Buttons and Bones (16 page)

“Yes, that sounds a whole lot like a message that would intrigue her. But would she reply?”

“If I were Helga, I’d want very much to know if someone was about to uncover that trapdoor. Especially since they found out who I am, and maybe even where I live.”

Thirteen

THEY left late Saturday afternoon after the shop closed. They took Betsy’s car because she knew the way.

The terrain didn’t change a whole lot. The land was gently rolling, mostly prairie but here and there forests of elm, maple, ash, birch, and every kind of evergreen: white and red pine, juniper, balsam, spruce—even, as they got nearer their destination, the scrubby jack pine. The farther north they went, the more the pines and birch predominated, but the other kinds of trees never disappeared, as they did the time Betsy went with Jill up to the north shore of Lake Superior.

Connor had a comforting ability to sit still and not speak. She was aware of him in the passenger seat, his craggy-handsome profile, the faint scent of his aftershave. Once out of the city, Betsy said, “So, do you think the Beatles or the Rolling Stones had a better band?”

He laughed softly. “I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.” As it turned out, Betsy preferred the Beatles, Connor the Stones.

They talked about other things. Betsy, being a small-business owner, was more to the right politically than Connor, but not enough for it to be a deal breaker. Connor was surprised to learn that Betsy knew the words to some old English music hall songs, and they spent a few miles singing, “Where did you get that hat, Where did you get that tile? Isn’t it a nobby one and just the proper style? I should like to have one, Just the same as that. Where’er I go, they’d shout, ‘Hello! Where did you get that hat!’ ”

“My father used to sing that,” said Betsy. “He told me there was a rumor that Prince Phillip, on seeing Queen Elizabeth wearing her crown for the first time, whispered in her ear, ‘Where did you get that hat?’ ”

Connor laughed—he had a very pleasant laugh. “Sounds just like the old boy. Though of course, when she put on the crown, they were both so young.” He fell silent for a few seconds.

Betsy said, “There’s an Amish saying, ‘We grow too soon old and too late smart.’”

“Yes, indeed. Though some of us never quite get to the latter. Betsy—”

“It’s all right, Connor. Really, it is. She’s your daughter, after all.” She reached out a hand and he took it. His clasp was warm and strong, and she drove for several miles one-handed, loath to let go.

“She’ll apologize next time you see her,” he promised.

“Don’t force anything. I’d hate to be the cause of a breach.”

“I don’t think that will be the case. I explained to her in words of one syllable or less that I can do as I please with whomever I please.”

Betsy smiled. “ ‘I’m Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten-thirty, and saunter along like a toff,’ ” she warbled. He immediately joined in. “ ‘I’m all airs and graces, correct easy paces, without food so long I’ve forgot where my face is. I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow!’ ”

They laughed and then talked about other things they had in common: knitting, live theater, love of horses and old movies, Asian food.

“Say, would you like to learn to golf?” he asked. “I have a feeling I’ve never really given the game a proper chance.”

“No, I don’t have time. But if you want to make Goddy happy, talk golf to him. He’s still a duffer, but he likes the game—and his friend Rafael is passionate about it.”

“About Godwin . . .”

“What about Godwin?”

“I hope you’re paying him what he’s worth.”

“Of course I’m not. I couldn’t afford to pay him what he’s worth.”

“He’s very attached to you, too.”

“We’ve seen each other through some tough times.”

“I tell you what, when we get married, we’ll adopt him.”

Betsy suddenly found it difficult to draw a deep breath. She could feel her blood rushing to her face, and her grip on the steering wheel was so hard that her knuckles showed white.

I’m angry; why am I so angry?
she thought. She could not focus on her driving and so she pulled into the next gas station she saw. She stopped the car in a parking area, got out, and went into the store, all without a word.

Connor followed her in a puzzled silence. Betsy bought a bottle of water and paid for it, walked out, and headed for her car. But before she got in, she turned and confronted him.

“How dare you?” she demanded.

“How dare I what?” he asked, smiling as if she were being obtuse about an obvious joke.

“How dare you casually speak of what we’ll do after we’re married? You don’t know if I even want to get married, much less if I want to marry
you
!”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to get married?”

“No, I don’t,” Betsy replied, not sure if that might be true. But having said it, she realized it was. She even knew why. “My life is good right now, and progressing nicely. I don’t need the complication of a husband.”

“Couldn’t I fit in there
somewhere
?” He seemed a little taken aback.

“Of course you can—and you do. I like you, I like knowing you’re right across the hall, that I can come knocking on the door, knowing it’s you who will open it. On the other hand, I also like that you’re not crowding up my bathroom.”

He blinked and then smiled, because she’d said bathroom, not bedroom. “Ah, I see. The old ‘I don’t want to share a bathroom’ syndrome.”

“Oddly enough, I think that sums it up nicely.” Betsy felt a bit calmer now. She got in the car, opened her bottle of water, and took a drink, letting the cold water cool her heated throat. “Did you ever see
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
?”

He got in beside her, thinking. “Myrna Loy and Cary Grant?”

“That’s right. Remember that scene in the tiny apartment bathroom with the two of them trying to shave, comb their hair, and brush their teeth with only one sink between them? I’ve lived that scene. You’re sweet, Connor, but I love being the only one in the bathroom in the morning when I’m trying to get ready for work.”

He sighed, faux downcast. “And you didn’t think to put two sinks in my bathroom when you remodeled, did you?”

She smiled wryly. “No, I didn’t. Sorry.” Her anger was totally gone now, replaced by a curious emptiness. Was she wrong to brush him off so strongly? She was honest in saying “not right now,” but she did like him. On the other hand, it struck her as cruel of him to make a joke of their still-forming relationship. “We need to be able to go on being friends,” she said. “With my track record, I don’t dare let myself get close to someone unless we’re really good friends first.”

“Ah,
machree
,” he said in a thick Irish accent, a trick he’d done before, “we’ll be friends and all as long as ye can stand it.”

They drove for a good mile in a comfortable silence, then he asked, “What’s the state of the investigation? What do you know, and what do you hope to find out on this trip?”

Betsy was relieved that the conversation had taken a different turn. “Well, I saw for myself the skeleton in the root cellar of the log cabin that Jill and Lars bought about six weeks ago. We have pretty much decided that it went into the cellar in the form of a German prisoner of war. This was in the late summer of 1944.”

“Why 1944?”

“That’s the year the young man disappeared, plus it’s the date on some jars of canned green beans that were also in the cellar.”

“I take it nobody else disappeared up there that year.”

“Actually, someone did. The cabin was owned by Helga and Matthew Farmer, and he disappeared a few months after Corporal Keitel did. The Army declared Major Farmer a deserter and he was never found.”

“But you don’t think the bones are Major Farmer’s because—?”

“Because an ID tag with Keitel’s name on it was found with the bones. And because the description of Keitel includes a gold tooth and I saw that tooth in the skull with my own eyes.” Betsy was suddenly struck by a new thought. “
And
because of the buttons. During the war, everyone in uniform had to wear it all the time—no civilian clothes. But the buttons in the cellar weren’t brass; they didn’t come off a uniform.” She smiled, feeling the warm satisfaction that comes with putting a new clue in place.

“That sounds very convincing. So okay, the skeleton is Corporal Keitel’s. What happened to the major?”

“Nobody knows. It’s possible he was mugged on the train to Chicago or, more likely, on the train to California and his body was tossed from the train into a lonesome ravine and never found. It’s also possible that he was frightened by the possibility of losing his safe stateside job and deserted. There was a rumor—there still is a rumor—that he settled somewhere under a new name, sent for Helga, and she joined him after selling the cabin to a family named Nowicki.”

“Have you talked to the Nowicki family?”

“Yes, to the one member willing to talk, but he couldn’t tell us anything useful. I want to talk to a little group of retired men who have coffee every morning at this old general store called The Lone Wolf, to see if any of them can put me in touch with Helga’s family. We’ve already touched base with a daughter of Matthew Farmer from his first marriage, but all she knows is that Helga was years younger than Matthew. Oh, and when she heard about the skeleton, she thought it was her father, and that Helga had murdered him. She seemed disappointed to learn that that wasn’t true.”

“That’s interesting.”

Half an hour later, they pulled up the narrow lane into the clearing in which the log cabin stood. Betsy shut the engine off and they sat for a minute, recovering from the trip and taking in the scene.

“It’s like something in a movie,” remarked Connor at last. “Very pretty.”

“Is there anything like this back home?”

“You mean in Ireland? No, not quite. Oh, there are trees as large as this in great forests, but the landscape is greener and tamer, and has fewer pine trees. And the little cottage would likely be wattle and daub, with a thatched roof.” He gave a sigh. “But that’s not home, not for me anymore.”

“Yet you miss it.”

“No. No, I don’t. I was a seafaring man starting in my teens and for many, many years, which effectively broke most of my ties to a homeland. Killarney is beautiful, but so is Hong Kong, and Port Elizabeth in South Africa, and New York City.” He smiled at her. “So is Duluth, Minnesota—can you tell I love harbor cities? But Lake Minnetonka is very attractive; and Excelsior is a charming little Midwestern town. I’m happy to live here, because someone I’m very fond of lives here, too.” He looked at her with those steady dark blue eyes and her heart melted.

“Oh, Connor,” she sighed.

“Now come on, friend, show me around.”

They put their suitcases in the cabin, and the block of ice they’d bought in Outting into the ice box.

“Very snug,” pronounced Connor after Betsy gave him the tour. Looking at the wood-burning kitchen stove, he said, “Do you know, when I was a lad, my gran had a stove like this. She could tell if the oven was the right temperature to bake a pie by thrusting her hand in it for a few seconds. She baked a lovely apple pie.”

“I hope you don’t expect me to bake a pie in that stove.”

“No, but maybe I can try one. Is there a grocery store in the area?”

“That place we’re going in the morning for coffee and rolls is the local general store.”

Connor smiled approval. “Sounds good.”

Betsy decided not to get her hopes up too high for apple pie. Meanwhile, she and Connor explored the rest of the property.

The shed looked very tumbledown, but the roof had kept the rain out and the single window was unbroken. It was infested with spiders and daddy longlegs and other insects, which made them cautious while idling through the stacks of books and old magazines in one corner. There were quite a few ancient editions of the Bobbsey Twins and Hardy Boys among the books, much eaten by insects and chewed by mice. The magazines had been treated equally unkindly, in addition to being yellowed by time.

“Look, these books are pre-World War Two,” said Connor, noting how white the remaining pages were. “Paper went to hell during the war.” He picked up a magazine devoted to knitting, shook it lightly, and its pages crumbled and fell in a pale yellow avalanche to the dirt floor.

The magazines in the middle of the stack fared better, having been protected from the air. One was on crochet, and Betsy opened it with interest.

“Looking for something?” asked Connor.

“There’s a crocheted rug in a chest in the cabin and I hope we can find the instructions in here somewhere. Not in this one, however.” She found and paged through several other old survivors. “Oooh, look at this!”

“Find it?”

“No, but look at this darling shawl!”