by Stephen Frey
I don’t waste my breath trying to convince him how wrong he is. His grandkids will figure that out soon enough. Of course, they probably won’t be able to do much about it at that point. “Yeah, idiots,” I say, taking a deep breath of the gas station fumes. I like the smell of petroleum, sweat, and sawdust all mixing together. It reminds me of being in the barn with my dad while we built Intrepid. I like that Bat’s never taken down his Esso sign, too, even though it’s been blasted full of buckshot over the years. “So how long is it supposed to stay warm?”
“For at least a few days. Up into at least the forties every day. Maybe even the fifties,” Bat adds, looking up at the sky. “Sure are a lot of out-of-towners and River Families coming through Bruner lately.”
He’s in a talkative mood, and, when he is, he changes subjects on a dime.
“There was a fellow in here the other day,” he keeps going. “He was asking a lot of real sticky questions.”
My eyes flash up from my wallet at this new piece of information. I’d been trying to decide if I was going to pay cash or give Bat a credit card. “You get his name?”
Bat scratches his head. “I’m trying to remember, Sheriff. I think he said he was working for Lew Prescott.”
“Was it Darrow Clements?”
Bat snaps his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. Darrow Clements. Like I said, he was asking all kinds of questions and they were,” Bat hesitates, “well, they were mostly about you. About if I’d ever seen you hanging around with Prescott’s daughter. You know, that poor Cindy girl.” Bat grits his teeth and inhales quickly so the air whistles through them, like he’s suddenly worried he’s said something wrong. “But I didn’t say anything he could use, Sheriff. Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything wrong, I didn’t get you in any trouble. You’re a good man and we need you here in Bruner.”
“Thanks.” I pat Bat on the shoulder. I appreciate that he doesn’t want to get me in trouble. What bothers me is that he thinks he might. “You answer questions like those however you feel you should.”
Bat shakes his head. “Bill Campbell was in here, too. The old mule.”
My ears perk up again. “Bill Campbell?”
“Uh huh. God, I hate that guy. Worse than any of the other River Family people.”
“When was he here?”
Bat scrunches up his face as he tries to remember. “Sunday. The morning the storm hit. The same day Clements was here.”
Normally the River Families call me or Mrs. Erickson to let us know they’re going to be at their estates—the way Cindy did—so my deputies and I aren’t surprised on our rounds when we see lights turned on in the mansions. Despite his perpetual crankiness, Bill Campbell’s always been pretty good about doing that, but I never got a call from him or any of his family last week. Maybe Mrs. Erickson took his call but didn’t tell me, though that doesn’t add up, either. She’s a professional, at least when it comes to police work.
If we didn’t know Campbell was at his place, one of the deputies or I might go into the mansion to investigate and get shot when we surprise him—or shoot him. Everyone up here has guns in the house, including the River Families, and that can mean trouble fast, especially with what happened last week. Everybody’s going to have their fingers on their triggers at all times. Mrs. Erickson might not like me much, but I don’t think she wants to see me get killed. And I know she doesn’t want to see the other guys get killed. Since she never had kids of her own she pretty much looks at the deputies as her boys.
“Was anyone with Campbell?” I ask.
“Nah, he was by himself.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Not too much. I don’t have much to say to him since he stiffed me on that job he had me do on his Cadillac last summer.”
I gaze at Bat, wondering if he knows where those poodles are. The ones Mrs. Campbell lost a few weeks after her husband stiffed Bat last summer. I bet he does. “Was he going to his estate or leaving?”
Bat scrunches up his face again. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He’s such a prick. He actually made a joke about Cindy, about her murder.”
I was about to pull my credit card out. “What?”
“Yeah, he said it was such a nice family it was too bad it wasn’t both of them. He said it real sarcastically.”
I’ve never had any problems with Bill Campbell, but then I’ve never had much of an opportunity to get into it with him, either. During the four years I’ve been sheriff of Dakota County, we’ve managed to stay out of each other’s way. So, except for the fact that he’s filthy rich, I’ve never had any reason to hate him—until now. “What did Campbell say?” I need to hear it again because it’s hard to believe anyone would say such a terrible thing.
“He said it was too bad both of them didn’t get it.”
“Both of them,” I repeat. “Was he talking about Chelsea, too?” Lew Prescott has another daughter, named Chelsea. She’s younger than Cindy was. “Is that what he meant?”
“I don’t think that’s what he was saying. I think he was talking about Cindy and her father.”
“But why would he say that?”
Bat nods like now he understands something. “I guess you never heard about what happened.”
“Guess not.” I thought I’d heard about everything, even everything that happened before I got here. “Fill me in.”
“Well, I think it was about seven or eight years ago when all this happened. Apparently, Campbell’s wife ended up over at the Prescott estate after a cocktail party one of the other River Families threw. It was during the middle of the week in July and Bill was back in St. Paul working and Lew’s wife was on the West Coast with Chelsea doing something. Anyway, the story goes that Bill’s son showed up at the Prescott estate looking for her and caught his mom and Lew in a pretty compromising position. She swore she’d just gone over there to look at some artwork, but the kid was in the Saloon later that night with his brother and they were drunk and they were talking like it wasn’t that way at all. A couple of the locals heard them. I think Sara was one of them. The next day everybody clammed up about it, but Bill and Lew haven’t spoken since. At least, that’s what I heard.”
“Jesus, I never heard anything about that.”
Bat raises both eyebrows. “Everybody figured Bill was gonna go after Lew, but he never did. As far as I know anyway.” He points at me in a friendly way. “Then there was this other guy who came by in the middle of last week,” he says, changing subjects again like he’s pulling the trigger of a gun. “Nice fellow but a real gearhead,” he says, rolling his eyes. “You know, the pocket protector type. I don’t relate much to those kind.” Bat smiles and swells up with pride. “Even though I’m in the energy business myself.”
If you’re a good local sheriff you learn to listen to how people are talking to you, not just what they’re saying. You know, inflections in their voice, the way they look at you when they speak, how often they touch you on the arm to get your attention. That’s why I went with Sara to the cabin. I could tell she really wanted me to go with her by how she was talking, not just by what she was saying, but by how she was getting animated with her arms, because she rarely does that. It’s the same with Bat. I can tell Bat really wants me to hear what he’s saying now because he’s leaning on a few words, emphasizing them hard, and he doesn’t usually do that.
“Was this guy just passing through town or was he here on business?”
“He said he was here on business. He said he was back in the woods behind the estates doing some work for a couple of days. He said he was working off the River Road.”
The River Road is a dirt and gravel road that runs north and south through the forest about five miles west of the estates on the other side of the Boulder from 681. There isn’t anything on it. No homes, no nothing. It’s just another way to get north and south around here and it parallels 681 all the way down to Route 91. Then it cuts across 91 and keeps going another few miles south before the pavement begins
and homes start to come up along it. The entrance to the River Road up here on Route 7 is six miles west of town and that’s where it ends. It doesn’t go the last five miles to Lake Superior. The spot where it dead-ends into Route 7 is right about where Gus and Trudy slammed into that grove of white pines that day they were going Christmas shopping. It’s actually a state road even though it doesn’t have an official designation, but they don’t plow it. And I’m not sure why we call it the River Road. Six-eighty-one is closer to the Boulder than the River Road is.
“Did he tell you what he was doing back there?”
“Nope. But he had this smirk on his face the whole time I was filling his truck up. It was the only thing about him I didn’t like. I felt like he was keeping something from me, something important, too.”
I gaze at the grimy glove insignia on Bat’s Brewers cap. I don’t want to alarm him, I don’t want to get any more rumors started—especially right now—but I don’t want to miss the chance to pick up some valuable information, either. “How did he pay?”
Bat smiles. “Credit card.”
He’s obviously proud of himself for some reason that’s not immediately obvious to me.
“I always remember how everybody pays me,” he explains. “Most of the time how much they paid me, too. It’s like those pro golfers who can tell you what club they used on every hole in a tournament twenty years after they—”
“You still got that receipt?” Bat seems miffed at my interruption, but I don’t have time for this and I don’t like golf very much. It’s a sport I could never get into. “It’d be helpful if you did.”
He nods. “Yeah, I think I got it.”
“Can I look at it?”
“Sure.”
I follow him into his cramped office, which is off the two-bay garage. He picks up a pair of scratched reading glasses that are lying beside the cash register and puts them on, then pulls an old shoe box out from beneath the counter. He runs through the receipts for a few moments, then stops, digs one out with his grease-stained fingers, and hands it to me.
The name on the receipt is Henry Steinbach, and, just as I’d hoped, Steinbach used a corporate card to pay. The company name on the card is Edina Engineering and, according to the receipt, it’s based in Minneapolis.
“Is that what you needed, Sheriff?”
“We’ll see, Bat, we’ll see.” I manage a quick, noncommittal response even though I’m suddenly wondering if there’s a hell of a lot more going on in Dakota County than I thought there was. I hope Bat didn’t see that look hit my face. He’s more perceptive than people who don’t know him very well take him to be. I thought he was kind of slow the first time I met him, too, but over the years I’ve learned. “One more question, Bat.”
“Sure, Sheriff. Fire away.”
“Was Jack Harrison in here last week? He drives that black—”
“I know his car,” Bat says. “He’s such a jerk. He’s not as bad as Bill Campbell, but almost.” Bat takes off his reading glasses. “Nah, Harrison wasn’t in here. I’d remember if he was. I mean, he is a congressman and all.” Bat chuckles snidely. “You know, I might pour some sugar in his tank when he wasn’t looking if he ever does come in here with that Porsche.”
I chuckle back, letting Bat know that there wouldn’t be any investigation by the Dakota County Police Force if he did.
I end up parking the truck off to the side of Bat’s lot, then walking over to the precinct. The temperature may be up and the sun may be out but there’s still a tremendous amount of snow on the ground, and I noticed on my way to Bat’s that our lot at the precinct wasn’t cleared yet. Charlie Wagner, the owner of the washette where Vivian works, gets twenty-five bucks a storm to clear it. But he’s feeling his age these days and he doesn’t get up as early as he used to after drinking himself to sleep most nights on bourbon since losing his wife last year. Bat’s probably not real happy about my truck taking up space at his gas station, but people around here are generally pretty accommodating to my deputies and me.
“Hello,” I say evenly to Mrs. Erickson as I come through the precinct door. One thing about her, she’s always at her post when she’s supposed to be. I don’t think she’s taken a sick day since I’ve been here and she gets colds and flu just like the rest of us do. “You should have called me.” Her old pale green and white Skylark isn’t outside anywhere so she must have walked over. Her trailer isn’t far from the one Maggie lives in on Tunlaw behind the washette, so it’s not too bad a hike to get here. Still, she’s no spring chicken anymore. “I would have come and picked you up.”
She’s filing reports in the metal cabinets that line the file room. We still file things the old-fashioned way in Bruner. “That’s all right. I wore my snowshoes and I was just fine,” she answers without looking up. “Just because I’m a little older doesn’t make me an invalid, Sheriff.”
“Oh, I know.” I take a step into my office, then lean back out. “Any of the River Families call in lately to let us know they were coming into town?”
Now she looks up and raises an eyebrow. “You mean other than Cindy?”
I grimace. It’s been thirty minutes since I’ve thought about Cindy lying there dead on that floor, which is a decent stretch of time, all things considered. Yesterday it was every ten minutes. Of course, Mrs. Erickson would have to remind me. “Yeah,” I say in a low voice, “other than Cindy.”
She shakes her head. “No. You would have told me if they had, just like I would have told you.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Who were you thinking might have called?” she asks before I can duck back into my office.
Mrs. Erickson’s good. She smells a story. “Nobody in particular.” I don’t want her to know I’m talking about Bill Campbell. “I was just checking.”
With that I head into my office and close the door. I want to rake her over the coals for blabbing to everyone about that poor girl who almost fell off the cliff in the Gorges and how she was running from the cult, but I don’t. Instead, I call Sheriff Wilson down in Brower County to give him an account of what happened to the girl, then make an appointment to see him later in person in Hayward. We’ve got a lot to talk about and I volunteer to drive to him because I’ve got some other people I want to see down that way, too.
My next call is to the Superior Hospital. I know a couple of nurses over there pretty well, and l make sure I get one of them on the phone before I ask about the kid I carried back from the cabin yesterday. Nurses aren’t supposed to give out information concerning a patient to non–family members—I think Superior’s even gone to a specific list of preapproved callins ever since the government crackdown on patient privacy a few years ago. But since this woman knows me and knows what I do, she tells me what’s going on right away. She says the kid hasn’t come out of his coma and isn’t doing well. She tells me that his vital signs aren’t improving and the doctors are worried. And that’s all there is to hear. Nobody’s claimed him and nobody seems to be trying to.
Then I ask her about the girl who I pulled off that cliff. She’s in the same hospital—at least, she’s supposed to be. But it turns out she’s gone and nobody knows where she went. She wasn’t discharged, apparently she just walked out—and her parents are going crazy.
As I hang up slowly, wondering whether the girl walked out or was carried, Mrs. Erickson knocks on my door. I can tell it’s her because she always does it the same way—three heavy times with those thick knuckles of hers.
“Sheriff?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Clements is here to see you.”
Jesus Christ. This is Clements’s MO. He isn’t the sharpest blade in the drawer, but he’s a bulldog and he hits you hardest when you’re least expecting it. He won’t ever outsmart you, but his endurance is legendary, and that’s how he gets you. “Just a minute.” I take a few seconds to pick up some files off the chair he’ll be sitting in, then I open the door. “Hey.” I hold my hand out to shake his but he
doesn’t respond. I don’t know why but I’m still trying to be civil to the guy.
“We need to talk,” he says gruffly.
“Sit down.” I point at the chair, then head back to mine.
“What’s this about a girl almost going off a cliff into the Boulder River on Sunday?” he demands, launching his attack with no warning. “What’s this about her running from a devil worship cult you’ve got up here? And what were you doing out at the Prescott estate a second time on the day Cindy was murdered? What the hell’s going on in Dakota County, Sheriff?”
At least he doesn’t mention the pentagrams Mrs. Erickson has been going on and on about or any of the other specific circumstances surrounding Cindy’s murder. But it won’t be long before he hears about all that, too. I’m running out of time. “Darrow,” I say as calmly as I can, “like I told you before, I can’t say anything about what’s happening.” I’m trying to keep my composure, but it’s tough. I can hear the aggravation simmering in my voice. I can hear all those nasty comments he made about my wife the last time he was here, too. “We’ve got several investigations ongoing.”
“I don’t care what you said before and I don’t care how many investigations you’ve got ongoing. This is Cindy Harrison we’re talking about, the wife of a United States congressman and the daughter of Lew Prescott. Not some damn local woman,” he snaps, rising out of his chair and coming around the desk. “Her investigation takes precedence over anything else you’re working on right now.”
I stand up, too, and suddenly we’re toe to toe. “Get out of here,” I tell him. “Now.”
“Never could make it on a big-city police force, could you, Paul?”
My eyes narrow. “Never wanted to, Darrow.”
“Always let women get in your way, didn’t you?”
