“I don’t like small planes,” Maggie announced, strapping herself into the white leather seat of Peter Stanhope’s Learjet 25. She tightened the seat belt until it nearly cut off the blood flow across her tiny waist. “Does this thing have oxygen masks? I bet you have to use little nose plugs.”
“Relax,” Serena said. “Pretend you’re rich.”
“I am rich,” Maggie reminded her.
“So why don’t you own one of these things?”
“Because I don’t like small planes!”
Serena laughed. “Don’t be such a baby. This is better than driving.”
“The only reason we’re not driving is because you don’t want to argue with me about the radio station.”
“We still have to rent a car in Fargo,” Serena said. “Dibs on country.”
“I have my iPod with me. We can listen to my Bon Jovi collection.”
“I have my iPod, too. Martina.”
“Red Hot Chili Peppers.”
“Alan Jackson.”
“White Zombie.”
“Shania.”
“Oh, please,” Maggie scoffed. “I don’t listen to any singer with bigger tits than me.”
“Doesn’t that pretty much rule them all out?” Serena asked.
Maggie stuck out her tongue.
Serena leaned her arm on the glossy wooden shelf beside her seat and stared out the window as the jet lined up on the Duluth runway. Beside her, Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fingernails into the armrest. The plane accelerated with a roar and lifted at a sharp angle into the breezy air. The climb was bumpy, with the jet’s wings waggling like a shimmy dancer. Serena had flown in and out of Las Vegas so many times, riding the rocky thermals of the desert mountains, that turbulence no longer bothered her.
The plane headed straight west. Below them, she saw miles of forest dotted with jagged lakes, like the black footprints of retreating glaciers. Towns were thinly spread across the northern half of Minnesota. So were the roads and highways. Time passed quickly as the jet streaked over the land, crossing just south of the giant fingers of Leech Lake. Without clouds, Serena could see straight down. As they neared the western section of the state, the forested wilderness gave way to lush squares of farmland, ranging in color from muddy taupe to deep green, jutting up against one another like stripes in a flag.
They never climbed high enough to escape the unsettled pockets of air.
“This sucks,” Maggie told her.
“We’ll be there soon.” Serena changed the subject. “What’s the word on adopting a kid?”
Maggie exhaled loudly through her nose. “No one is very encouraging. Single Chinese chick cops need not apply.”
“You won’t know until you try.”
Maggie peeled her fingers off the armrest long enough to push her black bangs out of her eyes. “It’s not just that. I’m not sure I’m up to the job of raising a kid by myself. I don’t know if it would be fair to a kid. Plus, this thing with Mary Biggs really shook me up. Her parents threw everything into that girl. I don’t know if I’m ready to love anyone that much. I’m not ready to risk what it would do to me if something happened.”
“You can ‘what if’ yourself out of anything,” Serena said.
“Yeah, I know. Do you and Stride ever talk about it?”
“I mean adoption.”
“I think the window has closed,” Serena said. “I grew up knowing my insides were messed up, so I never really developed the kid gene. Jonny says he’s too old. I don’t see it happening.”
“Do you think you’re missing something?”
“Sometimes.”
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Maggie said.
“Then you should do it.”
The plane lurched as they descended into Fargo. On the ground, they rented a car and headed south out of the airport, past the university and through the straight, tree-lined neighborhood streets toward downtown. They parked near the main library, which was located within a block of the curvy ribbon of the Red River, which served as the border between North Dakota and Minnesota and separated Fargo from its Minnesota twin, the city of Moorhead.
Inside the library, Serena asked at the help desk for Fargo phone books from the early 1970s. Soon after, the librarian deposited a stack of AT&T directories at the desk where the two women were waiting. The books smelled faintly of mildew. Maggie grabbed the volume for 1972 and groaned when she turned to the M pages.
“There are dozens of Mathisens in here,” she said. “This place is like Little Norway.”
“Do we know the first names of Finn’s parents?” Serena asked.
“Ole and Lena?”
“Yah sure. Dat’s funny. God, I’m actually becoming a Minnesotan.” Serena peered over Maggie’s shoulder at the list. “Most of these people are probably dead or gone.”
“I’ll call the Wisconsin DMV,” Maggie said. “If we can get Finn’s birth date from his driver’s license, then we can look up his birth announcement in the local paper. That way we can get his parents’ names.”
“Clever.”
Maggie pulled out her cell phone and dialed the DMV number from her directory. “I’m on hold,” she said. She hummed for a moment and then added, “So Ole brings home a vibrator for Lena on her birthday. And Lena goes, Vat’s dis for? So Ole says, Vell, you stick dis between yer legs and use it to tickle your puddin’. And Lena goes, Oh, dat’s great, I already have somethin’ like dat. Is dis thing called Sven, too?”
“You are a sick woman,” Serena said.
“Too true. Hey, hello, I need you to look up a birth date for me.” She rattled off her Minnesota shield number and Finn’s name and address. A few seconds later, she scribbled a date on a piece of scratch paper. “Got it, thanks.”
Serena read what Maggie had written. “April 22, 1959. I’ll get the microfiche for the Fargo paper.”
Ten minutes later, they found a birth announcement for Finn Mathisen, sister to Rikke Mathisen, son of parents Nils and Inger. Nils was a feed corn farmer with a large plot of acreage west of the city. Maggie used her index finger to run down the list of Mathisens in the 1972 phone book.
“No Nils listed, but here’s Inger,” she said. “Same address.”
“I think the father died in a car accident when Finn was a kid.”
“So what are you thinking? We go out there?”
Serena nodded. “Right.”
“Who the hell is going to remember them after thirty-five years?”
“Farmers don’t leave home unless it’s feet first or to hand the keys to a banker,” Serena said. “Hopefully, a couple of Finn’s neighbors are still around.”
“Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?” Maggie asked.
“Not a clue, but I bet we’ll know it when we find it. Finn didn’t get screwed up in Duluth. Whatever happened to him, it started right here.”
Fargo was flat. The kind of flat where highways disappeared into the hazy horizon without so much as a bend or an overpass and where only the curve of the earth blocked a view as far as Montana. The kind of flat where Canada would suck in its breath and expel wind across the plains with nothing in the way to slow it down, rocketing walls of black dust, rain, and snow into the city in fierce clouds. The kind of flat where a trickling, muddy stream like the Red River could lazily swell over its banks and drown everything in its path, like a pitcher of water spilling across a table.
Serena and Maggie drove west out of Fargo, passing fields of high corn and sprawling lots of soybeans, barley, and rapeseed. Hot wind and sun beat against the windshield of their rental car. They left the windows open, and as a compromise, they kept the radio off. Every few miles, they passed a car on the two-lane highway, but otherwise, the land was open and lonely. Serena drove. Maggie had a map on her lap.
They turned south off the county road thirty miles outside the city, and three miles later, they turned again onto an unpaved road and kicked up a hurricane of dirt behind them. Half a mile farther, they parked opposite a well-maintained white farmhouse notched into a huge expanse of leafy fields, like a summer photo from a calendar of rural homes. A ten-year-old girl in a sunflower dress chased a Labrador retriever that barked wildly as it galloped toward them. The girl corralled the dog by its collar and gazed at the car and the two women with open curiosity as she pulled it back toward the house.
“This is where Finn grew up,” Serena said.
She guessed that the house and outbuildings would not have looked much different several decades earlier. There would still have been a dirty pickup truck parked in the grass. There would still have been muddy tractor ruts leading into the rows of crops. They climbed out of the car and began sweating in the sun. Serena wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and sneakers. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Maggie wore black jeans, an untucked button-down black shirt, and black boots with steep heels.
“Who wears heels in farm country?” Serena asked.
Maggie pushed her sunglasses to the end of her nose. “Hello,” she said in a rumbling voice. “I’m Johnny Cash.”
They crossed the dirt road and trudged up the driveway. Gravel crunched under their feet. The young girl they had seen a few minutes ago pushed herself in a swing set in the middle of the lawn. They waved at her, and she stared back at them without smiling. They heard the dog barking inside the house. As they got closer, Serena smelled flowers and the sweet-tart aroma of apples baking.
A thin woman in a summer dress, with dark curly hair, opened the screen door and let it bang behind her. She strolled to the edge of the front porch, watching them. She picked brown leaves from a hanging basket of fuchsias.
“Afternoon,” she said, with mild suspicion in her voice. “Can I help you?”
They introduced themselves, and Maggie produced her identification. The woman relaxed, but her eyebrows arched with interest. “Minnesota?” she said. “What are you two doing out here?”
“Chasing wild geese,” Maggie said.
“We’re interested in a family that owned this house a long time ago,” Serena said. “Their name was Mathisen. This was back in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“Mathisen? Well, that’s a good North Dakota name. I’m Pamela, by the way. Pamela Anderson. And yes, don’t say it, I’ve heard the jokes. Imagine my horror ten years ago when I realized what my married name would be.” She laughed. “I got my husband a framed pinup of the other Pamela as a wedding present.”
“So you’ve only lived on this property for ten years?” Serena asked.
“Me? Yes, but my husband has been here since he was a boy. This was the family home. I didn’t even realize anyone had owned the place before his parents did.”
“How old is your husband?”
“Not old enough to help you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Pamela replied. “He was born in 1973. However, my mother-in-law lives with us. This was her house until her husband died, and then she deeded it to us. Of course, I have no idea whether she knew anything about the people who lived here before she did, but around here, everyone has a way of knowing everyone else’s business.” She smiled.
“May we talk to her?” Serena asked.
“Oh, of course, she’ll love it. She’s in a wheelchair now and mostly blind from diabetes. You’ll be the highlight of her day.”
Pamela led them inside. Serena heard George Strait crooning on the stereo, and she grinned at Maggie, who rolled her eyes. The Labrador bounded up to greet them, concluding that they must be friends because they’d been allowed inside the house. Serena got down on her knees and mussed his fur.
“I’ve got some fresh pie,” Pamela said. “Would you like some?”
Serena saw Maggie smirk. She knew all about Serena’s diet.
“It sounds wonderful, but I better resist,” Serena said.
“I’ll take a big piece,” Maggie said. “With ice cream, if you have it.”
Pamela looked pleased. “I’ll be back. Mary Ann has a room at the rear of the house, so I’ll bring her out to meet you.”
She left them alone.
“Warm apple pie,” Maggie said. “Yum.”
“Bitch,” Serena muttered.
They took seats on the tweed cushions of the sofa. Pamela returned with a large slice of pie, adorned with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, and a glass of milk. Cinnamon wafted from the plate. She put it on the oval coffee table in front of Maggie, who thanked her profusely. She picked up the plate, shoved a large forkful into her mouth, and chewed loudly.
“Wow, is this good,” she said with her mouth full.
“If you choke, I am not giving you the Heimlich,” Serena said.
Pamela came back, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. The woman in the chair had snow white hair that framed her head like a halo. Her sun-browned skin was wizened and flecked with black spots, and sunglasses shielded her eyes. She had a crocheted blanket spread over her lap, and below it, there was nothing at all. Her legs had been amputated below the knees.
“Mary Ann, these ladies are here to see you,” Pamela said.
“To see me? Well, isn’t that lovely.” Her voice crackled like Rice Krispies, but her demeanor was warm and sunny. Her dry lips curled into a smile. “I smell pie. Pamela uses my recipe. Four-time blue-ribbon winner at the North Dakota State Fair. Darling, I don’t suppose I could have a small piece?”
“Mary Ann,” Pamela chided her gently. “You know better.”
The old woman sighed. She put a finger to the side of her nose. “I can still tell when a pie is done just by the smell,” she said.
Pamela turned off the music and sat down in the armchair next to her mother-in-law, who slid her hands under the blanket to warm them. Serena and Maggie introduced themselves again.
“Minnesota?” Mary Ann said. “My husband and I had a favorite fishing resort near Brainerd. It’s a beautiful area. All those lakes and trees. Out here, it’s just miles and miles of corn.”
“Your daughter-in-law says you’ve lived in this house since the 1970s,” Serena said.
“Oh, yes, Henry and I bought a small parcel of land near Minot shortly after we got married, with some money we got from his grandfather. Henry did very well with it. He had a degree, you know. He was very scientific.”
“Near Minot? How did you end up here?”
“Well, my family was from Minot, and Henry’s family was from Fargo, and that caused difficulties at the holidays. Relatives always want you to be in two places at the same time. So eventually, Henry’s father told him about the Mathisen place going up for sale, and we moved down here. My parents were ready to retire anyway, and they got a small home in Casselton. So it all worked out well, you see.”
“Did you know the Mathisen family?” Maggie asked.
“Know them? Oh, no. As I said, we weren’t from around here. Henry’s parents knew them quite well, however. His parents had a farm about five miles east of here.”
“I wonder if your in-laws ever told you any stories about the Mathisens,” Serena said.
“Stories?”
“We’re trying to find out whatever we can about the family. Particularly their children.”
“I’m not sure if I can help you,” Mary Ann said. She tilted her head back, and her left hand darted from under the blanket to scratch her neck. “I don’t recall hearing very much about their children. They only had one, didn’t they? A boy? No, that’s right, the girl was older. She didn’t live there.”
“Did you hear anything unusual about the boy?”
“Unusual? I don’t think so. It’s just sad how it happened.”
“How what happened?” Maggie asked.
“Well, a teenage boy losing both of his parents. I hate to see it.”
“I heard the father died in a car accident,” Serena said.
“Yes, I think you’re right about that,” Mary Ann said. “It wasn’t easy to survive back then without a man in the house. It’s a wonder they made it at all. And then the mother—oh, how awful that was. I have to tell you, Henry and I weren’t sure we wanted to move into this house after that. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to sleep here.”
“Why?” Serena asked. “What happened to Inger Mathisen?”
“Oh, don’t you know? Being police, I just thought you would know. An intruder killed her. Murdered her in her bedroom. They said it was probably some drifter, looking for jewelry or cash. I just can’t believe anyone could do such a horrid thing. It’s bad enough to kill another human being, but how he did it—oh, dear, I still don’t like to think about it.”
“How was she killed?” Maggie asked.
“She was beaten to death,” Mary Ann whispered, tugging on her blanket. “Can you imagine? Beaten to death with a baseball bat.”