TWENTY-FIVE

Later that morning, Palmer Knutson sat at his desk, staring blankly at his framed map of Norway. He wondered at what point devotion ended and dependency began. How could one spouse be so dependent on the other as to mortgage their collective future? Or maybe it was just old-fashioned gallantry? Would he do it for Ellie? Would Ellie do it for him? Perhaps it was unfortunate that the law had to step in and preclude a noble act from interfering with justice. But in this kind of inner argument, the sheriff inevitably came back to a logical formula, “if justice is perverted, can the act be considered noble?” In this case, Knutson decided it could not. It was in the midst of this brown study that Orly Peterson knocked and, as was his annoying habit, entered at the same time.

“Palmer, I need to talk to you. I’ve been thinking about the Hofstead murder.”

The sheriff sipped his coffee, sighed, and set down his cup. “Yah, Orly, so have I. Sit down. No, wait. Go get yourself a cup of coffee. In fact, get me one. There are a few things I’ve been waiting to tell you.”

Orly returned shortly with two cups of coffee and sat across from the sheriff.

“Now, then. What’s on your mind?”

“It’s Hoffman, or Hart—whatever his name is,” blurted the deputy. “I don’t think he killed Hofstead.”

“All right. But he’s confessed to it. What makes you say he didn’t do it?”

“Actually, it was something you said this morning. Although you assured me that there was nothing the matter with the case—how could there be, with a confession?—I got the feeling that you were dissatisfied with the outcome. Then you said that when I met with the media I should avoid going into the whole Hofstead Hail scenario. Finally, you said that there would be one significant absence when the meeting took place. So I began to think, what if Hart, although without a doubt the man wanted in the bombing at the University of Iowa, is not the killer of Hofstead? How could it be anybody else?”

“And?”

“Hart is lying. You saw how surprised he was when we even brought up the fact that we were arresting him for Hofstead’s murder. He expected to be arrested for the bombing, but he acted as though he had never even thought that Hofstead’s death was anything but an accident. Added to this, of course, was the demeanor of the man himself. Now I know we have talked about never judging by appearances, et cetera, et cetera. But, you can’t deny that hunches or feelings are important, and I’ve never had the feeling that he could have killed anybody. At least intentionally, of course. So why would he say he did? Simple. Because he thinks his wife did it. You heard from the testimony how Sharon had saved his bacon in Iowa City? Now he thinks she killed Hofstead, and taking the rap for her would be the least he could do.”

“Why would he assume his wife did it?” Knutson asked, noncommittally.

“Don’t you see? That’s the other half of the romantic, A Tale of Two Cities kind of sacrifice. He thinks that she thinks he is going to be identified by Hofstead. He assumes that she would protect him now like she did all those years ago. He thinks he can’t let her make that kind of sacrifice again.”

“And you’re saying she didn’t make that kind of sacrifice?”

“Of course she didn’t. The motive was not nearly so romantic. The motive for Hofstead’s murder was common greed and ambition.”

“Go on,” the sheriff said patiently, “whose common greed and ambition?”

“As I said,” Orly began, becoming more animated as he began to explain his deductions, “it was you who got me thinking about the people involved in Hofstead Hail once again. Now, I asked myself, who of that group would have the most to gain by Hofstead’s death?

“Myron Pekanen? Not likely. Nobody really expected him be the new president, not even, apparently, himself. If he had a motive, it would have had to involve something we don’t know now, like maybe a financial fiddle that Hofstead had just discovered. And there has really never been any suggestion that Pekanen is anything other than an honest and efficient insurance man. To be sure, I thought for a time that there might be some Iowa City connection with Pekanen, since he was there at the same time Hofstead was, but supposedly they didn’t even know each other then and there is really no reason to doubt this.

“His wife,” Peterson methodically continued, “also could have done it. And there we get into the romantic angle again. Would she kill for her husband? Probably not. Would she kill for the chance to boost their financial and social standing? She might. In fact, I think she would be more likely to do it than her husband. Not that I think her husband is above killing anybody, but I think he’s the kind to get into a knife fight when he’s drunk and end up killing somebody. But premeditated murder? I can’t see it.

“Then there’s the Sandbergs. Neither of them would hurt a fly. Besides, everyone sort of assumed that Clarence would get the job. Why would killing Hofstead benefit either of them? I suppose there could be a situation where a change might reveal some financial irregularities, but if there were any on Sandberg’s part, you can be sure they were screw-ups instead of any venal scheme. His wife? That nice old Joey? Don’t be silly! So I crossed off the Sandbergs.”

Knutson listened to his lengthy monologue, quietly sipping his coffee and nodding his agreement in several, but not all, places. Peterson, gratified by Knutson’s complete attention and approving expression, continued. “So that brings us to Borghild and Harry Kvamme. Now that could be kind of interesting. We established that both had snowmobile experience and that, in fact, neither could even provide an alibi for the other. Suppose Borghild thinks, ‘After all these years of devoted service to this guy, he’s going to turn around and give the job of president to somebody else, passing me over like I didn’t exist.’ Remember, she says, and Mrs. Hofstead supports her on this, that she had no idea he was going to pick her. If she assumed he’d pick Sandberg or Swenson, well, it could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Harry, now that’s an interesting suggestion. He doesn’t seem involved in the company much at all. But he’s a strong and independent man. Suppose Hofstead meets with him and suggests that he is going to make his wife the new president of the company. Maybe Harry thinks he wants his wife to be just dear little Borghild, not climbing above her station. So he gets in a fight, which I can envision him doing, and he slugs Hofstead. Hofstead goes down, Harry panics, and dumps him by the loon. I know, this is not likely, but it is an interesting thought.

“Martha Hofstead herself? If she did it, she is a terrific actress. So maybe, I tell myself, she is a terrific actress. After all, she gets everything. Suppose she is finally fed up with living in Fergus Falls with this nice but predictable husband and all she has to look forward to is her retirement years with this nice but predictable husband. On the surface, after all, who benefits more than anyone else by Hofstead’s death? The now-wealthy widow. She’s still a good- looking woman, and with plenty of money she could have a grand old time for another twenty years. Nobody can support her claim that she spent the whole time in her room. She knew how to operate a snowmobile. For all we know, she could have hit him over the head with the telephone in their room, stuffed him in his snowmobile suit, and staged the loon attack. But I don’t think she did.”

“No,” said the sheriff, “I’m certain she did not. Go on.”

“Okay. So I also dismiss the insurance angle. This Laura Epperly life insurance policy was just sort of an unusual side angle. She has never even been to Fergus Falls. Neither the Fergus Falls State University Scholarship fund nor Concordia College are likely to need money so badly that they will murder for it. So who’s left? I’ll tell you who. A couple of the coolest killers you’re ever going to find, Gary Swenson and Faye Janice Nelson!”

If Orly was expecting the sheriff to jump up and shout in shock and astonishment, he was disappointed. Knutson’s expression remained as unchanged as the Mona Lisa’s. He merely said, “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“As usual, the combination of means, motive, and opportunity. First the motive. Swenson sees himself as the rising star. He sells more insurance than anyone else, he modernizes the whole operation. Hofstead is going to retire, and Swenson thinks he has earned the job. But, he thinks that Hofstead is going with his old crony Sandberg. Swenson detests Sandberg, and thinks the old rise to the top will come to an abrupt end. He has spent the last few years schmoozing around Martha Hofstead and assumes he has won her over with his charm. John Hofstead might pick Clarence, he figures, but Martha will not pick Clarence and will pick him instead. Simple as that. But he has help. Notice how they are really into the couple thing. Faye Janice and Gary do everything together, including murder. Faye Janice likes the finer things in life. She likes material possessions. She likes the idea of skiing in Vail and surfing in Hawaii. You saw her office at the university—she is hardly into the academics of physical education, if such a thing really does exist. So she is ready to help her ambitious husband.

“Now, means and opportunity are the best for them. Who are the last out on the lake? Gary, Faye Janice, and Hofstead. One of them distracts the victim while the other hits him with a wrench they had brought along for the purpose. Gary loads Hofstead back on his own snowmobile and takes him over to the loon. Faye Janice follows him on her sled. Gary stages the accident, drives the snowmobile to the clear ice, and Faye Janice gives him a ride back to his own sled. They go back to the Otter Slide. Pekanen is still out drinking, and this confuses the whole issue of who is back and who is not. The Swensons, of course, or the Swenson-Nelsons or whatever you want to call them, have each other to provide alibis. The next day they can act as shocked as everybody else. Do we have proof of this? No, unfortunately we don’t. But, I would bet that if we had them in and separately interrogated them they would crack like a gallon of two-dollar paint.”

Knutson smiled sardonically and said, “You’d lose.”

“Huh?” Orly looked up anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’d lose your bet. They wouldn’t crack, because they had nothing to do with it. By the way, before I say anything more, I want to apologize for my statement this morning that there would be a significant absence at the Hofstead Hail meeting this morning. I didn’t mean the killer would not be there. I was just thinking of John Hofstead, and what a good man he was, and I just meant that he wouldn’t be there. Sorry if I misled you.”

“Yah, well, if Gary and Faye Janice didn’t kill him, it was Hart after all, huh?”

“I didn’t say that. In fact, much of what you surmised was right on. There is a bit of A Tale of Two Cities romanticism here. I had never thought of it that way, but it’s not bad, somebody giving up his life for another. And, I guess, it’s not only been on one side, although the romance seems to be more on one side than the other.

“You see, Hart never really meant to kill anyone. Earlier this morning I was walking around where our old house had been. The wind started blowing snow down my neck and I pulled the zipper up to my chin. Ellie, as a joke, put this silly Uncle Scrooge McDuck thing she got out of a cereal box on my zipper pull and I’ve never gotten around to taking it off. Anyway, it reminded me of something I had read in the BCA report, or rather, I should say, it reminded me of something I didn’t read there. According to the report, only three sets of prints were found—Hofstead’s, David Hoffman’s, and Sharon Hoffman’s. It said that David Hoffman’s prints were found on the helmet and on the snowmobile. Earlier, it had been ascertained that there were two sets of prints on the zipper-pull. In other words, there was a second set of prints on the zipper-pull made by the person who had zipped Hofstead into the snowmobile suit. And that person was not, according to the report, David Hoffman.

“So, therefore … yah, that’s right, it was Sharon Hoffman. Sharon Hoffman, who has one of the most selective consciences I have ever run across. I decided to go right out to the Otter Slide and take her in for questioning. When I got there, I discovered that she had packed up and left, leaving behind this extremely brief note for me. Let me share this with you.”

Dear Sheriff:

I realize that it will only be a matter of time before you are out here again. By the time you read this, I will be on the road one more time. You will not be able to find me because I have grown quite adept at assuming another life. I do want to make one thing clear, however, and that is that my husband David was guiltless in the bombing of the University of Iowa library and in the death of that librarian. It was I who removed the harmless bomb and substituted one that, unfortunately, killed a person. I regret that this person had to die, but her death at least contributed to the outrage of the people, and the outrage of the people helped end the murder in Vietnam. In the end, actions such as ours saved thousands of lives on both sides. I apologize not for the act, but for the fact that David has carried the burden of guilt around with him for all these years. Please give my husband this message: ‘I’ll never forget you, David. We helped change the world.’

“—and it’s signed Sharon Kline; presumably that was her original name.”

“Huh!” grunted Orly, “but nowhere in that letter does she …”

“Exactly,” Knutson said, “Nowhere does she even mention John Hofstead. This is what I meant when I said she has a selective conscience. But she killed him, and I can prove it. What I find interesting is that in 1970 she was willing to dupe Hart into thinking he was putting down a stink bomb in the library when the pathetic loser was really carrying a lethal package. Then she let him suffer for all those years. Why? I guess, in her way, she loved him—at least, she liked the fact that here was a person who was totally dependent on her. It will be interesting to see what kind of background we can find on this Sharon Kline. Anyway, for all this time they have been living this masquerade, with David adoring Sharon for the way she had protected him, never suspecting that she was, in truth, the real murderer of that librarian. Now, when Hofstead comes out to the Otter Slide and spots Hart, it looks like her husband will be exposed. Of course, if he is, so is she. She decides to kill Hofstead, and she does it pretty much as we have surmised. Meanwhile, her husband thinks it is just a very unfortunate accident, and his only worry is whether or not Hofstead spilled the beans about his identity before he died.

“Now, yesterday, when we told him we were arresting him for the murder of Hofstead, I noticed the same thing you did, that is, total bewilderment on his part that a murder had been committed at all, much less by him. But he quickly put two and two together and decided if it were not him, it was his wife. He decided that if she was willing to kill for him, he was willing to go to prison for her.”

“What’s going to happen to the poor sap?”

“Well,” the sheriff began, thoughtfully. “That’s not really for us to say, is it? But I would guess they will probably reduce that Iowa charge to manslaughter. I’m sure he’ll serve a little time. He really is quite a silly and pathetic person, but you can’t help sort of admiring him. I can’t help but wonder—”

The telephone interrupted Knutson’s line of thought. “Yah, put him through. Yah, this is Palmer Knutson … Yah, I thought you might! … Oh really? … Oh really? … Huh! Yah, I wouldn’t doubt it … Oh, I don’t know. I just thought that she would be the type to avoid an obvious place like the Minneapolis airport. Her car was gone and I thought, ‘Who knows, she might still have some old connections there.’ We did chase a lot of them up there then, you know … Yah, sure. Thanks.”

“That was the United States border patrol at Pembina, North Dakota. It seems that a woman matching the description of Sharon Hoffman—or Kline, or whatever she’s calling herself—passed through customs late yesterday afternoon. The border guard remembers her because, when he asked her the purpose of her visit to Canada, she had blandly replied that she was just there for a couple days of shopping. The guard tried to be friendly and suggested that they had some good deals on fur coats at The Bay. He was called a Nazi and treated to a lecture on animal rights. Oh, yah, he couldn’t forget her.”

“You know,” the sheriff continued, “they say the Mounties always get their man. I’m not so sure they will be able to get this woman. In any event, somebody needs to go up to Manitoba with the details …”

Orly saw his plans for the weekend, which centered around the lovely Allysha, take wings and fly toward the window. His face had the expression of a kid who’d eagerly bit into what looked like a chocolate chip cookie, only to find raisins.

“… so I was thinking this would best be handled if you drove your own car up to Winnipeg and the county would pay your mileage. And since it is your car, and since you will be passing through Moorhead anyway, perhaps you’d like a passenger. There are a lot of fun things to do in Winnipeg on a weekend, even in winter. Or perhaps Allysha would be too busy? You would have a chance to liaise with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Who knows, maybe you could even get a Mountie hat!”

Orly knew that the sheriff was ribbing him, yet, he could not help but imagine how great he would look in an RCMP hat, and maybe he and Allysha could do a little shopping at the Hudson Bay store, and the county should be able to pay at least part of the hotel bill … Why not stay at the Fort Garry and then they could …

At that moment, Borghild Kvamme was concluding her speech to the employees of Hofstead Hail. “One more thing. I will continue to make coffee around here, if I find the pot empty and the need is there. I expect the rest of you to do the same. If you take the last cup, then you make the next pot. I’m not even sure if all of you know how to make coffee, but if you’re going to drink it from now on, you’d better learn. I will continue to bring cookies, sometimes, but you’d better take your turn as well. The same goes for cleaning up after yourself. I intend to hire a secretary, and quite soon, but she, or he, will do her work and take her turn with the coffee like everybody else. Now, it is noontime and I suppose you will want your lunch. But I’ve always felt a good time to approach farmers about hail insurance is when they’re not so busy. Like in February!

“So after lunch, get out there and sell some insurance!”

THE END