Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [28]
“I will on both counts.”
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you still gay?”
He laughed. “Good night, Chloe.”
____
Chloe got lost on Friday morning while trying to find Daleyville, but she’d been so sure of getting lost that she still arrived fifteen minutes early for Mrs. Lundquist’s funeral. The old stone church stood on high ground, overlooking farm fields rolling piously into the distance. The string of homes that comprised the village seemed inadequate to fill the imposing church. Chloe’s Pinto brought the total of cars in the parking lot up to a mighty three, and the minister and organist presumably accounted for the other two. Evidently very few people mourned Mrs. Lundquist’s passing.
Once inside, she felt obligated to slide into a pew near the front. A simple white coffin was positioned in front of the altar rail—closed, thank God. Chloe sent a private nod to Mrs. Lundquist, wherever she was: I’m so sorry I wasn’t more helpful. I wish I’d asked you more questions, learned why you were so upset. I’m trying to find your ale bowl, and to figure out what was troubling you.
Three elderly ladies walked silently down the aisle and took seats together a few pews in front of her, all wearing proper black or navy blue dresses. Two wore hats. It hadn’t occurred to Chloe until that morning that she shouldn’t show up at a funeral in chinos and a polo shirt, and a frantic scramble through suitcases had resulted in a wrinkled denim skirt and dark green cotton blouse. She had no idea where her iron was—did she even still own an iron?—so she’d laid the clothes over her kitchen table, dribbled water on the worst of the creases, pressed them flat with her fingers, and pulled them on.
She was grateful for a quiet moment to gather her thoughts. Dust motes danced in a stream of light pouring like molten gold through a window. Sober organ music filled the air. Chloe tried to remember when she’d last been inside a Lutheran church. As a child, she’d attended Sunday School and worship services with her family at Christ Lutheran Church in Stoughton. Markus was an agnostic, but that hadn’t mattered to her—not living in a place where Lake Brienz sparkled on one side, and the Alps soared heavenwards on the other—
“Hello.”
Chloe jumped; she hadn’t even noticed the elderly man who’d taken a seat in the pew beside her. “Good morning,” she murmured back.
He was very thin, and wore an old but tidy black suit. He removed his fedora with fingers that tremored with a slight palsy. A fringe of white hair circled his head just above ear level. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“Just a …” Just a what? “I only met Mrs. Lundquist recently,” Chloe told him. “Were you a friend of hers?”
“We were next-door neighbors for twenty-seven years. Years ago me and my wife and Berget and her husband used to get together every Friday night to play Sheepshead.” The man waved one trembling hand in a gesture part resigned, part helpless. “No more card games, now. I’m the only one left.”
Chloe pressed his hand briefly. There were too damn many lonely people in the world. “I’m sorry,” she said, and introduced herself. “I work at Old World Wisconsin. I only met Mrs. Lundquist once.”
“I’m Bill Solberg.” He gave her a searching look with blue eyes that looked pale, as if age was leaching even that color from him. “It was good of you to come.”
“I wanted to. She—she came to see me the day she died.”
“About that ale bowl.” He nodded. “She’d been fussing about that for weeks.”
Chloe sat up a little straighter. “Do you—”
The minister, who had stepped unnoticed to the pulpit, chose that moment to begin the service. Chloe forced herself to swallow her questions.
The service was brief and, with the exception of mentioning Mrs. Lundquist’s dependable presence at Sunday service, impersonal. After the organ postlude, the funeral ended.
Mr. Solberg sat immobile, staring at the coffin. The three elderly women followed the minister down the aisle. Chloe glanced after them, wondering if they had been friends of Mrs. Lundquist … and