Past Imperfect (16 page)

“Feud?”

“Well, maybe feud is too strong a word. Mutual antagonism, then.”

“I thought that situation existed between Nick and a good share of his clientele—and between Nels and everybody in town for that matter,” McIntire said. “Was this particular dispute something out of the ordinary?”

“Not really, and it was quite awhile ago. Nels had a big mongrel dog that felt the same way about Nick that most dogs do. Talk about mutual antagonism! I don't know why Nick has such a thing about dogs. It's not like he has to get out of his car on his route. Maybe it's a holdover from his motorcycle days. Anyway, Nels' Truman would lie in wait for Nick every morning and chase his car a half-mile down the road. Well, one day Nels found the dog dead in the ditch, and he figured Nick had hit it—on purpose—which he might have. At least he probably didn't try very hard to avoid it. Nels called old Walleye, but he said that if the dog was chasing cars there wasn't anything he could do about it. Then Nels threatened to get Nick fired for drinking on the job. He actually tried to get the neighbors to sign a complaint, but he didn't have many takers.”

“How
does
your husband manage to keep his job?” McIntire asked. “I mean, you have to admit, Mia, he can be a little… difficult, and, even if you can overlook that, he isn't overly conscientious about putting the mail in the right box. We got two postcards from the Ringdahls' daughter in Denver last week.”

“Mary Ellen? How's she doing?”

“Just dandy. She climbed Pike's Peak, and she got her hair cut. Tell her mother if you see her.”

Mia's quick burst of laughter sounded reassuringly ordinary. “Nick's been carrying the mail for longer than most people can remember. He was only sixteen when he started. In those days it was no easy job. He had that motorcycle in the summertime, but once the snow fell he had to slog through the drifts with a horse and sled like everybody else, and he couldn't wait around for the plow. He brought the mail out from Chandler then, and it sometimes took two days to make the trip. He might be kind of eccentric but he gives people something to talk about. No two ways about it, my husband is something of a legend in his own time.”

“He is a topic of conversation now and then, I'll give you that.”

“Even through the Thirties Nick was just about the only link some people had with the outside world. He was always willing to bring out little necessities for anybody that couldn't make it into town. So they're willing to overlook some inconvenience in the U.S. mail. And then, too,” she smiled, “Nick has always been quite a favorite with the ladies.”

“Still, isn't he just a little afraid of losing his job? There is a limit to what people will put up with, especially the ones who've moved here recently and care more about getting their mail on time than they do about the local legends.”

“You're the only one who's moved here in the last fifteen years,” Mia laughed, “and now you're starting to sound like Sheriff Koski.”

“Ah, that reminds me.” McIntire produced Nina Godwin's diary from his pocket.

“That's it! That's the book! Where did you find it?”

McIntire related the story of the search of Cindy's room. “But they aren't Cindy's diaries,” he informed her. “They're Nina Godwin's. They must have been in with some stuff that Warner gave to Cindy last winter. How well did you know Nina? Weren't you sort of related to her?”

“‘Sort of' is about it. We're second cousins, or first cousins once removed, something like that, on Papa's side. Since Papa's family drummed him out of the clan when he married Mama, I hardly knew her, and I only have a nodding acquaintance with Warner. I wasn't invited to the wedding…I went to her funeral though. You don't need an invitation for that.”

“What exactly happened to Nina Godwin?” McIntire asked. “It must have been shortly before we came here.”

“Well, there's no mystery there,” Mia responded. “She hit a deer and ran her car off the cliff along the shore just north of Chandler…deer, bees, Walleye and that pig…what do you suppose we've done to bring the wrath of Mother Nature down upon us?”

“Any number of things, I don't doubt,” McIntire replied. “I was hoping you knew Mrs. Godwin well enough to give me some insight. Her writing is a bit cryptic. Could you look at it anyway? Maybe it will help to see it from a woman's point of view.”

Mia smiled sweetly. “Well of course, I was issued the universal standard female brain at birth, so I'm sure I can enlighten you.” She reached eagerly for the book. “Besides, wild horses couldn't keep me from reading this. Does Warner know you have it? Never mind, of course he doesn't…which would make it awkward to ask someone who really
did
know the Godwins to read it.”

They sat in silence while Mia slowly turned the pages.

“I see what you mean by cryptic,” she finally said. “Who is this Nordic god she keeps mentioning? Somehow I can't picture Warner in that role.”

“No, it becomes pretty clear when you read on that it's definitely not Warner, but who? There's not a clue. It could be almost anybody.”

Mia looked up from her reading and gave an unladylike snort. “Next time you take a walk around Chandler clean your glasses. It could be
nobody
. Nordic god! Nina must have had some imagination. Maybe she got a double dose of the ‘female point of view,' or maybe she should have gotten away from those books and out into the real world more.”

“Books?”

“She ran the Chandler library. Didn't you know?”

“No, I didn't,” McIntire admitted. “But from the activities she hints at in her journals, I don't get the idea that she was any stranger to the realities of life.”

“Oh yeah?” Mia turned a few more pages, then looked up sharply. “Do you actually think that something Nina wrote in her diary could be connected to Cindy's death?”

“It must have at least had something to do with the reason she came to St. Adele Monday morning. I can't believe she brought the diary with her just to have some reading material to pass the time on the train. Cindy was ambitious, not to say greedy. And,” he suddenly remembered, “she had a story dealing with blackmail hidden under her mattress.”

“So you figure,” Mia's voice dripped with disbelief, “that this guy of Nina's was somebody from St. Adele, and Cindy was trying to blackmail him, and got killed for it? Pardon me, but have you dusted your brain lately? The idea of Nina Godwin having a fling with one of our local yokels is ludicrous. And blackmail isn't an emergency situation. Cindy could have waited for her regular day off. What's more, the blackmailee could have just taken the book from her…well, unless he knew there were more diaries. Even if he did, he'd have no need to kill Cindy because of his affair with somebody who's been dead more than a year, and didn't name names anyway.” She flipped through the pages. “Was Cindy Culver smart enough to figure out who this guy is?”

“When we can't, I suppose you mean? We don't know what was in the fifth journal, or in the two that Pete has,” McIntire insisted.

“But you're guessing that Cindy had the diaries for quite a long time. What could have happened in the past few days to send her scurrying back here?”

“That's a good question. She must have decided to take the trip shortly before she left, but it couldn't have been a spur of the moment thing, exactly. The killer had to have known she was coming. She must have arranged to meet him in advance.”

“Not by phone,” Mia stated.

“Not likely,” McIntire agreed.

“I guess that leaves the mail.” Mia spoke hesitantly.

“Not necessarily; she could have contacted him in person. Maybe she saw him somewhere in Chandler, or maybe there was a third party involved.”

“Pete Koski asked if Nick had noticed any mail on his route that might have been from Cindy in the few days before she died,” Mia said. “Nick said he hadn't. Well,” she elaborated, “he said he didn't have time to spend playing any damn guessing games with people's mail. Which is not strictly true; there's nothing he likes better.”

McIntire studied the sludge in the bottom of his cup. “However she arranged it, you're right, there had to have been something that happened recently to cause her to act on information she'd had for a long time.”

“Like David taking off?”

“Maybe, but what could David's disappearing act possibly have to do with Nina Godwin's exploits?”

“Maybe Cindy was trying to talk David into going into cahoots with her on the blackmail scheme. Or just possibly,” Mia continued innocently, “the catalyst was a visit from the aristocratic John McIntire. She
was
headed straight for your house, you know. Maybe Nina's library was a front for smuggling toilet paper out of Canada, and Cindy was coming to give you the dirt—so to speak.”

“You don't suppose she
was
coming to see…” McIntire shoved his glasses back on his forehead. “No.” He spoke decisively. “If Cindy discovered that somebody had committed a crime, she could have gone to the sheriff. She wouldn't have had to go to the trouble to get on the train at the crack of dawn.”

“John!” Mia's laughter lit up her face for just a moment before, as usual, being choked off like a tap. “But you're right about one thing. This is the sheriff's business. Maybe you should just leave it to him.”

“What?”

“You've always been the…curious sort,” Mia answered, “but maybe this is something that should be handled by the professionals.”

“Curious am I? Well if that's the way you feel, I expect I'll just have to take that diary and go.”

Mia clutched the small volume to her chest.

“I thought so. Well, you can do your civic duty by reading the
Memoirs of a Deceitful Wife
, and I'll exercise my curiosity and my legs by walking around the roads one more time.” He rose from his chair. “Let me know if you come up with anything. Or notice any Greek gods skulking about in the bushes.”

“Nordic,” Mia corrected.

XX

McIntire enjoyed walking, a pastime that was raised to an art form in Britain but viewed with extreme suspicion here in his native environs. He strode out of Mia's driveway and steeled himself to the knowledge that any passing motorist would be insistent on stuffing him into the car and hauling him somewhere. Anywhere. Oh for autumn, when he could stick a shotgun under his arm and walk in peace. “Odd,” he had told Leonie, “how if you're on foot and not out to kill something, you're looked upon as some kind of psycho.” McIntire felt some measure of camaraderie with Lucy and the comment her habitual morning treks provoked.

Leonie herself was not particularly sympathetic. As a woman well into middle age whose favored form of transportation was a sleek black bicycle, she had endured her own share of ridicule.

He tramped methodically along the side of the road. The sun was only now beginning to break through after the two nights of rain. Puddles steamed gently and beads of water glistened on the ferns that choked the shallow ditches.

He felt little hope of finding anything helpful. The tracks of any vehicle left on the side of the road or pulled off into the woods would probably have been obliterated by the downpour. Any traces of such activities that did remain could easily have been left by yesterday's searchers. Still, he advanced slowly and peered intently into the roadside bushes. Looking for what? he asked himself, a fragment of turquoise silk? A muddy tennis shoe? Long blond hairs caught on a wild rose bush? Maybe a neon sign reading
This Way to the Killer
?

He sighed and stepped up his pace a bit as he approached the county gravel pit, then stopped in mid-stride when he caught a movement behind the brush that screened its entrance. As he furiously weighed the benefits of concealing himself in the bushes at the side of the road against the potential discomfort of entering the ten inches of water in which they stood, a doe stepped daintily out into the open. She noticed the foreign presence at once and kept her eyes fixed on him as she walked with measured and deliberate steps across the road. When she reached the opposite side, she stopped and waited, as motionless as McIntire himself, while two tiny spotted fawns, all ears and legs, imitated her jerky promenade across the wet gravel. When the entire family was united, the watchful mother gave a snort and stamped her foot, and they disappeared into the woods with a flash of white.

McIntire went into the gravel pit. It was a large area, hidden from the road by a heavy growth of alder and chokecherry. You could park a freight train in here, he thought, and no one would be the wiser. If the killer had concealed a vehicle when he went to meet Cindy, this was the likely place. It gave privacy and easy access to the quickest route to the ski jump area. That easy access had led Guibard and several of the searchers to park here, so even yesterday morning there hadn't been much chance of identifying tracks left by any one individual. The pit had been thoroughly searched the day before, and most likely had already received the attention of Mowser's sad-eyed bloodhounds. Nonetheless, McIntire made a slow circuit of the area. Gravel had not actually been excavated from the spot for several years, but the poor soil held plant growth back to a few anemic-looking grasses. The resulting open space, shielded as it was from prying eyes, afforded a perfect spot for adolescent boys to sit huddled around a fire, valiantly ignoring the smoke in their faces while they drank warm beer and practiced the lies that would serve them so well in their adult social interactions, or for pubescent couples who were too unimaginative to seek out the more picturesque spots overlooking the lake. Well, as far as romantic locales went you could hardly beat the actual lakeshore itself, with its pale sand beaches.
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
. True enough, McIntire recalled.

He hadn't responded to Mia's repeated comments that she had received no letters from him after his departure. It was a long time ago, and he wasn't absolutely sure himself of his reasons for not writing. Maybe it was partly rooted in an unconscious desire to keep his old life completely separated from the new, to freeze it in time until he again found a use for it.

What he had said was true; he had been terrified of going overseas, although by the time he left he knew he would be unlikely to ever find himself involved in actual battle. It was something of a fluke that he had gone at all. He had only been a few days at the training camp in Battle Creek when those in charge discovered that his eyesight was such that he would have a tough time distinguishing a German soldier from a fence post without walking up and giving it a kick. He would have been summarily packed off for home if he hadn't made certain that they also learned that he could communicate fluently in Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish, and passably in Italian and German. More importantly he could read and write those languages. When he shipped out he knew that he would spend the war translating doughboy mail for army censors.

Still, he was going to a war zone and he was scared, but outweighing the fear was the exhilarating sense of freedom he felt at escaping his father's constant bitter disappointment and, to be honest, Mia's smothering dependency. That wasn't quite fair, he knew. He had been every bit as reliant on her. They had taken care of each other.

Ironically, it was that very intimacy that contributed to his distancing himself from her. It was with profound shock that he had learned, shortly after his arrival at Camp Custer, that the novel and oddly comforting games that he and Mia had devised together were not unique; that a young woman who indulged in those activities was not highly thought of; and moreover, according to the pamphlets and posters on the barracks wall, such pursuits could drive you insane and even kill you. He could smile about it now, but at the time his newly acquired knowledge had given him more than one sleepless night.

None of this, he knew, was any more than another way of saying that he had been a selfish child who left his dearest friend stranded in a lonely and hostile wilderness. He had no right to gripe if she had managed to find her own way out. He was forced to admit that his thoughts of Mia had been infrequent until Sophie's letter had arrived informing him of her impending marriage. The pain he felt at that announcement had been filed away along with the rest of his early life and had intruded little on the ensuing decades. Mia said that she had felt lost when he left, that half of herself had gone. Strangely, during those years, when times were darkest, deep within his being he'd found solace in the knowledge that half his own self still remained at home.

As McIntire left the gravel pit and continued his peregrinations, he pondered Mia's inference that his own visit to Cindy might have led to her sudden trip to St. Adele. Of course Mia was only joking when she said that Cindy might have been coming to give him information. Although why would that be so strange? After all, Pete Koski and his crew could be pretty intimidating to a young girl. McIntire tried, and failed, to picture an intimidated Cindy Culver.

Could it have been something he said that brought her to St. Adele and her death? They had talked about David. If she had really known nothing of David's disappearance, maybe hearing that he was missing could have been the catalyst, as Mia had put it, but why, he couldn't imagine.

They had also discussed David's confrontation with Nels Bertelsen and Nels' death. McIntire had supposed that Cindy knew Nels had died, but he now realized that he had no real reason to think so. Cindy hadn't been home. She probably didn't read the papers, and, unless her employer had mentioned it to her, she easily might not have known about it. She had seemed genuinely unaware both that Nels was dead and that David worked in his orchards. But how could those two facts possibly be connected to Nina Godwin?

You couldn't get much more “Nordic” than Nels Bertelsen. No, that was absurd in the extreme—Lucy
and
Nina Godwin?

Maybe Cindy had discovered something that had nothing to do with Nina's indiscretions. Warner Godwin had handled Nels' legal affairs. He had mentioned working in an office in his home. Cindy probably wasn't above doing a bit of exploring. Maybe she found out about some legal or financial dealings. Maybe the diary
was
just for reading material on the train. None of that made sense. There wasn't apt to be anything in Nels' attorney's file that would be understood by a young girl, let alone interest her. If it contained something that implicated a killer—something so blatant that even Cindy could recognize it—why hadn't Godwin himself come forward?

So Cindy could have been coming to St. Adele with what she felt was a juicy bit of information for someone. But who? Who would she expect to be interested in Nina Godwin's affairs, or Nels Bertelsen's?

McIntire resolutely turned onto the road that led to the late fisherman's home.

His knock at the door went unanswered, but the sound of running water brought him around the side of the greenhouse. Here he discovered Wylie Petworth turning a garden hose on a dozen or so young trees that occupied the bed of a pickup truck.

“Didn't those things get enough to drink last night?”

Wylie smiled broadly and dropped the hose at his feet. “Well, no, they didn't,” he said, “but they've just about had their fill now.” He went to the side of the building and turned off the tap. “They need a good soaking before they go in the ground. Look at these babies. Cortlands. Good for eating, good for pies, and they'll keep all winter. Old Man Bertelsen never dreamed of anything like it.”

McIntire considered the spindly twigs that emerged from the bulbous, burlap-encased roots. They looked like overgrown onions gone bad. “If you say so, Wylie. Anyway, I'm glad to see you're more your old self.”

“Well, life goes on, as they say, and Nels lived a pretty long one compared to that poor child who died yesterday.” From his demeanor, McIntire assumed that the impending exhumation of Nels Bertelsen's body had not yet become common knowledge. That situation wouldn't last long. Leonie's paper would be out the following afternoon and the
Chandler Monitor
the day after. They would take care of the few who already hadn't gotten the news by grapevine, party line, or Waterfront Tavern line.

McIntire averted his eyes as Wylie deftly rolled the hose into a spiral with his single hand and hung it on its bracket. “If she
is
dead,” Wylie added. “Find any sign of her yet?”

“Not a thing,” McIntire responded. “The tracker came this morning. He wants everybody else to stay out of the woods for now so his dogs don't get confused by all the scent, and so the scent of the girl or the killer doesn't get any more messed up, I guess.”

“It's sort of late for that isn't it? The woods was crawling with people yesterday, and wouldn't the rain have washed away the scent anyway?”

“According to Koski, rain helps if it's not too heavy, settles the scent down. He seems to think that the trees would have protected it from being completely washed away. I doubt that it matters much. It's my guess she was taken away in a car,” McIntire said. “Otherwise she'd have been found yesterday. I imagine,” he went on, “you were up and about early yesterday, since your hired hand has flown the coop. Did you notice anybody drive by?”

“I was not only up. I was out. I brought these trees over from my place about…” Wylie scratched the back of his head, pushing his cap down over his eyes. “Oh, I'd say seven or seven-thirty. Didn't see a soul, though, except the Lovely Lucy on her daily pilgrimage. I even offered her a ride into town, but she turned me down flat.”

“Turned you down? That doesn't sound like Lucy. Did she say why?”

“No she didn't, maybe my Five Day Deodorant was expired, eh?” Wylie laughed. “She just said it was such a nice day that she'd as soon walk, and she didn't want to take me out of my way. I didn't argue with her. She seemed to be her usual jolly self, said there was a fresh pot of coffee on the stove, and I should help myself. Then she continued on her merry way.” He sat down on the damp tailgate of the truck. “Odd though, I wasn't here more than five minutes or so when she came hot-footing it back.”

“Maybe she forgot something. A letter to Cary Grant. Did she leave again?”

“I didn't notice. I was working in the greenhouse. Otto Wilke was coming to help me plant the trees. He got the call about the girl just as he was leaving home, so he picked me up and we took off.”

McIntire looked toward the house. “I wonder where Lucy is now?”

“Well, Mac, I can help you there. An hour or so ago she came out the door dressed to a fare-thee-well and—believe it or not—took off in Nels' precious De Soto, headed for the Big Town.”

“She drove?”

“Like a pro.”

“I swear, that woman is just a bottomless fount of surprises.”

“Well, could be that's what kept Nels interested. God knows there must have been something more than meets the eye. That is one homely woman!” Wylie observed.

“Maybe Nels wouldn't let her drive the car when he had anything to say about it.”

Wylie rose from his seat. “Generosity never was one of Nels' faults. He was too tight to drive it himself except in the direst of emergencies. Not to mention that he was afraid of getting a spot or two of mud on it. I hope wherever he is now he couldn't see the way Lucy spun those tires.” He closed the tailgate with a satisfying thunk. “You know, Mac,” he went on, “I'm having a hard time seeing you as the Great Detective. I mean, I know that you worked in intelligence, and I guess you always were a little…I don't want to say nosy, but…”

“Curious,” McIntire corrected. “Curious and downright enraged, and with plenty of time on my hands.”

“Well, if you're looking for a way to keep yourself occupied,” Wylie patted the nearest burlap wrapped root ball. “I am short a hired man, and these little beauties need to go into the ground. Handling a shovel isn't one of my talents.”