The Heirloom Murders (16 page)

All right, then, surely the security guard would see her car parked in the main lot. He’d wonder about that, right? And come searching?

But … everyone knew her battered Pinto by now. The guard would know it wasn’t an intruder’s car. He’d probably think she’d simply grabbed a ride with someone else.

Chloe paced like a caged leopard. OK, think, she ordered herself. There was no handy emergency telephone hidden discreetly from sight in the sauna. No security keypad either. Her sound and motion would go undetected.

But in addition to one small smoke hole, the sauna did have two windows—one in the sauna chamber itself, one in the dressing room. Maybe she could still get out.

She pulled the locking peg from the sauna window first. Instead of sliding up, the pane angled inward to permit airflow. Short of breaking the window, there was no way Chloe could crawl through.

Then she tried the dressing room window. It was an unusual side-by-side arrangement, but a track permitted one window to slide sideways. Chloe pressed her palms against the sash and shoved with all her strength. Groaning with protest, the window slowly edged sideways a little … and stopped. “Ow,” Chloe whimpered as she tried again. Her already-scraped palms and bruised shoulder throbbed in protest. The window refused to budge any farther.

Finally Chloe gave up, rubbing her hands as she eyed the narrow opening she’d created. She was skinny, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t slide through. And the only prospect worse than being discovered next morning
inside
the sauna was the vision of being found stuck halfway through the window, flopping like a beached sturgeon.

Chloe dropped onto one of the benches in the dressing room and leaned against the wall. “I gotta get out of here,” she muttered. She could imagine Ralph Petty questioning her about the episode. “Miss Ellefson, why, exactly, did you go inside the sauna at that hour anyway? … You wanted to commune with dead Finnish women? Ah. I see.”

She winced. Was getting locked in an exhibit building overnight grounds for dismissal? Surely not. Surely she could fabricate some plausible task that could send a dedicated curator of collections into the sauna.

But it would be easier to come up with said task if there were actually any collections
in
the building. The very few items in the sauna—even the benches in the dressing room—were all inexpensive reproductions. In the growing gloom, she took quick inventory. The inner room contained firewood and some sauna stones, a jar of matches, an empty bucket and tin dipper. The dressing room held several woven rag rugs, and some bundles of twigs the interpreters had made to help explain how the old Finlanders smacked themselves to get their circulation going after their sweat bath.

A kerosene lantern was visible through the window, hanging near the door, mocking her. She’d have traded a month’s salary to get her hands on that! But she couldn’t. Short of smashing a window, or actually setting the building itself on fire, Chloe didn’t see how she could get out. And damaging this historic building in any way was not an option. Not even a last-ditch, desperate option.

“Don’t panic,” she ordered herself. She had to catch a guard’s attention somehow, that was all. Should she try to light a fire in the sauna? Smoke coming from the chimney at this hour would attract notice, right? But—no. It was already getting dark. By the time she got a fire going, the smoke would be invisible.

How often did the security guards make the loop at night, anyway? She had no idea. The sauna sat near the road, which might be helpful. She could throw stones through the open window, or small pieces of firewood . . . but those things wouldn’t make a guard blink.

She grabbed one of the rugs and draped it over the sill of the window she’d inched slightly open. “Feeble,” she muttered. Unless a vehicle’s headlights actually hit the rug, and the guard actually remembered that the rug hadn’t been there when he locked the building, he would simply drive by.

It all seemed improbable.

Chloe was tired, and hungry, and thirsty. She kinda needed to pee, too. And it looked like she wasn’t going anywhere until morning.

August, 1876

“Mr. Bachmeier!”

Albrecht set his shovel aside, whipped the shapeless felt hat from his head, and looked straight up. Clarissa Wood’s troubled face regarded him from forty feet up. “Yes ma’am?” he called.

“It’s well past noon. Don’t you want something to eat?”

Albrecht hesitated. He
was
hungry. If he climbed to the surface, he’d have the chance to talk with Clarissa. Alone, since Charles had gone to buy milk from a neighbor. Albrecht imagined her setting cold meat and cheese on her embroidered tablecloth in the kitchen. And there’d be some kind of wildflowers in a crock, with maybe a bluebird feather tucked among the blooms. Clarissa did take such pleasure in pretty things, like the yellow stone her husband had given her. She’d washed it clean and taken it to a jeweler, who told her the stone was likely a topaz. “Imagine!” she’d exclaimed, when she shared that news with the men. “A real-to-goodness gemstone! He offered me a dollar for it, but I said no.”

“Mr. Bachmeier?”

“Oh—sorry, ma’am! And I thank you, but I’ll keep working.”

“If you change your mind, just tell me,” Clarissa called. Her voice rang from the limestone walls.

Albrecht sighed. He had gambled. He hoped that for once, he might win.

He grabbed his shovel again, and shoved it into the earth with his boot. They’d passed through fifteen feet of clay, and he was now excavating a hard layer of gravel and clay cemented by oxide of iron. He dumped the blade-load of rubble into the bucket, and scrabbled through the soil and rock.

Nothing.

Well, nothing
yet
, he told himself. If there was one topaz, there could surely be another. Perhaps even bigger. Even more valuable. Most important, even prettier. And if there was, he wanted to be the one to find it.

Albrecht paused for a quick swig from the sweating jug he’d brought down with him. Then he got back to work.

Chloe placed the two
remaining rag rugs on the floor and lay down. She might as well try to get some sleep.

Ten minutes later she jumped up, grabbed the rug draped over the window sill, and added that to her makeshift pallet. “This is absolutely miserable,” she muttered, thrashing around. She tried not to think about how filthy the rugs were, but she couldn’t get away from it. Her mind flashed slides of a thousand visitors walking on them. Visitors who had all trekked through chickenshit and cow poop before entering the sauna.

OK, fine. She’d sit up all night.

Chloe shoved the rugs into one corner and sat on them, trying to find a comfortable way to lean against the wall. God, her bruised shoulder ached. The scrapes on her hands had probably opened again. They’d get infected now, no doubt. And … geez, was that a crick starting in her neck? Once, on a camping trip with Ethan, she’d gotten a terrible crick in her neck after sleeping wrong. She hadn’t been able to turn her head for days.

She shifted again, and felt a tiny stab in her bare arm. Well, lovely. She’d just gotten a splinter. A splinter she couldn’t see to remove in the darkness. It would sit there all night, and fester.

“This
sucks!
” she yelled, and exploded to her feet. It was bad enough that she was facing the most humiliating morning of her life, which would give plenty of fuel to the bonfire Ralph Petty had been methodically laying around her feet. It was bad enough that she couldn’t check on Dellyn again this evening, and that Olympia—sweet little Olympia!—was probably sitting on a living room windowsill right this minute, watching the road, wondering why Chloe hadn’t come home to feed her and play with her and cuddle her. But crippling herself as well? That was just too freaking much. There
had
to be some way out of here.

Moving gingerly in the dark, Chloe crept back into the sauna and sat on one of the benches. She closed her eyes, trying to capture some of that feminine Finnish strength. It was still there. She just had to calm down enough to feel it. She didn’t expect a voice to whisper in her ear. She didn’t speak Finnish, anyway. Still, it couldn’t hurt to start round two of thinking in a good place.

Her thoughts circled back to that dressing room window, now open perhaps six inches. She couldn’t fit through. Stones, firewood, the dipper, the rug—none of those were going to solve anything either. The only other movable things in the building were the two benches in the dressing room …

“Oh!” Chloe cried. She stumbled back to that open window. She grabbed the bench closest to the window, and tipped it up and sideways. “Ow-ow-ow!” she gasped, struggling to raise the heavy piece with her bruised hands and aching shoulder. She couldn’t lift it high enough, though, and finally she had to let it drop.

“I can
do
this,” she insisted. No way was she giving up again. No frickin’ way.

Five minutes later she gingerly stepped up on the bench she’d positioned directly beneath the window. A little wobbly … but not too bad. Crouching, she grabbed the second bench, which she’d tipped up against the wall. The legs were too tall to fit directly through the open window. But with the bench lifted and held sideways, she should be able to angle the legs through the window.

It was hard, but she was absolutely determined. With the legs set right against the windowsill she grabbed the bench mid-length, took a deep breath, and wrestled it into place.

The legs stayed jammed against the window frame. The angle was wrong.

“
Dammit!
” she gasped. She inched sideways, arms quivering. The bench she was standing on trembled. Her hands and shoulders hurt like blazes. But finally, with a sudden whoosh, the bench legs scraped through the narrow opening and into the night.

With the sudden release, Chloe lost her balance and fell to the floor. She landed on one hip and elbow so hard that tears came to her eyes. She lay there for a moment, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Then she staggered to her feet. She had tried her best to slide the window open far enough for her to crawl through, and failed. But now she had a lever.

Chloe leaned against the end of the bench that extended into the dressing room, and shoved. The window didn’t move. She pushed harder. The window still didn’t move. Chloe let loose a string of her best swear words, including several in
Suisse-Deutsch
.

Then she stepped back, aimed one shoulder like a linebacker, and slammed against the bench. With a protesting screech, the window inched sideways. Chloe repeated the movement, again and again, yelping with pain. Several minutes later the window had grumbled far enough over that she was sure she could wriggle through the opening.

“Hallelujah!” she panted. She pulled the lever-bench back into the dressing room, righted it, and shoved it into place against the wall. Then she wriggled her upper body through the window.

This was not going to be pretty. Chloe didn’t care. She shoved off with her feet. Belly, hips, and thighs scraped painfully over the sill. Her long skirt caught on something and ripped. Her palms hit the ground first, and she tumbled to the earth. Slowly, gingerly, she began moving various parts—arms, legs, shoulders, knees. She hurt all over, but everything still seemed to work.

Chloe rolled over on her back. The sky was clear, and a hundred thousand stars winked in glorious congratulation. She began to laugh as she staggered to her feet. “I’m free!” she exulted. “And with no damage done to the sauna, thank you very much.”

She didn’t have the strength to tug the damn window closed again, but that was of no real consequence. Come morning the interpreters would arrive, and wonder, and that would be the end of it. Ralph Petty would never know.

She was halfway to the road before she remembered what she’d come to Ketola for in the first place. Her master building key was still pinned inside her apron pocket, so she fetched matches from the sauna and lit the kerosene lantern. In the Ketola kitchen she quickly found the canned goods Dellyn wanted, and put a jar each of beans and carrots in a basket. With both house and sauna locked up behind her, she was on her way.

Navigating by starlight and the lantern’s glow, she left the Finnish area with lantern in one hand and basket in the other. Her spirits rose even higher, and she stifled the urge to swing one or both in exuberant arcs. Instead, she laughed out loud again, giddy with relief.

When Chloe reached the Sanford Farm, she found the barn locked. Boy-oh-boy, whatever guard was on duty tonight had been busy! After letting herself in, she proceeded with caution. One wrong move with the lantern and the stored hay would go up like a torch. It would be just her luck to extricate herself Houdini-style from the sauna, and then burn down the barn. That would get her butt fired for sure.

She dumped the basket of canning jars on the appropriate table. Dellyn could add them to the display in the morning, and send the basket back to Ketola, too. “I,” Chloe announced, “am outta here.” In fact, she was itchy-eager to get outside back outdoors. She didn’t want to be inadvertently incarcerated again.

Something, though, made her pause. Not a movement, not a sound … but a smell that mingled with the residue left from musty grain, and the pickled gherkins and cut flowers on the display tables. A smell that had not been in the barn when Chloe left it earlier that evening.

All good cheer fled. She suddenly felt as if ants were marching down her spine.

Chloe held the lantern high. She didn’t see anything out of place. She took a step, and another—

Then she saw the body, and the blood.

_____

An hour later, the barn was lit like a carnival. Vehicles lined the site road, red and blue lights flashing. Someone had brought additional lights too, harsh white ones that bleached the barn. Flashbulbs exploded like tiny fireworks. Figures moved in and out of the glare.

Chloe watched numbly from the Sanford house’s front porch. She sat with her back against the wall, knees pulled up, arms clasped tight around her legs. She’d lost track of everyone who had arrived: Hank DiCapo, Old World’s on-duty security guard. A red-haired cop from Eagle. The county medical examiner. A couple of EMTs. A short, squat detective from Waukesha, whose name she’d already forgotten. Site director Ralph Petty.

Another vehicle arrived, and another shadowy figure emerged and mingled with the others. A man silhouetted against the electric blaze pointed in her direction.

The newcomer walked across the road and switched on a flashlight. “Chloe?”

“Roelke? Is that you?” Chloe tried to get to her feet. Her limbs were not ready to function.

He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms. Chloe found her cheek pressed into his shoulder. She wanted to cry, but no tears came. Instead a hot ache filled her chest. Don’t say anything, she told him silently. Just let me rest here. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend that this entire freakish night was nothing but a bad dream.

Finally Roelke spoke. “I’m so sorry.”

Chloe reluctantly pushed herself upright again. “How did you know?” He wore jeans and a T-shirt and his gun belt.

“Skeet had dispatch call me.” Roelke waved vaguely toward the barn. “He said you found the body.”

Chloe nodded.

“Who is it?”

“Harriet Van Dyne. She volunteers here, helping Dellyn with the gardens. Did.” Chloe tried to moisten dry lips with her tongue. “At first I thought it was Dellyn.”

“Stabbed?”

Chloe winced. What she’d seen in the kerosene lantern’s glow seemed seared on the inside of her eyelids. “Do you know what a scythe is?”

“I do.
Jesus
.” Roelke stared toward the crime scene. “Never mind. I’ll get the rest of the details later.”

“Why would someone kill Harriet?” Chloe demanded. “Why would someone
do
that?”

“I don’t know. But the detective, Pierce? He’s good. He’ll find the SOB.”

“I don’t even know what Harriet was doing in the barn. She’d left for the day.”

“Skeet said they found her purse hidden beneath a table. Maybe she left, realized she’d forgotten it, and came back to get it.”

“It could have been me,” Chloe whispered. “I was supposed to be the last one in the barn tonight. I went over to Ketola—one of the Finnish farms—to get something.” She thought about her carefree rambles to Ketola and back. Where had the killer been then? Had he been watching her?

“Why were you here so late? It’s almost midnight.”

“Detective Pierce asked me the same thing.” Chloe gave Roelke a condensed version of her little sauna adventure. “We asked Hank if he’d seen the sauna open while making his rounds, and fastened the lock, but he said no.” She shuddered violently, and clutched Roelke’s hand. “It still might have been someone else on staff who locked me in. Maybe one of the farmers was working late. But God, Roelke, what if it wasn’t? What if the murderer was the one who locked me in? I know it sounds stupid, but …” Her voice trailed away. Had she really been so close to Harriet’s killer? If so, why had he been content to merely lock the sauna door? Why had he let
her
live?

“We’ll get him. And we’ll get answers.” His voice was hard.

“It’s obscene. Things like this shouldn’t happen
here
. Old World Wisconsin is a—a gentle place.”

“I know.”

“And all those cars … we’re going to have tire tracks everywhere.” She let her head sink back onto his shoulder. “I am so tired.”

“Come on. I’m going to drive you home.”

“Don’t you need to stay?”

“Skeet’s here, and the chief too. Besides, either the county or the state police will take the case. I’d just be in the way.”

“Wait!” Chloe jerked erect so she could look at him. “Are you OK? Libby said—”

“I’m
fine
. Come on.”

Chloe let him haul her gently to her feet. Before leaving, Roelke huddled briefly with the ginger-haired officer and an older man in plain clothes—Skeet and Chief Naborski, she assumed. Chloe leaned against the pasture fence, staying far enough away from the barn that she couldn’t see the interior.

“Miss Ellefson?”

Chloe jerked upright as someone approached—Ralph Petty. Oh, Lord. She did not have the energy to deal with Petty right now. She really and truly did not.

“I understand you found the body,” he said.

“That’s right.” She clutched her hands together, which was not nearly as comforting as holding Roelke’s hand.

“It’s just … horrible.” Ralph Petty sounded so distraught that Chloe felt an unexpected twinge of sympathy for him. Then he added, “God only knows what the auditors will make of this.”

Chloe blinked at him. The night had just climbed a rung on the surreal ladder. She opened her mouth to spit nails, but discovered she didn’t have the energy. Instead she said, “What’s going to happen tomorrow? I mean, will the site be open?”

“I don’t know yet. The Historic Sites division director will be here soon. The barn will certainly be closed. And the Garden Fair is canceled, of course.”

“Of course,” Chloe echoed. “Poor Dellyn. She worked so hard …”