Past Imperfect (20 page)

XXV

Another evening had come, and McIntire once again found himself seated with Nick and Mia Thorsen and the ever-present wine bottle. Nick's face was rosy in the twilight and his hair was twisted into damp ringlets—fresh from his Wednesday night sauna. McIntire felt a surge of optimism that his host might have steamed himself into a more mellow frame of mind than was customary. He was disappointed.

“I hope you're not here to play detective again.” Nick handed McIntire a hefty glassful of the wine. “Mia's had about all she can handle, and frankly, so have I.”

“Actually, the sheriff did want me to get some more information, but I guess he could come and ask you himself.”

Nick gave a short bark of laughter. “You're getting better at this. Okay, you win. We wouldn't want to inconvenience Pete Koski. Fire away. But I've said it all a thousand times.” When Mia stood up he waved to her to remain where she was. “I'll get you started: I didn't see anybody on my way to work. I saw the Culver girl get off the train, but I didn't see what she did then.”

“Did you think it was odd that there was no one there to meet her?”

“I didn't think about it one way or the other. I didn't know where she was going. It's only a quick walk into town.”

“Did you recognize her?”

Nick took a long drink and refilled his glass. “I didn't pay any attention to her. If I had, I guess I might have known who she was. I don't really remember if it registered or not.”

“She was a pretty attractive girl. Most men would have taken at least a little notice.”

Nick held his glass up to the slanting rays of the sun. “Maybe so.”

“But you didn't offer her a ride into town?”

“No, I didn't. I couldn't have anyway. When I got back to the car, it had a flat tire.”

This was something new. “Did you change it right then?”

“No, I drove the whole route on the rim.” He rolled his eyes, and added a restrained groan for good measure. “Yes, I changed the tire.”

“How long did that take?”

“Twenty minutes, I suppose. Maybe longer. I had a hard time getting the lug nuts off, and I had to pump up the spare some.” He pulled a cigarette from a pack of Camels and tapped the end lightly on the table before making an elaborate, drawn-out production of the ignition process.

“So you were about twenty minutes late getting back with the mailbag?”

“I said it could have been longer. It probably
was
more than twenty minutes because the train was late in the first place. I'm sure Marie could tell you to the second, since you're so interested.”

Something in Nick's demeanor told McIntire that it just might be time to turn the subject to a less touchy area.

“I know that you probably don't look too closely at people's mail”—that hadn't come out exactly the way McIntire intended, but he ploughed ahead—“but did you notice if anybody around here got mail that could have come from Cindy Culver in the few days before she died?”

“A blackmail note, you mean? No, I didn't. Here's a real eye-opener for you, there's always a chance I might not recognize Cindy Culver's handwriting if I saw it, and I doubt that she was in the habit of including her name and return address on her extortion notes.”

“What about from Warner Godwin?” Mia put in. At their curious looks, she explained, “If Cindy wanted to conceal the source of her letter, and also make darn sure that she would grab someone's attention, she could have mailed her note in one of Warner's business envelopes.”

“
Did
you notice any letters on Godwin's stationery?” McIntire asked.

“Damn near everybody in the county got a friendly little message from Warner Godwin last week. Letting each and every one of us know that he's ready to take up the sword in our behalf. He's running for county attorney, remember.”

McIntire did remember. He remembered receiving his own “friendly message,” and he also remembered the piles of papers and envelopes on the table in Godwin's dining room. Cindy could easily have slipped a note into any one of them. Maybe she was smarter than they had given her credit for.

“The morning of the murder did you see anybody else on the road, other than Cindy herself?”

“Not a soul.” He paused before adding, “Well, Guibard came roaring by like a bat out of hell, I suppose on his way to the scene of the crime. Though he always drives like he's going to a fire.”

“Not Lucy Delaney?”

“Nah, she usually doesn't show up until after Marie gets in to the post office—right after, that is. She waits with bated breath while Marie sorts the morning mail. She wasn't in the post office on Monday when I got there, and the only time we meet
en route
is if I go home for breakfast after I pick up the mail from the train. Sometimes I pass her when I'm on my way back in.”

“But she couldn't have known you'd be late getting in with the mail from the train on Monday. She should have gotten there about the same time you did.”

“That is odd. Maybe she's clairvoyant. They say she does have strange powers.”

“Has she ever said why she comes in to pick up her mail instead of waiting for it to be delivered?”

“Has anybody ever asked her?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Maybe she doesn't trust me to get it to her. Maybe she thinks I'll read her post cards, or she didn't want Nels to find out about those love letters she gets from Gary Cooper.”

“Does she get a lot of mail?” McIntire supposed it wouldn't do to ask for specifics. “I suppose she picked up Nels' mail too.”

“Johnny-boy, now I
am
shocked! The U.S. mails are a sacred trust! Marie sorts it in total privacy. I see only those messages I am duly authorized to deliver—that does
not
include letters addressed to Lucille Delaney—and Lucy gets the mail that has her name on it, and that's it. You can count on that.”

“But since Nels died…”

“It gets marked ‘deceased' and returned. Marie's not going to turn anybody's mail over to their floozy.”

“So you still delivered Nels' mail when he was alive.”

“Certainly.”

“Even after you had your ‘falling out'?”

“People can't fire their mailman like he was a gardener or something.”

“But Nels did try to get you fired.”

“Yeah, so I stocked his boat with bees. If that didn't work I was planning to put scorpions in his mailbox.”

McIntire decided to abandon this line of inquiry also. He was rapidly running out of topics. “The night before Nels died there were a lot of people at the beer joint. Did anything unusual happen?”

“Like what?”

“Just anything that seemed curious. Did anybody leave early, or disappear for awhile and come back later?” McIntire recalled the sheriff's mention of a “commotion” on the road near Otto Wilke's house. “Did anything out of the ordinary happen on your way home?”

Nick stubbed out his cigarette on the table and flicked it over the railing. “Okay, listen good because I'm going to say this for the last time. On the night before that ornery bugger died, I went to the Waterfront, I had a couple of beers. I forgot to keep tabs on who stepped out to the can, and I came home. That's it.” He stood up with a sudden motion that sent his chair skidding across the floor boards. “Like I said before, I've had about all of this I can take. I'm going to bed. Some of us have to work for a living.” The screen door slammed shut behind him, leaving his wife and McIntire sharing an embarrassed silence.

“He gets tired,” Mia finally said. She looked at McIntire's still-full glass and smiled sympathetically. “Drink up, it'll put hair on your chest.”

They sat in darkness, watching fireflies winking in the tall grass at the edge of the garden. The call of a loon cut through the stillness, followed by the faint echo of an answer from a far-off mate. Mia pulled the collar of her flannel shirt closer around her neck. “That sound always gives me the willies, even if it is my namesake.”

“Namesake?”

“Yeah, or maybe I'm its namesake, I never could figure which was which. However it goes, Charlie Wall tells me that's what my name means. Meogokwe is loon, or more specifically, Loon Woman.”

“No kidding?” McIntire gave in to the smile that forced its way to his lips. “Mia, do you mean to tell me…?”

“Yes, John. You don't have to say it—Potowatami for ‘loon' and Vogel in German means ‘bird,' and thank God nobody figured that out when I was a kid! Can you imagine—‘Old Loony Bird'? ‘Bird brain' was bad enough.”

“Did your mother know that's what it meant?”

“Oh, I don't think so. She wasn't even quite sure how to pronounce her grandmother's name. The way the Indians said it, it had some clicky sounds, she said. She was always changing her mind about how we should spell it, so when I started school it was easier to stick with plain Mia. But Charlie says it means loon. Keep it under your hat.”

“Your secret is safe with me. I'm a professional, remember.”

“I'd hardly be likely to forget! You must know that everybody around here is dying to know what sort of cloak and dagger intrigues you've been involved in over the years.” She hesitated, as if on the verge of pursuing the subject further, then just asked, “And were you also a professional at
uncovering
secrets?”

“As much as I hate to disappoint you, I have to admit that I really didn't do much of either keeping
or
discovering secrets. Like Will Rogers, all I knew was what I read in the papers. Mostly I just kept up on what was being reported in the European press.” It was a variation of the response he always gave when questioned about his military career.

“Press, my eye! I don't believe it for a minute. I can't see you sitting in a hive of undercover information, reading the newspaper.”

“Because I'm so curious? Maybe you can indulge that curiosity a bit.” McIntire raised his glass to his lips, but placed it back on the table without drinking. “Mia,” he said hesitantly, “don't get upset when I ask you this, but could you see Nick when you were on the jump?”

Mia sighed. “I figured you'd get to that sooner or later. I could see him waiting, pacing back and forth. When the train came it blocked my view, and when it pulled away I could see Cindy, but Nick was gone.”

“You didn't see him drive away…or hear his car start up?”

“I didn't see his car at all.”

Something in the tone of her voice made McIntire look at her curiously. “Did that surprise you?”

“Usually he would just sit in his car at the crossing. But the train was late so I guess he decided to pull off the road and get out. I suppose the car was behind the trees or a stack of pulpwood.”

“But you didn't hear him drive away?”

“No, John, I didn't. I told you that, and Nick told you he had to fix a flat. I'm sure by the time he left I had other things on my mind.”

A rising note of irritation crept into Mia's voice, and McIntire smiled apologetically. “Did you finish reading Nina's diary?”

She went into the house for a minute and came back with the journal.

“Sorry if I'm sounding cranky. I had a bad shock and I guess I'm still feeling a little spooked.”

“I understand that, Mia. It must have been ghastly for you. I don't know how you're holding up so well. I'm having nightmares, and I didn't even see Cindy.”

“What? Oh, no. I mean I had a
shock
. I switched on my lathe this morning and was knocked clean across the studio.”

“Mia! But you're all right?”

“I'm fine. I called Guibard and he said as long as I feel okay I probably am.” She clenched the diary in both her hands. “He also said that if I hadn't been wearing rubber soled shoes, I might have been killed.”

“But do you know what caused it? Maybe the wiring in your shop is faulty.”

“I opened up the motor. A wire was loose and was contacting the metal housing. My father built that lathe himself. He used the most powerful motor he could get his hands on. He always bragged that it would turn an oak tree.

“It'll be easy enough to fix, and there was no great harm done, but I think it'll be a while before I get up the nerve to go near another power tool.” Her grip on the diary tightened, and its binding gave a crack. “It seems like you can't be
sure
of anything anymore. I used that lathe just last week and it was okay then. If a little thing like a slipped wire can kill you when you least expect it…” A smile teased the corners of her mouth. “As opposed to killing you when you do expect it.”

She looked at the diary as if she had just remembered that she was holding it and placed it in McIntire's hand. “I read every word. It sure makes you see librarians in a different light.”

“How did she manage all this activity without somebody catching on? It's hard to believe that nobody ever saw her and her Nordic god together.”

“They made their arrangements at the library. Whispering is par for the course there. They met in Marquette or Escanaba and once even in Chicago, when she was on one of her decorating trips.”

“Well, that narrows it down a bit. It has to be someone who frequented the library.”

“Are you suggesting we go through the check-out cards and question every adult male who took out a book in the last three years?”

McIntire raised his eyebrows. “My guess is that would not be an insurmountable task,” he said. “Especially if we stuck to Nordic gods.”

“…who took out books on beekeeping.” Mia completed his thought.

“Mia, she didn't say what sort of books he read, did she? Or any reference books he might have used?”

“She didn't say a word that even hints that he might have had any literary interests whatsoever. But as I recall from my Norse mythology, the gods didn't spend too much time engaged in cerebral pursuits.” She poured a small amount of wine into Nick's abandoned glass and took a minuscule sip.