by Jeff Nania
“This is beautiful,” I exclaimed.
“The Namekagon is a tributary of the St. Croix River. It’s over one hundred miles long. The name is Ojibwe. If I recall correctly, it means ‘place abundant with sturgeon.’ It’s part of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway and is protected from development. I hope it will look like this for many generations. The fishing is fantastic. Anything we have in the north country can be caught here. Trout, bass, muskies, walleyes, and lake sturgeon; you name it. The cold water makes them taste delicious.”
“What are we fishing for today, Len?”
“Bad guys, John. Today we are fishing for bad guys.”
I carefully backed the trailer into the narrow ramp on the riverbank. Len took off the two straps that held the boat in place. He grabbed a bowline and gave the boat a push. It slid off the roller trailer with little effort and was immediately caught by the river. He gently pulled the boat over parallel to the shore out of the strong current. I pulled the truck forward and parked it along the edge of the landing area, making sure not to block access for another boater or fisherman.
We climbed aboard and, using the oars, Len carefully navigated the boat into the main channel. His skill was that of one who had spent a significant amount of time on the water. The flow grabbed the boat, and he guided us downstream.
“Pick up that rod with the Mepps spinner on it and start casting. It will take us about an hour to get to where we’re going, and you may as well fish. I’m going to get the feel of this boat. So far, I like it.”
I cast the lure into fishy looking places and was rewarded with two small but feisty smallmouth bass.
Along the way, Len pulled the boat over to shore a few times, and we both fished deep pools. He caught a big walleye but let it go.
“Next time you’ll be my dinner,” he laughed. “But not today.”
We came around a bend, and in the distance we could see Stone’s house. It was on the edge of the river with a solid looking balcony extending out over the river channel itself.
“I’m going to put us into that pool on this side of the house. We’re going to fish there and see what we can see.”
He guided the boat into the pool and tied the bowline to a tree. We only threw a couple of casts before we had company. A man with a rifle, dressed in black military type clothing, appeared out of nowhere. He was on the shore opposite us. We kept fishing.
“You need to find another place to fish. This stretch of the river is private!” he said in voice loud enough to be heard over the river. We didn’t respond. “Don’t make me tell you again. Untie your boat and get going before I shoot a hole in it.”
We kept fishing. It was then we noticed two other figures—one flanking the guy who was yelling at us. The other was behind us on the same side of the river we were.
“My partner told you to untie the boat and get going. Maybe you didn’t hear him. So, let me help you.” He stepped off the bank into the water, and with one pass of a razor-sharp knife he cut our bowline. The boat started to drift away in the current.
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted Len.
“Saving your life, you stupid hick. Don’t ever come back here.” The guy faded back into the brush. The others did the same.
“John, get me that spare bowline from under that bow. I am going to pull into this next pool and start fishing. We can’t let those guys run us off.”
I reached for the rope and, at the same time, looked up toward the house.
“Len, look,” I said nodding toward the house. “Look who is standing on the deck.” Even though we had drifted seventy-five yards, there was little doubt who we were looking at: the Wolf. His appearance was brief before he disappeared from sight.
Len gently pulled at the oars, and we continued downstream. “Pull over in that pool, Len. We can tie up to that overhang.”
He expertly steered us toward the bank. I grabbed a stout tree branch, pulled us over, secured the new bowline, and tied it off. I was certain we were still being watched.
“What are we going to do, John?”
“Fish, Len. Start fishing. They may have made us, but that’s not for sure. If there’s any chance they’re going to write us off as fisherman, we better act like that’s what we are.”
The chief had no problem getting into the fishing, catching a big smallmouth bronze-colored beauty that would have easily tipped the scales at over four pounds. After twenty minutes or so, I untied the bowline, and the little boat once again drifted into the current and to the next pool. We continued our routine until we were a safe distance from the house.
“Okay, let’s get the heck out of here,” I said.
“You got it, John. I’ve been waiting for a sniper to fire on us this whole while. Doesn’t do much for the nerves.”
He used the long oars to the best advantage keeping us in the main channel and moving rapidly downstream. We passed two kayakers and a solo canoeist. Not much was said. Both of us were deep in thought. We had located our person of interest, a suspected killer for hire. We were going to need to take him down, and he wouldn’t go easy. The first step would be to prove our case to the district attorney and then a judge to secure a warrant for his arrest and a search warrant for Stone’s house. The more progress we made, the less likely our investigation would remain secret. It was time to move.
We drove Len’s truck back to the landing and got the trailer. Once the boat was loaded up, we headed toward town. I looked at my cell phone and realized that I had at least five missed calls from Bear. I called him back.
No yelling at me about not having my phone with me, no calling me a knucklehead. All Bear said was, “John, I need you and the chief out at the burned cabin as soon as you can get here. Get rid of the boat, get the chief’s marked car, and gear up. No lights and sirens, but move it.”
18
I pulled over and told the chief what was happening. We went back to his place and didn’t unhook the boat. We got in his squad and took off. I didn’t look at the speedometer, but I could tell by the way the car was floating that we were moving right along. We came to the turnoff and found it blocked by a sheriff’s squad. A deputy I didn’t know was standing at the car with an AR-15.
He moved his car, then walked up to the driver’s window. “Chief, you guys are to go through but only to the first turnoff. Stop your car there and walk the rest of the way. The sheriff wants no unnecessary radio traffic, so call him on his cell phone if you can’t find him.”
We left the car and walked in, both of us armed with handguns and rifles. We approached the building site and saw that the area had been cordoned off with bright yellow crime scene tape. Circling around and toward the hill behind we caught a glimpse of movement. Chief Bork called the sheriff.
“Jim, we are here. Where do you want us?”
“Follow the trail around to the hill. At the base of the hill you will see more tape. That’s where we are. You can probably see us if you look down, but follow the trail. Don’t cut cross-country. This is now a crime scene.”
Jim Rawsom and Lt. Malone met us on the trail minutes later.
Rawsom began, “We’ve got ourselves something here, and it’s no good. The area on the photo that looked cleared with straight lines was, in fact, a man-made clearing. We went to work with a metal detector and some shovels and found something underground. Follow in our foot tracks and we’ll show you.”
After about 50 yards we came to the clearing. The shovels were standing in a pile of dirt recently dug up presumably by the sheriff and Malone. The excavation revealed loose soil that had been recently dug and replaced. Then it had been covered by leaves, branches, and other natural debris. The metal detector signaled, and a few minutes of digging uncovered what appeared to be a woman’s watch with a broken band. The watch was still running.
We stared at the sheriff and Malone and waited for further explanation. Malone began, “It appears as though something or someone might be buried here. I don’t know
. I do know that we have disturbed the crime scene as much as we are going to. I’ve ordered up the best crime scene unit we have, and they are on their way. Jim and I are going to remain at the scene until they arrive. What have you guys got to report?”
“We saw the Wolf, only for a second, but it was him. He was standing on the deck of David Stone’s house. Stone’s security guys ran us off. I don’t think they made us, but I’m not sure.”
The chief and I went back to town to get my truck and meet up with Ron Carver and Jack Wheeler. I got ahold of Jack on the first try and told him to meet us at the police department in twenty minutes. I could tell there was an edge in his voice. Ron’s phone went straight to voicemail.
Jack was waiting when we arrived. As we walked inside, the receptionist leaped up and blocked the chief’s way to the back offices. In an agitated voice, she said, “Chief Bork, I have a pile of messages for you, and I’ve tried to reach you several times.”
He stopped and faced her. In a kindly voice, he said, “Cheryl, are any of the messages of a critical nature? Anything that needs doing right now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The mayor is calling every half hour now demanding the budget numbers for the Musky Fest and Lumberjack Competition before tonight’s council meeting. He said you promised them last week. The Landing called and said they wanted you to start towing illegally parked cars from their lot immediately, and if you don’t, they will do it themselves.”
“Okay, Cheryl. Thanks for that. Anything else?”
“I guess just calls from people who want to talk to you. You know the kind of stuff I am talking about. You’re usually so darn good at getting back to people. I got a little flustered when I didn’t hear from you.”
“I can understand that,” Len said. “I should have told you I was going out on a special assignment. The truth is things kind of got away from me. Let me tell you this, and I am trusting you to keep this to yourself. We have a situation right now that needs all the attention I can give it. Mr. Cabrelli, whom you’ve met, and Jack Wheeler, the fellow standing next to him, have been deputized by the sheriff to aid in the investigation. Cheryl, I need your help with this. I’m not going to be able to respond to anything that’s not a real emergency. That is going to frustrate a lot of people, and they’re going to take it out on you. You’re going to have to put them off as best you can without giving them any information about where I am or what I’m doing.”
“Chief, even the mayor?”
“Even the mayor.”
“He is not going to take that well.”
“I don’t suppose he will, but I don’t have any choice. Next, I need you to call every officer and tell them that effective immediately, they are all on call, all vacations canceled. Special event twelve-hour patrol shifts like we do for Musky Fest are now in place. Our people are going to be curious about what the heck is going on. Tell them that they need to keep all of this as confidential as possible. I will let them know when I know. You got all that, Cheryl?”
Cheryl looked the chief in the eyes, and her face softened. It was no longer the chief and the clerk talking. Now talking were two people who had a long history of working together at the Musky Falls PD. “Oh, my God, Len. What is happening? This must be bad.”
“Cheryl, it sure is shaping up to be that way, but I just don’t know yet.”
“You can count on me. Let me know what you need me to do,” she replied.
“I know I can, Cheryl, and I will let you know.”
Jack, Len, and I went into the chief’s office. Len and I relayed the tale of the armed and aggressive response received on the river.
“How did things go with you, Jack?”
“Let me say the database that Lieutenant Malone got me into is pretty incredible. I began with several different searches of companies connected to northern Wisconsin, David Stone, and Superior Shipping and Container. Once I entered the access code, the list of companies, holding companies, and corporations grew like weeds. Change is the only constant. There are so many different entities that have ownership ties to my searches that it would take a team of technicians a year to decipher.
“There are a couple of interesting things I did uncover. First, Superior Shipping and Container is a privately held company and always has been. The founders, a family named Martin, actually owned the company for several generations. They sold ten years ago. It was a public event. The old and new owners held a press conference and assured that the company would be doing business as usual. No jobs would be lost, and as the company expanded, new jobs would be created. It looks like that is what they did. They were the Douglas County business of the year two years ago. They also contributed half a million dollars to the new hospital campaign. The current company CEO is squeaky clean and visible in the community. The top management staff in place when the company was sold have all gone on to different places and have been replaced, but that is not unusual. There is nothing I found to indicate that they are involved in anything illicit.
“The company is owned by Superior Container and Shipping Limited Partnership. The listed partners are all the upper management staff. It looks like they got together, came up with the funds, and purchased the company. I don’t know their past, but they had to have come up with considerable funds to buy the company. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Malone’s colleagues have not had much interest in this company, and the information is limited. I’m guessing they arranged financing for the purchase, but there’s no record of that. On the surface it appears as though they are what they say they are: a company that ships things via the Great Lakes all over the world. They also own a large fleet of trucks that delivers containers to their final destinations within the U.S. and Canada, as well as several transport ships capable of going anywhere in the world. Their industry is monitored by U.S. Customs, Immigration, DEA, local Departments of Transportation, and so on. I was taken aback by how heavily the industry is regulated. They must run a clean operation because, according to the files, they’ve never been cited for a violation.”
“How many containers do they handle a year?” I asked.
“Thousands, John.”
“From all over the world?”
“From all over the world.”
“So, they handle thousands of shipments a year with their own ships as well as ships they don’t own. They have a truck fleet and trucks belonging to others that must be coming and going all the time. They have red tape coming out their ears, yet they have never been cited for any kind of violation. No chance.”
“Well, the current owners have never been cited for a violation. The previous owners, the Martins, had plenty of run-ins with authorities. Nothing serious, mostly violations of bureaucratic red tape. There were some reports from DEA and FBI. Apparently, when the Martins thought someone was shipping drugs or anything else illegal, they turned the violators in. Several arrests were made over the years with the full investigative reports available from the data bank. However, nothing since the new owners.”
“Counselor, keep digging. Superior Container and Shipping is part of this; I’m sure of it. Too clean. There’s got to be something.”
“I’ll do what I can, but I’m afraid my skills are somewhat limited, and the vast amount of information seems to be unlimited.” With that, he went back to the solitude of his office.
There was a knock on the chief’s door, then Cheryl opened it. “Len, there’s a call for you that I think you probably need to take.”
He sat at his desk and punched the blinking light. “Chief Bork,” he answered.
“Chief, this is Special Investigator Liz Masters. I’m the head of the crime scene unit ordered to your location by Lieutenant Malone. We are a few miles out of Musky Falls, and the location given to us by Sheriff Rawsom does not show up on our GPS. As a result, we need an escort to the location. Is that something you can provide?”
“Hold on a second. I’m going to put you on speaker. Okay now, are you coming in on the main road?”
“I’ll meet you at the Fleet Store—” the chief began to say before I interrupted.
“Len, why don’t you finish up here and go home to your wife this afternoon. I will meet them in my truck and take them out there. People won’t notice them as much if they’re following my truck and not your squad.”
“John, they have the lights going.”
“Kill the lights, slow down, and I will meet you in the Fleet parking lot. Don’t stop. I will watch for you and flash my headlights. We will just keep moving back onto the highway,” I said loud enough for Masters to hear me.
“Liz, stay on the main road. You will come to a stoplight intersection with a Fleet store on the left, and John will be watching for you. He is driving an older, brown Chevy pickup truck. Once you connect, you can follow him out.”
“Ten-four. Got it, Chief. We are about ten minutes out,” Masters said.
“Good luck to you.” The chief hung up.
As I pulled into the Fleet store, I saw the van and Suburban approach, and I flashed my lights once. The driver acknowledged with a head nod, and within a few minutes we were running fast through the north country.
The same deputy was blocking the driveway, and he waved us through. Malone and Rawsom met us at the road where we stopped. A group of six people exited the van and Suburban. Liz Masters led the group.
“Lieutenant Malone, we made it,” she said.
“I expected you would,” he replied.
No small talk. Bear started right in. He explained what he and Rawsom had so far. One of Liz’s team members recorded everything said, another panned the area with a video camera. Malone and Rawsom took them to the suspected grave while everyone carefully followed in the same footprints. The arson site was blatantly evident as were tire tracks, water puddles, and disturbed pieces of the structure left by the firefighters. They pointed out the watch they unearthed, laying it as close as possible to its original location. Liz and her crew listened attentively.
