A Quandary in Quarantine

Chapter Ten

Since having learned that Eliisa Nurmi lived just two houses down from me, with only Luce and her mom in between, I had been thinking of how I could get her to talk to me. The news continuously warned of more and more Coronavirus cases, and really put a damper on my ability to set up a seemingly random event where I could run into her, so it was time to get creative. Luce and I had talked about how Eliisa, like me, was relatively new to town and very new to the Library Board. We devised a plan that used that angle to get her talking after that, we would have to play it by ear.

The first step was simple. In theory, anyway. The plan was for me to call Eliisa and tell her I was checking in with each Library Board member individually to see what they thought about how our services were going since we’d all moved home and ask if there had been any feedback they may have heard from community members. This was something we should probably do more often anyway, so it seemed like it would be an easy sell so to say. At least it would give me a reason to call. We hoped that, once we got Eliisa talking, we could easily segue into what had happened in the conference room on the day Irene was killed. Now that we knew she had been poisoned, we hoped she might let some new information slip - if she had any that is.

When I had purchased my house, I did not intend to be working form it exclusively. But I had been lucky that the houses on this street were all two bedroom. That allowed me to have a dedicated office space. I had found that to be invaluable when trying to balance working from home. Having a space dedicated to work was key, in my opinion; it helped me separate “work time” from “personal time” with intent. When I was in the office, I was working. I went into my office, sat down at my desk and pulled up Eliisa’s contact information from the file we kept on the Library Board members, all publicly available, of course.

On the fourth ring, right before I was about to give up and try again later, Eliisa picked up her phone and said in an exasperated tone, “Yes?”

“Eliisa! Hi, I’m so glad I got you. This is Libby, from the library? I’m the new Assistant Reference Librarian? We’ve met a few times, I guess - but,”

“Yes, I know who you are,” she cut me off. “What is it that you need?”

Wow, okay, not the normal-Midwestern-small-talk-is-my-life response I was used to here in Elsewhere. Time to get down to business.

“Well, I was hoping we could chat for a few minutes. I know because of what happened to Irene, Maggie had to sort of spring our plans for maintaining service during the pandemic on you and the other board members sort of quickly. Maggie asked me to call you, and the other board members of course, and check in to see if you had any questions or suggestions for us. Since we’ve been at this almost a week now - we wanted to see if you had heard any feedback from anyone you’ve spoken to.”

“No, I have not heard anything. Now, if there are not any other questions, I have some very important work to get back to.”

With that, she hung up. Wow. Okay, then. I was not sure what to make of that exactly. While I was pondering what her abrupt nature might be covering up, my phone rang in my hands. I checked the display - it was Luce. Wow, I thought, that was fast.

“Hi, I just got off the phone with Eliisa, and -“

“There’s no time! I see her leaving her house - quick, follow her! Keep our conversation active so I can come with you!”

“What? I -“

“GO! Get in your car, now! You’re going to lose her!”

Luce’s voice over the cell phone was insistent. I grabbed my coat and threw it on while I ran to my car. Luckily, it had not snowed in a few days, so my windshield was relatively clear of ice and would not require scrapping.

“Okay, I am right behind her. What do I do?”

“Well slow down, put some space between your car and hers for starters - haven’t you ever followed anyone before?” Luce chided me through the phone.

“Well, no, actually, I have not followed anyone recently, Lucy Carmichael. When was the last time you followed someone, for Pete’s sake?”

“Okay, you’re right, that’s a fair point,” she conceded.

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “But, yeah, I’ll put a bit of space between us.”

I left the connection open while I followed Eliisa’s dark colored Honda Civic through town. Where could she be going? Most of the stores in our area were closed, just like the schools and the library. The grocery store remained open, because they were clearly an essential business, but Eliisa was not heading in the direction of the grocery store, she was heading out of town. The further out of town we got, the more sparse the traffic. I tried to hang back, so Eliisa would not see my car, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. When I saw her brake lights flash about a quarter mile ahead of me, I pulled off to the side of the road.

“Luce, I think she’s going to turn down that side road just past mile marker 47. Do you know what’s down there?”

“That’s just by the old sign for Morton Farms, right? I thought it was just some open land that used to be apart of the farm’s pastureland. I did not think anyone lived there now, though. What in the world could she be doing out there?”

“Luce, do you know anything about Finnish names and how they were Anglicized? The name Morton sounds an awful lot like Martinnen, don’t you think?” I said, thinking back to the second record I had found in the genealogy database.

“I think it does, yes. I don’t know much about how the names changed, but - tell me, why do you ask? I don’t know any families with the name Martinnen around here.”

“Well,” I said, as I looked out over snow covered rolling hills of the Wisconsin countryside, “Remember the first all staff meeting we had, when we discussed the library’s response to the pandemic with Maggie? Well, as we all went back to our work areas, Irene called me into her office. She actually had wanted to thank me for my initiative on the chat reference service, which stunned so much, I basically forget what else I saw in her office that day, until right now. Irene had been doing research on the family name Martinnen! She had a whole stack of papers on her desk, printouts from our ancestry database. If my theory is correct, that the name Martinnen was changed to Morton at some point, then that would explain the other print out I saw on her desk.”

“What was it?” Luce asked.

“An old deed of transfer for some land. I would put money on it, that I’m currently looking at that land, right now.” Even though I was alone in the car, I nodded my head toward the break in the trees where I had seen Eliisa’s car disappear, just moments before.

I stayed parked where I was off to the side of the road until I saw the dark Honda Civic turn out of the copse of trees in front of me. Eliisa’s car turned up the road, driving further out of town.

“Here’s my chance,” I said to Luce, who was still on the phone with me. She was killing time until her mom returned home from her Meals on Wheels delivery route.

“What are you going to do?” Luce said, warily.

"Just a little investigating. Don’t worry, I won’t even get out of my car. In fact, if you want, you can even stay on the phone with me to keep me in line.”

There was little Luce could do to stop me from doing something, really, but the ruse made us both feel better.

I drove my car up the road and turned into the same nearly-hidden driveway we’d seen Eliisa’s car pull out from moments before.

I followed the curving dirt driveway until I found myself in a clearing that boarded a large open field. With the edges of the clearing lined with trees the scene was quite idyllic and pastoral. I paused for a moment to appreciate that, I could imagine this area was especially beautiful as the snow melted in early spring, and the buds began appearing on the trees and bushes. I scanned the line where the woods opened up to the overgrown pasture and noticed a large grouping of bushes, totally naked of their leaves, that still sported clusters of bright red berries on the otherwise barren stems. 


“Luce, hold on a sec -“ I said as I put the phone onto the passenger seat next to me. As I got out of the car, I could hear her raised voice saying something about never listening to her, which, of course, was totally untrue. I listened, usually.

I trudged the 20 or so feet to the edge of the clearing to get a better look at the bushes. I thought I recognized those berries from research I helped a patron with, but I couldn’t be sure. I broke off a few branches of the bush that each contained a cluster of the bright jewel-toned berried and went back to my car.

“Luce, I think I found Red Baneberries,” I said when I picked up the phone again.

“Great, you can make a pie,” she said, clearly exasperated with me.

“Actually, that would be a horrible idea because I am pretty sure they are poisonous. I am going to try to get Carson’s cousin Stephanie to take a look at them for me and confirm.”

“Okay, great idea,” Luce said. “Hey, my mom should be home any minute from her delivery route, we can meet over the fence in the backyard - I’d love to hear what Steph has to say about the berries, too.”

“Alright, sounds good! I’ll be there soon.” I disconnected our call and headed home.

I didn't notice the dark colored car that came up behind mine, just after I pulled back out onto the main road.