The Lost Women of Lost Lake by Ellen Hart Page B

hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. I … I get mixed up.”
    â€œWe all do.”
    â€œBut you must have seen her.” Her gaze drifted over Jane’s shoulder. “I’m sure she came this way.”
    Helen had two children, a son and a daughter. Jane remembered seeing pictures of them on the mantel in the living room. If she recalled correctly, the son had died in Vietnam, leaving behind a wife and two children. The daughter had died several years later in a car crash, leaving behind a husband and several more children. “I came from Thunderhook,” she said. “I didn’t see her.”
    â€œOh, dear. What if she got lost?”
    â€œI think she knows the area pretty well, don’t you?”
    Helen bit her lower lip. “Of course, you’re right.”
    â€œWhy don’t I walk you home?”
    She hesitated. “No, I’d rather stay here. Just in case she comes this way.”
    Jane looked around the beach. There was nowhere to sit, and Helen wasn’t exactly a candidate for lounging on the sand. More to the point, Jane couldn’t just leave a clearly confused woman to wander the beach. “Do you have on sunscreen?”
    â€œWhat?” The elderly woman ran her hands along the paper thin skin of her arms. “I never thought to put any on.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t be out here on such a sunny day without it.”
    â€œOh … beans,” she said, making a face. “I don’t suppose you have any with you.”
    â€œBack in my room at Thunderhook.”
    â€œWe’ll go there.”
    â€œIt’s much farther away than your house.”
    She raised a hand to shade her eyes. “I guess I am tired.” Scrutinizing Jane’s face, she added, “You know, I do remember you now.”
    â€œThe last time I was at your house you made cassoulet.”
    â€œYes, one of my husband’s favorites. And we had an old-fashioned floating island for dessert.”
    Jane slipped her arm through Helen’s, surprised at how thin and twiglike it felt. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”
    On the way back down the beach, they talked companionably about the weather, always a conversational staple in Minnesota.
    When they reached a pine tree downed by yesterday’s storm, Helen pointed to her house atop a steep sandy ridge. From this vantage point, it looked like a mini-mansion. The back faced the lake, while the front looked out on Conrad Merland Drive, one of Lost Lake’s main drags.
    Jane was about to help Helen up the narrow concrete steps that led from the beach to the back lawn when she saw a man rushing toward them from the direction of the lodge.
    â€œMrs. Merland?” he called, skidding to a stop in the sand on the other side of the downed pine.
    She turned to face him.
    â€œI need to ask you a couple of questions.”
    â€œYou are?”
    â€œSteve Feigenbaumer. I’m a journalist.”
    Still holding on to Helen’s arm, Jane could feel the elderly woman’s startled response.
    â€œYour family used to own the Merland Brewery, isn’t that right?”
    â€œYes?”
    The man pulled a black Chicago White Sox cap out of the back pocket of his khaki slacks and slapped it over his thinning dark hair. “You also have a foundation.”
    Jane figured there weren’t that many men running around Lost Lake wearing a White Sox cap. He had to be last night’s Peeping Tom.
    â€œI no longer run it, but yes, we take on progressive causes,” said Helen.
    â€œBy progressive, I assume you mean liberal.”
    Jane wondered how the guy could conduct an interview without taking any notes.
    â€œLiberal, progressive. Either is fine with me. For your edification, in the early part of the last century, you could find progressives in both major parties. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and a progressive. Woodrow Wilson a progressive and a Democrat. We’ve