Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona (25 page)

I don’t care that it’s drenched in fluorescents: the room that holds the prison cell gives me a serious case of the creeps. Let’s assume that Peter Svendsen was speaking the truth and this cell did not exist while he was growing up at Damsgard. Did it go in during Erik’s marriage to Ingrid? Was it a kinky sexual thing between them? Or did Ingrid have it constructed after Erik was dead for some freakish reason of her own?

In one way this room is a lot like the secret room. There’s not much in it so it doesn’t make for a good place to hide things. As usual, I’m not looking for anything in particular. I’m simply looking. I ignore my squeamishness and enter the cell itself, examining it inch by excruciating inch. I find nothing of interest. The only thing that’s notable about this prison cell is that it exists at all.

I move on to the room next door. It has no furnishings. Dusty cardboard boxes collapsing from age are stacked in one corner, on a dry and uneven hardwood floor. The walls, now chipped and faded, are painted a sort of Shamrock green. I can’t even guess when that color was popular.

With the overhead light on I can’t say I’m frightened, although it is mildly uncomfortable to be alone on this abandoned floor in this century-old house. You have to wonder what’s happened here at Damsgard over all these years. Arguments. Parties. Lovemaking. Births. Betrayals. Secrets. Deaths.

I shake off my morbid mood and lift down the top box from the stack. Fortunately I’m not scared of spiderwebs, because if I were I’d be paralyzed. I don’t hesitate to blow the dust off the box and open it up. One thing I’ve learned about solving murders: you can’t be afraid to pry into people’s private business. Either you make their business your business or you’re done.

It soon becomes clear that this is a box of mementoes from Erik Svendsen’s undergraduate career at the University of Minnesota, class of 1953. He majored in econ, I see, and played football. I can tell from his transcripts that he performed well academically but the Gophers were only middling, at least his senior year: five wins, three losses, and two ties. In another box I find old clothes of Erik’s, perhaps items Ingrid couldn’t bring herself to donate or throw away.

The third box I delve into is more entertaining. It’s full of treasures from those too-short years when Erik’s children were growing up. I smile at handmade cards with crooked printing in bright crayon colors, like the kind Rachel drew for Jason and me, in this case Nora and Peter scrawling
World’s Best Dad
next to renderings of picnics and baseball games and swimming pools.

I take a break to stretch my legs and turn on all the Christmas lights. Since it’s already close to 7 p.m., I should have done it hours ago. I’m surprised Shanelle and Trixie aren’t back yet with my mom. Maybe they got caught in commuting traffic. And where’s Maggie?

I’m elbow deep in the next box—which contains papers having to do with the family’s stained-glass company—when Mario texts asking if he can come over. You will not be surprised that I reply in the affirmative. I’m about to move on to the fifth and final box when he shows up. Of course, he’s fresh from shooting while I’m a dusty mess. Apparently I’ve even got a streak of dirt on my cheek, which Mario carefully wipes off.

I explain my mission. “I’m not going to wash up until I go through the last box in this room. There are probably more in the other room, which is just as well because I haven’t found anything yet.” I turn to head back up the stairs. “You game to help?”

“Absolutely.” He bounds up the stairs behind me. “How’s your dad?”

Mario already knows about the ice-fishing fiasco. On my drive back to Winona, I left him a voicemail.

“I am delighted to be able to tell you that Pop’s fine.” Mario joins me on the floor and we pry open the last box. “It turns out the hospital is keeping him overnight.” I found that out from a text from Trixie. “Since he went ice fishing by himself, maybe they’ve decided he needs his head examined. Oh, look what’s in here. Photo albums.”

Judging from this, the Svendsens are a lot more organized than the Przybyszewskis. Our family photos aren’t carefully organized in albums. They’re tossed haphazardly in the credenza in the living room.

I pull the top album out and realize that the next one down is a wedding album. I’m enough of a girly girl that of course it captures my attention. It’s reminiscent of my parents’: the cover is white pearly embossed vinyl with gold lettering that spells out
Our Wedding
in stylized calligraphy. I open to the information page, where a feminine hand has listed the bride as Lillian Marie Borger and the groom as Erik Noris Svendsen.

“Fun! This is the album from Ingrid’s husband’s first marriage. I’ve never seen a picture of his ex-wife.” I turn to the first photo page, whose corner is trimmed in gold filigree. There before me is a large black-and-white of a beaming bride and groom. “They look so young, don’t they? And Erik Svendsen must have had a favorite type because this Lillian looks a lot like Ingrid.” I’m about to make another observation when it stalls on my lips. I peer more intently at the photo.

“What is it?” Mario wants to know.

Now I’m too stunned to speak. I flip through a few more photos.

Yes, it is a fact that I’ve never before seen a photo of Erik’s first wife. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen an older version of this woman in the flesh.

The only thing is, I know her as Priscilla Pembroke.

I fall back on my heels. “No wonder so-called Priscilla knows Damsgard so well! She lived here for years!”

Mario takes the album out of my hands and scans the photos. “We knew she was lying about who she was but I never guessed this.”

“You’ve never met Peter Svendsen. I have and I still didn’t figure this out.” There’s not much resemblance between mother and son but still I’m embarrassed that I didn’t make the connection. This explains why so-called Priscilla bolted the first time I met her, when Peter suddenly showed up at Damsgard. She didn’t want him to know she was in town. I rise and start pacing. “I’m trying to remember what Peter told me about his mother. He did say that one day she just up and left—”

“She abandoned her husband and kids? When was that?”

“I don’t know. To this day, though, Peter has no photos of his mother hanging in his house because he’s so resentful that she walked out.” I must say I can’t blame him. “He also says he doesn’t keep in touch with her.”

“He could be lying about that,” Mario points out. “The two of them could’ve murdered Ingrid together. They might both have had motive.”

That stops me in place. “You’re right.”

They both could have wanted Damsgard for themselves. Or wanted Ingrid out of Damsgard. If so-called Priscilla understands the value of the Erskine, she no doubt understands the value of the entire property. I could easily imagine her not wanting her husband’s second wife, whose tenure as Mrs. Erik Svendsen lasted only four years, to play Lady of the Manor, even if she lost that role herself.

A second motive comes to mind. I recall what my mother said about why one woman would kill another.
She hates her because she has something the other one wants. A guy, usually.
That would be Erik Svendsen. True: if I’m to believe Peter, it was his mom who left his dad. Hence so-called Priscilla had already rejected the man in question. But her ego would still suffer when he found a replacement.

Commotion breaks out downstairs. “Hallo!” I hear Trixie yodel.

“They’re home.” I am excellent at stating the obvious. “We’ll be right down!” I call. Then I turn to Mario. “We’ll have to take a break for dinner. I wonder if there are more boxes to search through in the other room on this floor.”

There aren’t. That’s okay, I decide. Figuring out the true identity of so-called Priscilla qualifies as a major discovery.

I race downstairs to hear the latest on Pop. Once I am assured that he continues to improve and will be released in the morning, I share the latest 411 with Trixie, Shanelle, and my mom. “I wonder if anything that broad Priscilla told us is true,” my mother says.

“What did you find out about her when you googled her real name?” Shanelle wants to know.

When I admit I haven’t done that yet, I am shooed upstairs to get my laptop. By the time I return, Shanelle has gotten to work on the cocktail of the evening and Trixie is helping my mother prepare dinner. “Chicken Surprise,” Trixie says.

“The real surprise is that your father isn’t here to eat it,” my mother says. “Mario, don’t just stand there. Set the table.”

It appears my mother has gotten used to having Mario among us. She’s bossing him around as if he were no one special.

I am sitting at the small table in the kitchen nook conducting an online search on Lillian Marie Borger Svendsen when Shanelle hands around tall berry-colored drinks garnished with lime wedges. “I present to you the Jolly Gin Fizz,” she says. “Made with gin, ginger ale, lime juice, and pomegranate juice.”

“Pomegranate juice!” Trixie chirps. “Healthy.”

I raise my glass. “To Pop. May the next ice he encounters be in his glass and not above his head.”

“To Pop!” we all cheer.

“By the way, does anybody know where Maggie is?” I inquire.

“She showed up at the hospital,” Shanelle reports.

“Despite supposedly being terrified,” my mother sniffs.

“What did she say about her meeting with Anita the lawyer?” I ask.

“She didn’t want to talk about it,” Trixie says.

“Meaning it didn’t go well,” Shanelle adds.

I return my attention to my computer screen and soon am able to report that Lillian Borger is indeed a Manhattan-based actress. But her résumé isn’t nearly as impressive as Priscilla Pembroke’s. “She does small-time community theater. And she doesn’t get the starring roles, either.”

“I understand why she used a fake name when she came to Winona,” Trixie says, shredding smoked Gouda so my mother can stuff it into the pockets she’s cut into the chicken breasts. “Even if she didn’t murder Ingrid, she did want to steal that painting so she wouldn’t want anybody to know she was here. But why didn’t she just use some random name? Why did she use the name of another actress?”

“Probably because she gets a kick out of being Priscilla Pembroke,” Mario says, returning to the kitchen to fetch cutlery. “And they resemble each other enough that Lillian can get away with it.”

“She certainly had me fooled,” I say. “Okay, here we go. I just found something that explains why she knows how valuable that Claude Erskine painting is.” I click through to another link to read more. “She works at an art gallery.”

Shanelle pipes up. She’s helping with the cooking, too, coating the stuffed chicken breasts with flour, egg, and bread crumbs. “Maybe she and Peter were in cahoots. They might’ve had a deal that if they joined forces to get rid of Ingrid, he’d let her live here at Damsgard. Or he’d give her a share of the value.”

“I don’t think so,” Trixie protests as she and my mother begin to sauté the chicken. The aroma is mouth-watering. “Remember what Peter said the day we met him? ‘God save me from actresses,’ he said. It stuck in my mind because it was so weird. But now I think he was talking about his mother.”

“If he said that about his mother, I don’t like him,” my mother says. “No man should talk that way about the woman who gave him life.”

“Remember what else happened that day?” I say. “So-called Priscilla left all of a sudden by escaping out the kitchen door.”

“Yes!” Trixie cries. “Without any goodbyes to anybody. At the exact moment Peter showed up.”

“It
may
be she didn’t want him to see her,” Shanelle says, “or it
may
be they were in cahoots. Anyway, one thing is for sure. Peter doesn’t have to like his mother to conspire with her to commit murder. Remember that old adage: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Half an hour later when we’ve sat down to dinner—the chicken dish with sides of sautéed spinach and steamed string beans—I bring up something that’s puzzling me. “If so-called Priscilla murdered Ingrid—”

“You should start calling her Lillian,” Trixie points out.

“True. It’s hard to get used to, though. So if Lillian murdered Ingrid, with or without Peter, why would she stick around in Winona after the deed was done? You think she’d want to get out of Dodge.”

“She wants that painting,” my mother says, “even though it’s only got boats on it and no people.”

“If she and Peter were in league together,” Shanelle says, “she could get the painting after he moved into Damsgard.”

“But Peter might want the painting for himself,” Mario says. “If he knew what it was worth, he certainly would. Then his mother would have to steal it before he moved into Damsgard.”

After dinner, while Mario takes over Pop’s shoveling duties and we three queens help my mom clean up the kitchen, Detective Dembek returns my multiple calls. Now I have fresh information to share.

“No wonder Priscilla Pembroke looked familiar to me,” the detective says.

“Did you know Lillian Svendsen when she lived here?”

“I knew of her. The Svendsens have always been so prominent in town.”

“Is it true what Peter says, that one day she up and left her husband and kids?” That’s the sort of gossip that would make the rounds for sure.

“That’s how the story went. And it had to be, oh, twenty years ago.” She pauses, then, “This is another valuable discovery you’ve made, Happy. Now I can justify getting a warrant to go after the mobile carrier.”

To require them to pinpoint Lillian’s location.

“It’ll take time,” Detective Dembek goes on.

“I had an idea that would be quicker. How about we smoke Lillian out? We have Maggie tell Lillian we’re all flying home. Then you have a squad car secretly watch Damsgard. Because I guarantee you Lillian will come back to steal the Erskine.”

Detective Dembek agrees that’s not a bad strategy. “It’s odd to use one suspect to smoke out another but I’ve seen nothing to tie Maggie Lindvig to her sister’s murder.”