Buttons and Bones Page 8

Johanna continued, “My mother told me the talk at the time was about how much older he was than his wife. I think he realized he’d made a big mistake marrying her. He wasn’t from around here, you know. He came up to inspect the paper factory that was making cardboard for the Army. It was one of those love-at-first-sight things that sometimes happens to older men who meet pretty young blondes. She was a high school dropout, working as a waitress right here in Longville, but really good-looking. She played him for a fool, and when he realized what he’d done, he just walked out on her.”

  “I see,” said Lars.

  “Yes, it’s a sad story,” said Johanna, catching something in Lars’s tone and changing her own gossipy tone to one of regret.

  Jill asked, “What about Mrs. Farmer selling the cabin? Do you know when that happened?” That would be a test question, Betsy thought, because the date of the sale would be something Jill either knew or had access to. Good for Jill, thought Betsy.

  But Johanna didn’t know exactly when that happened. “She was the subject of a lot of talk, of course, poor kid. She stuck it out until the following spring or summer, I think. And even after she left, some said she went off to join him wherever he was hiding out. In any case, neither of them was ever heard from again.”

  Yet if there was no connection, thought Betsy on their way back to the car, why was the unfortunate Dieter Keitel found in the Farmers’ root cellar?

  Did Helga Farmer live with that body in the basement all those months until she could join her runaway husband? Is it possible she didn’t know about it? Then why put down the linoleum to cover over that trapdoor? Is it possible beautiful white pine floors were not seen as beautiful in those days? Betsy recalled how fashionable it once was to cover hardwood floors with wall-to-wall carpeting, just as now it was to uncover them again.

  And was it true Major Farmer ran away because he’d come to realize the hideous mistake he’d made marrying the beautiful Helga? Then why did she sell the cabin and move to join him in his hiding place?

  She thought of Molly Fabrae, who was sure her father would not run away and who had hoped the skeleton in the root cellar would put to rest an old canard.

  She sat back in the car seat to think. Suppose the German soldier came to the Farmer cabin, which was probably even more isolated then than it was now, and held Helga Farmer captive—until her husband came home? Then, say, there was a fight, which the POW lost?

  No, because they’d surely report it. No need to hide the body and flee the scene.

  She was out of speculations; she couldn’t think what might have happened. To quote Godwin quoting Mark Twain, it was too many for her.

  BACK at the cabin, they closed everything up, packed their belongings, and set off for home.

  There was no discussion of the case. The overtired kids were too distracting all the way down Highway 169, whining and complaining and crying. And of course, the law made it impossible for Jill to take Airey out of his carrier seat and hold him in her lap, so he had to be left to his own very slender collection of self-comfort methods.

  Betsy held his hand, which helped only a little. Emma Beth wanted her hand held, too, between snits and complaints that the car was too hot or too cold or the trip was too long. They both fell asleep just as the exit for Highway 7 came up, less than ten minutes from home.

  So Betsy was very tired on reaching her apartment that evening. Her message light was blinking but she decided she was not up to calling anyone back and instead made herself a light supper and went to bed.

  “HE came in once, he called once,” announced Godwin on his arrival at Crewel World the next morning.

  “Who? Oh, Connor,” said Betsy.

  “Well, done!” said Godwin. “Atta girl. You really sounded like you actually had forgotten him.”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten him.” She smiled. “I had forgotten we had a quarrel, though. Funny what an old skeleton can do to your priorities.”

  “About that skeleton—”

  “Later. What happened in the shop while I was away?”

  “That small order of wool floss from The Gentle Art is nearly sold out with one repeat buyer already, so I placed a bigger order—it’s on the desk,” replied Godwin obediently. “The order of kits of napkins and table runners with stamped autumn leaves came in, and I called Marge to see how close she is to finishing the model for us. She should bring it in by the end of the week. Which reminds me, we need to brain-storm about what we want to put in our autumn window. The display needs to go up soon. The back-to-school sales are in full swing, and I was wondering if we couldn’t tie into that theme somehow. You know, featuring our classes. Which further reminds me. Look at this.” Godwin went back behind the desk, which served as a checkout counter in the shop, and came up with a bundle of white tissue paper held together by string tied in a bow.

  He untied it to reveal a scarf knit in a yarn drifting in lovely shades of blue from aqua to pinky lavender. But what drew the eye was the stitch used. It looked like weaving using two strands. No, it looked like the backside of the basketweave stitch. Betsy turned it over. The underside of the knitting didn’t look a whole lot like any pattern she’d ever seen. She turned it back to look at the interesting cross-hatching on the face.

  “Who did this?” she asked.

  “Peggy Dokka. She has an old book of knitting patterns and found this in it. She wants to teach a class. She says it’s not a difficult stitch, you can learn it in one session.”

  “Let’s tell her yes, and I’ll be the first to sign up.”

  “Too late,” said Godwin with a chuckle.

  “I like the idea of a back-to-school window. How many classes are we offering this fall?” asked Betsy. “There’s that one on needlepoint, where we teach six stitches—we’ll need only four people to make up the class, right? Rosemary is going to do her sweater class, Peggy can teach this scarf, and you can do an adult crochet class. We’ll need at least one advanced class, maybe one on candlewicking?”

  “Careful, or we won’t have anything left to offer over the winter,” counseled Godwin.

  “I was thinking we could offer a class on the Three Kings this winter. It’s a counted pattern, I can’t remember what catalog I saw it in. Very elaborate robes on the kings, with beads and cords, worked on hand-dyed linen. I’ll have to get out my catalogs and hunt for it. If we start it soon, most of the class will have it completed by Christmas.”

  “Yes, but they won’t be able to get it finished before Christmas. Heidi wants Christmas projects in by Thanksgiving.” Heidi specialized in washing, stretching, and framing fine needlework pieces, or turning them into pillows, a process called finishing.

  Godwin continued, “And I saw that pattern, it’s gorgeous. So it isn’t something you’d try finishing yourself. All right, I’ll find it, and we’ll offer it maybe in the spring of next year.”

  Betsy asked, “Anything else?”

  The phone began to ring.

  “The Monday Bunch wants you to talk to them about the skeleton.”

  “All right, but I don’t have a lot to say.” Betsy picked up the cordless phone that stood on the library table in the middle of the front part of the shop. “Crewel World, Betsy speaking, how may I help you?”

  “Betsy, it’s Jill.”

  “Hi, Jill, have you recovered from the drive home?”

  “Yes, thank you, and so have the children. I hear the sheriff’s department of Cass County has announced that the bones belong to one Corporal Dieter Keitel, late of the Army of the Third Reich.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise, is it?”

  “They did it without sending the bones to Saint Paul.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Depends on what they found to convince them. One thing is that ID tag, it really is a World War Two German dog tag. But there’s something else, they gave his age—he was just twenty.”

  “Oh, that’s sad!”

  “As for not sending the bones to Saint P
aul, Lars thinks they might not bother, if they’re really sure. It’s probably a cash-saving thing. Cass County isn’t exactly the richest county in the state, and budgets are being slashed all over. Anyway, who else’s bones could they be?”

  “Which doesn’t answer the question: How did they come to be in your root cellar?”

  “That’s a question I’d like to ask Helga Farmer. I wonder what became of her?”

  “Yes, the fact that she was never heard of again is suspicious, isn’t it?” Betsy tapped a pencil on the table, thinking.

  “She was never heard from up there. For all we know, she’s fine, living in her retirement home in Arizona this very day.”

  “I wonder if the sheriff is going to try to find her.”

  “I wonder if you and I could find her.”

  “Are you serious?” Betsy stopped tapping.

  “I don’t like unexplained bones in my cellar. Besides, remember Molly Fabrae? She’d like to know what became of her father. I can’t help but think Helga Farmer might be able to tell us.”

  Ten

  AT one, after a very busy morning, Betsy sent Godwin to Sol’s Deli next door for ham and Swiss sandwiches on rye, potato chips, and their famous crisp kosher dill pickles.

  The deli was old, probably original to the building, which was built in the early twentieth century, with a white tile floor set here and there with black squares, a pair of tiny wire-legged tables with three chairs apiece, and old-fashioned slant-front glass cases in back where meats and cheeses were on display, ornamented with pickles and olives of every kind and color.

  Standing in front of one of the cases was Connor. Under his direction, the owner, a bald, tired-looking man with a potbelly sagging into his apron, whose name was not Sol, was building a submarine sandwich.

  Godwin came up behind Connor, calling his name. “Oh, I’m so glad you are here! I’ve been wanting to talk with you.”

  “What about?” Connor smiled back at him.

  “Betsy.” Both men’s smiles vanished at the same time.

  “Serious?” asked Connor.

  “Very.”

  “All right. Just a minute.” He took the wrapped sandwich in its white paper bag, paid for it, and went to one of the little tables.

  Godwin gave his order and said he’d wait right over there for it, and joined Connor at the table.

  “What’s this about?” asked Connor as Godwin sat down.

  “I told you: Betsy. What are your intentions?”

  “What are you, her father?”

  “Something more important: her friend.”

  “All right, fair enough. My intentions are honorable. Okay?”

  “She’s very unhappy right now, over you.”

  “I’m unhappy as well. A certain amount of rough passage is to be expected when two very independent people past a certain age and burdened with their separate histories try to mesh. We’ll work it out.”

  “When?”

  “When the time is right. I hope you aren’t the interfering kind, Goddy.”

  “Of course I am! How could you expect otherwise?”

  Connor tried to hide a smile. “That’s a valid point. So what are you proposing?”

  “I think you should talk to her.”

  “I don’t think she’s ready to talk to me.”

  “You don’t know her. She’ll let you get away rather than be the first to speak. Come on, let’s go back.”

  “What about my lunch?”

  “Bring it along.”

  BETSY looked up when Godwin came back, and saw there was a man right behind him.

  Connor.

  Betsy couldn’t think of what to say and so said nothing.

  Apparently Connor was in the same state; he simply stood by the long white counter that held knitting materials, looking at her. His eyes were kind, but he said nothing.

  Godwin strode to the library table and put down the big white paper bag. “Isn’t anyone going to say hello?” he asked.

  “Hello, Betsy,” said Connor in his pleasant baritone.

  “Hello, Connor,” said Betsy, feeling her face getting warm.

  But silence fell again.

  Godwin sighed. “All right, say you’re sorry.” He looked at both of them.

  “I’m sorry,” said Betsy.

  Connor took a step forward. “I’m sorrier than you, for you were right. My shameless daughter has admitted she would prefer I not see you anymore.”

  “What are you going to do about that?” asked Godwin.

  “I’ve told her that she is forever my favorite child but that I’m an adult man, happily divorced from her mother, and seeing another woman I like very much.”

  “What did she say?” asked Betsy.

  “That she’ll start a novena to the Blessed Virgin to bring me to my senses and meanwhile not say another word to me about you.”

  Godwin laughed but Betsy said, “Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable to know someone’s nagging heaven on your behalf? It would me.”

  “Oh, she’s always nagging heaven on my behalf, convinced every ship I went to sea on was going to sink, every cargo I carried would turn out to be contraband, every crew I led would mutiny. She thinks if it weren’t for her novenas, I’d be drowned or arrested or in prison. May I join you for lunch? I brought my own sandwich.” He held up a white paper bag.

  “Of course,” Betsy said.

  The three sat down at the table.

  As had become a usual practice, Betsy swapped half her potato chips for Godwin’s big dill pickle. Bites were taken and “yums” were murmured.

  Then Godwin said, “All right, now we’re all friends again, and it was all my doing, I feel I deserve a reward. Tell me about the skeleton.”

  “What skeleton?” Connor asked.

  “What did the newspaper say?” Betsy asked.

  “That the skeleton of a man was found under a log cabin newly purchased by Jill and Lars Larson.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Connor, who could go for days without opening a newspaper or catching a local television news program.

  Godwin continued, “That it appeared to be an old skeleton, not something left there last winter. That’s about it. So who found it? Do you know who it is? Was it murder or an accident? Jill said something when she called here, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, the sheriff’s department announced that it’s the mortal remains of Dieter Keitel, a German POW. Jill found his bones when she uncovered a trapdoor in the floor.” Betsy described the event.

  “Dear God,” said Connor. “The things you get into.”

  “So you saw the skeleton, too?” asked Godwin.

  “Yes. It was covered in a thick coat of dust, hardly scary at all.”

  “But was it an accident or murder?”

  “There are some broken bones, especially on the skull, that shouldn’t have happened in a fall down that short flight of stairs onto a dirt floor. So probably murder. Dieter walked away from the POW camp in the late summer of 1944. Connor, he was only twenty years old.”

  “Just a kid,” said Connor, looking thoughtful.

  Godwin frowned a little, thinking. “You know, if he hadn’t died back then, he’d be eighty-seven today.”

  Betsy said, “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But something, somehow.” Godwin ate a potato chip. “Makes me wonder if it’s better to die young and leave a beautiful corpse or to live and wind up a wrinkled old man.”

  “You’d better hurry and make up your mind,” said Betsy, and Connor laughed.

  When they had finished their meal, Connor said to Betsy, “I’m glad we’re friends again. May I see you this evening?”

  “Well, I’ve got a class tonight, then some bookkeeping to do ...”

  “All right, I understand,” said Connor. He did not ask about the next night, but said good-bye and left.

  “And you were looking so good to him,” said Godwin.

  “What?” she said, exasperated. “I do have a cl
ass tonight.”

  “You should have suggested he come over for a nightcap. No wonder the good ones always get away from you—you have no idea how to manage a love affair.”

  JILL came in near closing time with the two children, all restored to sunny-bright moods. “Lars called the sheriff’s department investigator up in Walker to see what made them decide the skeleton was Dieter Keitel, and guess what?”

  “What?” replied Betsy.

  “They found the records kept by the old sheriff back in the 1940s, and he actually had put away an official description from the POW camp medical officer, and a copy of the wanted poster, with a photograph on it. He kept them because, we suppose, the case was never solved. Did you notice the gold tooth in the skull?”

  “Yes.” Betsy nodded.

  “Well, it’s mentioned in the poster. Something like, ‘a gold crown on a molar on the right side near the front, noticeable when he talks or smiles.’”

  Betsy sat down abruptly. “Oh, my.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. ‘Noticeable when he talks or smiles’—that makes him a real person, not an anonymous skeleton. Now I feel as if I’ve seen him naked and I’m embarrassed. He was just a kid, Jill, all of twenty, dragged off first to war, then to the middle of another country, surrounded by people he was taught to think of as the enemy.”

  “Yeah, people who waved at him as he was hauled around in a big truck, and who brought him treats and taught him crafts, and let him organize soccer tournaments.”

  The fist that had been squeezing Betsy’s compassionate heart loosened. “Yes, of course you’re right. C. S. Lewis said that about the English during the war: they’d declare hanging was too good for their enemies, then give tea and biscuits to the first injured German pilot who turned up in their back garden.”

  Godwin said, “But someone didn’t give this guy a cup of tea and a cookie. Instead he got a knock on the head.”

  “That’s right,” said Jill. “And I want to ask you, Betsy, to use your sleuthing talent to help me find out what happened.”