Ransom on the River: Deep River Inn

by Bettie Jane

  “She did at that, Mrs. Andersen.”

  “And,” Sadie continued, “when we followed up with Pete, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Carl. I don’t know if Olga was lying about that or if Carl was the one lying. Until we talk to Olga again, we’ll never know since Carl certainly cannot tell us.”

  Silence hung in the air for a bit, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

  “You know, I’d never admit this in front of the likes of Margaret Butler and her crew of bitter ladies, but I can tell you boys. I’m feeling a bit in over my head here. Do you have any ideas? What areas could someone hide in between the Ostervold cabin here? It seems that is the most important place to start—continuing the search for Jemmie.”

  William passed a bottle of bourbon around and Sadie took a grateful drink when it found its way to her hands. Bourbon had a way of warming a person from the inside out.

  “I think we are all in agreement that finding Jemmie is the priority. At this point, we have to hope that he is in out of the elements.”

  Gus nodded. “I agree, William. There are two farmhouses between here and Ostervold’s place.”

  Enoch Redmond puffed on a cigar. “Don’t forget the old Stewart homestead. It’s been abandoned for years and I don’t know if Carl knew about it, but if I was hiding from the law in these parts, I’d start there.”

  Enoch clapped him on the back. “You’re right. I’d forgotten about that place. It’s on the other side of the river. Harder to get to than either of those farmhouses, but there will be less eyes out that way as well. It’s a good place to start. Would certainly make for a good hiding spot.”

  Sadie nodded, making a decision. “Alright then. We’ll save Olga for tomorrow, as much as I hate to wait. For now, we go to the Stewart homestead. Is Ostervold’s place the closest phone?”

  Gus nodded. “Sure is, at least as far as I know.”

  “That’s still faster than driving back into town. William, how are your horses holding up?”

  “They are doing just fine. We brought them because they are perfect for the backcountry that we suspected we’d be going into. I’m not sure if that old bridge is passable anymore, Enoch.”

  Enoch was the only one with a motor vehicle. The rest of the search party were on horses.

  Enoch nodded. “I wondered about that myself. I’ll drive Deputy Andersen to Ostervold’s and we’ll pick up a couple horses from Ostervold. We’ll meet you at the bridge. Ya’ll can take it easy with your horses that way rather than push them. We might them to stay in the race all night. If necessary, we can get fresh horses from Smith up the road come morning if we haven’t found the boy by then.”

  “A couple questions come to mind, if you’ll humor me?” Sadie asked. Now that it was just Gus, Enoch, and William she wasn’t so worried about giving the impression she knew what she was doing. They all knew she was just another town resident trying to help. “It’s not too dark?”

  William shook his head. “The lanterns put enough light and the trail to the Stewart house is pretty tame, once you cross the river. It should’t be an issue, although we won’t be winning any races.”

  She nodded, satisfied with their answers. Daniel said they were familiar with search and rescue techniques so she’d rely on their judgement.

  “All right, then. Second question. If we have to take horses to get there because the bridge is out, how would Jemmie and whoever has him get across. What makes you think they would be able to get there, despite it’s stellar hiding conditions?”

  Enoch nodded, “It’s a fair question. The river is a bit high to ford without a horse and cold as all get out this time of year.”

  William seemed unfazed. “They are likely traveling light, no gear like we’ve all got on our horses. I think that’s why they abandoned the car. No need to take it. It would only draw attention to them, a fancy one like that. Besides, there is a foot bridge that is still passable. At least it was when I was out here last summer. If they are on foot, which seems likely, and no horses, they could have easily made it across and hole up there for the night. We could leave the horses as well and take the foot bridge, but fording the river with the horses will be faster, even with the detour by the Ostervold place.”

  “Thank you for taking the time to explain. Let’s get to it then.”

  Gus nodded and William spoke.

  “We’ll find Raven and meet you at the bridge.”

  Once they’d split up, Sadie had some questions for Enoch on the way to see Ostervold. “I’ve heard lots of stories about what a recluse Ostervold is. What makes you think he’d loan us his horses?”

  Enoch smiled at her. “Even stubborn old recluses have a soft spot for missing children.”

  “I don’t know if the same could be said for some of those ladies in town.”

  He let out a hearty laugh. “You might be a bit hard on them. Maybe they’ll surprise you.”

  “Ha. I seriously doubt that. There hearts seemed to have shriveled up and died.”

  His voice quieted. “Most of them ladies have been through some real hard things. Life out here hasn’t exactly been easy on some of them. Look, I know they’ve been hard on you, so I don’t expect you to have a lot of compassion for them yet. Alls I’m saying is that they might surprise you. And I suspect that you might surprise them along the way. If I was a bettin’ man, that’d be my bet.”

  She didn’t know how to respond. She felt a little skeptical that those women had much in the way of redeeming qualities, but if she was honest with herself, she’d been surprised before by the innate goodness in humanity.

  “I suppose you might have a point. When my Father was dying—Mama passed only weeks before he did and I was out of my mind with grief and trying to keep the tavern going—I saw some of the roughest men soften up in the face of our ordeal.” Memories filled her head of some of the men who’d set down their rough exterior and gently assisted her father in his last days. The community outpouring during his last days and after he passed had been miraculous, if she was honest. That was the kind of community she had hoped existed in this one-horse town that Daniel seemed to love so much. Some of the men here today gave her hope, but the women had been sorely disappointing.

  Enoch was quiet for a bit, each of them seemed lost in their own thoughts before he finally broke the silence.

  “That must have been hard on you to lose your parents so close together.”

  She swallowed down the emotion that was threatening to overwhelm her. “It was. But folks came together and I would say there was definitely some beauty that came out of all of it. I need to prepare the Inn to sell in the spring. It’s closed up for now. I couldn’t stay there with all of the memories. Let’s just say the welcome I expected, that Daniel built up, is nothing like the caring folks I left back in Astoria. Sometimes I think leaving was a mistake, but I was blind with grief. I didn’t think I could or even wanted to run the Inn without my parents.”

  “I’m in Astoria frequently for work. Which inn?”

  “Deep River Inn, near the wharf where all the sea lions like to congregate.”

  She had a flash of a memory of walking along the waterfront with her mother and watching the birds and other native animals.

  She could feel tears well up in her and tried to hold them back. Enoch turned a corner and she could see that they’d arrived at Ostervold’s cabin. Just in time, and for that Sadie was grateful. She could only talk about the things she’d lost for so long before the emotion of it all threatened to overwhelm her. She tied off the emotion that was threatening to overtake her and tucked it away neatly somewhere deep down in her belly.

  She’d never seen Old Man Ostervold before tonight and was genuinely surprised at what she saw when he opened up his cabin door.

  First of all, the cabin that everyone referred to was nothing like she’d imagined. She expected it to be ramshackle and falling apart. Instead, it was more upscale lodge than it was a cabin. Two-stories of barn red house sat nestled i
n the trees. She found it especially beautiful at night with the snow falling. And if the cabin was a surprise, Ostervold himself was even more so.

  He looked to be in his fifties, younger than Daniel. He had a white beard, salt and pepper hair, and a dark tan and appeared to be fit and trim. When he opened the door, she was hit with a strong aroma of pot roast. She’d stumbled across a little bit of heaven in the middle of a nightmare.

  “Welcome to my home, Enoch. Mrs. Andersen. I’ve seen you around town a bit, on the rare instances I make it into town that is, and I’ve heard many good things about you.”

  He extended his hand to shake it and she obliged. She’d not expected someone who had a reputation as a recluse to be so…sophisticated. “It’s lovely to meet you, Mr. Ostervold. Thank you for your help today. Would it be too much of an imposition to use your telephone? I’d like to update Mr. Brix on our search before we get back to it.”

  “On one condition and that is that you warm up with a cup of coffee and a hot supper before you go back out in this weather.”

  She rubbed her hands together to warm them and smiled gratefully. “Coffee sounds wonderful.”

  “Great. I’ll have Alice put a plate out for you.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll have the time for a meal. We need to find Jemmie. It’s getting colder.”

  “You’ll need your energy to keep searching. I insist. I’ve got sandwiches ready for you to take to the rest of your men. I understand from William that the Sherriff is under the weather and that he’s deputized you. Come with me, the phone is just through here in my study.”

  A cabin with a study and a housekeeper. Yes, she’d been completely wrong in her impressions of who Old Man Ostervold, the hermit in the woods, was.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome. I’ll leave you to your privacy.”

  He walked out of the room and pulled closed the solid pine double doors behind him. His study was massive, filled with shelves and shelves of books, comfy leather chairs, and large intricate oil paintings on the walls. She willed herself to focus the task at hand even though every part of her wanted to curl up in a chair by the fire and read or sleep. This accidental discovery was maybe the most surprising and exciting she’d seen since arriving in Wahkiakum County.

  A brusk Oscar Brix answered the phone on first ring.

  “Brix House.”

  “Mr. Brix, this is Sadie. I’m calling to update you, as promised.”

  Silence.

  She got on with it knowing they must be going out of their minds with worry.

  “We haven’t found Jemmie yet. After searching the premises at the paper company and speaking with the medical examiner, I believe that Carl Collins was killed somewhere else and then his body was dumped out at the paper company. We’re going to look out at the old abandoned Stewart homestead. William and Enoch suggested it might be a place where someone might go to get out of the weather for the night. Have you received any phone call or word about the ransom?”

  “Yes, we did. While I was out earlier, Mrs. Brix received a call. They let her speak to Jemmie.”

  “Go on,” Sadie said, letting out a long breath. If they let him speak to her, he was still alive. That lifted a giant weight from her shoulders.

  “It was only for a moment, but she’s convinced he’s safe. She said it was a man’s voice, disguised somehow—she didn’t recognize it at any rate—and that he asked for $100,000 to be delivered by noon tomorrow. He said that once he has the money, he’ll tell us where Jemmie is.”

  His voice sounded flat, defeated.

  “I hope to find him long before noon tomorrow, Mr. Brix,” Sadie said, trying to be reassuring. “Did he say where he wanted the money delivered?”

  A woman’s voice, likely Henrietta Brix, came through the phone. “Oscar, we’ll get the money. I’ll ask father. We’ll get the money.”

  Oscar grunted, presumably at Henrietta’s suggestion, but didn’t respond in any other way to his wife. Instead, he spoke directly to Sadie again. “He said he’d call back with a delivery location. Please find my boy. I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to him.”

  “I will. Mr. Brix, I hate to pry, but under the circumstances I need to ask. I saw a stack of past due notices in the offices at the logging camp. Have you had financial trouble for a while?”

  Silence and then she heard him clear his throat. When he spoke his voice was quieter than it had been before.

  “There are no financial troubles, I can assure you. My office manager was negligent in his duties and failed to pay our vendors. I’m working on rectifying that and they’ve been fired.”

  “Who was your office manager?”

  More silence and then, “Pete Phillips.”

  “From Skamokawa?”

  “Yes.” His voice sounded like it came from the grave.

  “Mr. Brix, you don’t suppose he has some sort of grudge against you for firing him and is—er, was—working with Carl?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought him capable of it, but I suppose it is possible.”

  “I see. I’ll look ito it then and check in with you later. You tell Mrs. Brix I won’t stop looking until I find him. Oh, and Mr. Brix, please stay by the phone in case the ransomer calls again.”

  She hung up the phone and gathered her thoughts, taking a deep breath before she opened the study doors and wandered back down the hallway the way she’d come with Mr. Ostervold.

  Someone killed Carl Collins and was now wanting $100,000 in exchange for the safe return of Jemmie Brix. Was it Pete Phillips? Had she interacted directly with the kidnapper and been none the wiser?

  She found Enoch and Sam Ostervold in the dining room and Enoch was plowing through a plate of pot roast. He looked guilty when he looked up and saw Sadie.

  She raised a hand and waved him off. “Eat, Enoch. It’s going to be a long night. And cold.”

  Ostervold motioned to a chair and slid a plate down in front of her. “Same rules apply, Mrs. Andersen. Or Deputy Andersen, I guess it is. Before you try to argue with me, your husband and I go way back and if I didn’t make sure you had food and warmth, well, let’s just say when the Sheriff is well again, he might lock me up and throw away the key. He’s quite smitten with you.”

  “How is it that you know Daniel? Besides living in the same community, that is?”

  She gave in to the peer pressure because honestly, a full meal sounded really good right now and it smelled heavenly. She was tired and hungry and needed to think.

  Where was Jemmie?

  She slid into the chair he offered and filled her fork with pot roast, potatoes, carrots all smothered in gravy. The first bite proved it tasted as good as it smelled.

  “Well, that would take a year and a day to give you that backstory, but for now, let’s just say that he and I were young boys together and our families go way back. In this town, that could be good or bad, of course. In our case, it was both.”

  He poured her some wine which she considered refusing, but chasing this pot roast with a delicious semi-sweet red blend was the perfect match. She hadn’t had a meal this elegant since Astoria and she was glad to drink it. Sam didn’t seem to want to say anymore about his relationship with Daniel so she left it alone.

  “This is delicious and hits the spot, Mr. Ostervold. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome. And please, call me Sam.”

  “You’ve already been so generous, but we do have another favor to ask of you.”

  “The horses? Enoch already asked and of course. I’ve already got one of my stable hands saddling them up for you.”

  She smiled around a mouthful of food. “Thank you,” she said as soon as she’d swallowed her food. “I’m sure Mr. Brix and his family will be very grateful for your cooperation.”

  Sam Ostervold’s face hardened in an expression that she was surprised to see out of someone who had so far been so hospitable.

  “I’m sure I don’t care one whit what th
at money grubbing Oscar Brix thinks of me, but I’d do just about anything for Henrietta and her children. I dare say that if Henrietta knew Oscar as I did, she’d never have married him.”

  That was an interesting reaction. There must have been some bad blood between Oscar and Sam. Maybe she’d ask Enoch about it? Not for the first time, she felt handicapped in her lack of knowledge about the connections and the bad blood in this town. Maybe Enoch could give her some insight into Oscar Brix and anyone that might have a grudge against him. Something that was commonly known or information that was less widely known.

  Everyone in town knew Oscar Brix had money, so just about anyone in a tight fix could be responsible for the kidnapping and ransom. The years after the war and now the influenza outbreak meant that many people were struggling this winter. Specifically, she needed to more about Pete Phillips.

  So much for narrowing down suspects.

  She needed to speak with Olga again. She’d bet this plate of roast beef that Olga had information that would unlock this case. If she were the betting type.

  She smiled thinking of Enoch’s phrasing earlier today. It sort of rolled off the tongue.

  Enoch and Sam had slipped into conversation about this year’s especially harsh winter and Sadie used that time to gather her thoughts. She heard Amelia’s name but hadn’t heard what they’d said about her.

  Daniel’s first wife was beloved in the community and her family and just the mention of her name reminded Sadie how out of place she was here and how they’d likely never accept her.

  She’d never heard mention of any negative thing about Amelia Andersen. As far as Sadie knew, she might as well have walked on water.

  When the conversation lulled between the two men, Enoch turned to Sadie and said, “Did you speak to Oscar? Did they get the ransom call?”

  Sadie nodded. “Yes, on both accounts. The kidnapper wants $100,000 delivered by noon tomorrow. Whoever it was let Henrietta speak to Jemmie so we at least know that he’s alive at this point, if not much else.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Sam breathed, seeming to be truly relieved by the announcement.