A Cold Case of Killing

by Glenn Ickler

  “Oh, you know, I never thought of that,” Love said. “I was afraid he’d done something bad to her and was running away from the cops.”

  “That’s one of the possibilities that the police suspected at the time, according to the reports I’ve read.”

  “Either way, I never heard from Jimmy or his grandparents again.”

  “Do you know if his grandparents are still in St. Paul?”

  “I think their address was in White Bear. I know Jimmy had to drive a ways down Highway 61 to get to work. Anyhow, if they’re still around they must be at least as old as I am, which is going on ninety-six.”

  “What about Jimmy’s parents? Where were they?”

  “They were killed in a terrible car crash when he was ten years old. That’s why he was living with his grandparents.”

  “Would the grandparents’ name be Bjornquist, or were they his mother’s parents?”

  “Now that you ask about it, I don’t think it was Bjornquist. I mailed the check to them, but I’m not absolutely sure about the name anymore. Like I said, it seems like a long time ago.”

  “Did Jimmy have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.

  “Never mentioned any.”

  “Well, we should let you get back to your card game. Do you mind if Al takes your picture?”

  “If he wants to risk breaking his camera, it’s okay with me,” Love said. He sat up straight and gave Al a big smile, and Al snapped the shutter a couple of times.

  As I rose to leave, I said, “If you’re really tired of Solitaire, I know of another Solitaire player who might be willing to switch to Cribbage.”

  “Oh, that would be great. Where is he?”

  “She is right in this building. Her name is Eleanor Miller. I’ll bet one of the nice ladies here would help you find her.”

  “And you say she plays cards?”

  “She was playing last time I saw her.”

  “Was she playing with a full deck?”

  “Literally and figuratively,” I said. “Thanks for your time and your help.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” said Adelbert Love. As previously stated, I love the older generation.

  “So Jimmy Bjornquist could be in California,” Al said on the way out.

  “And so could Marilee Anderson,” I said.

  “In that case, whose bones were in the Andersons’ backyard?”

  “That, my dear Watson, is a bona fide mystery.”

  As we crossed the lobby, Al spotted a familiar figure parked in a wheelchair facing the front window. “Isn’t that Eleanor Miller?” he asked. She was sitting up as straight as she could manage, staring out the window as though waiting for someone. She was wearing a different flowered blouse but her surgery-shortened legs were encased in the same wrap as the previous day.

  “Let’s go over and say hello,” I said. We walked to her side and, in unison, said, “Hi, Eleanor.”

  She looked up at us and studied our faces for an embarrassingly long time before she spoke. “Hello. How did you know my name?”

  “We met you yesterday,” I said. “Mitch and Al from the paper?”

  “Yesterday?” she said.

  “Yes,” Al said. “You were playing Solitaire. I took your picture.”

  “You took my picture?”

  I recalled what her grandson had said about Eleanor’s fading short-term memory. “We’re from the newspaper. We talked to you about your neighbors, Jack and Jill Anderson.”

  Her expression turned from puzzled to pleased. “Oh, yes, I know Jack and Jill,” Eleanor said. “How are they?” Ah, the long-term memory was doing better than the short-term.

  “They’re, uh, they are having some problems, but they’re okay,” I said.

  “Their daughter has disappeared, you know. Run away or kidnapped, or maybe her father strangled her for all I know, she was such a sassy little thing. I don’t miss the girl—she did a lot of yelling and screaming—but I feel sorry for Jill. For her sake, I hope they find the girl okay.”

  “Right now we’re hoping to find Jack and Jill,” Al said. “They don’t seem to be home today.”

  “Oh, they’re probably up to the lake,” Eleanor said.

  That got my attention. “Do they have a cabin at a lake somewhere?”

  “Oh, gosh yes, they go up every summer on Jack’s vacation. They’re big fishermen, both of them.”

  I decided to push my luck. “Do you know the name of the lake?”

  “Oh, gosh, I’ve heard them talk about it but it don’t come to me just now,” Eleanor said. “It’s up north.” Up north in Minnesota covers several hundred thousand square miles of territory and a majority of the state’s acclaimed 10,000 lakes.

  “Do you remember the name of any town they might have mentioned?” Al asked.

  “Oh, gosh, I should, but I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Might you remember if you thought about it for a while?” I asked.

  “Oh, gosh, I might. I remember it had kind of a funny name.” This would cover scores of Minnesota cities, ranging from Argyle to Zumbrota. It brought to mind a classic headline that once ran in our paper over a story about a woman from one northern Minnesota city being killed in an auto accident in a neighboring northern Minnesota city: “Fertile woman dies in Climax.”

  I wanted to give Eleanor my card and ask her to call me if the name of either the lake or the city popped into her head, but I wasn’t sure that she would remember why she had the card. At least she had given us something to get started on. Another of the Andersons’ neighbors might come up with the name.

  We had said our goodbyes and were almost at the door when we heard Eleanor’s voice. She couldn’t muster a shout but it was loud enough to stop us and send us back.

  “Did you think of something?” I asked.

  “Is there a town up north called Bemidji?” Eleanor said.

  Chapter Ten

  Up at the Lake

  HOMICIDEBROWN,” said Brownie all in one word, as he always does when he answers his direct line.

  “Dailydispatchmitchell,” I said, as I always do when he greets me that way. “Just wondering if you’ve found the wayward Jack and Jill?”

  “I should be so lucky,” Brownie said. “Neighbors didn’t have a clue where they might be hanging out.”

  “Did you talk to the Millers?”

  “People across the street? Affirmative. Andrew Miller couldn’t help us.”

  “How about his grandmother, Eleanor Miller?”

  “No use. She’s in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s.”

  “Read your medical dictionary. Alzheimer’s patients often have surprisingly good long-term memories.”

  “So you think we should talk to her?”

  “Not necessary. Al and I already have.”

  “And you found out something?”

  “She says the Andersons have a cottage up at the lake. She can’t recall the name of the lake, but the name she does remember is Bemidji. You know, the place that bills itself as ‘The first city on the Mississippi River.’” The mighty river trickles out of a lake southwest of Bemidji and flows north and east in a curving pattern, mostly through wilderness, before turning south and reaching that city.

  “There’s a whole shitload of lakes around Bemidji,” Brownie said.

  “Somewhere in all the stuff you hauled out of the Andersons’ house might be documents pertaining to lakeshore property in the Bemidji area,” I said. “Maybe even in their computer.”

  “Son of a bitch, you’re right. I’ll see what we can find.”

  “When you come up with something, remember you heard the word ‘Bemidji’ from this phone number first.”

  “You’ll get the first call,” Brownie said. “I’ll even put you ahead of the Channel Four boob show. Have a good day, Mitch.”

  I have a tendency to doodle while I’m on the phone, and I had drawn two stick figures with fishing poles in a small boat. I was putting on the finishing touches when Al arrived
at my desk.

  “Nice artwork,” he said. He was carrying my afternoon pick-me-up, a cup of hot black coffee, which he set down beside the drawing. “Was that Brownie on the phone?”

  “Thanks for your critical assessment of my artistic endeavor,” I said. “It was Brownie, and he was all ears when I told him about Bemidji.”

  “He’s all ears all the time,” Al said. Al’s major problem in photographing the chief of homicide was Brownie’s ears, because of the way they protrude at ninety degrees from his bald head. Al was always looking for an angle shot that lessened the impact of the ears.

  “This is true. What I meant was that I got his attention. And the beneficial side effect is that if his troops can find something that locates the cabin in the stuff they took out of the house, he’ll owe me one.”

  “Having the homicide chief owing you a favor is always a killer.”

  “Now our problem is what to do about James, a.k.a. Jimmy Bjornquist. Did he really go to California? Did he take Marilee Anderson with him? Or did he kill Marilee Anderson? And if he killed her, and the bones in Jack and Jill’s backyard belong to Marilee, why in hell would Jimmy bury her in her parents’ yard?”

  “He couldn’t have done that. The garden digging wasn’t started until after Marilee disappeared, remember?”

  “You’re right. I’m thinking the only people who could have buried Marilee in that garden are Jack and Jill Anderson.”

  “Their crowning achievement.”

  “Right. It’s no wonder they’ve decided to fall out of sight.”

  I thought about all the missing people in this cold case while I sipped my coffee. When my cup was empty, I dragged out the city directory and thumbed through the “B’s” until I reached “Bjornquist.” There were seven listed in St. Paul. I started calling them, hoping that one might be a relative of the missing Jimmy.

  “Please leave a message after the tone,” said the first name on the list.

  “Never heard of a Jimmy in our family,” said the second.

  After two more voicemails, I got another “never heard of him” response.

  Next came another voicemail, followed by a third “never heard of him.”

  I left messages on all four voicemails saying who I was and why I was calling. I had no expectation of getting a return from any of them. Thus I was surprised when my phone rang as I was clearing the trash off my desk prior to departure at 5:00 p.m.

  But the caller wasn’t a Bjornquist. It was Brownie. “Got a Minnesota map handy?” he asked.

  “Hang on a sec,” I said. I dug into the bottom drawer of my desk and came up with a ten-year-old Minnesota road map. “I have a map and it’s open,” I said.

  “Find Lake Bemidji; it’s big enough you should see it easy.”

  I did, and said, “I’ve got it.”

  “You can see that the city is on the south end of Lake Bemidji,” he said. “A few miles off the northeast corner of Lake Bemidji is a much smaller lake called Big Bass Lake. On the northeast corner of Big Bass Lake is a half-acre piece of land deeded to John G. and Jill L. Anderson. Several vehicles bearing officers from the Minnesota State Patrol are moving toward that parcel even as we speak.”

  “Got it,” I said, circling the little odd-shaped blue blob on the map with a red ballpoint. “How’d you find it?”

  “Monday morning we took one of those portable safes—you know, the ones that people put their valuables in because they’re told that thieves can’t get them open—out of the Andersons’ closet. Today we opened the safe and found the deed to a parcel of land in Beltrami County, which happens to be the county in which Bemidji is located. I called the county clerk and she looked up the parcel on the county map and bingo, we had a winner.”

  “And the troops are on the way to arrest the Andersons?”

  “The troops are on the way to persuade the Andersons to accompany them back to St. Paul to chat with me. I hope an arrest isn’t necessary, because we really don’t have anything to charge them with.”

  “How about leaving the scene?”

  “What scene? Having a body found in your garden isn’t a crime unless there’s evidence that you put it there. We don’t have any such evidence as yet, which is the main reason we want to talk to John G. and Jill L. Anderson.”

  “So the body in the ground isn’t grounds for arrest?”

  “Cute. You can put that in your headline,” Brownie said. “We’ll be notifying the media when the Andersons have been returned to St. Paul. Meanwhile, you’re the only one who knows where they are and what’s about to happen. Have a good day, Mitch.”

  I looked at the map. According to a little graph at the top, Bemidji is 239 miles from St. Paul. Big Bass Lake appeared to be another fifteen miles beyond the city. The state cops wouldn’t be there for a few minutes yet. It would take the cops at least fifteen minutes to get the Andersons into a vehicle and a little over four hours to return to St. Paul unless they drove at high speed with lights and sirens, which didn’t seem necessary. That meant Daily Dispatch readers would be seeing my online-edition story about finding the Andersons four and a half hours before Brownie’s office intended to notify the rest of the media. And it was already too late to make the early evening TV news. Indeed, I was having a good day.

  I had doodled the face of a clock with the hands showing 9:00 p.m. I told Fred Donlin, the night city editor, what I had and wrote the story. Some lucky night-side reporter would get to pick up the action when the St. Paul police announced the Andersons’ return.

  “You’re late,” Martha Todd said when I finally got home. “I was beginning to wonder if you were joining the missing persons list.”

  “No such luck,” I said. “You’re stuck with me for at least one more night.”

  “Then we’d better stick very close together tonight,” she said. And we did.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dodging Publicity

  WHILE EATING BREAKFAST Thursday morning, I turned on the TV and learned that all three Andersons had returned to St. Paul willingly, driving their own SUV with a three-car Minnesota State Highway Patrol escort. Their reason for going up to the lake? To avoid publicity.

  How did this work out for them? The front page of every newspaper in Minnesota was carrying the story of the police finding them, and every TV and radio newscast was leading with their so-called “apprehension,” accompanied by tape of the caravan arriving at police headquarters. Bemidji’s TV station had a helicopter flying above the cabin on Big Bass Lake, taking aerial shots that were going viral on the Internet. Jack and Jill and Uncle Eddie were becoming household names all across the country. Their attempt to dodge the media had turned this into the hottest cold case in twenty years.

  Of course, Don O’Rourke was looking for a fresh story when I arrived in the newsroom at eight o’clock. “See if you can get an interview with any of those three Anderson nutjobs,” were his instructions. “Take your twin along to get some fresh pix.”

  I started searching for the Andersons’ current whereabouts with a call to Detective Lieutenant Curtis Brown’s direct line. I was shunted to his voicemail. Apparently he wasn’t talking to anybody at the moment. I left a message, hoping he’d still remember who steered him toward Bemidji.

  Next I called the number of the house on East Geranium Street. No answer. Not even voicemail. Apparently they’d turned off the machine. Did that mean Jack and Jill were at home?

  Eddie Anderson was next. Same thing: no answer and no voicemail. We needed to get in a car and make a personal visit.

  Al and I arrived at East Geranium to find the street open but the Andersons’ house and yard still ringed with yellow police tape. TV trucks from all three Twin Cities stations were parked in front of the house. Two women who looked like newspaper reporters and a couple of TV reporter/camera crews were standing near the tape. Three uniformed police officers were visible inside the tape. Two were flanking the front steps and one, my paunchy acquaintance from our first visit on Mon
day, was propped against his favorite tree.

  We approached Trish Valentine, and I asked, “What’s the story?”

  “Jack and Jill are under police protection,” she said.

  “Protection from what? Us?”

  “Exactly. They don’t want to talk to us and the cops are keeping us from knocking on their door. They’re violating our First Amendment rights.”

  “They can justify it with the Fourth Amendment,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The Andersons’ right to privacy.”

  “They should repeal that one.”

  “Maybe we should try Eddie Anderson’s house,” Al said.

  “Won’t do you any good,” Trish said. “We had a crew there and the cops ran them off. I guess Eddie doesn’t like talking to reporters, either.”

  “Either that or the cops don’t want any of the threesome talking to us until after they’ve questioned them,” I said.

  I called Don O’Rourke on my cell phone and told him about the standoff. “No use wasting your time out there,” he said. “Have Al get a shot of the cops guarding the door and then come back to the office and try to get through to Brown. Find out when the Andersons are being questioned if you can. We need some kind of a story.”

  We went back and I called Brownie’s number again with the same result. It looked like all we’d have for a new lead on the cold case story was the police guard at the two Anderson residences. How exciting was that?

  I’d almost given up hope of hearing from Brownie when the phone rang. It had to be him. I gave the caller a cheerful, “Good morning.”

  “It’s Morrie,” said the voice.

  Somehow I resisted the urge to slam down the phone and controlled the volume of my reply, which was spoken through clenched teeth. “What’s your problem this time?”

  “It’s Robinson,” Morrie said. “You have to write about him harassing me so he’ll have to stop.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s broadcasting lies about me all over town. I can hear him.”

  “I’ll write a story as soon as I hear what he’s saying.”