Free Heritage of Darkness by Kathleen Ernst Page A

one of those cook-
    books. Chris is a pretty good cook, but neither one of us does well in the baking department.”
    “Will do,” she promised. And speaking of baking, she thought,
    I need to go see what Bestemor Sabo wants to share.
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    eight
    After leaving the police station Roelke got his bearings,
    hunched his shoulders, and struck out briskly for Emil’s place. The sidewalks were mostly clear of snow and ice. The worst bit was
    crossing over the Upper Iowa River. The single-lane bridge had an
    impressive double arrangement of angular iron trusses, but no
    sidewalk and nothing to shield him from the wind.
    Emil lived less than a mile beyond the river on an old farm
    tucked beneath a bluff on Skyline Road. The frame house was
    small, and the barn where Emil kept chickens and milked a couple
    of cows was small too. There were also a couple of other outbuild-
    ings, a little pasture, and a narrow field where he probably raised hay.
    Roelke let himself into the house, pulled off his boots, and left
    them on the mat. He liked things tidy. Besides, Emil’s place was
    immaculate.
    “You’re back!” Emil called from the living room, where he was
    settled with a knife and practice board. “Want a beer?”
    67
    “I’d rather something hot,” Roelke admitted. “If you’ve got it,”
    “There’s tea in a canister by the stove.”
    “Thanks.” Roelke watched Emil make a short, quick stroke.
    “After teaching us all-thumbs students today, aren’t you ready for a break?”
    “I’m trying a new design. If I like it, I’ll show you all tomor-
    row.” Emil paused, shrugged, and made another cut. “Carving
    makes me feel good.”
    Then you must feel good all the time, Roelke thought as he
    headed into the kitchen. The furniture in Emil’s house was decades old—not antique, just outdated—but that didn’t matter because
    the man’s carvings took the spotlight. Wooden spoons, plates,
    bowls, boxes, shelves, clocks, tables, chairs, and a variety of items Roelke didn’t even recognize were everywhere . Many designs included rosettes—he now knew that rosettes were circular
    designs—while others featured straight lines and hundreds of tiny
    triangles, carved in patterns that always, always , seemed perfectly suited to the object itself.
    Roelke filled the kettle and turned on the burner. He studied
    the kitchen idly while waiting. The toaster looked twenty years old, the stove thirty, the fridge maybe forty. The room was purely functional—no curtains at the window, no cookie jar on the counter,
    no well-thumbed cookbooks on a shelf.
    Then Roelke noticed a big crock on the floor. It held a few stray
    kitchen tools that, to his unprofessional eye, must have passed
    from old to antique a ways back. One was a big, grooved rolling
    pin.
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    “Hey Emil, is this a lefse pin you’ve got here?” he called, hefting the pin. It was heavy—four pounds, maybe five. He carried the pin
    into the living room.
    “ Ja .” Emil’s face clouded with sorrow. “That was my mor’s . My mother’s. She died when I was just a boy. Why are you wondering?”
    “Just curious,” Roelke said mildly, reminding himself that the
    pin found beneath Petra’s body was not common knowledge.
    “What is lefse , anyway?”
    “Flatbread. Made with potatoes.”
    Roelke contemplated the pin. “What are the grooves for?”
    “I don’t know. You better ask one of the women at Vesterheim.
    Any good Norwegian woman knows how to make lefse .” Emil’s
    voice was husky. “My mor , she spread warm lefse with butter and a little brown sugar. Now, that was good eating.”
    Roelke was sorry that he’d triggered sad memories. His own
    mother was dead too, and he knew how bittersweet reminiscing
    could be. “I think I hear the kettle,” he said, and retreated back to the kitchen.
    The tea was hard-core, so Roelke made do by only dipping the
    bag a few times. Then he carried the steaming mug into the living
    room and settled down where he