Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [94]
All right, the desktop. Chloe quickly shuffled through requisition forms for paper towels, a bill from the local building supply company, a request for proposal for a new picnic pavilion. Scattered among these were time sheets and loose washers, pencils showing teeth marks, stray coils of wire. Nothing of any use.
Then something caught her eye. A blotter-sized state-issue calendar lay beneath the clutter. Amazingly enough, Stanley actually used his. Chloe moved piles back and forth so she could quickly scan the terse notes inked onto the dated squares. Staff meeting—9 A.M. Pick up lumber. Dst appt—2:45. Pay day. Oil change. RFP due. Court.
Hold on. Court? Why was Stanley due in court at the end of June?
Chloe high-tailed it back to her trailer, shut the door, fished out Roelke’s card, and called his home number. “Listen,” she said when he answered. “I found something.” She told Roelke about the calendar. “A court date! I—”
“I told you not to—”
“I know, I know. You can yell at me later, OK? Don’t you think the most important thing to do right now is find out why Stanley is going to court on June 30?”
“I can do some checking,” he said grudgingly. “But I swear to God, Chloe, if you don’t stop—”
“Look. I am almost certainly going to get fired tomorrow. So today is what I’ve got, Roelke. Just today.”
“Stay – away – from – Stanley.”
“I will,” she promised. And since she didn’t have any more ideas regarding the maintenance chief, it was a promise she was pretty sure she could keep.
After hearing from Chloe, Roelke called a clerk he knew at the Waukesha County Court and asked for a list of scheduled appearances for June 30. “I’m about to head in to work,” he told her. “Could you fax the list to me there?” With any luck, he could snatch the fax before Marie spotted it and started asking questions.
He walked in to the office just as the PD’s new fax machine began to purr. Roelke grabbed the list, settled in an empty chair, and began skimming. Burglary. DUI. Assault. Vandalism. The court schedule for June 30 brimmed with the usual litany of human malfeasance. Unfortunately, he saw no item or name that he could connect with gambling at the Eagle’s Nest, Chloe’s missing ale bowl, or Stanley Colontuono.
Not good. Roelke felt ready to explode. He needed to do something. And short of driving to Old World Wisconsin and removing Chloe with a fireman’s carry, he didn’t know what he could do. Rick wouldn’t call before three, when his own shift started—
“Roelke!”
He started, swiveled, and saw Marie sitting with the phone in one hand. “What?”
“Are you on duty? I’ve got a lady here who says her neighbor’s dachshund dug up all of her daffodils. She wants to talk with an officer.”
Roelke glanced at the clock. He was technically not on for another ten minutes, but he didn’t seem to have anything better to do. “Yeah,” he said. “Tell her I’m on my way.”
____
Chloe sat at the table in her stifling, musty trailer with Berget Lund-quist’s genealogy in front of her. The ale bowl had passed from Gro to Astrid to Brita to Berget. Mother to daughter. Gro had delivered five sons before giving birth to Astrid. Had those boys received other mementos of their Norwegian heritage? How did they—and Gro’s husband—feel about Gro’s talents with a paintbrush?
Chloe’s mother hadn’t noted whether Astrid had sons, but Berget had had a brother, Emil, born in 1914. Chloe remembered the young boy she’d seen in Berget Lundquist’s family photographs. Mr. Solberg had said Emil must have died long ago.
But … what if Emil had married and had a child of his own, before his death? Once again Chloe tried to run a filmstrip in her mind of all the faces she’d seen at Old World Wisconsin—interpreters, permanent staff. Was one of them somehow descended from Berget?
Chloe grabbed the phone and dialed her parents’ number for the eighteenth time that day. And this time, her mother answered. Thank God. “Mom? Where the hell have you been?”
Silence. “I don’t like your tone,” her mother said finally. “And there is no need to use foul language. Really, Chloe.”
Chloe