Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  “Actually we live north a little ways,” said Jasmine.

  “Well, how long have you lived there?” I asked.

  “Not long,” said Tony Stone.

  There was a pause.

  “So what brought you up here?” I asked.

  “Business,” said Stone. It was quiet again. Usually when I wait, people will start talking.

  “Oh, let's cut the crap,” said Jasmine, tossing her hair. “We're miserable.” She looked at Tony with shining eyes and stroked his arm. “We need your help.” She turned back to me. Tony sat impassively in the love seat. His legs weren't crossed, and he looked completely comfortable.

  “What seems to the problem?” I asked.

  “We fight all time,” she said. “Don't we, honey?” she added in a little-girl voice, squeezing Stone's arm.

  He stirred, as if coming out of a daydream. “Yeah,” he said. “We fight a lot.”

  “What do you fight about?”

  “Money,” said Jasmine quickly, her eyes flashing.

  Stone seemed almost to smile slightly. He looked straight ahead, not at me, not at her. “Yeah,” he said. “We fight about money.”

  We all sat there for a moment and contemplated this.

  “Anything else?” I said at last.

  “Oh, we're just all messed up,” said Jasmine. “We fight all the time, and we're unhappy. We need some serious help. Like, if you could lock us up in a cabin somewhere or something, off away from it all and help us work it out.”

  Stone looked at her speculatively and nodded slightly.

  “Well, I'd want to know more about you before I had you locked up,” I said. Jasmine locked eyes with me and gave me a stunning smile that, for some reason, made me want to blush. Stone's lips twitched slightly.

  I asked some more questions, and we talked further, but when they left an hour later, I still had no clear handle on what their problem was. We scheduled another appointment for the next week.

  CHAPTER 11

  A lot of North Coast towns don't really understand what they have in terms of tourist potential. Granted, the season is short, but even so, many of the little towns along Highway sixty-one between Duluth and Canada almost ignore the fact that they have a drop-dead gorgeous freshwater ocean right in front of them. You have to look hard even to find a restaurant with a water view. Grand Lake is an exception. Some far-sighted town planners purchased a nice strip of waterfront downtown, a little north and east of the old ore docks. They turned the lake-front into a nice park. The street running behind the park is filled with restaurants, bookstores, little touristy craft shops and a small indoor mall set in a renovated lumber mill. Several of the restaurants look out to the park and lake.

  Dylan's is one of these. It's a small café and coffee house, named in honor of the North Coast's most famous son, Duluth native Robert Zimmer – better known to the world as Bob Dylan. Dylan's is the perfect combination of a Starbuck's, a French café and a log cabin. Leyla and I were having lunch there.

  “You know,” I said, “the chicken salad itself is as I good as I can make – ”

  “High praise,” murmured Leyla. I ignored her.

  “But the brilliant thing is to put a slice of aged Swiss on it. I don't know why nobody else puts Swiss cheese on chicken salad.”

  “You sound like you are eighty years old,” said Leyla. “Are you going start talking about your intestinal health soon?”

  “Aren't we crabby,” I said. “The fact is, I love food. I love to create it, to smell it, to taste it, and yes, talk about it.”

  “Sorry,” she said briefly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I took the moment to enjoy watching her. She opened her eyes.

  “Why do you look at me that way?” she asked.

  “I can't help it,” I confessed.

  She shook her head and looked away like she was a bit angry. “I don't get you, Jonah Borden.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said. I had no idea what for, but it seemed like a good thing to say.

  I chewed some more chicken salad. “A couple came in the other day,” I said. I told her a little bit about Jasmine and Tony Stone, without naming them.

  “I don't know what to make of it. I mean, she seemed almost excited. If it didn't sound so weird, I'd even say, 'turned on.' He sat there like a pile of bricks, but at the same time, he didn't seem uncomfortable or anything.”

  “Is that unusual?” asked Leyla.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, normally, there's quite a bit of tension between couples who come in. But I didn't get that. It was almost like they were coming to marriage counseling just because they felt like they should, or something, but not because they really need it.”

  “Maybe we need counseling, Jonah,” said Leyla suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Maybe we should get counseling.”

  “We aren't married,” I said.

  She gave me a withering a look.

  “Look,” I said, “maybe I need counseling, but I'm not sure we do. It's my own hang up, Leyla. I'm working on it.”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “Well, it's only been a week since we talked about this,” I said. I admit, it even sounded lame to me.

  She looked out over the lake. It was a gray day, and the heaving water lay like pewter out to the horizon. When she looked back at me, she had tears in her eyes.

  “I can't help thinking that I'm the one who screwed this up.” She wiped at her eyes. “We had a good thing going, and then I was so ready to believe the worst about you. Well, I don't anymore, Jonah. I believe the best about you. But now you are thinking the worst about me.”

  “I'm not, Leyla.”

  “Then can you even try and explain what the problem is?”

  I thought about it. All I knew was that there was some kind of hesitancy, a slowness to give in to what I knew I could feel for Leyla, if only I let myself.

  “I don't want to say it wrong,” I said. “Maybe we should agree on some date, on that day, or sooner, I will tell you about it.”

  She shook her head, and covered my hand with hers. “I'm sorry, Jonah,” she said. “I don't mean to push you. Let's talk about something else.” She took a deep breath, and seemed to mentally shake herself out of something.

  “All right,” I said, “how about I tell you how Dan Jensen asked his wife Janie to marry him?”

  She pursed her lips. “I suppose.”

  “I thought chicks loved engagement stories.”

  She flipped her hair back. “So now I'm just a chick?”

  “Possibly a babe,” I said. “But definitely not a broad.”

  “Are you going to tell the story or not?”

  I pursed my lips. “I suppose,” I said. She hit me.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “So Dan and Janie have been dating for a while. Things have gotten pretty serious, and she can just tell it's only a matter of time before he pops the big question.”

  Leyla nodded sagely. “Women know these things.”

  “Anyway, he takes her to this really fancy restaurant in Duluth.”

  “What restaurant?” said Leyla.

  “I don't know,” I said. “One of those really fancy places, you know with thirty-dollar entrees.”

  “You don't know which restaurant it was?” she asked.

  “No. What's the difference? It was – ”

  “You're telling me an engagement story,” she interrupted, giving me with a withering look, “and you don't know which restaurant they went to?” For some reason, she seemed to be on the attack. “What was she wearing?”

  “Wearing? Are you crazy? How could I possibly know that?”

  “If you were a woman, you would know it.”

  “I am definitely not a woman.”

  She smiled a sudden and mischievous smile. “I have noticed that, actually.”

  “Do you want to hear this story or not?” I said.

  “I suppose.”

  “You are walking on thin ice, lady,�
�� I said. “Okay. I don't know what anyone was wearing, and I don't know the actual restaurant, but it was the kind of place you go to ask someone to marry them.”

  Leyla offered the faintest hint of a sniff.

  “If I may continue?” I said. “So all through dinner, Janie is expecting something. Dan is acting nervous. She's chewing her spaghetti carefully in case there's a ring in it.”

  “They paid thirty dollars a plate for spaghetti?”

  “Okay, so I don't know what they ate either – or what they drank, for that matter. Do you really want to hear this story?”

  “I'm enjoying the story,” she said blandly.

  “I don't know whether to laugh or cry,” I said.

  “It's about time someone gave you some of your own medicine.” After a moment, she added, “go on.”

  “So Dan is a bit nervous. He keeps acting like he's going to say something important, and then ends up just asking for the ketchup.” Leyla opened her mouth. I held up my hand quickly. “No, they did not put ketchup on their spaghetti, or even have ketchup, or spaghetti, for that matter. The point is, he's not asking the question, but she thinks he might be trying to work up to it.”

  “You're doing fine,” said Leyla. “Someday, maybe you'll even be able to make your living in public speaking.”

  “Thankfully, people like you don't interrupt when I'm preaching,” I said.

  “Go on.”

  I waited.

  “Please,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “We're having so much fun, aren't we?”

  “One of us is, anyway.” But, truthfully, I was glad to see her back on an even keel. I took a breath. “Anyway, they leave the unnamed restaurant, after having eaten anonymous meals, wearing unidentified clothes. The question has not been asked. They go down to the shore to watch the sunset.”

  “The sun doesn't set over the lake.”

  “They go down to see the eastern sky darken,” I amended, “and to watch as the silvering waters softly fade into the still, clear evening.”

  “That was nice,” said Leyla admiringly.

  “I am a wordsmith,” I said modestly. “Anyway, down there at the beach, they sit on some rocks. They are holding hands, and Janie is positive this is it. Dan's hand is kind of shaking, and he keeps clearing his throat, but he keeps not asking the question.” I took a sip of water. “So now she's starting to get nervous too. She can't believe the moment is finally here. All of a sudden, he says, 'Janie!' very sharply, like that. She jumps almost two feet. She stares into his eyes and says, 'yes?' And he says, 'Janie!' but he's not really looking at her. It's like he's looking past her. 'What is it?' she says. And he says, 'Janie! There's a skunk! Run!'”

  Leyla titled her head at me and got a quirky, puzzly expression on her face. “There was a skunk? A real skunk?”

  “A real skunk,” I said. “This part, I know the specifics. So they leap up and start running. They are both muddled and flustered at this point. As they are running, Janie shouts at Dan, 'Will you marry me?' The skunk doesn't notice them until now. When Janie shouts and he sees them running, he turns around and lets loose on them.”

  “Wait,” said Leyla. “Janie asked Dan?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “And then they got sprayed by a skunk?”

  “Spaghetti or no spaghetti, that's exactly what happened,” I said.

  CHAPTER 12

  My mom called from Washington state that evening. We exchanged the normal greetings.

  “Did you get the package I sent you?” she asked.

  “I showed it to Alex Chan – my lawyer,” I said. The orange kitten raced into the room and screeched to a halt in front of me, puffed up like a blowfish. I wiggled my foot at him. I had been unable to locate any owners, and no one else seemed to want him. It was too cold at night to kick him out.

  “That wasn’t estate stuff,” Mom said. “I just sent it to the church out of habit.”

  “I know. Alex said it was just old case files of Dad’s.” The cat pounced on my foot, and then curled around it, attacking it with all four paws and his teeth. I winced and poked at him with my other foot.

  “Did you read any of it?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “It’s been kind of crazy around here.

  “What's been going on?” she asked.

  When you've been shot by a bank robber, it is a major moral choice to decide whether or not to tell your mother. Kind of like when you break a neighbor's window with a baseball.

  I told her. After all, I'm supposed to be one of the moral bastions of the community.

  She was quiet for a long time. The cat chewed on me in the silence.

  “I'm OK, Mom. I hardly even limp now, and it's only been like a week.”

  “I think you should read the papers of your father's I sent,” she said.

  “Are you saying they have something to do with the bank robbery?” Abruptly the kitten released me and went tearing out of the room at full speed. Somehow, he managed to make galloping noises on the floor as he did it.

  “I don't know,” Mom said. “But I know he had a case a lot like that just a few years ago. Check it out.”

  We talked some more. When we hung up, Mom was still worried about me, but that was probably just because she was a mother.

  I found the envelope and opened it. I pulled out the papers, extracted the first few, and set the others and the envelope beside me on the couch. The kitten came in, climbed up onto the couch and collapsed on the papers.

  Since I was about ten years old, my dad, the police detective, had talked about some of his cases with me. If something was particularly interesting or unusual, he told me about it. He didn't really know how to talk to children, and I remembered him seeming a little uncomfortable when I wanted him to play kid-games with me. But once we started talking about his cases, we had common ground, and it was one way we had become close. Twice in his career, Dad had discharged his weapon. I knew this, but I didn't know much else. He never talked about those cases.

  The papers I had weren't the official files, of course, but they were his notes, and sometimes photocopies of other evidence. Some of them were a trip down memory lane for me, and I recalled old conversations with my dad about this or that case.

  After about twenty minutes I found the one Mom was talking about. I began to read carefully. Suddenly, something smacked the paper in front of me aside and two big eyes were staring at me out of a fuzzy orange face.

  “I’m reading,” I said.

  He crouched on my chest and wiggled his bottom, like he was going to leap and attack my face. I reached for him, and he seized my hand instead. Several painful minutes later, I resumed reading. Fifteen minutes after that, I called the Grand Lake police department.

  “This is Jonah Borden,” I told the dispatcher. “Please leave a message for Chief Jensen to meet me at Lorraine's tomorrow morning.”

  I hung up and went back to the file. After another half hour, and a few more tussles with tooth and claw, I went to bed with a purring puff ball. But this time, the presence of the kitten did not relax me. All night, I tossed and turned, dreaming over and over again that I was shooting a man who wouldn't die.

  CHAPTER 13

  The next day I had breakfast at Lorraine's. I was eating the Superior Skillet, which lives up entirely to its name. It comes in a skillet, so that part is right. It contains hash browns, country sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers and eggs done however you want. The whole thing is topped with cheese, hollandaise sauce and a dash of cayenne pepper. It also accompanied by two pancakes. If you're going to die of a heart attack, I say, do it right.

  I was on my second pot of coffee when Chief Jensen came in.

  “A little late this morning,” I commented as he sat down in the booth opposite me.

  “Had a B & E to deal with first,” he said.

  “Breaking and Entering? In Grand Lake? What is the world coming to?”

  He grimaced. “Turned out to be Jimmy Lenske, breaking into his m
om's store. She locked her keys in last night, and he was trying to help her.”

  “Don't worry about it,” I said. “You've still got the bank robbery.”

  “Just 'robbery,'” he corrected me, accepting a cup of coffee from Lorraine herself. I was pretty sure she gave it to him for free. On the other hand, with the amount that I drank, she probably lost money on my coffee too. “They didn't rob the bank, remember – just the customers.”

  “How's that going?” I asked. I had more than a passing interest.

  “I know you're uptight about Ethel's money,” said Jensen. “We're doing our best.”

  “Which is?”

  “We got nothing.”

  I sipped some coffee. A comfort in every trouble. “I may have something,” I said.

  “Jonah,” said Jensen, “this is police work, detective work. I know you are the police chaplain, but that doesn't make you a detective.”

  “My dad was a detective,” I said mildly.

  “That doesn't make you a detective either.”

  “But my dad – the detective? – did some detective work on our bank robbers.”

  “Just 'robbers,'” he said absently. “I thought your dad was dead.”

  “He is. But I think he came across the same gang about two years ago, shortly before he died.”

  Jensen sipped his coffee. Just to be sociable, I sipped mine. “How do you know it's the same gang?” he said at last.

  “Gang of robbers in northern Washington,” I said. “Police figured there was maybe five or seven altogether. They went into bank lobbies, usually four at a time. Dressed in black with ski-masks. They made the customers lie down, and then robbed them, leaving the bank itself alone. Usually came in on paydays or big deposit days for cash businesses.”

  “Ours could be copycatters,” he said.

  “They hit only small towns, remote counties, so the police manpower would be limited. And because they left the banks themselves alone, no FBI.”

  “Still no reason they aren't copycats.”

  “One of them was smaller than the other three. After a few jobs, the small guy got trigger happy, started shooting at security guards. No one else, just the guards. Couple people got killed.”