Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [7]
While the blonde woman struggled with those questions, the coroner arrived. He’d examine the body and decide if an autopsy was indicated, or if the local funeral home should be called to collect the body. The tow truck driver was getting to work with winch and chain. Two more passersby had stopped to rubberneck. The DNR officer kept them in check while Marge Bandacek oversaw operations by the wrecked car.
“No,” Ms. Ellefson said finally. “I mean, I don’t think so. She was just upset about her family heirloom.”
“Thank you,” Roelke said. “I’ve got all the information I need for now.”
She nodded, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“Is there someone we can call to drive you home?”
“No.” She lay one cheek on her knees. “But I’m fine.”
She didn’t look fine. Roelke turned away. “Hey, Denise,” he called.
Denise, a short, plump mother of two, had been an EMT for years. She looked his way as Roelke walked toward the truck. “What’s up?”
“Give her a quick once-over, OK?” Roelke jerked his head toward Chloe Ellefson. “Make sure she’s fit to drive herself home.”
“Sure.”
Roelke checked in with Marge. She would wait for the accident reconstructionist, finalize things with the coroner.
“Looks clear-cut to me,” the young DNR officer said. “The old lady’s time was up.”
“Yeah,” Roelke said. After six years in the huge Milwaukee Police Department, he was still getting used to the assortment of backup that often responded to calls in and around Eagle. Sometimes it was overkill. Mostly it was reassuring.
He got back in his squad and started his report, waiting as Denise cleared Ms. Ellefson to drive home. He watched her slide slowly into the Pinto and drive away. He didn’t know which image was more sad: Berget Lundquist, undignified in death, or Chloe Ellefson, stunned in life.
____
By the time Chloe turned into the gravel drive circling her farmhouse in La Grange, bats were swooping over the alfalfa field across the road. She let herself into the kitchen through the back door.
Ignoring the cartons stacked on the counters and floors, she headed straight to the bathroom. She rummaged in her little bag of toiletries. The prescription bottle was on the bottom—orange plastic, directions printed neatly on the label, with Dr. Eberhardt’s name and phone number in one corner. It was almost full of little white pills, round and innocuous. For a long moment the afternoon dissolved into that plastic container.
“Damn it.” Chloe jerked open the medicine cabinet over the sink, put the container on one of the empty shelves, and slammed the mirrored door.
Back in the kitchen, she rinsed out the lone cup in the sink. The second-hand refrigerator installed the day before, which was now rattling ominously, offered a liter of diet soda and a half-eaten package of string cheese. She reached for the soda, poured some in the glass, added a few ice cubes and a liberal splash of rum.
She paced through the first floor, glass in hand. The faint hum of a tractor drifted through her living room window. Her landlords lived within hollering distance, but they were little more than strangers. Her parents? She could call them, or drive to their house, but … no. No solace there, either.
After several more minutes of agitated circling, Chloe dropped into a faded armchair rescued from her parents’ attic. She reached for the phone and dialed a familiar number.
She heard the reassuring signal of distant ringing. Then a familiar voice, warm and low: “Hello?”
“Ethan?”
“Chloe? Good God, girl, is that you? Where are you?”
“La Grange, Wisconsin.” Chloe clenched the phone receiver and closed her eyes. “I rented an old farmhouse about twenty minutes from the museum. The garage door is broken, and the living room carpet is mustard-colored shag, and the whole place needs paint. But you’d love it. You really would. The property backs up against a state forest.”
“Yeah?”
“I just moved in over the weekend. I’ve got a bit of settling-in to do. You know,