Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [31]
“Did Mrs. Lundquist have many friends?” Chloe asked. “Other than you, I mean?”
“She lived pretty much in Jack’s shadow when he was alive. A lot of the gals did, back then. After he died, I think most of their friends drifted away. Jack was orphaned young, so there’s no family there. And then Berget’s son got killed in Vietnam. Now, that was a nasty war.”
“So Mrs. Lundquist never had any grandchildren?”
“Nope. She was a loner, I guess you’d say. She was a regular down to church, and helped out with the altar guild. Those three ladies at the service this morning are altar guild. But Berget was reserved. Always was. Didn’t make friends easy, I’d say. And did just fine on her own.”
Chloe sighed and closed that drawer. Crouching, she pulled out the bottom one. It was heavier than the first two, and revealed two leather-bound photograph albums. Chloe pulled out the first. The most recent photographs were already decades old; evidently Mrs. Lundquist hadn’t taken a picture since her son died. Chloe flipped back through blurry snapshots that documented Christmases, a family picnic, a trip to the Grand Canyon, color portraits of a young man in uniform. Mrs. Lundquist looked perpetually happy.
The second album held more heirloom photographs—cabinet cards and cartes de visites. “Do you suppose this is Mrs. Lundquist?” Chloe asked, pointing to a lovely girl in white. “It looks like confirmation day.”
Mr. Solberg peered over her shoulder, and tapped the photo with a trembling finger. “Oh, yes. That’s Berget.”
“This must be her and her parents. But who’s this?” Chloe stared at a studio-posed cabinet card. A very young Berget stood at her mother’s elbow. A boy stood beside the man Chloe assumed was Berget’s father. “A brother?”
He squinted at the photo. “Perhaps. Whoever the boy was, he must be long dead. I heard Berget say more than once that everyone had died on her. She didn’t have any family left.”
“That’s so sad.” Something began to ache in Chloe’s chest as she stared at the sweet girl Mrs. Lundquist had been—not knowing she was destined to bury her parents, her brother, her husband, her child.
“Ooph.” Mr. Solberg straightened with a little grimace of pain. “Knees don’t work the way they used to. Don’t get old, Ms. Ellefson. It’s no fun. Although, as they say, consider the alternative.”
I have, Chloe wanted to say. Suddenly she’d had enough. She put the photo albums back carefully, shut the drawer, and turned to her host. “Thank you, Mr. Solberg, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything to tell me more about that ale bowl.”
After pulling his squad car into The Eagle’s Nest parking lot that evening, Roelke surveyed his surroundings. The bar occupied the lower level of a small, two-story frame building. It had stood empty for most of Roelke’s time in Eagle. In the past he’d occasionally made a pass through the parking lot while on patrol, checking for kids huddled behind the building to smoke cigarettes or pot. Now, half a dozen cars and pickup trucks were parked in front of the bar, and three motorcycles waited for their drivers in the glow of a pole-mounted security light. Low gray clouds threatened rain, and made the neon Miller and Bud signs blinking in the front windows seem welcoming.
Somewhere inside, according to Ginger Herschorn’s nephew, a nameless bookie had pressured the underage kid to bet a lot of money on a baseball game. The boy had been half defensive and half surly. “I wagered on a ball game,” he’d said with a shrug, slunk down low on the flowered sofa in his parents’ living room. “I lost some money. No big deal.”
Roelke parked around the corner to keep the car accessible without being blatantly visible. He pulled his nylon jacket on when he got out of the car. The air felt damp and cool as he headed across the parking lot. The shrieking vocals of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” pulsed from a jukebox and into the night. Blues, he thought wistfully. Just once I’d like to do a bar check and hear some good blues.
A wall of smoke and noise greeted him inside, accompanied