I found a chair in the back of the room as the kids took roll and started going over their agenda. The kids had participated in 4-H for six years, ever since we’d moved to town, and I still didn’t wholly understand the ins and outs of what they did. It was a kid-led and kid-centered meeting and they were always discussing things like projects and budgets. Will had run for the position of vice-president this year and had run a successful bribery campaign: he’d handed out lollipops with the slogan, “Will WILL Do It!”and had won the position by a landslide. As vice-president, he got to look important and lead meetings when Megan, Carol’s daughter and the elected President, wasn’t there.
Annabelle Kingston came and sat down next to me. I didn’t know her that well, even though I saw her nearly every week at one event or another. She had four boys under the age of ten and always looked exhausted.
“I was so sorry to hear, Daisy.” She set her hand on my elbow.
I smiled. “Thanks.”
She folded her hands in her lap. She wore a pair of black sweats and a purple t-shirt with her church logo emblazoned on the front. She was very religious and I was not so our interests didn’t tend to converge except for the kids activities.
“We saw the police there this morning on the way over,” she said. “The boys nearly came out of the van.”
“They can come over and watch if they want,” I offered.
She laughed. She’d made an attempt to put on make-up that morning but her lipstick wasn’t blended and I couldn’t help but stare at the spot on her upper lip that was devoid of color. “Might be a good learning experience,” she said.
“Yes. Hands-on forensics. Or something.”
She nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled and the bare spot on her lip stretched wider. “We’ll pray about it for you.”
“About the forensics?” I asked, confused. Was she going to bless the instruments, like priests did with the holy water?
“No, Daisy. About…the situation.”
I nodded. “Oh. Right. Um, thank you,” I said awkwardly. I didn’t know—did you thank people when they offered to pray for you?
She lowered her voce. “I heard you knew Olaf.”
“What?” I tried to act surprised but I knew better. In the span of less than a day, I was certain Connie had blabbed what she knew, or what she thought she knew, to every willing listener in town. “Let me guess. You heard about my date with him.”
“It might have come up,” she said vaguely. Annabelle had a little more tact in the gossip department than Connie. She bit her bottom lip. “I…I knew Olaf.”
I shifted in my chair. “You did? I didn’t know that.”
She glanced at the kids for a moment. Megan was talking, a wooden gavel in hand. From the looks of things, they were getting ready to vote on something.
Annabelle turned her attention back to me. “Our families were friends when we were kids. So I’ve known him for a long time. He was a nice guy.”
I nodded. “He seemed like it.”
“He was,” she said. Her hands were still in her lap and she folded them together. “But he was…struggling.”
“Struggling?” My overactive imagination immediately kicked into full gear. Did he have some sort of problem? Addiction? Gambling? He’d seemed normal enough when we’d talked over pizza that night. Maybe his life had taken a downward spiral. Maybe I’d been the one to cause it; another fruitless date that hadn’t amounted to anything.
A sympathetic frown crossed her face. “He was still in love with Helen.”
Helen? Who on earth was Helen?
“His ex-wife,” she explained before I could ask. “They were divorced for a number of years. Don’t think he ever got over it. I’m friends with her, too.”
“She lives here? In Moose River?”
“Yeah, over behind the high school. She’s told me on several occasions how he still wanted to get back together,” she said. “They didn’t have any kids. But apparently he really wanted to stay married.”
Sympathy seeped into my body. I immediately felt sorry for Olaf. I couldn’t get out of my marriage fast enough and I’d probably waited too long, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have the other person walk out on you and still want to be with them.
“About once a month, I guess, he’d show up unannounced and ask her if there was any chance,” she said, shaking her head. “Helen would tell him no and he’d slink away like a shamed dog. I felt bad for him. I prayed about it a lot.”
“That’s terrible,” I said. And then, quickly, “The situation. Not the praying.”
She nodded. “And Helen hasn’t exactly been a wallflower since they separated. She didn’t remarry or anything but she’s been…out there. Dating and whatever else she does.” She pursed her lips and then took a deep breath, as if she was physically reminding herself to not judge. “I remember her mentioning your name when you and Olaf went out. He’d told her. She was hopeful.”
It was like she’d just rolled in a wheelbarrow full of guilt and dumped it squarely in my lap.
“But I think maybe he just told her with the hope that it might spark something in her,” she said, her eyes trained on the kids sitting in a semi-circle around the officers’ table . “It didn’t.”
I turned to look at the kids, too. Hands were popping up and down. But I was thinking about Olaf. He’d mentioned his ex-wife at dinner, but hadn’t said much else and I hadn’t asked. Discussing our divorces was the last thing I wanted to talk about so I hadn’t asked anything about her. I assumed he’d felt the same way.
Sitting there with Annabelle, processing what she’d just told me, I suddenly wondered if I should’ve asked more.
NINE
The strange woman was watching our house.
We’d been home from the 4-H meeting for a couple of hours and, after a quick lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup, I’d sent the kids upstairs to play. They’d done enough preening at the windows, watching the goings on around the crime scene in the backyard and I wanted them to do something else. Will had disappeared to play his allotted time on the computer and Grace and Sophie had hightailed it to their room, squealing about Barbies and Polly Pockets. I was in the kitchen, making cookies and thinking about dinner. Emily was due home within the hour and, for once, we had nothing on the evening agenda. I wanted nothing more than to pour a glass of wine and curl up on the couch with Jake and get lost in something else—a movie, a game with the kids, whatever.
I checked on the tray in the oven before turning to the sink to tackle the mountain of dishes that had accumulated. I glanced out the side window and that’s when I saw her, walking by on the other side of the street. She moved slowly, her gaze locked on the house. I washed the dishes and was just finishing the last of the mixing bowls when the timer sounded. I pulled the last tray of cookies from the oven and looked out the window again. She was walking the other direction this time, her head swiveling toward the house as she walked. I bit back a sigh, realizing full well that a driveway of police cars and copious amounts of caution tape draped around the snow-filled year would draw some extra attention.
But as I was putting the dishes back in the cupboards, I saw her again, ducking behind a car on the other side of the street, still watching.
I stacked the bowls inside of each other and stowed them in one of the lower cupboards. I straightened, flopped the dish towel over my shoulder and walked to the window. She was crouched down, bundled up in a purple down jacket, watching intently.
And it just irked me.
I knew the scene was attention-grabbing, but I thought it was rude to just stand there on the sidewalk and gawk. And I thought it was weird and even ruder that she now appeared to be trying to hide herself as she watched.
So I pulled on my jacket and boots and went outside.
The wind hit me full-on in the face and my eyes watered. The morning might have been mild but the temperature had taken a nose-dive. I felt the hairs in my nose freeze and I tucked my chin into my jacket, trying to deflect the blow of the icy blasts assaulting me. I loved seasons but winter in Minnesota was like winter on steroids. Every year, as the snow piled up and the temperatures dipped even lower, I’d inevitably hit a point where I’d start thinking about warmer places so I wouldn’t have to dress like a sherpa every time I went outside. I was at that point this winter.