Minnesota private investigator Jane Lawless is headed out on a little getaway. She and her best friend, Cordelia Thorn, plan to visit their old friend Emma in her hometown of Castle Lake, while also participating in the small town’s local art festival. Between the festival and an upcoming high school reunion for the class of 1999, no one in Castle Lake is quite sure who will make an appearance. But back in 1999, Emma’s boyfriend, Castle Lake high school senior Sam Romilly, went missing. Everyone thought he ran away, though the town rumor mill has always claimed his father murdered him. Today, within a week of his class’s twentieth reunion, Sam’s remains are found in someone else’s burial plot. Suddenly the case is warming up fast. People who knew Sam––friends and enemies alike––will be in town for the much anticipated reunion. It’s up to Jane to sort the innocent from the guilty, before it’s too late. Beloved heroine Jane Lawless finds that some secrets don’t stay buried forever in Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Ellen Hart’s In a Midnight Wood, the twenty-seventh mystery in this cultishly popular series.
Release date:
September 8, 2020
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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Sgt. Dave Tamborsky, one of Castle Lake’s finest, pulled his black-and-white police cruiser into a parking space in front of Rowdy’s Hamburger Shack. It was eleven in the morning, and the temperature was already in the mid-nineties, a ridiculously hot day for late September. It might be kind of early for lunch, but Dave hadn’t eaten any breakfast because he’d been called in early to work. He often stopped by Rowdy’s because the couple who owned the place never charged him. Several years ago, he’d been the one to find their missing dog, Buttercup. He’d discovered the little Bichon by the side of the highway and rushed her to a local vet, thus saving her life. He’d just been doing his job, of course, but wasn’t about to turn down free food.
Ordering a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and an ice-cold root beer, his usual, he climbed back into the front seat and drove slowly through town. His chief, Grady Larson, made it clear that none of his officers were supposed to eat while behind the wheel, but since Dave was a detective sergeant, one of only two on the police force, and a man with a love-hate relationship with rules, he sometimes ignored the instruction.
As he drove down Main, he nodded to the people he knew, which was just about everyone. Dave had grown up in Castle Lake. His father, Mitch Tamborsky, had served as the town’s police chief for sixteen years. From the time he was a little kid, Dave knew he wanted to be a cop. For one thing, he idolized his dad, thought he was the coolest, bravest, most honorable guy on earth. Beyond that, he liked being an authority figure. He also liked, much to the surprise of his younger self, helping people.
After high school, Dave was accepted into the law enforcement program at Hibbing Community College. His aunt lived in Hibbing, so he’d stayed with her while he was in school. After graduation, he’d taken a position with the Fergus Falls PD and was finally hired by the police department in Castle Lake three years later. The best part for Dave was the sense that he’d made his dad proud.
Turning off Main, Dave polished off the last of the fries as he drove past Grace Lutheran. It was a newer church, mostly one story except for the sanctuary part. It was nothing like Holy Trinity, the Catholic church two blocks farther east, with its red-and-tan patterned brick, clock tower, and gothic spires. In Dave’s opinion, a church should be both beautiful and imposing. It shouldn’t look like a bank.
Castle Lake, with a population of some forty-two hundred mainly upstanding souls, had seventeen churches of various denominations. While Dave’s father was a firm believer in God, he’d never been interested in organized religion. He’d passed his distaste on to his children. Dave was a nominal member of Mount Olive Presbyterian. In a small town like Castle Lake, church-going, for anyone in the public eye, was more or less expected. If Dave had a weakness, it was his image. He wanted to be seen as a decent, fair, honest guy. So he went to church—not with any regularity, but he did show up for Sunday services every now and then, enough to look the part of the God-fearing citizen.
Driving past Holy Trinity a few minutes later, Dave pulled into the rear parking lot to take a look at the graveyard, which stretched all the way to the wooded area south of town. It was the largest and oldest graveyard in Castle Lake, a place where teenagers, much to the displeasure of the priests, liked to hang out. Dave had busted a couple of kids for smoking dope there just last week. He’d taken the blunt away, given them a stern talking-to, and sent them packing, saying that if he saw them with any more weed, he’d arrest them. He’d taken the blunt home that night and smoked it in the privacy of his basement. Hypocrisy was also part of public life—not a lesson he’d learned from his father, but an important one nonetheless.
Seeing a knot of people standing around a backhoe a good thirty yards away, Dave parked his cruiser and got out. As he made his way across the grass, he noted that two priests were also in attendance, though it clearly wasn’t a burial. “What’s going on?” he called, seeing that a gravestone had been removed and set askew in the grass behind a freshly dug hole. A workman was standing in front of it, so Dave couldn’t see the name on the stone. When the man moved and Dave saw it, his curiosity turned to concern. “Ida Beddemeyer?”
“Ah, Sergeant,” said one of the priests, the ever-smiling Father Malcolm. “We’re doing an exhumation.”
Scowling, Dave demanded to see the documentation.
“It’s all in order,” said the priest, handing over several folded pages. “Although, I do agree, this is a rare situation for us.”
“Al Beddemeyer, her husband, ordered it?” asked Dave, scanning the form
“That’s right.” Father Malcolm pulled on his earlobe. “Do you know Mr. Beddemeyer?”
“He was the principal at the high school when I went there.”
“Then perhaps you’ve heard he’s in hospice. The thing is—” Another pull on the earlobe. “It seems his wife always slept on the right side of the bed. He slept on the left.”
“So?”
“It was that way in life. He wants it the same way in death.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I am.”
“But Ida’s been dead for—”
“Twenty years. She died a few months after I came to Holy Trinity. Al bought two plots right together, so I didn’t see it as an insurmountable problem. We’ve already dug the new grave, as you can see. Once we’re done, we’ll exhume Ida’s coffin and move it over, thus making room for Mr. Beddemeyer on his preferred side.”
It was the most idiotic thing Dave had ever heard.
“We like to accommodate our parishioners whenever we can,” continued the priest.
One of the workmen lowered himself into the newly dug hole and started sawing off tree roots left by the backhoe.
“We were hoping Mr. Beddemeyer could be with us today,” added Father Malcolm, folding his hands in front of him, “but, sadly, that wasn’t possible.”
Dave moved to the edge of the pit and watched as the workman struggled with a particularly difficult root. As the man tugged at it, pulling it this way and that, a large chunk of dirt from the sidewall facing Ida’s still-intact grave fell away, revealing something bright red behind it.
“What’s that?” asked the priest.
“No idea,” said the man in the hole.
“Dig it out.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Dave saw that everyone had come to watch.
The workman removed a trowel from his back pocket and began working the red fabric free. “It’s a backpack,” he said after a few seconds. After brushing it off, he tossed it up to the man who, up until then, had been operating the backhoe.
“How’d it get under Mrs. Beddemeyer’s grave?” asked the backhoe driver.
“Why don’t we take a look inside?” said Father Malcolm.
“Give it here,” ordered Dave. Amazingly, the nylon fabric was still in pretty good shape, and the zipper still worked. Crouching down, he placed it on the ground, then opened it, gazing at the contents. He removed a billfold and flipped it open, seeing a familiar name on the driver’s license.
“What’s it say?” asked the backhoe driver.
Clearing his throat, Dave looked up. “Sam Romilly.”
Father Malcolm gave an audible gasp. “Wasn’t he the young man who went missing?”
“I heard his dad did it,” said one of the workmen.
“I heard that, too,” muttered the guy in the pit.
Rising from his crouch, Dave said, “I’ve got to call this in. We need the crime-scene people out here. Nobody touch anything, hear me? You,” he said, motioning to the man in the hole, “get out of there.” To the priest, he said, “Don’t leave. Don’t touch the backpack. Don’t touch anything. You’re in charge until I get back.”
Dave knew he should stay at the scene, but at the moment, he didn’t care. There was a phone call he had to make ASAP. And for that, he needed privacy.
2
“When was the last time you had a long talk with Emma?” asked Cordelia, playing a game of solitaire on her phone as the trees and cornfields whizzed past.
“Oh, gosh,” said Jane, slowing her truck so the man in the muscle car behind them could pass. Not that she needed to slow down. The guy had been going at least ninety when he’d roared up mere inches from the Ridgeline’s bumper.
“Jeez,” said Cordelia, sitting up straight. “That jerk’s an accident waiting to happen. But back to my question.”
“I suppose it was when we drove up for the funerals. Must be three years.” Both of Emma’s parents had died in a small-plane crash. Leo had been a licensed pilot since his mid-forties. He owned his own Cessna and flew it often, mostly back and forth to the cities. “Like you, we keep in touch mostly through emails.”
“And now Emma’s back home for another sad reason. But this time, it will be Cordelia and Jane to the rescue.”
“How do you figure that?”
“We’ll cheer her up. And then we’ll provide her with lots of sage advice.”
Jane wasn’t so sure Emma wanted advice.
Jane Lawless and Cordelia Thorn were best friends—had been ever since high school. While Jane had gone on to become a restaurateur, developing The Lyme House on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, Cordelia had been working as a creative director, first at the Blackburn Playhouse in Shoreview, and later at the AGRT in St. Paul. She and her generally missing-in-action sister, Octavia, had opened the new Thorn Lester Playhouse in downtown Minneapolis in 2012.
Jane had first met the Granholms when they’d rented the house next to her family home in St. Paul. After a lengthy stint in the military, Leo was finally finishing his law degree at William Mitchell and at the time, his wife, Audrey, was a stay-at-home mom. Jane’s dad and Leo became fast friends, bonding over the law and their love of fishing. After the Granholms moved back to Castle Lake, where Leo and Audrey had grown up, they’d invite Jane’s family, often including Cordelia, up for a long weekend every summer. It all seemed like such ancient history now.
“Hattie and I drove up two summers ago, when Emma and her daughter had flown back from California for the dedication of that bronze plaque in honor of her mom and dad.” Cordelia searched her purse, probably looking for something to eat. “Remember? If it hadn’t been for Audrey and Leo, there wouldn’t be an art center.”
“Did Hattie have a good time?”
Hattie Thorn Lester was Cordelia’s thirteen-year-old niece. She’d lived with Cordelia since she was a little girl, mainly because her mother, Cordelia’s sister, was usually on the hunt somewhere in the known universe for her next husband.
“She loved it. So many new bugs to examine and categorize. She’s moved on since then. Did I tell you she’s into Carlo Rovelli now?”
“Who’s he?”
“A theoretical physicist. She has one of his books with her at all times. In fact—” Cordelia looked over both shoulders and then lowered her voice. “I squirreled one of them out of the house before I left.”
“Why?”
“I need to figure out why she finds his ideas so compelling.”
“I’m sure she’d tell you if you asked.”
“Oh, she reads me passages all the time. Things about gravity. Electromagnetism. The space-time continuum—things I already know everything about. No, there has to be more. Did I mention what she wants next?”
“Let me guess. A mass spectrometer?”
“A private math tutor. Get this: She said the entire cosmos can be understood in terms of math. Math! Nothing about theater or music or literature. It boggles the mind.”
“She’s every bit as intense as you are, Cordelia, she just has a different approach.”
“Yes, but this science thing gets kind of old. I mean, offer her a book on art deco and one on metallurgy and which do you think she’d pick?”
“I see your point.”
“To have a titan of the arts for an auntie seems like such a waste.”
“But you adore her.”
“Well, there’s that.”
They were driving up on Saturday so they could both relax for a few days before the annual Castle Lake Arts Festival began. Emma had convinced Jane to offer a gourmet dinner, prepared by her, as a way to make money for the silent auction benefiting the center. Cordelia had agreed to do several meetings and speeches and a visit to the local high school.
Emma lived in California these days, but because her marriage was in trouble, she’d come home to Castle Lake for the summer to get away and try to figure out what to do next. She’d confided to Jane that she was glad now she’d been unable to sell her parents’ house. It was a place where she felt comfortable and safe, a retreat from her chaotic life in Mountain View. She wanted Jane and Cordelia to stay with her while they were in town.
“Does it make you feel old that you used to babysit Emma?” asked Cordelia.
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Emma was forty, Jane thirteen years older.
“Take Ewing Road to the lake,” said Cordelia. “It’s faster.”
“I know how to get to the house,” said Jane.
“Consider me a GPS with opinions.”
It was just after three when they pulled into the driveway next to the Granholm house. The stone-and-timber structure was the largest and grandest property on Ice Lake, having been built in the early nineteen hundreds by the son of L. R. Granholm, the patriarch of the family. According to what Jane had learned from Leo, L.R. was a dairy and wheat farmer who was responsible for the development of the Farmer’s Grange Association in Castle Lake, Clarksville, and Fergus Falls. His son, Edward, worked as a land developer. He was the one who had amassed the family fortune, such as it was. He was also one of Castle Lake’s longest-serving mayors.
As soon as Jane eased the truck to a stop on the cobblestone drive, Cordelia was out the door. Jane spent a few minutes removing luggage from the backseat of the cab, waiting for Cordelia to return with Emma. When she did come back, she was alone.
“Nobody’s home.”
“Really?” said Jane. “I texted her when we’d be arriving.”
“Well, she’s not here.”
As they dithered about what to do, a white convertible came sailing around a curve in the Granholm’s private access road, one that connected the house to the highway.
“Ah, our landlord,” said Cordelia.
Emma pulled up next to them and cut the engine. Her long brown hair was tangled by the wind, held away from her face by a pair of sunglasses. She pulled the glasses down over her eyes before she spoke. “Sorry to be late.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Cordelia. “Have you been crying?”
“I just got some bad news. It’s about my old boyfriend, Sam Romilly.”
Emma had talked about him many times over the years, telling Jane that he’d gone missing at the beginning of their senior year. Nobody had ever seen or heard from him again.
“What about him?” asked Jane.
“I just talked to Dave Tamborsky, this idiot football jock I went to high school with. He’s a cop now. Still a jerk. Seems Holy Trinity was excavating a grave this morning, and a workman found Sam’s backpack underneath the coffin.”
“His backpack?” repeated Jane.
Emma looked from face to face. “There were bones, too. This is so unbelievable. I can’t get my head around it. After all these years, to find him like that. I mean, why on earth would someone bury him under Ida Beddemeyer?”
Cordelia did a double take. “Who’s Ida Beddemeyer?”
“She was the wife of our old high school principal.”
“Heavens,” said Cordelia, waving air into her face.
“Are they sure the remains belong to Sam?” asked Jane.
“Dave said they’d need to send everything to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in St. Paul for testing, but yeah, he was pretty sure.”
“Let’s go inside, out of this heat,” said Cordelia, slipping her arm around Emma. “I’ll get you something cold to drink. Then we can all sit down together and talk.”
Emma nodded, allowing herself to be guided toward the front door.
Jane was left to schlep the luggage inside by herself.
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