TWENTY-ONE

Palmer Knutson spent the drive back to town in silent contemplation. He thought about Orly’s suspicions on the basis of the Hoffman’s lack of hospitality. Orly hadn’t meant it, of course, but Palmer mused that it would be nice if the Hoffmans, one or both, really had done the murder. They were only transplanted Minnesotans, after all, and not really “one of us.” They certainly had the means—it was their machine—and they had the opportunity, at least David did. But as the sheriff tried to concentrate on the problem at hand, the morning concert from Minnesota Public Radio featured Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. One of the things he most appreciated about his Acura Integra was the stereo system. He now turned up the volume and, as he drove through Pelican Rapids, he waved his hand to direct the London Symphony Orchestra and accompanied them with his made-up German.

This amused Orly. A year ago he would have returned to the Law Enforcement Center and told everyone who would listen how silly the sheriff was, and suggest perhaps there should be a change. Orly had taken German in college and had been forced to learn a little Schiller. Knutson’s German bore no resemblance to any language, but Orly knew better than to correct his boss. Instead, he found himself singing along in the correct words which, he decided, were not all that far from what the sheriff was singing. The whole episode had the effect of a catharsis, and Orly was in the mood to do some more work. As they returned to Fergus Falls, he said, “It’s only about ten thirty. Why don’t we drop these photographs off for the BCA boys and then go over and talk to Clarence Sandberg? We ought to be able to get some coffee there.”

“At least,” agreed the sheriff.

Clarence and Joey Sandberg lived on the winding Somerset Road on the east side of the city. It was a nice four-bedroom ranch style, painted white with stark black trim. A critic would say that the house had no personality, but in fact, when one got to know the Sandbergs, one would have to agree it reflected the individual dynamics of the owners. Besides keeping the inhabitants warm and dry, what else should a house do?

Joey Sandberg seemed surprised to see them. “Sheriff, and, uh, uh, come in, come in.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Sandberg. Have you met my deputy, Orly Peterson?”

Orly extended a hand and he and Joey breathed out their mutual “nice to meet you” in unison. With a puzzled look, she asked, “What can I do for you?”

Palmer twirled his fur cap around in his hand and replied, “Oh, you know, we thought we would just come around and ask about that business with John Hofstead.”

Joey’s eyebrows pinched together in a manner that suggested a gastric disorder. “There’s not a problem, is there?”

“No, no, no, no, nothing like that,” Palmer assured her. “We just want to see if we can figure out how it happened, that’s all. Being in insurance, I’m sure you can see that.”

Joey couldn’t see it, but she said, “Of course, of course. Come in and sit down. Let me take your coats. I’ll just go and get us some coffee. Clarence is down at the office, but he said he was just going in to check the mail. He’ll be home anytime now. Just sit anyplace. I’ll be right back.”

“Now that’s what I call an unlikely murder suspect,” Orly muttered, as he leaned back on the sofa and began to skim a National Geographic.

True to her word, Joey was right back with a tray of six varieties of cookies. “I had just put the morning coffee in a HotPot. Would you like something with your coffee? Actually, as you can see, they are leftover Christmas cookies, but they’ve been in the freezer and should be all right. Baking cookies at Christmas time is one of my little weaknesses. I always get carried away and make too many.” After a pause she added with false modesty, “But at least you have a choice this way. Now, what can I tell you?”

Palmer and Orly exchanged a conspiratorial glance and began a systematic assault on the cookie tray. The sheriff said, “What can you tell us about that night?”

“Not much. Or, at least, not much that you would find interesting. We were the first ones to get there, I think, although Pek and Iris came about the same time. In fact, they might have been there just a tad before us. Clarence has always liked to be prompt, he enjoys being the first one to arrive at every event, but to tell you the truth, I felt a little silly getting there before the Hofsteads even did. I tried to tell him that before we left, but you know Clarence.”

Palmer, who really didn’t know Clarence, politely nodded as though he did.

“So anyway, we get there and get shown to our rooms. Then we got together and had supper, and then the boys, and that Swenson woman—or Nelson, I guess it is—went out snowmobiling, and that was the last time I ever saw poor John alive. We didn’t know anything about it until the next morning.”

Palmer arched a friendly eyebrow and asked, “And you didn’t feel like going snowmobiling?”

“Do you have any idea how cold it was that night? No one should have been out there. I told Clarence that, too. I said, ‘It’s too cold out there, Clarence.’ But you know Clarence.” Again Knutson nodded, but belied his knowledge of Clarence when he asked, “Did he do this sort of thing often?”

“Clarence? Of course not. He had never been on a snowmobile in his life. He doesn’t like the cold, you know. He likes his TV and his basement workshop, does Clarence. But he wanted to show John that the company would go on just as before with him as president. To tell you the truth, he did surprise me a little that night, by going out in the cold, I mean, but as he said, ‘It’s my responsibility to keep open the lines of communication with other members of the company, now that John’s retiring.’ I still thought it was a dumb thing to do, but I sort of admired him for it.”

Palmer leaned forward, sipped his coffee, and selected a piece of chocolate shortbread. “So he was certain he was going to be asked to head the company?”

“Well, of course he was. There was nobody else, really, although he worried that Young Gary and his computer might be some competition. In fact, when John didn’t turn up for breakfast, everybody started worrying that he was meeting with Gary Swenson to discuss the future.” She paused and made a rather grotesque smile. “Guess not, huh?”

“And what did you do when Clarence was out snowmobiling?”

“Me? I stayed in my room, naturally. Where else would I go? I just watched The Tonight Show. I like Leno better than that other guy, you know, the guy with the gap in his teeth.”

Knutson, who was a Letterman fan, decided to let it pass. “And you were there when Clarence came in?”

“Certainly. To tell you the truth, I had got ready for bed and was watching Leno with only one eye. I may have fallen asleep before he got in.”

“But you remember speaking to your husband when he returned?”

“Yes. Or at least, I think I do. I can sometimes be pretty groggy when I fall asleep like that.”

“What does Clarence anticipate happening now?” Orly asked, whose inside knowledge of who the president would be created a rather morbid curiosity about the losers.

“Well, it will be up to Martha, I suppose, since she inherits the company—at least, I presume she does. They’re going to have a meeting on Friday to sort things out, but Clarence is assuming he’ll be asked to take over.”

Palmer gave his deputy a disgusted look to indicate that he should stick to the subject and, turning back to Joey, asked, “That night, when you had that meal together, did John seem all right?”

“Far as I could tell. I never thought about it, anyway. But say, now that you mention it, when I look back on it, I don’t remember him being involved too much. He is usually the one leading toasts and things like that. Hmm. Yah, I bet there was something wrong.”

A noise came from the back room and a current of cold air passed along the floor. “That’s Clarence now,” added Joey, unnecessarily. “Clarence, come into the living room. We’ve got company.”

They heard Clarence peel off his rubber boots and amble into the kitchen. He came into the living room with an empty mug and a cheery, “So you got some coffee in here, then? Oh. Hello, Sheriff. It there something wrong?”

“No, no. Orly and I are just looking into the Hofstead tragedy.” Palmer had long discovered that few people really questioned the motives of the sheriff, but since the line had worked so well before he added, “But as an insurance man, you can understand why we have to look into these matters.”

Clarence, of course, didn’t understand any more than his wife had, but he also nodded and said, “Of course. Er, how can I help?” He lowered his massive rear end into a protesting chair and added, “Fine man, John. A fine man.”

Palmer nodded and said, “Well, your wife has been most helpful already. She told us how you arrived and about the dinner and everything. But just as you came in, she decided that Mr. Hofstead appeared to be somewhat distracted that night. Do you agree?”

“Distracted?” He looked up at his wife. “What do you mean, ‘distracted’?”

“I guess I didn’t really say, ‘distracted,’ that’s the sheriff’s word. But it fits. Yes, that’s it. ‘Distracted.’” Orly looked at Knutson with a superciliously raised eyebrow as if to say “Who is it who always warns against putting words into the mouths of witnesses?” Joey nodded and nervously rubbed her index finger into her palm. “Now, don’t you think that describes John that night? You know how he always liked to be the man who is always conspicuously in charge? He wasn’t on that night, was he?”

Clarence considered this and replied, “Now that you mention it, no, I don’t think he was his usual self. I remember thinking that at the time. But you know what I thought it was? I thought he was looking us all over. Like he still hadn’t made up his mind who he wanted for the next president. I remember not liking the feeling.”

“But, as far as either of you can remember,” the sheriff continued, “did he say anything out of the ordinary?”

“Not that I can recall,” answered Joey. “But hey, I put another pot on when you came in. It should be ready by now. I’ll be right back.”

“I can’t recall him saying anything out of the ordinary either,” Clarence added, as he smiled approvingly at his wife’s hospitality. “Besides, I only felt that way during that dinner. Afterwards, when we were going snowmobiling, he seemed in fine spirits. But that was John, of course. He loved snowmobiling.”

“And you didn’t?” Knutson prompted.

“Well, I’d never done it before. To tell you the truth, I’ve never had an urge to do it. Joey, now, Joey even knows how to run one of those machines. A few years ago, when the girls were still in high school, we went out to Joey’s sister’s place. They live out by Perham. Anyway, those people had just bought a snowmobile and Joey and the girls all went out and had a good time. I would have gone, too, I suppose, but I was just getting over the flu and still felt lousy. But you know something? I think I sort of missed out. Once I got the hang of that thing the other night, I had a pretty good time. I would have enjoyed it even more if it hadn’t been so cold. It didn’t seem to bother anybody else, but I thought it was colder than a banker’s heart. I just said ‘the heck with it’ after a while and went back to the Otter Slide.”

“So you were the first one to return? Was Hofstead still out there?”

“Yah, I was the first one back, so John must have been out there. I don’t know. I didn’t really think about it. I just wanted to get back and get warm.”

“Did you go back out again?” Orly asked innocently.

“What? Of course I didn’t. I went straight to bed. And I tell you, after zooming around out there in that cold air, I slept sounder than a drunken Swedish lumberjack!”

“So you didn’t hear when the others came back?”

“I wouldn’t have heard them if they had ridden through my room.”

Joey returned, bustling in with a new pot of steaming coffee. Both Palmer and Orly were sated, but decided since Joey had gone to the trouble to make it, they should have one more small cup. There seemed to be no point in rehashing the night at the Otter Slide anymore, so Knutson and the Sandbergs compared experiences of having college-age daughters. Orly, who also had a considerable interest in college girls, had sense enough to keep his thoughts to himself.

The sheriff and his deputy lunched at Hardee’s. It was not a memorable lunch, a fact which owed more to the consumption of an excess of cookies than it did to the quality of the hamburger. They munched in silence while skimming a borrowed Star Tribune. Finally, Orly said, “So, what about the Sandbergs?”

Knutson grunted, “So what about them?”

“How do you see them in all this?”

“What kind of sentence is that?”

“I mean, I suppose, do you think they could have bumped off Hofstead?”

“Could have, I guess,” Palmer admitted, wiping ketchup off his chin. “They were there.”

“All right, let me put it another way. Do you think they killed him?”

“Do you?”

“I asked you first.”

“Okay, fair enough. What do we know about them? They were there. Clarence was a longtime employee and by all accounts a loyal dog. If he found he would be passed over, would he be angry? I would guess so. Mrs. Sandberg? Wanting her husband to climb to the top? Social pretensions? Not as likely, I would say. She doesn’t seem the type, but who knows? There is one thing that I think we should find out, although it may take a while. Just what were the finances of the company? If, for instance, Sandberg had been involved in a little financial sleight of hand, the installation of a new president would involve a new audit that could potentially destroy him. The same thing, of course, would hold true for anyone in the company who might have been on the fiddle. But the Sandbergs especially might be susceptible to money pressures. It takes a lot of money to keep two girls in private colleges, and they’re not the kind of people who want to descend the social ladder. So bottom line, yes, either of them could have done it, but both seem unlikely killers. What do you think?”

Orly had been generally nodding as Knutson had reviewed the case against the Sandbergs. “Yah, I basically agree. I did find it interesting that once again we had a case of where either one of them could have actually done the murder. They both had the means and opportunity. Clarence had just learned to ride a snowmobile, but it’s not like learning to pilot a jet fighter. Do it for twenty minutes and you can essentially do it for the rest of your life. Don’t tell that proud little David Hoffman I said that! So now we also find out that Mrs. Sandberg had also operated one of those things. Neither can claim with absolute certainty what the other was doing, and in any event, their only alibis are each other’s. In fact, it could be that they did it together. The couple that murders together, stays together! And you know something, maybe it was just the jolt of caffeine, but I thought they seemed to be getting a little antsy by the time we left. On the other hand, sometimes you just gotta follow your gut, and I just can’t see them as murderers. When are we going to see the Pekanens?”

“I spoke to Mrs. Pekanen—Iris, is it?—on the phone yesterday, and she suggested that we come by about one thirty. That would give us time to talk before their kids came home from school. Since they’ve got three of them, I thought that was a real good idea.”

“What about the husband?”

“She said that she was sure he could arrange to be there, too. Can you face being charming for a while longer today?”

“But of course,” replied Orly, putting his stocking cap at a rakish angle.

Iris Pekanen met them at the door. She was wearing an overlarge sweater in an unsuccessful attempt to disguise her lumpish figure. As she stuck her head out of the door to greet them, her large eyeglasses fogged up, and as she turned to show them in to the entry, she bumped into a straw Christmas decoration that was still hanging on her closet door. Knutson and Peterson were both somehow able to hide their amusement behind a facade of concern.

“Are you all right?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes, yes. Certainly. Give me a minute to clean these things off. Pek?” she yelled, “Pek? The sheriff is here.”

Myron Pekanen ambled lazily into the living room as Iris abruptly left to clean her glasses. Pek sat down on what was obviously his favorite chair, motioned toward the sofa, and said, “Sit down. Take off your coats and stay a while.”

Since he made no effort to take their coats, Knutson and Peterson took the initiative of laying them on an unused living room chair and sat where their host had indicated. Pek looked up at them from under his puffy eyebrows and said, “What’s up?”

Knutson started to go into his by now familiar routine about clearing up the events surrounding the death of John Hofstead. Pekanen, however, was not as docile as the others and challenged the benign assurance the sheriff was offering. “No, just because I sell insurance doesn’t mean I see what you need to look into that for. The guy died in an accident. You investigated it at the time and now you’re looking into it all over again. What’s the poop?”

Orly jumped in. “You see, all of a sudden there is a question of liability. We’ve found out that Hofstead was a pretty good snowmobiler and now maybe there might be an issue of whether the machine was poorly designed or perhaps maintained improperly.”

“Lawsuits, again, huh? Let me tell you something. We got to do something about those lawyers. Every time somebody gets a nosebleed they are looking around to blame somebody. I was once threatened with a lawsuit because some guy claimed I failed to sell him enough hail insurance. Can you believe it? We sell ’em everything we can. But this guy wanted to sue, claiming that I had not done my job sufficiently and that left him underinsured. One of my kids says he wants to be a lawyer when he grows up. I say, having an insurance salesman and a lawyer in the same family is more than our reputation could stand.” Pek roared at his own wit.

“Well, anyway,” Knutson cut in, “we’ve talked to some of the others who were there that night, and we just wanted to see if you could add anything.”

“Okay, there’s not much to tell. We went out there and got there about the same time as the Sandbergs. That’s a switch. Clarence always has to be the first one wherever he goes. So anyway, we get there. I go down to have a snort before supper, then we eat, then we all go snowmobiling. I didn’t know anything was wrong until the next morning. I don’t see where I can help you with anything.”

“Had you ever been there before?” Orly asked.

Pek leaned out to see where Iris was. “Well, yah, I was out there a couple of times last summer for some beers with a client. But, you see, I sort of fibbed to Iris about it because she was getting on me about my drinking. But yah, I’d met both the Hoffmans before. Didn’t really talk to them much or get to know them, you know, but at least I knew who they were.”

“So you knew your way around there?”

“Sure, why?”

“Just asking, that’s all,” Orly obscurely replied. “You knew how to run a snowmobile before that night?”

“Of course, who doesn’t?”

Ignoring the question, Knutson asked, “Did Hofstead seem like the kind of snowmobile driver who would have an accident like that?”

“Nope. John knew what he as doing, he always did. But that’s one thing you see in the insurance business. You can see the greatest stock car racer go through a red light or drive off and hit a tree. I was just reading about this college all-American football player who broke his ankle when he stepped on a walnut. You just never know. That’s what I always tell people. You just never know!”

Iris came in carrying four mugs, managing to get her finger inside each one. “Coffee everyone?”

Everyone muttered their assent and Iris returned with a pot of coffee and a plate of thickly buttered banana bread. Knutson and Peterson did their civic duty.

“Now that both of you are here, there are a couple of questions I’d like you both to think about. It has been suggested that John Hofstead seemed a little distracted at the dinner that night. Would you agree?”

“I don’t know,” Pek replied, licking the butter off of his thumb. “Seemed pretty normal to me. I was going to see if I could have a little private talk with him, but I never got the chance. I wasn’t sitting real close to him at supper. You notice anything, Iris?”

Iris, delighted to have been asked, took her time in answering. She finished her second piece of banana bread before she said, “You know, I think maybe he was. John had this laugh that seemed to cut right through whatever noise there was around. It was a great laugh, and when you heard it you couldn’t help smiling yourself. But you know—and I never really thought about it until now—I don’t remember hearing that laugh.”

Knutson continued, “Did either of you notice a certain amount of tension surrounding the weekend because of the issue of Hofstead’s retirement and the choosing of his successor?”

“Oh, yah,” Pek blurted, “was there ever! You shoulda seen the way Clarence looked at Swenson whenever ‘Young Gary’ oozed his way alongside of Hofstead. I got the impression that Clarence was mostly upset that Swenson was always beating him to it. And of course, each wife snubbed the other. Even Borghild looked a little uptight. The only one who didn’t was Harry Kvamme. He just sat there looking bored or confused, I couldn’t decide which. Maybe he couldn’t either.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yah, were you ‘uptight’ about the weekend?”

“Nah! ’Course, I had a little relaxant along with me. But nah, nobody ever took me seriously anyway. I know they don’t see me as executive material. They know I can sell policies, though, so they won’t get rid of me. I once thought that I might be Hofstead’s ‘compromise candidate,’ so to speak. I mean, if you hire Gary, you infuriate Clarence, and if you hire Clarence, you sour Gary. If you hire me, both of them resent it, but they still stay with the company and Hofstead can sit back and still enjoy a profitable business. It made a lot of sense. Too much sense, I suppose. Now I don’t know if we’ll ever find out who he wanted. We’re going to have this big meeting on Friday, and I suppose Martha will tell us who she wants.”

“Tell us what happened when you went off snowmobiling.”

“There isn’t all that much to tell. It was me and Clarence and John and Gary—the last ride of the big four, so to speak—and Gary’s wife and that Hoffman guy. We just went around the lake for a while and then I got cold so I went into Vergas for a little something to warm the blood.”

“What time did you return to the Otter Slide?” Knutson asked.

Orly noticed the intense anger in Iris’s face as she waited for her husband to reply. “Well, I guess we sort of closed the place down,” Pek replied, with a guilty glance at Iris. “I suppose it was about one o’clock when I left.”

“Did you see any other snowmobiles? Did you notice anybody at the Otter Slide?”

“I don’t remember. There might have been another sled on the lake. Seems to me I saw a light and I wondered if that could be one of us. But then, from a distance it’s sort of hard to tell if it’s a snowmobile headlight or just somebody’s yard light on the shore, especially if you’re moving. When I got back to the resort, I didn’t see anybody. But there were still some lights on. There was still a light on in the shed, and the lobby light was on, of course, and there were some of the room lights on. I know, because I tried to figure out which lights belonged to our room and I was wondering if Iris was still up waiting for me.”

“Were you, Iris?” Palmer asked.

“Of course not. I went to bed right after Pek left. I went to sleep and didn’t awaken until the morning.”

Pek blurted out, “Are you sure? I thought I remembered you getting up and leaving the room for a while.”

“Certainly not,” she replied acidly. “Besides, you were hardly in a condition to remember anything.”

Knutson gently brought them around to the events of the morning. “Were you concerned when Hofstead didn’t show up for breakfast?”

“Not at first,” Pek answered. “It was only later, you know, when Martha started getting real anxious, that the rest of us started thinking something was wrong. We were all thinking he had gone off with Swenson, so when they came in without Hofstead, well, then something seemed wrong.”

“Did anybody else seem especially worried?”

“Why are you asking a question like that? Are you implying that somebody’s personally liable for his death? If you are, well, I gotta admit that, yah, David Hoffman looked real worried. His wife kept trying to calm him down so they could get breakfast on the table. Look, uh, I’ll stay and talk with you guys as long as you like, but I do have an appointment this afternoon, and uh …”

“No, no. We’re about done, I guess,” Knutson replied. “Orly, do you have anything further?”

“No, except to tell Mrs. Pekanen that this is really wonderful banana bread. Thank you so much.”

Iris blushed with pride, “Oh, you’re so welcome.”

Back at the sheriff’s office, a fax was waiting from the Polk County, Iowa, sheriff’s office. It read:

Palmer. Your deputy called the Des Moines police to inquire about one Laura Epperly. Somehow that got shuttled over to us at the sheriff’s office. Laura Epperly was born in 1968 to Alan and Linda Meland of Iowa City, Iowa. The father was killed a year later in Vietnam. The mother was an assistant librarian at the University of Iowa who was killed by a bomb placed by a radical group in 1970. The little girl was apparently taken in by an aunt in Des Moines. Records show that she married a Thomas Epperly in June of last year. We could find no violations on her driving record and no other data of any kind. Sorry we couldn’t be of more help. If you need more data, please inform us of the nature and purpose of your inquiry.

Are you going to show me some good fishing this summer?

David Nelson

Sheriff