See Also Murder (18 page)

Shep settled back down as my sigh vanished. I stared at my desk and decided I needed to get on with it. Just as I reached up to close the lid on the shoebox that housed my collection of index cards from the headhunter book, a powerful gust of wind pushed up against the house, then snaked inside of it with a certain amount of arrogance that I found annoying. It was like the wind was mocking me, showing me that it, or anything, could waltz through my house any time it wanted. I felt violated, even though for most of my life the presence of the wind was so benign and ubiquitous that I barely noticed it.

The gust was so strong that the shingles on the roof rattled and echoed loudly, almost like a train had derailed and fell from the sky. Shep jumped to his feet and looked upward warily. His black and white fur flipped and rolled in the waves of strong air, and I reached for the page proofs, for a spiral of flying index cards, but it was too late. They exploded upward and scattered, then rode the current straight out of the window.

“Damn it.” I stood up and watched the pages disappear. It was not a catastrophe. More pages were coming. But I panicked at the thought of losing any of the index cards. It would be easier to adjust page numbers I had recorded than to start from scratch.

I rushed out of the room with more purpose than I'd had all morning. A quick glance to Hank as I passed the door told me he was awake, but quiet. He said nothing as I made my way outside.

A few of the pages caught a thermal. They circled upward on the edge of an invisible twister and out of reach. I let them go. I was more interested in saving the cards. Luckily, they were heavier and didn't go as far.

I found the first one settled on top of the lilies of the valley. The wind pushed the sweetness of the bell-shaped flowers upward as I grabbed the card before it launched again on another gust. The aroma gave me no comfort or pleasure.

The card was an E with the main heading “Europe.” The subheading was “Celtic Gaels, headhunting practiced by, 156.
See also
the Ulster Cycle.”

I studied the index card for a second and tried to think back to the text in Sir Nigel's book. If I remembered right the Celts mounted heads of their enemies on their chariots as a practice of tradition rather than a religious practice.

Shep was at my feet, the wind swirled around me, and for some reason, at that moment, I wondered if there had been any headhunting done by the Vikings, by the Norse gods, for any reason at all. I hadn't considered a link between the amulet and the book I was indexing, but maybe, just maybe, the key to the motive of the killings was staring me right in the face and I just didn't know it. It really didn't make any sense, but at this point anything was possible.

I'd have to search through the text a little closer to see if Sir Nigel had provided me with the information I needed. If not, I could phone Calla at the library and have her check the resources there. Beyond that, I'd be left with calling Raymond, or the university library, and that was something I didn't want to do. Not now. Not ever, really. Asking Raymond for more help was like taking a bitter medicine for an ailment I didn't have. Same with using the university library. I didn't like the attitude there, the snobby reception I'd always received from them. Maybe it was my perception, my insecurity due to the lack of a college degree, but right now was no time to climb an emotional mountain and eat crow—although I would if I had to.

I tucked the index card into my dress pocket, then went after the rest of them like a child chasing an errant kite.

I looked up after scooping a couple of cards off the ground just in time to see Duke Parsons staring at me, shaking his head from side to side with a look on his face that suggested I was the silliest thing he'd ever bore witness to.

After collecting all of the index cards I could find, I caught up with the morning chores. I fed and watered the chickens and pigs, checked the larder for an alternative to the cherries, since I'd ruined one bunch and used the last of the harvest to make a pie for Peter and Jaeger. If the rhubarb was ready, I'd use that—a nice patch of it grew at the back of the house. I knew rhubarb pie wasn't Hilo's favorite anyway. He'd eat it if it was mixed with strawberries, but I didn't have those, either. I had little choice, since leaving to pick up ingredients was out of the question. I thought for a minute and settled on lefse, a potato flatbread that was buttered and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, and a staple on the holiday table. I had just enough cream and was certain of the rest of the ingredients—and I knew the Norwegian treat was one of Hilo's favorite things.

From there I tended to Hank. Got him his morning bath and shave, rolled him and checked for bed sores, then proceeded with his exercises. He was quiet and distant, and I didn't push. Losing the Knudsens and Ardith so close together and in such a horrible manner, was enough to stagger a healthy man, and even more a man in Hank's condition. I let him be, and considered his silence as grief. When I left the room, his face was turned toward the window and he barely offered me a word of any kind. Even though it was as beautiful a day as one could ask for, the gray gloom of recent events continued to affect us both. I felt like I was walking in glue.

Once I was finally free for a moment, I considered what was left for me to do. Calling Hilo seemed out of the question; this was no time to return the amulet to him. I was left with my thought process, with the personal index I had started writing to put my mind in order.

I considered it for a moment, then decided the best thing I could do was call the library and clear my mind of the possibilities of Norse headhunters, or why an act of murder might have been committed. I was stuck on the thought of motive, because that seemed lacking to me. The only thing that tied the three murders together was the amulet, and only then because of the mistletoe left in Ardith's hand. The murderer had connected them himself, left a calling card—one that seemed important—and one only I would recognize as a link to the amulet and the tale it told.

CHAPTER 20

I picked up the phone and listened for Burlene Standish before I dialed the library's number. The line was dim and normal, but I proceeded cautiously, listening with every turn of the rotor for someone to come on and interrupt me—or listen in.

Calla picked up on the second ring. “Library.” I was relieved to hear her voice. It was almost as if life was normal and everything was as it was supposed to be. For a brief second, anyway. Not long enough.

“Calla, Marjorie. Do you have a second?” Silence answered me back. Silence and the crackle of the line. It lasted for what seemed like an eternity but was maybe only fifteen or twenty seconds. “Calla, are you there?”

“I'm here,” she finally said. Her voice was sharp, annoyed. I imagined her face drawn in, the lines around her lips as deep as a Badlands' canyon.

I hadn't talked to her since leaving town yesterday. A lot had happened since then. I wasn't sure she'd heard about Ardith, since there was no hint of compassion to be found in her voice at all.

“Is this a bad time, Calla?”

“What can I do for you, Marjorie?” The question was impersonal, businesslike.

I drew in a deep breath. “Did you find Herbert?”

A breath in, a hesitation, then, “Yes, thank you very much. He was down at the Wild Pony, thanks to you. Do you know how long it's been since a shot of whiskey has touched that man's lips? Now he has to start all over again, and I don't know that he has it in him. The fights he has fought, Marjorie. You just don't know. No one does.”

I was taken aback and hardly knew what to say. “I didn't mean to upset him, Calla,” I whispered, then turned away from the bedroom just in case Hank was straining an ear my way. “He came to me to tell me about Lida's cousin, I didn't seek him out. I wouldn't have troubled him with anything concerning the Knudsens, you have to know that. Everybody understands how fragile Herbert is.”

“He's not fragile. He's wounded and he's never recovered.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You should be more aware of your words, Marjorie. You know better. You of all people.”

There was nothing I could say to that. Calla was right. In normal times I might of thought about what I had to say, how it might affect someone—the key word there was
might
. But these weren't normal times, and I wasn't myself. I was numb from the inside out.

“Well,” Calla continued, “whatever you said to him set him off on a fine bender, the likes of which I've not seen in years, that's all I know. Your snooping around was the last thing he needed.”

“You heard about Ardith?” I really wanted to scream,
“I wasn't snooping!”
But I restrained myself.

“I did. Of course, I did. Do you think something like that would go unheard of in this town? It's awful, just awful. Everybody was afraid before, but now they're really, really scared. Even the sheriff's wife wasn't safe. How can we sleep at night?” The edge fell off of Calla's voice, but it wasn't too far away. “Hank all right?” she asked after a long second of silence.

I nodded, bit my lip. The realization that he'd had no way to defend himself when the killer was on our land had already been examined in my mind a million times, but I hadn't been able to settle the fact that I left him in the first place. I had left Hank and Ardith to face some vile monster on their own. I shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if I had been home when the killer came calling. “He's fine. Hank's as fine as Hank can be. He's fine,” I said.

Calla knew it was a lie, but she didn't press. “That's good to hear. You call to find out about Herbert, or is there something else, Marjorie?” The sharp edge on the side of her tongue was back.

“I am concerned about Herbert, Calla. How could I not be? I know what he means to the library, to you.” There had always been speculation that Calla and Herbert were more than coworkers, that they were romantically involved, but I had never broached the subject with her and she'd never offered. I thought she was affectionate toward Herbert and looked out for him like a big sister might. If there was anything else between them, then it was none of my business, simple as that.

“Of course, you are,” Calla said. “But there's something else isn't there?”

“Yes.” She knew me too well.

“I figured as much. What is it? What do you really want, Marjorie?”

I recoiled from the telephone. I didn't like Calla Eltmore's tone. I didn't like it one bit. In all of the years I had known her, she had always reserved her snippiness for other people, usually out of earshot, but sometimes not. She could make the smartest person feel stupid with just a glare. A sharp comment could melt a child. She ran the library like it was a ship and she was the captain born to the right. I had always accepted that the library was Calla's domain, expected it, really, but I was upset enough already, I didn't need one of my only remaining confidants to abandon me. I needed the empathetic Calla, not the hard-nosed biddy everyone else thought she was.

Truth was, I'd never thought it would be my turn to endure Calla's spiteful tongue. We were friends, colleagues in an odd sense. Our jobs were similar and required the same kind of organized mind, the same kind of curiosity. Calla Eltmore was an intellectual mother to me. She'd directed me to Chaucer and Chekov and warned me off Wilkie Collins and Edgar Allan Poe. I'd ignored that warning of “vulgar writing,” as Calla had called it, choosing instead to find out for myself what kind of writer Poe and Collins were. But our bond had been broken somehow, in an unintentional way that I struggled to understand.

“Maybe it's not as important as I thought,” I said, reconsidering my query about Norse headhunters. “I can call back, Calla. Everybody's on eggshells right now. I just thought if you had a minute, you could look something up for me, that's all. It's not that important.”

“Don't call me back, just ask me now. Is it a reference question?”

“Yes,” I said, with another nod. “I'm just curious if there's any . . .” I paused, knowing what I was about to ask would sound strange, even to Calla. “Any headhunters mentioned or represented in Norse mythology?”

The telephone line hissed and buzzed. “Headhunters?” Calla asked. “You're serious?”

“Yes, completely.”

“I'll have to check on this, Marjorie.” A hint of familiar curiosity and normalcy returned to her voice for a brief second. “I wasn't expecting that. Why does this concern you, if you don't mind my asking?”

“The book I'm indexing isn't clear, and I'd like my cross references to be accurate,” I lied.

I wasn't going to tell her that I was in search of a motive for the killings. The question sounded outlandish even to me, and I wasn't really sure I would find a motive in the book I was working on. It was a stretch, and I knew it.