic. The Pearson’s Company first started creating them in St. Paul in 1907 and hasn’t looked back.

I’m addicted to the Nut Goodie, but I’m a controlled addict. I only allow myself one in times of stress or joy, and then I always let the chocolate and maple bites melt in my mouth until the peanuts are the only solid before I chew. I savor them, feeling the maple center get under my fillings and into my brain, enjoying the tingling sugar rush that follows, the clarity of vision and purpose that can only be induced by a Nut Goodie high. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson. Of course, there’s a price to pay. The Nut Goodie come-down is rough, with an accompanying pain similar to an ice cream headache. I needed a Nut Goodie now, God help me maybe even two. I barged into the gas station, fisted them, paid for both at the counter without making eye contact, and returned to my car. I ate the first like a starving rat, and it calmed me enough to suck on the second slowly. As I felt the soothing buzz hit, I had an idea of what to do with myself.

I needed some physical action to offset the heavy feelings that were threatening to smother me. Returning to Sunny’s trailer seemed too confining, and the stares I was already feeling around town told me I didn’t want to hang out here. I decided to to buy some shoes and go for a drive. Twenty minutes and a pair of cowboy boots later, I found myself at the old Jorgensen farm, the Nut Goodie magic maple center still corroding my teeth. I parked and walked out toward the spot Jeff and I had visited the Friday before.

Strange how death gives a person ownership over the life of the deceased. I had spent a week with Jeff, but now that he was dead, we had a permanent relationship. What could have been if we had had more time? We were obviously compatible. He was the most interesting person I had met in a long time. I felt cheated and was starting to feel a little scared. I was a murder victim, once removed.

I sat down heavily and ripped at the grass, the backs of my eyes growing hot. This was just shitty. I suppose the shock was wearing off and I was beginning to feel the stress of traumatic death, but what I was feeling seemed pretty self-centered to be called grief. A man had lost his life, and I couldn’t think beyond what I had lost—a new friend and lover, if not a potential partner. My thoughts strayed to my dad and wondered if this was what grief really was, a sort of inner reckoning where you faced what was no longer possible, followed by self-pity and an eventual reassignment of resources. I’d always hoped when I grew up that my grief would finally have more meaning, or at least less selfishness. I needed to work on this grief thing.

Out of the corner of a damp eye, I spotted movement near the grove where Jeff and I had become blood brothers. I turned my head slowly, expecting to find a deer pacing the woods. Instead I saw Karl Syverson. I watched him step out of the woods and walk toward the road. Could he not see me?

“Karl!” I yelled, wiping my eyes. I was happy not to be alone.

He startled his head toward me, waved, and began walking in my direction. When he drew close enough to hear me without raising my voice, I said, “Did you hear? The star football player died.”

“What?” he said, looking over my shoulder, his lips tight. “Jeff Wilson is dead?”

I nodded, feeling sorry for myself. “What’re you doing out here?”

He cocked his head, patting me on the shoulder a little roughly. “The bank asked me to come out. They manage this land and wanted to know how the museum plans are coming. I was actually hoping to run into Jeff. I got a phone call that led me to believe he would be out here finishing up.”

My logical mind latched onto this tidbit, grateful to avoid emotions for the moment. “When was the phone call? Was it Jeff? What did you talk about?”

Karl’s bland face looked sad. “I don’t know, Mira.” He looked into the distance where the old Jorgenson homestead was located. “Yesterday sometime. I talked to a representative from Trillings who said Jeff’s report was in and the property looked good and that I should get the papers ready. It was a short conversation, all business.”

“What do you mean the bank manages the land?” I was unwilling to let go of the facts I had the power to understand.

He shrugged, sighed, and looked back off to the landscape. “We’re responsible for handling the mortgage and dispensing the land. No biggie.”

“So what are you doing here?” I asked again. I just didn’t want him to leave me alone.

He chuckled softly. “Well, Ms. Lois Lane, the Jorgensen estate is in arrears, and it would be in the bank’s best interest to sell the property pronto. Trillings seems like our best bet, and the rep I talked to made it sound like a done deal. We want to have a satisfied customer, if that is the case. You know how I like to have everything neat and orderly when it comes to business.” He said it again. “Bank stuff, you know.”

Actually, I didn’t know. It didn’t seem right, Karl out here in his suit. But my thinker felt broken, full of Novocain and cotton. “I don’t think he found anything,” I said. “I came out here with him, and he seemed to think this spot was ideal. The only thing he needed to check out was that rise over there.” I pointed toward the mound Jeff had spoken about.

Karl looked at me with new interest. “Rises everywhere around here. You were out here when he was surveying?”

“Yup,” I said, suddenly defensive. “I had to interview him,
remember.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Karl was back in thoughtful mode, a distant, teasing smile on his lips. “I’ll just bet. Jeff was always very personable. Well, let me know if I can do anything for you.” He patted me on the shoulder, this time softly, before walking back to the road. He must have parked up and around the bend from where I was, because I hadn’t seen his car.

When he left, I shook my head in wonder. Too much was happening too quickly, and I had too many questions. Was this land related to Jeff’s death? And why had Jeff’s dead body been brought to the library? What sort of weirdo killer would change their victim’s shirt? What had Karl meant when he said Jeff was “personable”? And why couldn’t I maintain any sort of lasting, adult relationship with a man?

From where I was sitting, detective work seemed a better fit than feeling sorry for myself. I needed to make things stop happening to me. I had to find out what was going on, and I was going to start by looking at that rise that had interested Jeff. It was the only material thing I had to focus on at the moment. I had seen the Indiana Jones movie and the necessary sequels. I knew the basics of archaeology. This should be a piece of cake.

I walked the half mile to the mound and knelt down by it. The sense of purpose felt good. I smelled the same fresh-dirt smell I associated with gardening and poked methodically at the sod. A slithering in the grass made me jump back.

“It’s just a snake. A little snake sunning itself,” I said out loud. Suddenly, it was all I could do not to run, and I wondered about the legend of haunted Battle Lake. Maybe Jeff had disturbed some spirits and paid the price?

Foolish, I told myself, and I even half-believed it. This side of the mound was unremarkable, so I walked over to the other side. The wind picked up, and I heard a soft moaning in the trees that I didn’t remember from when Jeff and I hiked out here. The palm of my hand tickled where Jeff had squeezed the bloodroot sap. My skin felt prickly suddenly, and I couldn’t stand still any longer. I turned to walk back to my car at a calm, I-don’t-believe-in-ghosts pace, caught my heel on a rock, and fell flat on my face.

My fingers sunk deep into the earth when I hit, deeper than they should have. I felt around and was surprised to find a loose piece of sod about two square feet, representing maybe a seventh of the size of the mound. Somebody, probably Jeff, had already scalped this spot. I pulled back a corner of the grass, and what I saw underneath made me sit back. I would have whistled through my teeth if I knew how. Instead, I just said, “Whooeeeh.”

At my knees was smooth gray rock that had been carefully brushed clean, with only sprinkles of dirt freckling it from where I had pulled the sod off. What was amazing were the images etched on the stone. They looked like sections of the crude but vivid stick figures I had seen on a History Channel story about the Pueblo Indians in the southwestern United States. On this section of rock, I could see the bottom of a primitive man holding what looked like a spear, and an arrow shooting toward a four-legged creature. I rocked back on my heels and ran my eyes over the entire length of the mound, thinking, “If I pulled off all the grass, I bet I could piece together the whole story.” I leaned forward and rubbed my fingers over the rough design, fascinated to feel that it wasn’t a painting but a carving in the stone.

The Lady of the Lakes article I had written about Battle Lake’s origins again puttered through my head. For me, the interesting part of the article came before the official founding. The Ojibwe had originally named the town Battle Lake in honor of a fierce 1795 battle between their tribe and the Dakota. A party of Ojibwe hunters had left their community at Leech Lake for their annual beaver hunt. When they neared Leaf Lake, they discovered fresh signs of their Dakota enemies. A beaten path led them to the lake, where they were surprised to find long rows of three hundred Dakota lodges on an open prairie.

The first Ojibwe gun brought down the Dakota leader, but the Ojibwe were terribly outnumbered. They fought on until more than thirty Ojibwe were killed. Less than a third of the original hunting party returned home. The Ojibwe and Dakota had many skirmishes in that area until Indian ownership of the land was “legitimized” with the federal government’s Prairie du Chien peace treaty in the early 1800s. But settlers and more treaties pushed the Indians back until the area was almost totally Norwegian—white people who ate white food.