Family Skeletons: A Spunky Missouri Genealogist Traces A Family's Roots...And Digs Up A Deadly Secret (15 page)

“That's it, you're nuts.”

“Mom probably saw it. She sees everything.”

“You're nuts, and I'm dead,” he said.

It was quiet a few minutes. Each one of us tried to take in the situation at hand and sighed with relief that we had just survived the previous situation unscathed.

“What did you say?” Brooke asked.

“Florence Ortlander, she wasn't crazy. She said that she saw her son alive after the war. I didn't tell you that part of the conversation because I just thought it was the ramblings of a senile old woman. I thought she was crazy. But she probably did see him.”

Sheriff Brooke beat the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. Then he breathed deeply. “Do you know why I asked you to come along today?”

“Why?”

“Because you see things totally different than I do. Maybe it's because you're not a cop. Maybe it's because I need a vacation. Whatever the reason, the only leads that I have in this case are because of you.”

That took a lot for him to say, I grant you. I watched him mutely as the road led us into a valley of grazing horses.

“But,” he said, “you can't just pull that kind of … stuff.”

“Florence was convinced that her son had somehow survived the war,” I began. “She claimed that she saw him one day, long after the war had ended. Evidently, he didn't see her, or he pretended not to see her,” I said. “All of this time, she was right, and nobody believed her, I bet.”

“Come again?” he said.

“That wasn't Eugene Counts back there. That was Michael Ortlander.”

“What? But how…?”

“That man had one blue eye and one brown eye. Eugene had deep dark brown eyes. Once I made the connection, it was easy to see that he was the same man that Florence showed me as being her son. Just older,” I said. My heart pumped, and my blood pressure was about to come out the top of my head. “I'd say he killed Eugene Counts and swapped dog tags with him. He went to a POW camp as the sole survivor of his platoon, so nobody would ever be the wiser. Except Eugene's girlfriend and family couldn't figure out why he never contacted them. He also hadn't banked on Eugene, the real Eugene, having fathered a child.”

“But why would Ortlander kill Eugene Counts?” Sheriff Brooke asked.

“I think he killed that girl back in the forties,” I said. The sheriff looked lost. “Did I tell you about her? Well, anyway, the wound was identical to Eugene's. So if the police ever got too close to catching her killer, Ortlander didn't have to worry, because he was no longer Ortlander! He was a new person. He was now Eugene Counts,” I said with a sweeping motion of my hands.

I noticed Sheriff Brooke had pulled off of the two-lane road and turned into a gas station. Low and behold, an attendant, yes, a real breathing human being, asked Sheriff Brooke how much gas he needed, just as the sheriff was taking off his seat belt to get out. Sheriff Brooke looked as shocked as I felt at the attendant's arrival.

“Ten dollars, regular. Is there anyplace to get some food around here?” he asked.

Red hair and freckles were all I could see for all the grease on the attendant. “Big J grocery.”

“No, I mean, like a restaurant?”

“Nope. You headed north?” Sheriff Brooke nodded in agreement. “Closest place is about ten or fifteen miles up the road at New Kassel,” he answered.

“Guess we'll just wait until we get home,” the sheriff said. He never looked at me as he asked the inevitable. “You think Ortlander killed Norah because she found out he wasn't Eugene Counts?”

However relieved I was that Eugene Counts was not a mass murderer, it was still difficult for me to switch the identities. I had come to think of Eugene Counts as alive and breathing in Vitzland, Missouri. Now I had to think of him as having died in Europe during the war.

“I think it's a real good possibility,” I said. “But Norah Zumwalt never let on that she knew he was alive.”

It was hard to say what Sheriff Brooke was thinking. Hell, I'd just handed him a fifty-year-old murder to solve, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't enlist my help anymore. After all, I seemed to create work for him.

“What about the neighbors? You get all their statements?” I asked.

“Yup. Nobody saw or heard nothing. How can a woman be stabbed repeatedly and not be heard?”

I just shook my head. How come nobody knew about John Murphy? How come there was no murder weapon? No motive? No motive, until now.

“The only thing we have even close to a clue from the neighbors is a car that was parked in front of her house on Thursday night. It wasn't Rita's or Jeff's.”

“That could have been the person that came to her door when I called her.”

“Yup.”

“What kind of car?”

“An aqua-colored Toyota.”

He was smiling. “What?” I asked, trying to get him to let me in on his secret.

“There was an aqua-colored Toyota parked across the street from Eug—Michael Ortlander's house.”

“What?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Was it Ortlander's?”

“Don't think so. Ortlander's car was in the driveway, maybe even one in the garage.”

“So why are you smiling?” I asked.

“Because it could have been somebody visiting Ortlander.”

Of course. The male voice I had heard from the hallway when the sheriff and I were in the living room. “Well, did you—”

“Got the license plate number,” he said with a broad smile as he paid the attendant and pulled out of the gas station. He then headed up Hermann Avenue to New Kassel.

*   *   *

When I finally got home, there was a message on the phone table in the foyer for me to call John Murphy. What could he possibly want with me? Had I given him my phone number? I was still pretty shaken from earlier and wasn't sure that I wanted to talk with anybody. Still, it pricked my conscience until I called him back. He answered, sounding tired and depressed.

“This is Murphy.”

“Hi, this is Victory O'Shea.”

“Mrs. O'Shea, I'm glad that you called. I don't know how to say this, but what would you like for me to do with this money?”

“What money?”

“The money from Norah's … policy. I can't keep it.”

Why was he asking me? But then again, who else would he ask? Jeff and Rita? I couldn't think of an appropriate person for him to give it to. “I don't know. How about giving it to a charity that she was fond of?”

“Yeah, maybe. I might give it to the symphony or something.”

“She also has an aunt that lives in Washington, Missouri. She could probably use it.” The memory of Louise Shenk came to me. Her house was modest and comfortable. But it was her labored breathing that I thought of. The woman's health was not the greatest. That money might come in handy for medical reasons. Besides, Norah probably would have left her something, if she had known about her. “Her name is Louise Shenk, and now that I think about it, I think that would be your best bet.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Yes.” He was quiet on the other end. “Is there something else on your mind?”

“Yes. I want to somehow explain myself.”

“There is no need. You don't owe me anything.”

“Yes, I do. Besides, I need to say this.” He sighed heavily and jumped in. “I was having an affair because I felt my relationship with Norah was a dead end. It was going nowhere, and I needed more.”

I always wonder what is going on in a person's head when he is in the middle of a confession. Was he telling me everything that he felt? Or was he telling me a very carefully thought-out confession, omitting certain details, adding other? I can remember confessing to going to a carnival once when I was a teenager and had been told I couldn't go. But I very carefully left out the part about the boy that I went with. It was a confession, but a very limited confession. I wondered if this is what I was getting from John Murphy.

“I loved Norah too much to let her go completely,” he said. “She wouldn't marry me because her first marriage caused her too much grief. The reason she wouldn't live with me was because of her children.”

Believe it or not, I could understand that logic. I didn't necessarily agree with it, but I could understand it.

“Her life was not her own, Mrs. O'Shea. You'll never know. Not one minute of her life was ever her own.”

He didn't say good-bye; he just hung up, leaving me with a sadness. I didn't agree with his affair. Although they weren't married, there must have been some sort of verbal agreement between them, of their loyalties, or he wouldn't have felt so guilty about his affair. But I couldn't point fingers at him quite as easily as I normally would have.

Fifteen

Water finally claimed the Old Mill Stream. It sat between the Mississippi River and Kassel Creek, and the water was even too much for the sandbags. It was the only place in town that had flooded so far. I was in the second floor of the Old Mill Stream helping the mayor and his wife carry out dining chairs and tables, along with china and linens. I could not believe that I had had dinner there with Colette just a week before.

“Did you see that farmhouse on television this morning?” Zella Castlereagh asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “I can't believe a house stood for ninety years, and the water just took it away.” I flashed back in my mind to that morning, when I was watching the television. A levee broke in Illinois and washed away a two-story farmhouse as if it were made out of Popsicle sticks. I cried. I think everybody within two states cried.

Zella is a kind woman. She has sparkling blue eyes with auburn hair, now turned slightly gray. I never could figure out why she married Bill. Our mayor is primarily concerned with monetary things. Zella is the furthest thing from that. They bought the Old Mill Stream about twenty years ago, and it was one of my favorite places to eat.

“The house didn't bother me so much,” Bill said. “It was the dead bodies.”

Yes the dead bodies were enough to send a chill down H. P. Lovecraft's spine. The water had not only destroyed crops and people's property; it had flooded cemeteries as well. Dead bodies were floating in the floodwaters of west-central Missouri. Empty caskets floated down the river. I would rather bullfight in a closet than have to round up those bodies and identify them. I thanked God that I didn't have to.

“I agree, Bill,” I said. “The bodies were … indescribable.”

Bill and I carried a table down the steps. I volunteered to go down backward, since I was a good thirty years younger than he was. Elmer Kolbe and Chuck Velasco were downstairs taking out paintings and other valuables that were not affected by the water. There was about a foot and a half of water on the main level. We were taking things out in case the water got any higher.

My foot hit the water with a splash. I had worn thongs so that I could just toss them in the trash when this was over. Floodwater is disgusting. It felt like little “things” were nibbling at my ankles. God only knew what was in the water. I'm sure the “nibbling” was my overactive imagination.

It was still early in the day. I had started helping the Castlereaghs around eight in the morning. I was getting hungry.

Bill guided me out the front door and we put the table in the parking lot, along with everything else we had taken out of the mill so far. He was going to store as much of it as he could in Wisteria at the U-Store.

“Well, Bill. I'm hungry. If you don't mind, I'm going to head on home, get a shower, and eat some lunch,” I said.

“That's fine, Torie,” he said. The sweat gleamed off of his bald head. “We really appreciate the help.”

“No problem. I'll be back some time later today.”

I arrived home, aggravated, hot, and madder than a hornet. My anger could only be directed at Mother Nature. As I stepped up onto my front porch, I turned and looked back out over the swollen Mississippi. I had such a great view because I was on a hill. I couldn't for the life of me figure out where all of the water would go once this was all over. Where does it all go?

I wiped at a tear I hadn't even realized I had shed.

Once I was inside, the house was quiet. Mom was on the back porch painting. The kids were in the yard playing on the swing set.

Elk graced the canvas in front of Mom, along with a mountain peak and a forest of trees.

“Looks good,” I said as I kissed her on top of her head.

“Thanks,” she said. “Your dad called yesterday while you were out with Sheriff Brooke.”

“Really?” I asked. I hadn't heard from him in a while and was thinking about calling him. “What did he want?”

“Wanted to know if he could borrow your house.”

“What for?”

“Jam session,” she said. She put gold highlights on her trees with a small round brush.

“Jam session?” My dad is a musician from the early sixties, and although he hasn't played for money in twenty years, he and his buddies like to get together once in a while. It's great fun, and I encourage anyone who has never sat in on a jam session to do so. Especially if the people jamming are old farts who like to add a blues touch to songs like “Red Red Wine.”

Dad's house is in the city and he can't do it there because everybody calls the police on him.

“Sure, I don't care,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I'll barbecue for all of them.”

I was up to listening to some George Jones and Patsy Cline. I love all music.

Mom said nothing as she added a stroke to her painting. When she was finished with that particular tree branch, she said, “How come Sheriff Brooke took you to see Eugene Counts?” Her tongue went to her upper lip. Somehow, her tongue made her paint better.

“I'm not sure. He says it's because I see things differently than he does. You know, a different angle,” I said as the cat rubbed my leg.