Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  “OK, so you had no evidence until this trip. But why didn’t you stop her as soon as she pulled a gun?”

  “It wasn’t so easy. Phil pretended to hold me hostage to stop you and Tony from doing anything, and I really had no choice but to play along. We feel pretty strongly about protecting civilians, so having you and Leyla here has made it tough. Also, I think Angela believes me, but I’m on probation. She made me give her my gun before we got on the boat. We had the Coast Guard hiding in the Apostle Islands, but the storm must have screwed them up, and Tony lost his pager. It was really a tracking signal. That, and the storm, was rotten luck.”

  I tried to react as if I was shocked and angry. Mostly I was tired and cold. I made a decision.

  “I managed to contact the Coast Guard,” I said.

  “What?” asked Jasmine. “How?”

  “Never mind how,” I said. “You probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. The point is, we’ve got help coming. They aren’t going to get away with it.”

  I figured that if Jasmine was, in fact, a dirty cop, working with Angela, it wouldn’t hurt to put the pressure on. People who are afraid and pressured make more mistakes. Now I would see if she shared this information with Angela or not.

  “So…” Jasmine looked astern. “How did getting in the water help you contact the Coast Guard?”

  “I got in the lifeboat,” I said, truthfully enough. “There was a radio in it.”

  “Where is it?” asked Jasmine eagerly.

  She could have wanted it to send a message to the Coast Guard to call off the rescue. But it didn’t seem like it to me.

  “The dinghy overturned,” I said, “the tow rope broke, and all I had left was this life-line I rigged up.”

  Jasmine swore regretfully. “We sure could have used a covert radio. But I guess you got the main thing accomplished. Thank you.” She seemed sincere. But she also seemed like there were two of her. I shook my head, but the fuzzy image remained. Definitely two, maybe three. My teeth chattered noisily.

  “You don’t look so good. Can you get below?”

  “Wait,” I said. “Here’s one more test of trust. Obviously, I put the yacht on auto-pilot to get out to the dinghy. It’s draining the batteries. If you leave it on, the batteries will drain all the way out. We’ll lose power and lights and the onboard GPS. They’ll have to bring their GPS out here to keep on course, and one of them will have to stay to make sure we follow the course. That will make them tired and cold and wet. I speak from experience. It will be dark in the cabin. They may start making mistakes.”

  Jasmine considered me. “You sure you’re a pastor? You have a devious mind.”

  “Be wise as serpents but innocent as doves,” I said, but it took me four tries to say it, I was shivering so badly. Jasmine helped me up, and I stumbled down the companionway to warmth and rest.

  CHAPTER 4 8

  “What happened to you?” asked Angela. I was still dripping water and shivering uncontrollably.

  “Almost fell overboard,” I said. “I was holding on to the rail trying to get back on board for five minutes.”

  “So, no all-nighter?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I need to warm up a bit first. Maybe I can go back out in a while.”

  I glanced around the cabin. There was only one dim light on, but it seemed bright compared to the stormy night outside. Phil was blinking at me sleepily. Leyla was still asleep, her head on her arms which were stretched out on the table in front of her, held together by the plastic hand-cuffs. Stone’s eyes were open and filled with pain. I wanted to reassure him somehow. But then I realized that the Coast Guard was going to get to us too late anyway. That was the whole reason I came back on board – to try and delay or stop Angela and Phil until we could be saved.

  “Watch them,” said Angela to Phil, and got to her feet and went up the companionway. Now was the moment of truth. Either Jasmine would tell her everything I said, or she would keep my secrets.

  The storm was definitely past its peak. It wasn’t calm by any means, but the front that had blasted down upon us was far to the southeast. I wondered if this was one of those Alberta Clippers that broke hard, and then kept the lake churned up for days afterwards.

  I couldn’t stop shivering. I wanted to get out of my wet clothes, but I couldn’t think of a way to do so without revealing my secrets. I settled for stepping over to the galley for more coffee. I wanted to wrap up in a blanket and rest, but unless I somehow changed things, there were only a few hours before we all died.

  “So, Phil,” I said, the hearty pastor making small talk, “you know Angela had an affair right?”

  Phil looked at me cautiously. “She told you that?”

  “She did. I’m sorry.” In the scheme of things, I wasn’t as sorry as I might have been.

  “She probably just said that to get us into counseling.”

  “So, you guys never had any trouble with your marriage then?”

  Phil’s face looked pinched. I wasn’t playing fair. The fact is, all couples have various issues in their marriage sooner or later. It was normal and natural; the working through of marriage problems is part of God’s plan to give people an opportunity to mature. But I was playing for our lives, so I didn’t say that to Phil. I tried to make him think he was the only one.

  “The guy she cheated with was a professor at UMD.”

  Phil looked even more sour, and also sad and strangely vulnerable. I began to dislike myself a little bit, but my only choice was to find a weak link and hammer at it until something gave.

  “He was into feminism. You know how she likes that. She probably thought he understood her or respected her, but I doubt it. He was probably just after her body.”

  “Shut up,” said Phil thickly.

  I wanted to shut up, I really did. Now, I was disliking myself a good deal. But I thought of Leyla and Stone lying there helplessly, watching me, and the Coast Guard getting to the wreckage of the Tiny Dancer long hours after we were lost in the cold darkness of Superior’s depths.

  “She doesn’t think a lot of you, does she, Phil?”

  Phil screwed himself together with effort. “Shut up,” he said again. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work. You’re just trying to get us mad at each other, and then you’ll jump us.”

  “Could be,” I said. “That’s a pretty good idea, now that you mention it. But even if I was doing that, what I am saying is true. You know it is.”

  “Stop it,” said Phil. He was almost pleading. It was going to be a long time before I wanted to see my face in a mirror. But I kept my expression cold and blank toward Phil.

  “How long are you going to let her do this stuff, Phil? How many more affairs will you let her have before you stand up for yourself?”

  I sipped some coffee, choosing my words with as much thought as I could muster.

  “Phil, you aren’t a murderer, but Angela is. Even if you don’t care that she looks at you like chopped liver, don’t you care that she’s killing people? How many more lives will you let her take? She’s out of control. Be a man, Phil. Do the right thing, and stop her.”

  With a supreme effort, Phil got ahold of himself. “You killed my brother,” he said.

  As a conversation stopper, it was a pretty good one. I didn’t know what to say. It was true, I guess, and there wasn’t any way to change it. I stared at him and felt my shoulders slumping. He wasn’t going to listen to me. I was the one who killed his twin. The silence began to lengthen.

  “Angela started the shooting.” It was Stone who spoke, startling Phil and me. His voice sounded like sandpaper on limestone, but we could understand him just fine. He slowly eased himself up a little on the settee until he could turn his head and see Phil. “If Angela hadn’t started the fire-fight, Borden wouldn’t have shot back. Fact is, Borden didn’t even have a gun to use until Angela shot the guard.” He coughed a little and grunted with pain.

  “It’s true,” I said sadly. “I was shooting back at
Angela, though I didn’t know who it was, of course. I missed her and hit your brother. I didn’t mean to. When someone shoots at you, you shoot back if you have the chance. It’s a defensive reaction.”

  “The fact is,” said Stone slowly and clearly, though painfully hoarse, “Angela got your brother killed. If she didn’t start shooting, no one would have been hurt, and he’d be alive. If she hadn’t made you guys keep on with the robberies, no one would have been hurt, and he would be alive. It wasn’t the first person she got killed either, was it? She got her own brother killed first, same way, by Borden’s father.”

  “She’ll never quit, Phil,” I said quietly. “Who is it going to be next time? You? There aren’t many left.”

  “We’re done with this now,” Phil said in a tight voice. “We’ve hit our last bank.”

  “I bet you thought that when you left Washington, too,” I said. “You really think she’ll quit for good?”

  At that moment, Angela blew back down the companionway. I looked at her, trying to read her face. Now was the moment of truth – did Jasmine keep my secret or not?

  She saw me staring at her. “Were you hoping I got blown overboard?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” I said.

  She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “No such luck, Borden.”

  I sipped some coffee while she took off her coat. She glanced at me, and then looked more closely.

  “When did you change your clothes?”

  “I didn’t,” I said, surprised. A half-second later I was grateful for the fact that I had completely forgotten that I had been given new, dry clothes on the Superior Rose. My reaction had been perfect.

  “You must have,” said Angela. “I don’t remember those clothes. Those pants look too short for you.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said loudly enough to emphasize the point to Stone and to Leyla, who was wide awake now. “You think I keep spare clothes stashed up there in the cockpit?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said, looking at me closely.

  “Those are his clothes,” said Leyla. “He’s been wearing them all night. I’ve bugged him about those stupid short pants for months, but he says he loves them. I think they make him look stupid.”

  That’s my girl! I wanted to hug her, but I was careful to not even look at her.

  “Something’s going on,” said Angela.

  “Right,” I said. “I jumped off the boat, swam over to some convenient freighter that was in the neighborhood, got myself some dry clothes and a cup of coffee, and then swam back here because I missed you so much, and I wanted wet clothes anyway.”

  “I think those must be his own clothes Angela,” said Phil.

  “You’re a moron, Philip,” she said. “You wouldn’t even recognize your own pants if I didn’t pick them out for you in the morning.”

  I watched Phil’s face get pinched again. It broke my heart, but gave me hope at the same time. Angela dropped the business with my clothes. I sipped some coffee to cover my relief. I am always discovering new uses for coffee.

  I noticed that the light seemed to be dimmer. Even so, we were no nearer to being safe. I had to try again.

  “So, Angela,” I said, “you killed your professor-lover in Duluth, huh?”

  Her eyes locked onto my face. So did Phil’s.

  “I heard it on the news, right before the storm. Professor of counseling and women’s studies shot to death in his own home. First name Ethan. Same first name as the lover you claim you invented, Angela. Professor of the same things.” I looked at Phil. “You see?”

  Phil looked like a man struggling through a thick swamp. “We’ve only got your word for it, Borden,” he said.

  Angela lifted her chin. “I did it.”

  Phil stared at her. Even Stone looked surprised through his pain. I myself didn’t expect her to admit it all so easily, but then I was cold and tired and wasn’t really thinking straight about Angela and her twisted view of the world.

  “I had the affair, Philip, because it is wrong to be confined by the artificial social construction of marriage, which is merely used as a tool to oppress women.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It sure looks like Phil’s done a lot of oppressing in this relationship.”

  “Shut up, Borden.”

  Phil was looking like someone had just clocked him with a right hook. “Why did you kill him?” he asked. I wanted to cry. In Phil’s voice there was the sound of pathetic hope, as if he thought maybe Angela had killed her lover out of true love and commitment to himself.

  “I realized he was just using me, like men always do,” said Angela. “Plus,” she said casually, “it’s not like we’re going back to Minnesota. I wouldn’t be seeing him again anyway.”

  I saw Phil’s world brutally implode. He looked away from Angela and wouldn’t meet her eyes. His shoulders slumped, and through the dim light, I thought I saw tears in his eyes. I didn’t know what he would do, if anything, but he was facing the truth now in a way that he probably never had before. I wanted to give him time and space to make up his mind to do the right thing.

  “So did killing the guy help your guilt problem?” I asked Angela.

  She leaned back against the desk underneath the radios. “You know, I haven’t really had time to think about it,” she said. Incredibly, she seemed genuinely interested in the question. Then she shook her head. “No, guilt is an artificial construct used by the elites of society to oppress others and maintain control. I already told you that.”

  “So the answer is, no – you still feel guilty.”

  “Well, your approach isn’t really an option now, is it? I think we’re a little past forgiveness.”

  “Nobody is past forgiveness,” I said. “You know the song Amazing Grace?”

  “You think some stupid platitude from a hymn is going to change my mind?” She sounded incredulous. She shook her head. “I used to think you were intelligent.”

  “The writer of that hymn was a slave trader.”

  “What – what do you mean?” asked Phil. There was a catch in his voice.

  “I mean the guy who wrote Amazing Grace was a slave trader. He captured innocent people, imprisoned them, and transported them across the ocean in unimaginably horrible conditions. A lot of them died because he didn’t take care of them. He sold them like cattle, and got filthy rich. And when he finally admitted that what he did was evil, he also found out that even he could be forgiven. That’s what inspired the song.”

  “Religious propaganda to further oppression,” said Angela.

  “How does forgiveness oppress you, Angela?” I asked.

  “You want me to admit I’m wrong,” she said in a voice that sounded like nails on a blackboard.

  “You think killing, kidnapping and stealing are not wrong?”

  “Morals are made up by societies to control the masses. But it’s not just that. It’s everything. You want to justify what was done to me.”

  “I’m not trying to justify anything, Angela. Forgiveness is exactly for things that cannot be justified.”

  She gave a little groan. “Shut up.”

  “That’s always an intelligent argument,” I agreed.

  There was an explosion of pain on the left side of my head, a scream from Leyla, and I staggered against the galley counter. Angela had struck me with her pistol, very close to the same spot where Phil hit me earlier in the night. Now she held the weapon pointed at a spot between my eyes, her hands trembling.

  “I could blow you away right now,” she said. “End your little corner of oppression in this world.”

  I looked into her eyes of death, and knew with certainty that life waited for me on the other side. No one gets out of this world without dying anyway, and a few years more or less doesn’t alter the final result. A bullet from her gun was merely a shortcut to the life I was looking forward to more than anything in this mortal frame. I took a deep breath. Death held no fear, but I had unfinished business here. It
didn’t seem like it was my time yet. I wondered if it ever did. I wanted to save Leyla, Tony, and maybe Jasmine; maybe even Phil and Angela. I took another breath. “How many men have you killed, Angela?” I asked. “Has it ever really helped?”

  Her hands shook more. I could feel blood trickling from my temple, and my head began to throb again.

  “Go up there and relieve Jasmine,” said Angela at last, lowering the gun. “She shouldn’t have to be cold and wet while you’re warm.”

  I felt it was an unwarranted exaggeration to say that I was warm, but under the circumstances, it seemed better to remain quiet. I refilled my coffee mug and turned to the companionway. As I pulled the door open, I thought that when Angela freely admitted to murder in front of three witnesses, she might as well have said right out loud that we would all be dead within hours.

  CHAPTER 4 9

  “You didn’t tell her,” I said to Jasmine. She was sheltered under the dodger, letting the autopilot steer.

  “I really am on your side.”

  “Angela just admitted to murdering someone,” I said. “I think we don’t have much more time.”

  What little I could see of Jasmine’s face, under her dripping hood, was grave. “I wish I knew the whole plan,” she said. “I know she’ll sink Tiny Dancer, but she hasn’t said how.”

  “Does it matter?” I asked. I had a pretty good idea of how, but I still wasn’t completely sure I could trust Jasmine. She might be fishing for more information before she passed it all on to Angela. I said nothing. Later, I bitterly wished that I had spoken.

  “Maybe not,” said Jasmine, “—if you are right and the Coast Guard is on the way.” I felt slightly guilty that I hadn’t told her the Coast Guard would be too late. If she was really on our side, she should know that. But if she was really working with Angela, I wanted the pressure to be on.

  “I thought for a minute she was going to shoot me just now,” was all I said. “I better stay up here, at least until she calms down.”

  “What did you do?”