Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  SUPERIOR STORM

  by

  TOM HILPERT

  Copyright © Tom Hilpert 2012

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyrights reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  Cover by Lisa Anderson. www.opinedesign.com

  For Kari

  Because of Fish Lake

  CHAPTER 1

  Three people were shot when the First National Bank of Grand Lake was robbed.

  The first was a security guard, who appeared to be going for his gun. The bullet hit him low and on the side.

  The third was one of the criminals. He left a trail of blood out to the sidewalk.

  The second was a darn fool who grabbed the guard’s weapon and started a gun battle in a bank lobby full of innocent people. He was the one who shot the robber. He was a lucky fool, because no one else was shot, and the bullet that hit him went clean through his calf without any major damage.

  It still hurt like blazes, though. I know, because I was the lucky fool.

  Besides the bullet, the robbery began a sequence of events that shook up my life, disturbed the quiet town of Grand Lake, and didn’t end until I was half-drowned in Lake Superior.

  Up until then, the day had been going just swell.

  ~

  That morning, before the robbery, I was in my office, listening to The Eagles. I felt slightly uneasy, because I thought the lyrics might be dirty.

  Julie, my part time secretary, walked into my office. I reflexively stopped my iPod and slipped off the headphones.

  “Hey Julie,” I said. “What does ‘brutally handsome’ mean? Does it mean he is so handsome that it is brutal, or that he is handsome in a brute-like way?”

  She looked at me levelly for a moment. “How you find room in your head to remember your sermons is beyond me.”

  I grinned happily. That was as good as a point for me.

  “Mail,” said Julie, “and don’t try to think up some stupid pun like fee-mail.”

  “Furthest thing from my mind,” I said. “We all know that you are the funny one around here.” Pastor two, secretary zero. It was going to be a good day.

  Julie rolled her eyes and threw a small bundle on my desk. There was a book catalog, pleas for money from all four of my alma maters, and some other junk. She hesitated, and then tossed a thick eight-by-ten envelope on top of it. My name and the church address were hand-written. The envelope had a return receipt and insurance.

  “Package too,” said Julie. She sort of hung around for a minute.

  “You can ask, you know,” I said. “It isn’t rude.”

  “I’m a Minnesotan. Any sort of communication is always considered slightly rude.”

  “It’s from my mother,” I said, looking at the return address. “I think it’s some old papers of my dad’s. We’re working through some details left over about my dad’s estate.”

  “Why did she send them to the church?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted to test your rudeness level.” Actually, I had my mother send them to the church so that I would remember to take them to Alex Chan, my lawyer. However, Julie never needs an excuse to remember my absent-mindedness.

  Julie snorted and turned to leave.

  “Don’t you want to know what I was listening to, when you came in?” I asked.

  She didn’t turn around. “No. It was probably just a song you were afraid was dirty, but almost certainly was not.”

  I stared at her. Score one for the secretary.

  She turned, winked, and then left my office.

  ~

  Our treasurer was out of town that week, and so I had to make the bank deposit later that afternoon. But, first, I went to visit the widow Ethel Ostrand. Ethel had been a member of Harbor Lutheran Church for forty years. Her house was a small white clapboard, decorated in original 1950s wallpaper and furniture. I was pretty sure she had bought it all when it was new. The shades were drawn and the living room lamps were on.

  “I want you to do my funeral,” she said.

  “I'm so sorry, Ethel,” I said. “I didn't know you were sick.”

  “I'm not sick, I'm old,” she snapped.

  “Oh.”

  “You aren't supposed to say 'oh,' you are supposed to say, 'Ethel you don't look that old.'”

  “Well, how old are you?” I asked. I realized my mistake immediately, but it was too late to take it back.

  “It isn't polite to ask a lady's age,” she said.

  I took a breath. “So why this talk about funerals?”

  “Well, when you're old like me, what else do you have to sit around and think about?”

  I let that one sit there without touching it. Even stunningly slow pastors can learn.

  She grinned at me. “Actually, I'm enjoying the idea of planning my funeral. I want you to preach.”

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “And I'm picking out some hymns.”

  “We can do that too.”

  We discussed her funeral for a bit. She did actually seem to be enjoying herself. Everyone needs a hobby.

  After about half an hour, we had nailed down the important parts. I got up to leave.

  “Oh pastor, I'm sorry to bother you,” she said, “but could help me with something before you go? I have to get some things from the store, and I need some money.”

  I reached for my wallet. “How much do you need?”

  “Oh no!” she said. “I don't need your money. I need your help to get my money.”

  “I'm not sure I understand,” I said.

  “Come with me.”

  She rose slowly from her chair. Leaning heavily on her walker, she led me into her bedroom. This was done in pink and gilt wallpaper with some obscure but flowery pattern. I squinted.

  Ethel walked over to the bed. “Could you lift the mattress, please?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Could you lift up the mattress for me? I need to get some money.”

  Curiosity struggled with propriety and won a first-round knockout. I walked over to the bed and heaved. The mattress was old – also probably 1950s vintage – and quite heavy. Under the mattress, and on top of the box-spring was money.

  A lot of money.

  Ethel hobbled over to the bed and began to paw through the piles of green. I started to sweat.

  “OK, you can put it down now,” she said at last.

  I managed not to drop it too hard.

  “Ethel,” I said, “why do you have all that money under your mattress?”

  “That's where I keep it,” she said.

  “What, all of your money?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  We processed slowly back to the living room. I sat back down heavily in the green wingback chair.

  “Ethel, we need to talk about this.”

  “Pastor, I'm not sure this is an appropriate conversation for us to have.”

  “This is important,” I said. “What if you were robbed?”

  “Who would rob an old lady like me?” she asked.

  “Lots of people, if they knew you had money under your mattress,” I said. “Does anyone else know?”

  “I don't think so,” she said. “And I don't see how they could find out unless somebody told them.” She looked meaningfully at me.

  “But what if you need to get more money from there and there's no one to help you? Whoever you ask to help you will see.”

  She thought for
a moment. “It's only been the past month or so that I couldn't get at it. I just don't seem to have the strength anymore. I've been pulling out the bills that are on the edge, but before you came, I'd gotten almost everything I could reach. Maybe we should go back in there, and you can hold the mattress again, while I move more money to the edges.”

  “Maybe you should put it all in a bank.”

  She was quiet.

  “Ethel, what if there was a fire? It would all burn, and you'd be left with nothing at all.”

  She was still quiet.

  “How much do you have under there?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don't know. A couple hundred thousand, I should think.”

  This time I was quiet.

  “You really think I should put it all in a bank?”

  “I really do. This is very dangerous for you.”

  “But what if the bank loses it?”

  “Banks are insured. It's called FDIC. If the bank loses your money, the insurance will pay it back to you.”

  She was silent again. Finally, she sighed. “I guess if I can trust you with my funeral, I can trust you with my money.”

  “Trust the bank with it,” I said.

  “But you can put it in there for me?”

  “You have to open an account.”

  “Can't you just have them keep it in the vault?”

  “Well, you could put it in a safety deposit box, but the normal thing is to give it to them and they hold it in an account.”

  “But I don't need an account if they keep it the vault?”

  “Well, no, but that's a bit unusual, and you won't earn interest.”

  “Put it in the vault.”

  “I think you should come with me and open an account.”

  “Pastor, I'm an old lady. You just told me it isn't safe to keep it here. Couldn't you just put it in the vault for me?”

  I kept at her, but after twenty minutes, I had gotten nowhere. I finally figured cash in a large safety deposit box in the bank vault was still better than under the mattress.

  So that was how, when the First National Bank of Grand Lake was robbed, I lost the money given to the church that month, plus all $237,556 of Ethel Ostrand's uninsured cash.

  CHAPTER 2

  The bank lobby was crowded. It was Friday afternoon on a payday, and a lot of folks in Grand Lake were coming in to cash their paychecks. Several owners of tourist shops and restaurants were there, like me, to deposit a fair amount of cash. I nodded at Drew Carlson, the owner of Dylan's, my favorite lunch café. He was holding a thick money bag, the kind businesses often use for deposits. He raised his eyebrows at me. I glanced back at the duffel bag slung over my shoulder. Ethel Ostrand had packed it, and given it to me a few minutes before. You don't fit a quarter-million dollars in twenties and fifties into a business deposit bag.

  I was near the back of the line as it snaked over to one side of the room, and I found myself next to Arne Engstrom, retired cop and now the security guard for First National. Arne was sixty-ish, with thin gray hair and a solid Scandinavian face and build. He looked as sturdy as the bank building.

  “Hey, Arne,” I said.

  “Pastor,” he nodded. Arne went to the other Lutheran church in town, but he was a proper Norwegian, so he called me pastor anyway.

  Arne's gaze lifted up over my shoulder, and I heard some kind of commotion behind me. I turned and saw that three people, dressed all in black, were in the lobby. They had ski masks on, the old knit kind that fit over your head and then pull down over your face, with holes for your eyes and mouth. I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline, and everything seemed to go into slow motion. There were several loud booms, and people screamed. One of the masked figures leaped onto the teller's counter of the bank. He waved a pistol at the tellers and shouted,

  “Be still! This doesn't concern you, but if you move, I will shoot.”

  The other two had pistols too, big, black automatics.

  “Everyone on the floor!” shouted the largest masked man. “Get down on the floor! Face down!” People were complying, but I felt like I was locked in molasses. One of the masked robbers, a short, slight guy, waved his pistol at me.

  Slowly, still looking around me, I got down on my knees, and then lay on the floor. I was the last one down, and Arne was lying next to me.

  I heard talking and rustling. I looked up and saw that two of the three robbers were crouched over someone. They appeared to be searching the person. But almost immediately, the man standing on the counter shouted “get down!” and a gun fired. I put my head back down. A short minute later, I felt a hard cold object pressed into the back of my head. Hands were grasping me, searching my coat, pulling my wallet out of my back pocket.

  “Get the duffel too,” said a strangely high, light voice.

  “Shut up!” said another, deeper one. “Don't talk.”

  They pulled at my duffel bag. Without thinking, I tried to hold on, but the pressure on the back of my head increased. “It isn't worth your life,” said the second, deeper voice. I let it go.

  They moved on, and now that they were near me, I could see from the corners of my eyes that they were quickly and methodically robbing each customer.

  I heard more rustling and looked up again. Arne stirred next to me and started to get to his knees. A gun roared again, and Arne fell back as though he'd been kicked by an invisible mule. I scrambled over to him and found a red stain spreading along his lower right side, just above his belt. Just above his holster.

  I reached down to search the wound, or put pressure on it, or do something. I didn't really know what to do, but I couldn't just leave him lying there. Something slammed into my leg just as another gun boomed.

  I looked up, and the three robbers were moving back toward the doors, two of them holding a big black garbage bag each, and one with my duffel. The small one fired his gun again, and I saw the chips fly off the floor near Arne's head.

  I slid my hand down to Arne's holster. It was already unbuttoned. I pulled out his gun, which, lucky for me, was a revolver. I didn't know how to work an automatic. I lifted and fired in the same motion. The small robber fired back again. I pulled the trigger manically, trying for the small guy, but behind him, the robber holding my duffel bag stumbled, yelled, and then they were all out the door.

  My ears were ringing from the gunfire. I dropped Arne's gun, and shouted, “Someone call 911.” Turning back to the solid Norwegian guard, I said, “Hang in there, Arne, you're going to be OK.” Arne Engstrom was the proud grandpa of six. I had no idea if he was going to be OK or not. I didn't really know what to do for a gunshot wound, or how serious it was. There was a lot of blood. I put my hands down over the area, one on top the other, and pressed. Arne groaned.

  Around me, nobody much moved. I could hear a man saying, “Oh my God,” over and over again. A woman was crying, but quietly.

  After what seemed like too long, I could hear sirens. The doors burst open with a blast of cool air, and there was a small stampede of uniformed people into the lobby.

  “Over here!” I shouted, “He's been shot.”

  Two paramedics knelt down beside me. One of them gently removed my hands, and said, “OK, we've got it from here.”

  I leaned back against the wall of the lobby next to a potted plant. When I looked up, I saw Dan Jensen, Police chief of Grand Lake, walking towards me. Jensen was a big man, a little overweight, but still athletic. He was in his late thirties or early forties, with white-blond hair and piercing blue eyes.

  “Shoulda known you'd be in the middle of this somehow,” he said. Then looked at me closely. “Oh jeez, you've been shot.”

  About then, my leg started to hurt.

  CHAPTER 3

  The wound was superficial, they said. That made me think I was a superficial kind of person, because it hurt like heck. One of the EMTs, a young guy, was bandaging me up. He was facing the door when suddenly he looked up very alertly. It reminded me of a hunting dog when it was pointing. He jerk
ed on my bandage bit roughly, and I grunted in pain.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, looking back down at my leg.

  I shifted my gaze to where he had been looking and saw Leyla Bennett coming through the lobby. Her long, dark hair was caught up behind her ears, framing her high cheekbones and dark, almond-shaped eyes. She was wearing khaki pants that were flattering to her shapely legs, which generally needed no extra flattery anyway. The navy top and stylish brown coat showed her figure without showing it off. She was a well put together woman.

  “It's all right,” I said to the EMT. “I still react that way myself every time I see her.”

  He shook his head. Possibly ruefully.

  I saw Leyla say something to Chief Jensen. They both looked over at me, and then Leyla came running over, with Jensen following more sedately.

  “Jonah!” said Leyla. She knelt next to me and hugged me tight. She smelled nice. For a moment, I didn't notice the pain in my leg. Then suddenly, she released me and looked over at the EMT.

  “Is he OK? Can I hug him?”

  “It's his leg,” said the paramedic. “He'll be fine.”

  “You can even talk directly to him, as if he were actually here,” I said.

  She looked at me, and her eyes were watery. Her expression seemed to be crumpling. Without a word, she held me again, tight and long. Her hand stroked the back of my head. My cheek started to feel wet where her face was pressed against it.

  The EMT made no objection. Neither did I.

  At last, she let me go again, sitting back on her heels and wiping at her face with her hands.

  “I heard on the police scanner,” she said. “They said two people were shot, and one was pretty serious. Then the officer outside said you were one of the two.” She took a shuddering breath. “And then they let me come in, and I see you leaning against the wall here, covered with blood.”

  I looked down at my jacket. It was dark with blood.

  “Arne Engstrom was the other one,” I said. “This is mostly his blood. It looked bad.” I looked at my EMT.

  He shrugged. “I haven't heard anything yet. He was alive when they took him out a few minutes ago.”