Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  “I guess I'll try it.”

  I got him a bottle of Woodchuck's Cider from the refrigerator, and one for myself. The cat came in. I had been trying to think of a good name for him, but so far one had eluded me. I poured a little of my cider into a saucer and he lapped it up.

  “You sure that’s good for him?” asked Lund, swallowing some of his own and nodding at the cat.

  “Why not? John Adams attributed his long life to his daily pint of hard cider.”

  “Who's John Adams?” said Lund, burping.

  “One of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He signed the Declaration of Independence. Went to France with Benjamin Franklin. He was our second president.”

  “Ben Franklin went to France?”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  Tom Lund sat on a bar stool at the counter that separated the kitchen from the great-room. I went around to the other side to make supper.

  I peeled an avocado, and put a few slices on a plate. I sprinkled them with lemon juice, salt and garlic powder and then put it on the counter between us, sliding him a fork.

  “What's this?” He sounded suspicious.

  “Just try it.”

  “Did Ben Franklin eat this too?”

  “Yep,” I said. “It's what gave him such a good memory.”

  He tried a piece. “Hey, that's all right.”

  I set a piece out for the cat, but he looked offended.

  I started to slice up a large chicken breast I had thawed earlier. “So, you gonna tell me why you're here?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” He patted himself like he was looking for something in his pockets. “Do you have pen and paper? I want to write down your cell number, so I can just call you next time.”

  I frowned. I thought I had given him my number when I hired him to look into the identity of the dead Washington bank robber. “Why don't I just call your phone, and then you'll have it?”

  “I'm kinda old fashioned,” he said. “I like to have things written down.”

  I shrugged. “OK.” I slipped the diced chicken into a cast-iron skillet with some olive oil and crushed garlic, and then grabbed some paper and a pen out of a drawer in the kitchen, and slid them over the counter to Lund.

  “All right, what's your number?”

  I told him, starting on an onion. When I had sliced large pieces of that and some red peppers, I added them to the chicken in the skillet. Lund was quiet while I sliced a zucchini and a yellow squash into chunks and added them to the pan. I sprinkled cumin, cayenne and chili powder on it and stirred it. Finally, I looked up at Lund and found he had slid the paper back across the counter, and was pointing to it.

  I opened my mouth, and he said, “So what do you think of the Vikings' chances this year?”

  “About the same as always,” I said mechanically, reaching for the paper Lund had written my phone number on. “They'll start like Super Bowl champions. After a mid-season collapse, they'll barely scrape into the playoffs and lose in the first round.”

  On the paper, Lund had not written any phone number. Instead, it said: someone may be listening to us.

  I stared at him. “What about you?” was all I said. I quickly scribbled, bugs? I pushed the paper back to him. Everything about the scene seemed suddenly surreal.

  “Oh, same as you. But it'll be fun to watch,” he said. He glanced at the paper and nodded. He started to write something else, while also saying, “We don't have a real receiving corps. Now if we had old Chris Carter in his prime on this team, we might go somewhere.” He pushed the notepaper back to me. It said, let's eat and then take a walk.

  I nodded. While the chicken and vegetables cooked, I fried up a couple of corn tortillas. We ate the chicken fajitas topped with cilantro, sour cream, avocado and salsa. I put some on a plate for the cat too. He picked through the veggies and ate the chicken, sour cream and a little bit of the tortilla. Not much of a refined palate, I guess. Lund and I talked some more about the Vikings and then the upcoming hunting season.

  When we were done, I said, “Want to stretch your legs? It's almost dark, but it's not far from here to a pretty nice lookout down the ridge.”

  “Sure,” he said casually. “Better bring flashlights just in case.”

  I pointed at my shotgun, which I had leaned up by the front door when we had come in from the deck. Lund shook his head.

  When we were outside and about fifty yards down the trail along the ridge, Lund spoke.

  “Sorry about that. Might be nothing. But something pretty big is up, and I don't want to take chances.”

  “You seriously think someone put listening devices in my house?”

  “I don't know. But I do know that it’s possible.”

  “I have an alarm system.”

  Lund shook his head. “Doesn't matter. There's ways to do it without even going in the house. But if they wanted to, they coulda gone in anyway.”

  “Who are 'they?'”

  “Don't know for sure.”

  “Why don't you tell me what you do know?”

  It was almost full dark under the trees. When we came out onto the rock ledge that overlooked the lake, it was easier to see.

  Lund looked at the water, steel-gray, fading into a dark blue twilight at the indistinct joint of the horizon.

  “I'm being audited,” he said.

  I felt a surge of anger and disgust. I realized that while Lund seemed like a good guy, I didn't know him very well. He could be one of those borderline-paranoid conspiracy-theory types, the sort of guy who maintains that the moon landings were faked. “You got me to play cloak and dagger, and sneak off into the woods, just because you screwed up on a tax return? Man, you had me going there for a minute.”

  “You asked me to find out about this Charles Holland guy, the one your dad supposedly shot in Washington State.” Lund's voice was calm and level, but I sensed that he was restraining his own anger.

  “So?”

  “So, I looked into him. I had to pull in some old IOUs, but I also ended up owing favors to half the administrative assistants between here and Seattle.”

  “And?”

  “What I didn't learn was almost more interesting than what I did. Mostly, I learned that this guy is buried very deep, and someone very powerful does not want him dug up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I found out your dad shot a man named Charles Holland. I found out Holland was originally from Duluth. Just to find out those two things took a lot of conniving, bribing and cajoling. And then everything dried up. If I were to accept what I learned at face value, I would tell you that according to my investigation, Charles Holland was born in Duluth, shot in Lynden Washington thirty years later, and did nothing at all in between.”

  “What about employment records, friends, family, stuff like that?”

  “Gee, maybe you should go into private investigations for a career change.”

  “You sound like Dan Jensen.”

  “The chief, here in Grand Lake?”

  I nodded.

  “I knew I liked him, minute I saw him. Point is, I couldn't find out anything at all about any part of Holland's life except his birth and death. I'm starting to think I'm incredibly talented to even have found out about those.”

  “Don't pull a muscle patting yourself on the back.”

  “There's more,” said Lund seriously. “When it dried up, it was kind of sudden. Everyone just quit talking to me. I'd give them the birth and death information, but it was like suddenly the guy never existed. No one knew anything about him.”

  It was now full dark, but the lake still shimmered, lighter under the dark sky to the east.

  Lund let out a breath slowly. “Then, my license got pulled.”

  I looked him. “What?”

  “They pulled my private investigator's license. Just suspended it for a couple days. I know a guy, and we got it straightened out, but I don't think it was an accident.”

  “Because now you're bei
ng audited.”

  “That's right. There's someone who doesn't like me poking around, and he's got strings to pull to send me the message.”

  “Are you sure the audit couldn't be a coincidence?”

  “And my PI license?”

  “Could be.”

  “In my business, I'm not real big on coincidences. Two of them together really sets off the alarm bells. There's really three coincidences, if you count the fact that all of sudden no one knew anything about this Holland guy.”

  “What, you think there's a conspiracy between the police forces and administrative assistants of two states to cover up the past of a guy who is already dead and in the grave?”

  “No. I think there's one or two people who don't want this line of questioning pursued. Whoever they are, they have the muscle to get people to shut up and to give me legal hassles. The individual secretaries and cops probably don't know what it's about – they only know that their boss told them to shut up about Holland. And the bosses probably don't know why either.”

  “And someone told someone to pull your license and audit you.”

  “I don't know about the audit, but I pretty much know for sure that's what happened with my license.”

  Sometimes I wished I chewed tobacco. Now seemed like good time to chew thoughtfully, and then spit. “Why would someone try to cover for a guy who's already dead?”

  “It wouldn't be about him. It would about someone who is still alive, who has connections to the dead guy.”

  Again, I wanted to spit. Or swear admiringly or something. I settled for scratching my cheek, which an imaginative person might have called “unshaven.”

  “So where do we go from here? I mean all this stonewalling makes me think we're on to something.”

  “Yeah,” said Lund. “But what? This feels a lot bigger than simple bank robbery.”

  “Simple bank robbery.”

  “You're the guy supposed to be good with words. You know what I mean, though. Your average Bonnie and Clyde wouldn't be folks with any pull in the government to hush things up like that.”

  “Is it possible that it's just that no one really knows anything about this Charles Holland? I mean, we're pretty good about documenting birth and death, but maybe no one really knows anything else about him.”

  “I thought you said your dad was a cop. Unless this guy never went to school, never got a driver's license, never got a social security number, never went to the doctor, never used a credit card – there would be some record of his life.”

  “Any ideas on what to do next?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Why did you drive all the way up here? You could have called me.”

  “This kind of stuff going on, they might have a way to listen in on a phone conversation, or bug my office, or whatever. Seemed safest to talk in person in a place like this.”

  “How'd you get here anyway? I didn't see your car.”

  “Parked down at the Superior Hiking Trail trailhead. Hiked up here.”

  “How did you know how to get here from there?”

  “Give me some credit. I investigate stuff for a living.”

  “You really think my house is bugged?”

  “Naw. But if they can get my investigator's license pulled, they could probably bug your house if they wanted to.”

  “Any reason they'd want to? I'm not the one doing the investigating right now.”

  “Like I said, I doubt your house is bugged. But it's better for me to be safe, you know?”

  “I really want to make this right for the lady who lost her money,” I said. “And the police don't seem to be getting anywhere.”

  “Well, maybe there's a reason they aren't getting anywhere. Maybe they're hitting the same thing I am.”

  “Can you justify me paying you for another week, to see if you can come up with another angle?”

  I saw a flash of white teeth in the dark. “I think I can always figure a way to justify another paycheck. But seriously, yeah, give me another week. I'll play it straight with you if I can't find any way to use that time.”

  After some discussion, and against my sense of dignity, I drove away from my house and met Lund coming out of the woods a hundred yards down the road from my driveway. I took him down to his car, and then, feeling silly, pretended to do some evening grocery shopping to justify the trip away from my house.

  When I went to sleep that night, I dreamed of spies watching me from the next room.

  CHAPTER 22

  I met Alex Chan for lunch the next day. We were at Lorraine’s. Though I normally only went there for breakfast, they did have a pretty decent Philly Cheesesteak sandwich. I had a milkshake and fries with mine. Lorraine’s was my main source for serious cholesterol.

  “Can the federal government choose to audit people for reasons other than tax issues?” I asked him.

  “I’m not a tax attorney,” said Chan. He was eating Lorraine’s version of sweet and sour pork.

  “So you don’t know anything about audits?”

  “Only in general terms. I’m pretty sure that audits are supposed to be chosen randomly, or because of irregularities in tax returns. They aren’t supposed to use audits as a way to hassle particular people.”

  “But they could.”

  Chan shrugged. “They do. I’m sure of it. But it’s impossible to fight them on it.”

  I thought for a minute. “You heard about Ethel Ostrand’s money?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “This is Grand Lake. You and I are the only two people who keep secrets in this town.”

  “Well, I’ve been trying to run a little side-investigation. I have some angle that the police don’t seem to be able to chase. But we’re getting some push-back, maybe from the federal government.”

  “You saying the federal government doesn’t want you to investigate the bank robbery? You’re nuts.”

  I told him a little about the investigation, leaving Lund’s name out of it.

  “Huh,” he said when I was done.

  “People pay you three hundred dollars an hour for that kind of insight?” I asked.

  “I never said it was morally right,” said Chan. “Besides, you aren’t paying me anything right now.”

  “OK. I don’t have unlimited resources. But maybe you could poke around a little for me and see if you can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Sure,” he said, taking another bite of rice and pork.

  “How can you eat that stuff?” I asked him. “That isn’t even remotely like real Chinese food. Generally, I love the food here, but they should never even have attempted that kind of cooking.”

  “I’m not really Chinese, though,” said Chan. “Well, I mean, my grandparents emigrated from China, but my parents were so big on integration that they never even let me have Chinese food as a kid. I think they were kind of ashamed that they had married each other, and not real Americans.”

  “They are real Americans,” I said.

  “That’s what I tell them,” he said. “But anyway, they made me as generic American – especially non-Chinese – as they could. For instance, they’d be thrilled if I can get something going with Julie, because she’s their stereotype of a good old fashioned American girl.”

  “Whoa there, Silver,” I said. “Number one, starting a relationship to please your parents is a horrible idea. Number two, I don’t like this talk of ‘getting something going’ with Julie.”

  “Why? Are you into her, or something?”

  I grinned at the thought. “No, I’m not into Julie. Think of me more like her big brother. Maybe I’m a little protective.”

  “So I need your permission to date her?”

  “Well, no. But I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

  He looked at me intently. “In all seriousness, Jonah, I really like her. She’s got…”

  “Spunk?”

  “Yeah, something like that. She’s vivacious. And pretty.”

  “Just don’t be f
lippant about this. Under all that verve, she can be a very sensitive soul.”

  “I’m not flippant,” he said. “So,” he added, “I hear you have a cat.”

  “Boy, word really does get around this town,” I said.

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I said.

  “You’ve got to give him a name. An old Chinese proverb says it’s bad luck to have a cat with no name.”

  “I thought you said your parents tried to raise you as non-Chinese as possible.”

  “OK,” he admitted, “I made that up. But really, you should name the thing. How about Luther? You know, ‘cause you are a Lutheran pastor and all.”

  “Alex,” I said, “You’re brilliant.”

  “So you’re going to name him Luther?”

  “No.”

  There was a short silence. “Then why am I brilliant?”

  “He shall be called Melanchthon.”

  “Muh-what?”

  “Muh-lank-thon,” I said, sounding it out for him. “Philipp Melanchthon was Martin Luther’s right hand man. He was a talented scholar in his own right.”

  “So if the cat is Melanchthon, that makes you…”

  “Martin Luther, of course.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The Farmer's Credit Union of Moose Lake was robbed the next day.

  I heard about it when I had lunch with Leyla at Dylan's. Even though the Grand Lake Gazette was published only three times a week, they did do special editions for significant news, and Leyla was an inveterate news hound.

  “They robbed another bank, Jonah,” she told me while I munched on a mozzarella, tomato and avocado sandwich on grilled Panini bread. I decided happily that I was on an avocado kick.

  “Did someone rob the bank or the customers?” I asked.

  “Sorry, the customers.” She sipped some Coke. No diet for her. I appreciate a woman who can take her sugar and caffeine like a man.

  “Why don't you start from the beginning?”

  “It sounds exactly like the Grand Lake job.”

  “'Job?' What, are we in Ocean's Eleven now?”

  “You can be a very frustrating person to talk to,” she said. “I thought you'd want to hear this.”