October Fest: A Murder-by-Month Mystery Read online

  “The library opens at noon. I’m here two hours early as a courtesy to the Representative. I’m sure that will be sufficient time to run through my procedures.”

  Tanya humphed but didn’t press her luck. Glokkmann had already passed me to case the place as soon as I’d opened the door. “This is so charming! One big room. What a wonderful example of how we can do more with less. Do you have sufficient chairs for the reporters?”

  I’d driven the long way through town and knew that the parking lots of the motels were again full, the news of Swydecker’s suicide attempt bringing in a new rush of bloodthirsty reporters. I was fairly confident Glokkmann had invited any she could track down to today’s Q & A.

  “Where’s Grace?” I asked, disregarding her question.

  The dark-haired woman made her first noise, a snort.

  Glokkmann spun on her heel. “Mira, please meet Kenya, my daughter. My husband and I adopted her from Korea. We took her in when she was two, so she struggles with attachment disorder.”

  The cruelty in her words was breathtaking. They had clearly rattled Kenya. Judging by the crafty look on Glokkmann’s face, that had been her intention.

  “You don’t have to tell everyone that, mother. We get it. You’re a real humanitarian and I’m a mess.” She possessed a striking face, beautiful for its angles and contrasts. She also had a strong body, lean like a dancer, and she carried herself confidently, though I’d already noticed she was more comfortable on the sidelines than the front row. She was dressed professionally in a fitted burgundy cardigan set over pressed black corduroys.

  Glokkmann acted as if she didn’t hear her. “You know what we could do? We could have the Q & A here in the children’s alcove, and the reporters could sit around on the floor like it’s story time. That’ll show them who’s got the upper hand.”

  Tanya laughed along with her new BFF and pulled out the clipboard that Grace had carried on Tuesday so she could jot down notes. Centering the Q & A in one of the four corners of the library seemed a straightforward proposition to me, but I suppose it made Tanya feel important to have something to write on a clipboard. She and Glokkmann must have made up.

  I cleared my throat. “You didn’t mention where Grace was.”

  “My mother fired her after she found out she was boning the competition,” Kenya said, playing with the half pencils at the front counter. Her voice was devoid of emotion.

  Her proclamation confirmed beyond a doubt that Grace was the woman who’d been with Swydecker the night of the murder. He must have chosen to protect her rather than clear his name, or I was all wrong about him and he was a cad who didn’t want anyone to know he was fooling around on his wife. Regardless, the devastation on Grace’s face when she thought she was going to lose Swydecker was evidence of a deep attachment, and that’s all I knew for sure.

  “That’s enough, Kenya! You have to learn when to shut your mouth.”

  The biting words had an odd effect on Kenya. Her confident posture changed in subtle ways, her shoulders hunching forward and neck swiveling to stare at her mother. Her clear expression went sullen, but she didn’t respond. Glokkmann had so far illustrated herself to be more of a chicken-wire momma than an affectionate one, and that must have taken its toll, but there was something darker reflected in her daughter. I wondered how often she’d turned her abusive tongue on her children.

  The front doorminder donged, and the reporters began to file in. Tanya directed them to form a half circle around the low-to-the-ground cube chairs that ringed the children’s table in the sunny south corner of the library, proud of her authoritative role in front of a potentially national audience. I started to get nervous. I hadn’t planned for a crowd when interviewing Glokkmann, and nearly thirty people had streamed in, at least five of them with cameras on their shoulders. They all settled uncomfortably on the floor in a semicircle.

  I needn’t have worried. All my questions were drowned out by the real reporters who wanted to know about Swydecker and the effect of his attempted suicide on her race to maintain her representative seat, now that she was the shoo-in candidate. Glokkmann rebuffed the questions graciously, answering only when it was to her advantage and even then, sticking to her sound bites. She was a consummate salesperson, and it was hypnotizing. I wouldn’t have been able to tear my eyes away if not for the feeling that I was being watched. I ignored the itch until Glokkmann reached for a bottle of water, and then I looked up briefly to see Kenya staring at me, a ghost smile on her lips. I shivered.

  “No, I will not be trick-or-treating this Halloween,” Glokkmann said to laughter, answering a reporter’s question as she set down her water. “Trick-or-treating is a perfect example of how socialism thwarts hard work and innovation. It discourages what would otherwise be a productive and fruitful society.”

  Off to her left and at the rear of the crowd, I gave her my best what-the-hell face. Was she really equating the blessed tradition of dressing up like monsters and politicians and finagling free candy to socialism? Well, if it was wrong, I didn’t want to be right. Unfortunately, Tanya’s vigorously agreeing face cancelled out my doubting face, and Glokkmann moved on to the next question. Twenty minutes later, the reporters grew restless, their adult legs not equipped for long stretches of sitting cross-legged on the floor. Glokkmann, ever the reader of her audience, announced the Q & A period at an end and encouraged everyone to look around “this functional example of their tax dollars at work.”

  Most of them headed straight to the door and so were not present when Gary Wohnt strode through five minutes later in his civilian clothes, sans sunglasses. He could have been any townsperson off the street in to browse the periodicals except for the hell-bent-for-leather expression on his face. It made my chest flutter because I knew from experience that when he looked like that, he usually got what he wanted. Inside the door, he quickly scanned the room, his eyes brushing over me with an almost physical intensity before landing on Sarah Glokkmann, who was trading small talk with one of the few remaining reporters. I grabbed the counter for support, grateful that I wasn’t the object of his attention.

  He stepped to the side to wait until Glokkmann was finished with her conversation, but he didn’t remove his eyes from her person. I took advantage of the rare chance to study him in profile from a safe distance. He had been sort of doughy and repellent before leaving with his born-again tart, but had returned hard and taut, a compact boxer’s body under jeans and a button-down white shirt that set off his skin tone beautifully. He reminded me of someone, and I couldn’t quite place it. Was it someone I had met in the Cities? Certainly not anyone I’d gone to high school with. Was it some actor?

  “Oh my GOD!”

  The scattering of people in the library halted their conversations to rubberneck me. I ripped my eyes away from Wohnt, but not before they snapped toward mine with a dangerous glint that spoke of irritation and something muskier.

  “I can’t believe I forgot my lunch! I was so looking forward to that salad.” It was lame but I had to say something because everyone was staring at me and I couldn’t say what I was really thinking, which was that Deputy Gary Wohnt, from the side, looked. Exactly. Like. My. Hot Sexy. Unobtainable. Erotic-dream-driving. Chief Wenonga statue.

  My ejaculation changed the mood of the room, which I guess is their nature. The reporters still lingering gave me a wide berth, leaving only Glokkmann and Tanya to side-by-side stare disapprovingly at me. Kenya, I assumed, was off in the stacks along with several regulars who’d been thrilled to find the library open early. Gary took advantage of the break in conversation to stride over to Glokkmann and Tanya. He uttered a few quiet words to Tanya, who blanched before exiting with her purse clutched so tightly I wondered if she had her spare heart in it.

  I doubted Glokkmann would pale in the presence of the Grim Reaper himself, but whatever Gary was telling her was making her body stiff. I grabbed the closest object to me, which happened to be a stapler, and strolled over to the table direct
ly behind them and knelt underneath it, pretending to be busy. I presumed that the hair and shoe print in Webber’s room had been positively identified, and that Glokkmann was soon going to be kicked off her throne. I wanted to hear it firsthand, though. Unfortunately, Gary was speaking quietly and the only words I caught were “evidence,” “reason to believe,” and “a scene.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  I jumped, and the sudden movement caused me to bump my head on the bottom of the table. “Cleaning.”

  Kenya crawled next to me and wrinkled her forehead. “With a stapler?”

  “I found it under here.”

  “No you didn’t. I saw you carry it over.”

  “Then I’m stapling the carpet.”

  “Why?”

  For Pete’s sake, I couldn’t spy on Gary and Glokkmann as long as she was chattering. “Because it was coming loose under the table. Wanna go grab me some staples?”

  “Not really. Wanna come by the hotel later and hang?” Her face had returned to its relaxed stage, open and confident.

  “Not really.”

  “Too bad,” she said, pulling herself out from under the table and tipping her head at the door. “Because that’s probably the only way you’ll find out what just happened.”

  I crawled out from under the table, too, rubbing the goose egg forming on the side of my head. I was just in time to see Gary subtly yet physically escorting the Representative to a waiting unmarked police car.

  “I’ll be there at seven,” I said.

  “Great! See you then.”

  And she skipped out, strangely perky for a woman whose mother has just been arrested. I stood and considered whether it was time to invest in fresh ibuprofen. And then I sneezed twice in rapid succession.

  “Gesundheit!” Someone said from the back of the library.

  “Thanks,” I replied, cursing the cold that was following hot on the heels of my stomach bug. That was all I needed. I blew my nose and made a note to buy myself orange juice and garlic after work. In the meanwhile, I wanted to know what the media knew.

  I plunked down at the nearest terminal to see if the police had issued any announcements in the Webber murder and came up empty-handed. Next, I searched for Swydecker and found that the newspapers were reporting him as hospitalized without a specific reason, though the blogs were afire with rumors of a suicide attempt and a mistress. He had not yet officially withdrawn himself from the campaign.

  Just to scratch an itch, I did a search on “Glokkmann,” “tomatoes,” and “Battle Lake” and found a comprehensive story about the drifter who’d pelted her. In a former life, Randall Martineau had been the owner of a small carpet-cleaning business in Glokkmann’s district. He’d been forced to close his business when he was struck with an unnamed lung disease and couldn’t afford to keep the business afloat and pay his medical bills. Not until he’d given up his business and plummeted to the poverty level did he qualify for state-subsidized health care. His disease was currently in remission and he devoted his time to raising awareness about the health care crisis in the United States. It was Glokkmann’s bad luck he and his troupe had landed in Battle Lake this week.

  That was enough non-library work for the day. I spent the next several hours helping a young couple figure out how to use the computer to shop for homes in the Cities, locating Otter Tail County records for a researcher from Fargo who was writing his dissertation on Indian burial mounds, browsing Library Journal reviews to uncover which books to spend my meager acquisitions funds on, and creating promotional materials for the children’s author I had tracked down and booked for a presentation next week. I was about to close up shop at 6:00 when I became aware that I hadn’t had time to restack the huge pile of returned books that had accumulated over the day. Sighing deeply, I went to work and checked them in and shelved them in under an hour.

  Since I was running late anyway, I stopped by Larry’s to buy garlic tabs and orange juice for me and dill pickle potato chips and mineral water for Kenya. Never show up empty-handed, my mother had always taught me. I drank half the carton of juice on the way to the motel and downed three garlic tabs, but the itch in my nose and fogginess in my head were getting worse instead of better. I should just become bubble girl and call it a life.

  Pulling into the motel parking lot settled a cold stone in my stomach. I was sick of the place. It was jinxed forward, backward, square, and round, and I would have much rather gone straight home to feel sorry for myself. Unfortunately, my curiosity and obligation to Mrs. Berns were stronger than my self-pity. I trudged up to the lakeside second floor. The police tape was gone, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that neither Swydecker nor Webber’s rooms would be occupied anytime soon. In fact, the whole motel felt vacant, except for to my left, where I could hear Rage Against the Machine pumping out of the room that Kenya and Glokkmann shared.

  I knocked, then knocked again. I sneezed three times in a row and was about to say “screw you” to my curiosity when the music quieted and the door opened. Kenya was dressed only in a towel, her hair wet. “You’re late.”

  “I’m here now,” I said. She was younger than me if only by a year or two, and I wasn’t taking any sass from her.

  “Hold on, I gotta get dressed.” She stepped back from the open door and dropped her towel, making certain to hold my eye contact. I sure wasn’t going to look anywhere else; I’d learned that lesson from Darcy. When I didn’t blush or acknowledge her nudity, she turned and strolled over to the dresser. She had a tramp stamp etched on her smooth lower back, ornate words that spelled out something that looked like “non duc duc.” I wondered if it was Korean. She had a beautiful body from behind, athletic with curves, but I wasn’t a fan of the single white female act. I set down the potato chips and water and walked over to the curtained window, pretending to look out at the lake.

  “Tell me when you’re done,” I said.

  She didn’t respond. I heard the soft slip of clothing, and then footsteps approaching from behind followed by something furry in my hand. I jumped, and she laughed.

  “Don’t hurt it!”

  I turned to see her holding a fuzzy rodent that she’d tried to slide into my palm. “What the hell is that?”

  “A gerbil. His name is Hammy.” She set him on the ground and pulled a small gumball-sized rubber ball from the pocket of her silk robe. “Fetch, Hammy!”

  “Can he play dead?” I liked rodents a little more than I liked birds.

  “No, watch!” The ball disappeared under the bed, and ten seconds later, Hammy scurried out with one cheek bulging. He ran a circle around Kenya before spitting the red ball at her feet.

  “Wow.” I actually was pretty impressed. I bet I couldn’t train my cat to do that, although he wouldn’t mind teaching Hammy a trick or two. Actually, just one probably, and it would be called, “tell me what color my stomach is.”

  “I know! He’s my best friend.” The creepy seductress was gone and in her place was a young, fresh-faced girl. “He’s an absolute genius. Mom hates him. I wish I could bring him everywhere but she makes me leave him in his cage. He hates cages. Would you like living in a cage?”

  “No.” Her rapid speech made me uncomfortable. “Speaking of your mom, where is she?”

  “Grace said that you’re a reporter. Do you like reporting?”

  “I wouldn’t do it for free,” I said. “Kenya, did your mom get arrested today?”

  “I have a boyfriend, you know. His name is Brad. He’s in a rock band.”

  I sat down across from her. “Kenya, where’s your dad at?” I’d initially put her at her mid to late twenties but up close, agitated and without makeup, I wondered if she was even old enough to vote.

  “Home. Moorhead.”

  “Does he know where your mom is?”

  She crumpled to the floor and started crying, slow tears that doubled and tripled until she was sobbing. She looked tiny and fragile, and I leaned over to hug her. Hammy scurried up my leg and into her p
ocket.

  “She’s in jail! They think she killed that guy, but I know she didn’t. She was with me that night. All night. In here.”

  “All night?” That was what Glokkmann had told the police, but she had no one to corroborate it.

  “Yeah.” She pulled away and rubbed her hand across her nose. “She was at the Octoberfest thingie for a while. She wanted me with her, you know, so she could do her rainbow nation deal. I played good daughter until I got bored, and then I went to check out the band. That’s when I met Brad. Anyhow, she had Grace track me down and said it was time to leave. We all headed back here. Mom took one of her sleeping pills, so an earthquake wouldn’t have woken her.”

  Her story jibed with what Brad had told me. “Did you tell the police that?”

  “No.” She hung her head. “I was mad at mom for dragging me to this podunk town. I wanted to make her squirm a little, so I told the police I was out all night partying so she wouldn’t have anyone to support her story.” Her words caught in her throat. “I didn’t know they’d arrest her.”

  “That’s what happened today? Your mom was arrested for Bob Webber’s murder?”

  “Yeah. They said they found some of her hair on the scene. And she didn’t have an alibi.”

  “If you tell them the truth, it will help your mom.”

  “And land me in jail!”

  “It won’t look good, but lying to the police about your whereabouts isn’t illegal. Right?”

  “Will you do it? Go to the police for me, I mean.”

  “We could go together.”

  “Haha! Look at Hammy!” He’d peeked out of her pocket and had a piece of lint perched on his nose like a tiny Hitler mustache. “Sieg heil, Hammy!”

  Her gales of laughter on the heels of torrential tears had my head spinning. Talking to her reminded me of looking through the microscope in ninth grade biology. Everything—oak leaf scales, bacteria, blood platelets—looked like a blurry green eyelash to me. I had to fake it, just like I had to fake that she wasn’t screwy.