Murder at Spirit Falls Read online

  Murder at Spirit Falls

  A No Ordinary Women Mystery

  by

  Barbara Deese

  and

  Dorothy Olson

  Copyright © 2012 Barbara Deese and Dorothy Olson

  cover art by Schwartzrock Graphic Arts

  author photo by Karen Beltz

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-87839-881-2

  First Edition, September 2012

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  North Star Press of St. Cloud, Inc.

  P.O. Box 451

  St. Cloud, Minnesota 56302

  www.northstarpress.com

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  Dedication

  To the many women in our lives who are anything but ordinary…

  …and in memory of Molly, a dog of boundless energy and curiosity.

  Acknowledgements

  Heartfelt thanks to our book club friends who were with us on that dark and stormy night when the idea for this novel was hatched: Pat Almsted, Jane Anderson, Mary Ellen Hennen, Mary Pat Ladner, Kay Livingston, Mary Murphy, Mary Ross, Linnea Stromberg-Wise, and Laura Utley. You have been a source of inspiration and support.

  Many thanks to our husbands, Bob and Dick, for putting up with the hours and weeks and years that went into this book.

  Thanks also to Carolyn Pittman, Andrea Deese, Daisy Merritt, and Diana Lukich, who never stopped believing in us.

  We’re most grateful to Neil Ross, who immediately saw the possibilities of this mystery series and shared his wealth of knowledge about the book world.

  And to Wally Roers, Karen Beltz, and Sherry Janes, your critiques were always kind and always helpful.

  To Corinne and Seal at North Star Press: thank you for taking a chance on us in a tough publishing market and making the whole process of publication as painless as possible.

  To all the rest of you who encouraged us, inspired us and shared in our enthusiasm.

  Prologue

  Perhaps we had tempted fate by calling ourselves No Ordinary Women, as if the five of us were a fleet of Superwomen, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

  Arriving at the cabin, our expectations were simple: camaraderie, laughter and good food—requirements for any slumber party—and because of our love of books, we knew we were in for many lively discussions about what we’d been reading.

  The almost century-old hunting lodge sat on 150 acres of lush Wisconsin woodland, half a mile in from a gravel road, and remote enough for us to shed the restraints of city living, hike in the woods, take moonlight walks and ditch our bathing suits to sit under the waterfall.

  For our last three retreats we’d chosen a thematic book—A Walk in the Woods, Woodswoman, and In the Lake of the Woods. This year Foxy tried to sneak in a grisly murder mystery, Appalachian-style, but we vetoed it in favor of Thoreau’s Walden and declared a yearlong moratorium on mysteries. That’s what gave it such irony, because by Monday morning we had a pretty good inkling we were up to our bifocals in a mystery. For real.

  1

  Forty-two wooden steps up from the creek near Spirit Falls, the Bentley cabin stood in the idyllic vacation setting of tall swaying white pines and tamarcks. A few tendrils of smoke curled from the top of the chimney to join with the smoky plumes escaping from between the chimney stones.

  Inside the cabin, eyes streaming, Robin Bentley dashed about the spacious room throwing open the windows and waving her hands to help evacuate the smoke. Twice, she halted and bent at the waist, bracing herself with splayed hands on thighs to cough convulsively. Catherine Running Wolf knelt in the relatively smoke-free zone near the floor, trying to mop up the dirty mix of ashes, water and foam from the fire extinguisher with a beach towel.

  Soon, the breeze wafted through the house, starting to clear the air. Robin gulped in the fresh air and wiped her eyes on her sleeve before offering her friend a hand. Catherine’s knees made audible popping sounds as she eased herself off the floor. She rubbed the aching joints, grimacing.

  “Oh, Cate,” Robin moaned, “How could I have forgotten to fix the crack in the chimney?”

  Catherine grabbed the poker from the stand that held the fireplace tools and began separating the smoldering logs in the fireplace.

  Robin coughed and flapped her hands at the airborne ashes. “It was the first thing on my list—the list I made the last time we were here and … left at home.” Creases bracketing her large blue-green eyes and full mouth gave her a look of suppressed merriment.

  “How could you have known it would start a fire?”

  “Oh, I knew, all right. I had to stuff that old towel up into the flue before we left last time so bats didn’t come in through the cracks in the chimney. Why do you think it was on the list?” Her eyes traced the black streak where flames had licked out of the chink in the mortar to burn the adornment over the stone mantel. She bit her lower lip.

  “It’s not fair,” Catherine said, replacing the fireplace screen. “Everyone forgets things, but now that we’re fifty, they start blaming it on our age and our hormones.”

  “Lack of hormones, you mean.”

  Cate snorted.

  Robin Bentley and Catherine Running Wolf surveyed the spacious living room of the Bentley’s cabin. This room had been the center of the original lodge, built in the early 1900s exclusively of peeled-pine. During the Truman administration, someone had cobbled together a screened porch and a patio. Thirty years later, the owner shored up the sagging porch, expanded the kitchen and added a sleeping porch, indoor bathrooms—a huge benefit in mosquito season—and a new roof. The furniture, gleaned over the years by various cabin owners, had been a motley assortment of unmatched discards until Robin had painted wicker and wood the same buff color and sewed slipcovers with stripes of burgundy, moss green, and buttery yellow. Gone were the old hunting-motif curtains that had reeked of tobacco smoke and the mustiness of disuse. When Robin had grabbed hold of them to pull them down, they had disintegrated in her hands.

  Over a century of heat and smoke had darkened the pine around the massive fieldstone fireplace, now frosted with fire extinguisher foam, over which hung a huge, dusty moose head, glaring down at them balefully with an undignified puff of foam on its nose. The stench of its singed hairs still hung in the air.

  Looking up at this relic of the cabin’s past, Robin sighed. “Brad’s going to think I burned it on purpose.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about hanging dead animal parts on my walls.”

  “I did my part.” Though Cate had given her best arguments to Robin’s husband, even put him on the mailing list for PETA, the decades-old hunting trophies remained.

  Cate and Robin gazed up at the dust-and soot-covered glass eyes.

  “Look at that expression.” Catherine said. “What do you suppose Malcolm would say if he could talk?” She had named the dead moose after the erstwhile University of Minnesota president, Malcolm Moos.

  “I think it’s a she, and she would be asking, ‘Is it hot in here, or is it just me?’” Robin wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

  Catherine burst into laughter. “You too?”

  In answer, Robin pulled off her sweaty baseball cap the color of bubble gum, revealing graying blond hair cut pixie-style. Her usually pale complexion was flushed and her mascara, the only makeup she wore, was smudged. “I couldn
’t tell if I was having a hot flash or had caught on fire!”

  They laughed about that until the reality of the cleanup they faced sobered them.

  Catherine slid her turquoise amulet back and forth on its chain as she often did while she thought. Though it represented only a fraction of her heritage, she had the long thin nose, high cheekbones and dark complexion of her Cherokee ancestors. “Where do you keep your scissors?”

  A grin crinkled Robin’s eyes as she followed her friend’s upward gaze. In their thirty-one-year friendship, Cate and Robin often communicated with minimal verbiage, especially when they were getting into mischief. Going to the oversized pine cupboard in the corner of the living room, Robin pulled open a drawer, withdrew a hefty pair of sewing shears, and handed them to Cate.

  Dragging a sturdy oak chair to the fireplace, Catherine stood on it and carefully snipped off the charred ends of the moose’s beard. A rain of hair fell to the hearth. Finally satisfied, she hopped down.

  “Oh, that’s really bright, Cate—jumping with scissors. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to—”

  “Run, yes,” Catherine interrupted, “but she never said a word about jumping.”

  Robin just shook her head. Looking at her watch, she sighed. “It’s almost one o’clock. I suppose we should talk to George before the others get here.”

  “Certainly before we build another fire.”

  With the hems of their jeans tucked into their socks to keep wood ticks from latching onto their flesh, they started down the long driveway on foot toward the home of George Wellman, the local handyman, who lived at the edge of the Bentley property. Robin walked faster than Cate, whose stride, though long, could best be described as ambling.

  “As I remember, it was warmer last year, and not nearly so wet,” Catherine said. “What a difference a year makes.”

  “For me, that weekend’s just a blur,” Robin said, thinking about the last time the No Ordinary Women book club had stayed at Spirit Falls. Only ten days later she’d had her surgery. She felt Catherine’s eyes on her and knew her friend was gauging how chemotherapy had aged her.

  Catherine’s floppy straw hat snagged on an overhanging branch and she stopped to retrieve it. “Wait up.”

  Robin waited.

  Cate caught up to her and said, “I like your hair short. It’s easier, isn’t it—short like that?”

  “Easier, yes.” Robin eyed Cate’s thick dark hair with envy. “You know, even though I’m adjusting to everything else, I just don’t recognize me with this hair. I catch my reflection in a mirror and think, ‘Who’s that hedgehog?’”

  She chuckled. “But hedgehogs are adorable!” After walking several yards, Catherine said, “I don’t know if I should be saying this, but I’ve been getting strange vibes ever since I turned off the paved road yesterday. It’s just—” She spoke haltingly. “Well, when I—”

  Robin grinned. “Cate, you have to finish your—”

  “—sentences, I know.”

  Although the teasing was both familiar and affectionate, Catherine frowned and hugged herself tightly. “I just wish you weren’t all by yourself so much.”

  Robin did her best to appear unconcerned, but she knew from experience that it would be unwise to disregard Catherine’s premonitions. If it hadn’t been for Cate’s dream, she would never have demanded a CT scan.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Catherine said, “I know I’ve said it before, but I still wish you’d take one of the dogs from the shelter. At least you wouldn’t be alone so much, and it would give you some measure of protection.”

  “You know how Brad feels about more pets.” It was easier to blame her husband than to say no to her old friend. This wasn’t the first time Catherine had tried to talk her into a canine companion. Or feline or avian or porcine. So far, she hasn’t suggested I adopt a Holstein or a wild mustang, Robin thought, though it was probably just a matter of time. In Catherine’s years of volunteering at the local no-kill shelter, she had given new meaning to the term matchmaker.

  Robin stopped suddenly and pointed to a dark amorphous shape in a red pine tree. “See the porcupine? I shot him just before you came yesterday.”

  Catherine blinked hard before slapping herself on the forehead. “No matter how many times I hear that phrase, I get this image of you aiming a shotgun instead of your Nikon.”

  On either side of them, the pines gave way to oaks and maples. They stepped off the main path and soon came to a little clearing.

  Catherine smiled broadly. “It’s a little slice of heaven, isn’t it? You’d never know we’re anywhere near civilization. All I hear is the breeze blowing and birds chirping.” She cocked her head to one side. “I even have to listen hard to hear the waterfall.”

  Robin nodded. They crossed the clearing, and the brush closed in again. “You start listening differently after you’re here awhile. What I notice is when a sound doesn’t seem to belong to this place.”

  Barely visible through the trees stood George’s one-bedroom trailer, propped up on blocks. Evidence of his pastime, collecting roadside treasures, lay about everywhere. Within view under the deck, black garbage bags spilled their contents of cans and bottles that George would eventually turn in for a refund. An assortment of hubcaps and deer antlers leaned against the uprights of the cedar deck’s railing, as well as several unrelated sneakers, a Frisbee, plastic Happy Meal toys and a yellow foam Cheesehead. Robin’s eyes drifted to the lawn chair, faded to a sickly green by age. Beneath it in the grass sat a naked Barbie doll, legs splayed.

  “Hello there, Mrs. B.” George’s greeting preceded him out the door. Cleaning his glasses on his shirttail, he broke into a dimpled grin and stepped off the deck. “A couple minutes earlier and you would’ve caught me in the shower.”

  Catherine tried to push the image out of her mind.

  George Wellman was about Robin’s height, just short of five-foot-five, and wiry. His graying hair, showing pink scalp on top, curled wetly over his collar in back. “I thought I saw activity at your place.”

  Robin smiled. “You remember my friend, Catherine Running Wolf, don’t you?”

  “Sure do. Good to see you again, Miss Wolf.” He stepped forward to greet her.

  Catherine reluctantly extended her hand.

  Robin said, “I’m having my reading group up here this weekend.”

  “The Wonder Women? I remember them.”

  “The No Ordinary Women,” she corrected.

  Running the tip of his tongue over his upper lip, George nodded. “Well, it looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting weekend. He’s having another wing-ding at his place, too.” He inclined his head in the direction of Ross Johnson’s cabin and sneered. “He thinks he’s such a hot-shot with his big important friends driving up in their big fancy cars. But like I always say, you can dress a pit bull up in a suit and tie, but if you cross him he’ll still go for the throat.”

  Robin had no idea how to respond. Catherine looked dubious.

  “Anyhoo, what can I do for you, ladies?”

  As Robin told him about the chimney fire, he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I guess for now you can pack the chinks with steel wool,” he suggested. “You can get by with that until your lady friends leave, but then I’ll fix it up proper. That cabin’s mighty old. Wouldn’t take much for the whole thing to go up in flames.”

  Once they were among the trees and out of George’s hearing, Catherine grabbed Robin’s arm and rasped, “What was that business about seeing activity at your place? We’re half a mile from the road, and his place isn’t even visible from the driveway.”

  Robin frowned. “Hmm.”

  They searched the storage shed for steel wool and found nothing, but in the cabin Cate found the solution under the kitchen sink—an old box of S.O.S. pads. Standing again on the chair, she tried to shove the pre-soaped steel wool pads into the chinks in the chimney. “It’s like trying to force a hockey puck through a keyhole.”

  R
obin looked at her over the top of her bifocals. “I suppose you’ve tried that,” she said. “with a hockey puck.”

  “Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you know the rule,” Cate said, stepping down from the chair.

  “That’s only for husbands!”

  “Uh-uh. You criticize, you get the job.”

  Robin took the S.O.S. pad from her and wet it under the kitchen faucet to make it more malleable. It worked.

  They heated a can of tomato soup and took their steaming mugs onto the front porch. They didn’t have to wait long before the first vehicle appeared through the trees.

  The black Saturn came to a halt. The driver’s door opened and a small black-and-white ball of fur sprang out. Molly Pat, Foxy’s dog of questionable parentage, made mad dashes from one side of the cabin’s yard to the other, bounding over the log parking barriers as though they were hurdles in her own personal track.

  “Looks like Molly Pat’s glad to be back.” Catherine hugged Foxy and grabbed a bag from the trunk. “I know you said she’s a Border collie and terrier mix, but I swear she’s part greyhound.”

  Foxy’s face broke into a proud parent’s grin. “You should’ve seen her, sound asleep until we turned into the driveway, and suddenly she was ricocheting off the windows. She obviously remembers the place.” Robin and Foxy muscled the cooler into the kitchen and went back for another load.

  Although Foxy Tripp was Robin and Cate’s senior by three years, she could have passed for half her age if you didn’t look too closely at the inevitable wrinkles around her eyes. Her hair was lush and curly, and its color so resembled that of a fox’s that almost everybody knew her by her nickname instead of her given name, Frances. “Absolutely glorious,” Foxy pronounced, stretching her arms as if she were trying to touch the trees.