Witch Cradle (9 page)

Chapter Eighteen

After sleeping on it, or lying awake because of it, it seemed apparent that Melvin Fratelli knew nothing other than that McIntire'd been out of touch for a few months in 1948. Almost four months. That wasn't unusual, given McIntire's line of work. If Fratelli dug hard enough, he might find a fraction of the truth. Know just enough to be dangerous, as the saying went.

McIntire shoved Agent Fratelli into the deepest dungeons of his mind and barred the door. He sipped his morning coffee and forced himself to concentrate on the puzzle that was the fate of Rose Falk and her nameless partner—her husband, too, for that matter. He'd have to go all the way into Chandler, he supposed, to let Koski know that he could find Teddy in Detroit.

What had happened to Falk during those years in the Soviet Union? How had he gotten out? There was not much question about why he hadn't made a trip back to St. Adele to say howdy to the home folks.

Rose Falk had been dead more than sixteen years. It wouldn't be easy to figure out what might have happened on a small slice of a single day or night that long ago. It'd be even harder to prove it. McIntire could start with trying to find out exactly which day it was. If he assumed that Rose and her companion died near the time she was meant to leave St. Adele, it might not be too hard to discover the exact date. Possibly Orville Pelto had records or knew where to get them, or Sulo Touminen might recall. If Sulo didn't remember, he might be able to work it out from the date on his deed to the farm.

“I might drop by to see Sulo for a bit. Will you be okay?”

Leonie put down her dish towel, returning from wherever her own thoughts had meandered. “Of course.” She appeared mystified. “Why wouldn't I be?”

McIntire wished he knew the answer to that question. “I won't be long,” he said. He looked at the swirls of white pelting the window and hoped that he spoke the truth.

Leonie moved toward the window. “What was that?”

McIntire listened. “A chickadee. That's its spring song.”

At his wife's brightened expression, he added. “Don't get excited. Chickadees are notorious liars.”

One of Arnie Johnson's favorite adages,
It only warms up to snow
, was definitely not holding true today, McIntire discovered. He ducked his head into his collar and faced the wind. It might be snowing, but warmed up, it was not. It was, also in Arnie parlance, colder than a witch's tit.

The Studebaker's seat was like an iceberg. He pulled shut the door and pressed the starter to the floor. The engine whined, groaned, whirred, and finally chugged. McIntire crossed his fingers and returned to the house for his muffler, ice scraper, and broom. Why hadn't he built a garage? It might not make the car easier to start, but at least he could dispense with the tedious scraping of frost. Why did it make a difference? Why would a car in an unheated garage not build up frost on its windows just as it did outdoors? Maybe he'd put the question to Erik Pelto one of these days.

Irene Touminen answered his knock. Sulo wasn't home. Nick Thorsen had called to get him to help with moving some furniture. He probably wouldn't be back for awhile; afterwards he was going to haul some sawdust for Simon Lindstrom's ice house. Once he dumped that, he planned to stop at the old Makinen place to pick up a load of hay and see what was going on with the excavation, fast becoming a major local attraction.

“There was a whole family from over in Ishpeming on Tuesday.” Irene shook her head. “Three kids. Took them out of school for the trip.” She shut the door against the wind. “What on earth are people expecting to see?”

What they saw would basically be a gravel pit. “Winters get long.” McIntire pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the steam from his glasses. “We have to take our entertainment where we can get it. You could set up a stand. Sell cocoa and peppermint schnapps.”

“Might not be a bad idea right now. We could have a cup if we had cocoa—if we had schnapps.” She pulled out a chair. “As it is we'll have to settle for coffee, unless you'd like some tea.”

For some inexplicable reason, McIntire found that he would like tea. He might have preferred it with a drop of brandy, since the subject of spirits had arisen, but the offer was not forthcoming.

A bowl heaped with apples of such a glossy green that they made McIntire's teeth ache sat on the table. Irene moved it to the counter and replaced it with china cups and Lipton tea bags.

“Did you want Sulo for any special reason?” she asked. “Of course I know you're here about this awful…I still can't believe it. All the time when we thought something terrible had happened to those two, it had! How many times have I walked around that old place thinking about Rosie, remembering her picking the apples or weeding the garden, and wondering what she might be doing…. Maybe she was right under my feet. How could I not
feel
it? Sense she were there somehow?”

Even washed in the blush of the cardinal-red ceiling, Irene looked hollow-eyed and weary.

“Did you know Rose well?” McIntire asked.

“Sure. We went to school together from first grade. You must have known her, too.”

“Not that I recall. She'd have been quite a bit younger than me.”

“I'm surprised you don't remember her. I suppose you don't remember knowing me then, either.”

Was Irene Touminen flirting with him? McIntire looked into the frank brown eyes and could detect no sign of the coquette.

“I certainly do,” McIntire lied. “You always had a lovely voice.” It was a lucky guess. The cupid's bow lips curved in a shy smile; pushing up high, round cheeks. She glanced down, and the sleek ebony hair swung toward her chin. McIntire wondered if she put something on it to give the look of lacquer. She didn't seem like the type to indulge in such vanities.

“We lost touch for a while, but after I moved in here with Sulo, Rosie and me visited back and forth. At least once a week, I'd say. There really weren't any other ladies around even close to our age—only Mia. I guess she's not all that much older.”

Mia wasn't much for visiting back and forth, age notwithstanding. McIntire asked, “How's she doing? Did Nick say?”

“Doing what?”

“Didn't he tell you?” McIntire could hardly believe that he was the first to give Irene Touminen the news of Mia's mishap. He supposed it might have been overshadowed by the other recent events.

“Oh, goodness! That idiot, he didn't mention a thing. Just wanted to know if Sulo could help with lifting something. That's Mia for you. She'd probably have belted him if she heard him tell anybody. I'd better go over and see what I can do. She'll starve to death if she has to depend on Nick.” Another fleeting smile. “She doesn't have all that far to go.”

McIntire steered things back to the non-living skeleton. “Were you terribly worried when you didn't hear from Rose?”

Irene folded her diminutive hands and raised her eyebrows. “Well, that's the funny thing.” She studied McIntire's face as if a clue to that funniness lay there.

“Hardly strange,” McIntire said. “She was dead.”

“The funny thing is,” she said again, “I did hear from Rosie. She sent a postcard from New York City.”

“That's not possible. Guibard was positive the remains were hers.”

“I spent half the morning digging around in a freezing attic.” Irene reached into the pocket of her striped apron and produced a postcard, quite an interesting one, as postcards go. A reproduction, McIntire supposed, of a watercolor. The painting showed blue water and small fishing boats with the city skyline in the background, not the usual conception of New York City.

The few lines, in a childish, backward-slanting hand, were in Finnish. McIntire translated:
Here in New York. It really does look like this! Off tomorrow. Wish me luck. Hope we meet again this side of Heaven
. It was signed
R
.

“Do you know that's Rose's handwriting? Would you recognize it?”

“I couldn't say now, but I'd think I'd have noticed at the time if it wasn't hers. Unless it was a good imitation.”

It probably wouldn't have had to be all that good. Irene wouldn't have been looking for a forgery.

“Her husband might have been able to fake it,” McIntire said.

“Do you really think it was Teddy killed them? I can't imagine him doing such a thing. But I guess it must have been him. And he must have sent the card. It's just that…. Well, I suppose if he caught Rose with another man…. There's no telling what people might do if they're pushed hard enough.”

“Have you got any guesses who that other man might have been?”

“None at all. Rose was a bit of a…flirt, I guess you might say. Frankly, it was a little embarrassing sometimes. But it's hard to believe she would have had a real affair. I can't think who it could have been.” She screwed up her mouth in concentration, then shook her head. “No idea. Wasn't there anything about the body? Couldn't Guibard or the police tell anything from the remains?”

“Only that he was taller than Rose, and so, taller than Teddy,” McIntire told her.

“Lassie is taller than Teddy.”

Irene had more of a sense of humor than McIntire had suspected. It didn't show up much with Sulo around.

“It must have been somebody from around here,” he said. “Can you think of anyone else who might have left about the same time? Maybe someone who was going to the Soviet Union, too?”

“The Karelia Fever had pretty much died out by the time the Falks signed up to go. Earlier on, there were whole shiploads that sailed. Hundreds at a time. The summer before quite a few families from here went. There was a party at the Finn Hall and a big send-off for them at the train station. They had flags and music, the works. There was a good-bye party for Ted and Rosie, too, but it was nowhere near so much folderol, just a pot luck at Houtaris'. It was only for the two of them. I never heard of anybody else that planned to go that summer. Not from around here.”

McIntire picked up the postcard. The message wasn't dated, and the postmark was smudgy. Maybe it could be read with a magnifying glass. Sherlock Holmes would have been better prepared.

“Do you remember when you received this? How long after they left did it come?

“I wasn't even sure that I really got it—hadn't just dreamed it up—until I dug it out this morning. I only remembered about it last night.”

“It's a nice picture,” McIntire said. “Not the usual Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building.”

“Rosie was a different sort of girl.”

“Is this the kind of thing you could see her choosing?”

“Yes, it is. But I suppose Ted would have gone out of his way to find something…. Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind? I don't know which one I feel sorriest for, Rosie or him. Well, I suppose he's paid for what he did. Maybe he's suffered a lot more than she did.”

McIntire agreed that it was a sorry business for everyone involved. He'd leave it to the sheriff to spread the news that Theodore Falk was still with them—or with them once again.

“I don't suppose you recall exactly when the Falks were scheduled to leave the country?”

“It was late in the summer, I think. I wouldn't know what day for sure.”

“What about the deed to the farm?”

“What about it?”

“The date the farm changed hands should be shortly before the date they were planning to go to Karelia, and so, supposedly, shortly before Rose died. And,” he added, “it might also give us a sample of her handwriting.”

Rose hesitated, then stood up. “Fortunately, since this morning, I have it all at my fingertips.”

She was gone less than two minutes. “August 13, 1934. That's when Sulo signed. Rose's signature is dated August sixteenth.”

The long, narrow sheet Irene handed him wasn't a deed. It was a contract for deed, whereby Rose Theresa Falk, nee Rose Theresa Makinen, agreed to sell the property described to Sulo I. Touminen, a single person. In contradiction to what Sulo had said about having the transaction taken care of before Falk left, the agreement provided for a down payment of $350 followed by six installments of $200 to be paid annually. McIntire placed the postcard next to Rose Falk's blurred signature. The two might have been written by the same hand, but McIntire was no expert, and the sample was small. J. Theodore's name did not appear on the contract.

“Is this the only document pertaining to the sale?”

“I don't know that much about my brother's business dealings.” Irene took the paper from him and refolded it. “Poor Rosie.” Her eyes glistened. “She was the restless sort. Always looking for something new, but soon as she got it, she couldn't wait to move on to the next thing. I thought she was crazy to throw everything over to go off to Russia, but I hoped she'd found the life she wanted at last.”

There didn't seem to be anything more Irene could tell him. She folded the card into a piece of wax paper and handed it back to him. He left her tackling the pile of apples so that she might not go to Mia Thorsen empty handed.

Chapter Nineteen

McIntire peered cautiously into Pete Koski's office. No Cecil Newman. No sign of life at all. The desktop, ordinarily littered with the paraphernalia of law enforcement and fishing excursions, contained only a bell and a handwritten sign telling anyone who needed help to ring it.

He retreated to the stairs that led to the sheriff's living quarters. As he raised his hand to knock, the door swung open and Marion Koski gave a yelp. “I almost jumped out of my skin!” She backed to let McIntire enter. “Come on in. I'm about to give our boarders their noon feeding.” She lifted a tray from the table. “The sheriff is in—” With a slight raising of her eyebrows, she cocked her head toward the living room and stepped sideways through the doorway. McIntire pushed the door shut and went in search of her husband.

Sheriff Pete Koski was stretched out in a platform rocker, his feet extending about eighteen inches beyond the matching ottoman. The German shepherd, Geronimo, sat at his side. The dog's eyes followed McIntire's approach, but his chin didn't stir from its spot on his master's knee.

The sheriff's scowl thwarted any intention McIntire might have had of issuing a greeting that included such terms as “goldbricking.” He contented himself with a simple hello and a glance out the double windows overlooking Chandler's main street and winter-bound harbor. The snow had abated, and, to the north, a frothy line showed where open water lapped at the edge of the ice.

“Hear you're up to your old tricks,” Koski said.

McIntire nodded. “Two of them this time.”

“Congratulations, a new record.”

“I suppose the state police have clued you in.”

“More or less. One of your local Reds caught his wife with another man, plugged them both, dumped them in a hole, and took off for parts unknown.”

“That's about the size of it. I don't know if they were both shot, but the Other Man had a shotgun pellet in what was left of his jaw.” McIntire stopped waiting for an invitation and shoved aside Marian's knitting to sit on the scratchy green sofa.

“Police can't quite figure why in close to twenty years nobody's missed any of the three,” Koski said, “or wondered what became of them.”

McIntire handed over the postcard.

The sheriff held it a couple of feet from his aging eyes. He flipped it over, extended his arm a bit farther, and squinted. His expression of curiosity blossomed into baffled. “What the hell does it say?”

McIntire told him.

“So it ain't exactly signed
Mrs. J. Theodore Falk
.”

“No,” McIntire agreed, “but I don't suppose Irene Touminen was acquainted with a lot of
R
s that sailed from New York City in the thirties.” Although if what she said was true, that hundreds of people emigrated, she might have been at that. “She admitted she'd forgotten all about the card. Maybe it was from somebody else and she got confused.”

“Ya.” Koski sighed in pain or disappointment. “That's probably it.”

“Or maybe whoever did sign it wanted to lessen the chance of Irene recognizing that it wasn't Rose's signature, so they just put the R,” McIntire said. But Irene's postcard was not the reason he'd come. He tried to keep the smugness from his voice. “I've located the absent Red. That might perk the state guys up.”

“No shit!” He flipped the card onto a stack of newspapers and
National Geographic
magazines on the floor beside his chair. “We've got a warrant. I'll send Adam Wall to bring him in.” He gave a few thoughtful tugs on Geronimo's ears. “Maybe I'd better let Cecil go instead. Whereabouts is he?”

When he heard that Teddy Falk was living in Detroit, Koski said, “Oh hell, the police can do it.” He squirmed himself into a more erect position. “Didn't take you long to find him, considering he's been on the lam for better than fifteen years.”

On the lam
? Koski must have been convalescing with Philip Marlowe.

“It's easy if you know the right people.” McIntire wasn't in the mood to discuss Melvin Fratelli. “Any luck figuring out who the other victim might be?”

“Maybe I should be asking you that. No, nothing about that pile of bones that would show who owned 'em, as far as Guibard could tell, but he ain't exactly an expert. We sent them on to Lansing along with a lot of shit from the hole. Some of it might mean something to you.” He rummaged through his chairside stack and handed McIntire a sheaf of typewritten carbons. McIntire scanned the pages, an extensive listing of items the state police had removed from the excavation. It was indeed a lot of shit. “They must have come to some kind of conclusions from all this.”

Koski went back to fondling Geronimo's ears. “They figure the female was wrapped in a scrap quilt. She was wearing something made outa silk, some kind of nightgown or under-skirt. Underwear, anyway, probably nothing else. Parts of it were eaten away, maybe the parts that had blood on them. She was laid out straight, like she'd been put in careful. The male victim was in a heap, like he'd just been dumped in on top of her. A whole lot of clothes and blankets and crap was tossed in over them. The stuff she had packed up to leave the country, I guess. The murderer would have wanted to make it look like they did leave. And he'd want to cover up the bodies.”

“Her clothing only, not his?” More evidence against the husband.

“Ya, looks like it, near as they can tell. It's mostly rotted rags, but some things last a long time, and it was cold down there.” He recited, “Whalebone from a corset, hairpins, lots of buttons. A few things that couldn't have been hers. The remains of a pair of men's shoes. Regular shoes, not work boots. Clips from suspenders.” He read on. “A leather belt with a fancy buckle.”

“Suspenders and a belt? Must have been a real pessimist. Considering how he ended up, he had a right to be.”

“And woulda been a real sissy. The buckle was shaped like a tulip with rhinestones. So it was most likely hers. Nothing to say whether the other stuff belonged to the victim or the husband. Looks more like the husband's stuff. The suspender clips weren't near the skeleton, and the shoes weren't on its feet. They were smaller than a guy that tall probably would have been wearing. We should be able to tell if they would have fit the mister. Matter of fact, there wasn't anything at all that looked like the victim was wearing it. Not even any buttons that might have been on men's clothes. Seems to have been pretty much naked.”

The German shepherd's head swung to and fro with Koski's contemplative rocking. “Some of the stuff showed rusty stains that could have been iron ore. Guy mighta been a miner.”

“That narrows it down to a few hundred candidates.”

“Ya,” Koski said, “and plenty of them that could have turned up missing without anybody getting too het up over it. Rust coulda been from a tin can, too.” He went on, “There were newspapers. They might be able to get a date from them at the lab.”

“After all this time?”

“You'd be surprised how long a paper can last underground if it's folded and doesn't get too wet.”

Didn't get too wet? That was indeed a pretty worthless well. “What good does knowing the date on a newspaper do? There's no saying that it was thrown in at the same time as the bodies, and no knowing how old it was when it was thrown in.”

“Maybe not, but there was more than one, still folded like they hadn't been read yet, and my guess is anybody packing to leave the country would have used up her
old
newspapers wrapping dishes.”

“Good thinking. On the other hand, she might have been collecting them for a while and ended up with more than she needed.”

“Ya.”

The rocking ceased. Geronimo's ears lifted but his eyes stayed closed. Koski cleared his throat before speaking. “I had a call from an INS agent.”

“A what?”

“Immigration. They got a deportation order for another Red from your neck of the woods. Wanted us to pick him up. Maybe you could do it? I'm pretty laid up here, and—”

The proverbial icy fingers began a slow creep up McIntire's spine, inching toward his heart. “Deportation? Who?”

Koski reached to fling around his reading material once again. “They sent a warrant. Here you go.”

McIntire took the extended sheet of paper. It contained several printed lines of legal linguistic gymnastics with the name
Erik Antonin Pelto
inked into the blank spaces. McIntire's throat squeezed shut so he could barely get out the words, “What in hell is this all about?”

“They didn't give me the details. Just that they want him out of the country. Or at least in the county jail. Know him?”

“He teaches science at the high school.”

The sheriff lurched to a sitting position, dislodging the German shepherd and, if his gasp was an indication, three or four vertebrae. His features locked in a grimace as he lowered himself gingerly back in his seat. “You got a commie for a schoolteacher?”

“He's not a commie so far as I know.”

“INS seems to think he is.”

“He might have been a party member once. It was probably years ago.”

“He an alien?”

“He's been in this country at least since he was a kid. I don't know if he was born here.” McIntire had heard stories like this, former and present communists arrested, spending months locked up while deportation cases dragged out. “He's got a wife, two little kids. She's from Australia, a war bride.”

“Hmmph. What do you figure he's been up to? Wonder how they got onto him.”

No mystery there. G-man Fratelli on the job, aided by his trusty sidekick Constable John McIntire. How could he have been such an idiot? No wonder Pelto had been reluctant to discuss the past. Why didn't the guy say something to warn him? What could he have said?
I used to be a communist, keep it under your hat
. Well, why in hell not? He knew what the dangers were.

McIntire should have known, too. He should have had the sense to realize that the teacher wouldn't keep his job five minutes if the FBI knew he'd been involved with the Communist Party. But arrested? Deportation?

“Well, what about it?” Koski asked. “You wanna bring this guy in?”

“Hell, no!”

“I don't mean today. There's no rush. They ain't coming to question him until next week.”

“Forget it, Pete. I'm not arresting St. Adele's only reasonably decent teacher because of his father's misguided beliefs in a better world. If you want it done, get Adam Wall. Or tell this bunch,” he shook the paper, “to do it themselves.”

The sheriff reclaimed the warrant and studied it for a minute. “I'd like to keep Wall on people's good side for a while. I guess I could send Cecil out. He oughta be able to handle a schoolteacher.”