Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  I sighed and we got down to business.

  ~

  An hour later I got out of the car in my winter coat and knocked on Ethel Ostrand’s door.

  “Well, hello, Pastor,” she said, smiling. “What are you wearing that great big coat for? It can’t be much below freezing.”

  She invited me in, and I took my coat off and sat down in her big green wingback chair. The place was unchanged in the weeks since we had planned her funeral. She offered me cookies and coffee, and I felt it was only good manners to accept.

  She insisted that we discuss her impending death, and so we did, and it seemed to make her happy. When there was a break in the conversation, I said, “Ethel, I almost got your money back, but I lost it again.”

  She looked at me through her thick glasses, a little old white-haired lady of Norwegian extraction. “Oh, it wasn’t you pastor, I know that,” she said in her kind, grandmotherly voice. “It was those damn criminal sons-of-bitches from Washington.”

  “Ethel!” I said, surprised. She started laughing, a rolling chortle that gurgled low in her throat. After a minute, I couldn’t help smiling. Her mirth grew into a full-throated belly laugh, and it was impossible not to join her.

  “Oh my,” she said finally, wiping her eyes. “Your face was something to see. I’ve wanted to do that to a Lutheran pastor for fifty years.”

  “I am sorry about the money though,” I said.

  She waved her hand. “I may be old but I can read. I read all about it in the papers, and heard about it on the radio. There was nothing you could have done. In fact, you did a great deal more than most people would have.”

  I was quiet.

  “Besides,” she said. “I’ve still got the rest of the money. I’m not likely to use it all up before I die.”

  “The rest of the money?” I watched her face carefully, but she didn’t seem to be joking this time.

  “Oh yes,” she said leaning forward seriously. “I never did trust banks, so I only gave you about half to put in the vault. The other two-hundred and fifty-thousand is under the mattress in the guest bedroom.”

  Some things, you just can’t make up.

  CHAPTER 5 6

  They took our depositions on a cold, gray, rainy day in Duluth. Beforehand, I went to see Phil, where they were holding him at Arrowhead Corrections Center.

  When they called my name, I stepped into a little boxed-in corridor. A steel security door slid shut behind me, while the one in front stayed firmly closed. A guard watched me from a window. After the first door made a heavy snap, indicating the lock was engaged, the second door opened. Another guard led me down a hall to a bare room with little cubicles along one wall. Each cubicle looked into a Plexiglas window. There was a phone beside the window. I sat down in the end compartment and waited. After a few minutes, behind the Plexiglas I saw another guard escort Phil to my little section of window. He sat down and picked up the phone.

  “Hey, Phil,” I said. They teach you that in seminary.

  “Thanks for coming to see me,” he said.

  I was quiet.

  “I’ve been doing a lot thinking,” he said. “About what you said out there on the lake – Angie and the slave trader and everything.”

  “You get anywhere?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Only that I need what the slave-trader guy got.”

  “Grace.”

  “Yeah. I need that.”

  “Basically, you ask God for it.”

  He said, “What about Angie?”

  “She’s got to make her own choices,” I said.

  “Why doesn’t she seem to want this?” He waved his hand. I presumed he meant grace.

  “She was abused as a child, wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

  “So, I think it is two things. First, she is so caught up in what was done to her, so angry about it, that she can hardly see that she has done so much wrong herself. She feels that the wrong done to her is greater than anything she could ever do to anyone else. In her eyes, the world owes it to her to let her do as she pleases.”

  “What’s the second thing?”

  “Well, I think she also knows deep down – probably not even consciously – that if she can be forgiven, that means that her abuser can be forgiven too. It even means that if she receives forgiveness, someday she would have to work to forgive him herself. She’s just not ready to accept those things.”

  “Will she ever be?”

  “I don’t know, Phil. We can’t solve her issues for her. What about you?”

  He nodded as if I’d asked a yes or no question. “I want to believe it is true. I want to believe that the slate can be clean, that I can be a different person.”

  “You can,” I said. “But I can’t do the believing for you.”

  “I need to think on all this,” he said.

  “Call me anytime,” I said.

  ~

  Later on, after we had repeated our adventures in front of the authorities for what felt like the seventh time, Leyla and I paused, hand in hand by the door of the justice building, looking at the dismal day outside.

  “Hey,” called Jasmine, coming down a flight of stairs. “Hold up.”

  Stone came up after her, moving more slowly, his arm in a sling to stabilize his wounded shoulder. We waited for them to catch up.

  “We’re taking you out for lunch,” said Stone. His face was as expressionless as ever. “You’re buying.”

  “Tony,” said Jasmine, slapping him on his shoulder. He winced and cringed, and immediately she cried out, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I keep forgetting.”

  “Third time today,” said Stone to me.

  “He’s working it too,” said Jasmine. “Acts like he’s dying every time.”

  “All right,” I said. “Where was I taking you to lunch?”

  “Bellisio’s.”

  Bellisio’s was in the Canal Park district, the kind of place where you can drop twelve bucks on an artisan cheese plate, or eighteen on an order of Sicilian ravioli – for lunch, that is, dinner is more. It was good, but steeper than my normal dining out. With drinks and appetizers, I was easily looking at more than I would spend on groceries in about three weeks. On the other hand, Stone and Jasmine had recently been deeply involved in trying to save our lives.

  “Okay,” I said.

  We drove down to the restaurant, which featured a glimpse of the harbor. As it turned out, the ravioli tasted pretty darn good, and so did the cheese plate, which we all shared. Stone ordered a bottle of wine for all of us, which was generous of him, considering I was paying. I smiled and thought of Jesus. Turn the other cheek. When a man wants your ravioli, give him your wine as well.

  Actually, we had an enjoyable time together. We joked and laughed, and Stone even almost-smiled twice. Leyla and Jasmine were vivacious and beautiful, and several patrons glanced at our table in what I imagined was envy. Ah, the high life.

  “Do you have any more questions about everything?” asked Jasmine after the cheese plate.

  “Well, someone tried to break into my place a few weeks ago. Was that related, or do we have a crime problem in Grand Lake?”

  Stone grimaced. “Those knuckleheads in Homeland Security were running the show. They were watching Lynden, and they knew your mom sent you something. At that point, we hadn’t eliminated you as a suspect. They were afraid your mom sent files or something that would put you on to what was going on. They figured if they got a warrant, and you were one of the bad guys, it would tip you off. And it would have been tricky to get a warrant anyway. So those idiots decided to just break and enter.”

  “Is that legal?” asked Leyla.

  “Of course not,” said Jasmine. “Unfortunately, you never heard any of this from us.”

  “How could anyone think I was part of all this?” I asked. “My dad shot one of them. So did I, for that matter.”

  Stone shook his head in disgust. “I never suspected you. But the brigh
t stars above argued that maybe you hated your dad. They pointed out that we didn’t really know if you shot one of them – all we had was blood leaving the bank.”

  Jasmine looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry to say, I did wonder for a while. Until that night.”

  “What night?” asked Leyla.

  “Never mind,” Jasmine and I said in unison. Leyla looked from one to the other of us speculatively.

  “Jasmine had an unorthodox approach to establishing my innocence,” I said to Leyla.

  “Just say, Leyla, you don’t need to worry about your man. He’s gold,” said Jasmine.

  “Okay,” said Leyla slowly. She looked at me. “But I reserve the right to bring this up again later.”

  We ate in silence for a few more moments.

  “Oh, by the way,” said Jasmine. “Our boat was not actually called Tiny Dancer. Red – Richard – Holland didn’t own it. It was just a boat they rented, called the Zephyr. Holland had to paint over the name because he didn’t know the name of the boat when he recruited you, so he told you Tiny Dancer.”

  “Something has been bothering me,” said Leyla, swallowing some wine. “If they knew you two were FBI, why didn’t they search Tony for weapons right away?” Her reporter’s inquisitiveness was strong as ever.

  “It’s kind of complicated,” said Jasmine, “because of the double-triple-cross thing. But basically, if they had searched him right away, he would have known that they knew he was an agent, and that would have alerted him that I was double-crossing him. As a result, they could not have used me as a hostage.”

  “But Tony already knew all that,” I said, feeling a little confused.

  “Yes, but they didn’t know that he knew.”

  “This sounds like something out of Mission Impossible,” said Leyla.

  “Why didn’t you wait for Jasmine to get free, before you made your move then?” I asked Stone.

  He looked at me impassively, and then shrugged. “It was a gamble either way. Once they admitted that Jasmine was on their side, they would have searched me and taken my gun. I had to make my move before that. Plus, I saw what you did to Phil when he tried to beat you. You’re fast, and you have good instincts. I thought that between the two of us, we could take them. As it turns out, I was the one who failed. I’m just glad no one else got hurt because of it.”

  After the meal, Stone insisted upon dessert as well, and I began to think maybe the bill would equal something more like a whole month’s worth of groceries. However, coffee came with dessert, so there were compensations. When we were completely stuffed and the sky was growing even darker as the sun began to give up for the day, Stone leaned back in his chair and eyed me mysteriously.

  “You nailed ‘em,” said Stone. “A lot of law enforcement worked a long time, but you were the one who brought home the bacon. Without you, we never would have held on to the Kruger-Holland gang.”

  “You helped,” I said.

  “But we are paid to help,” said Jasmine.

  “And now,” said Tony, with uncharacteristic expression, “So are you!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Quarter-million dollar reward for the Kruger-Holland gang,” said Stone. “It’s all yours.” He actually smiled. Then he actually chuckled. Somewhere, ice was forming in the nether reaches of hell.

  “You’re sitting here, trying to be all stoic about dropping two hundred bucks for a late lunch. You’re treating us because you can afford it!” He laughed again.

  I looked at Leyla, and then Jasmine. “Did he just laugh?”

  “Yes, he did,” said Jasmine smiling.

  “Wonders never cease.” I took a deep breath. “Well,” I said, “that’s a load off my conscience.”

  Leyla looked at me and nodded.

  “What do you mean?” asked Stone.

  “He’s going to give it to an eighty-year-old widow,” said Leyla.

  Stone stared. “You’re crazy.”

  I nodded. “Very likely.”

  ~

  After supper, I said to Leyla, “Take a walk with me?”

  “Sure.”

  We walked two blocks through the drizzle, to where some old brick buildings had been renovated to hold offices and shops. We climbed the stairs to Tom Lund’s office.

  I knocked on his door. “Come in,” I heard him call. We walked in through the bare reception room into Lund’s sanctum sanctorum. There was a pile of files on his spare chair, and his feet were on his desk, hands behind his head.

  “See?” I said, turning to Leyla. “I told you detecting is hard work.”

  “Borden,” said Lund, not moving for a moment. Then his eyes shifted to Leyla. He took his feet off the desk and stood, moving toward the chair piled high with files.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We won’t stay long.”

  He looked relieved. “Thanks,” he said. “Last time I moved that stuff, it took me a week to get organized again.”

  “I’m here to pay you.”

  “I didn’t do squat,” he said. “You did all the heavy lifting.”

  “I bet you sat there by the window with your feet up and hands behind your head and thought about my case, though.”

  He nodded. “It’s tough, but someone’s got to do it.”

  I took out my checkbook and started writing.

  “Hey, I’m serious – I got shut out on the Charles Holland thing, and that’s about as far as I got ‘til you blew up their getaway boat.”

  “About that,” I said. “Did you ever hear why you were shut out, why all the push-back?”

  He shook his head.

  “Homeland Security. You were going against them. They were working the case and they didn’t want anyone else in it, screwing it up, as they thought. So they shut down the flow of information.”

  Lund swore in appreciation. “So you’re saying maybe I’m still the best private detective on the North Shore?”

  “Are there any other private detectives on the North Shore?” asked Leyla sweetly.

  “You’re pretty, but you’ve got a bite,” said Lund, grinning. Leyla smiled at him.

  I finished writing Lund’s check. “Besides,” I said. “They gave me the reward.”

  “They what?”

  “They gave me the reward money. I have a little bit extra, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to pay you. I may need you again someday.”

  “You have a ‘little extra?’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, two-hundred and thirty-seven thousand rightly belongs to a little old lady in Grand Lake. Turns out I only lost half of what she had, but still, right is right. It’s her money.”

  “So you are going to make a wealthy old widow wealthier.”

  “Wealth has nothing to do with it. I lost her money. I owe it to her.”

  Lund shook his head. “I always knew you were a few sandwiches short of a picnic.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but I’m a heck of a lot of fun.”

  CHAPTER 5 7

  Leyla and I were walking by the waterfront in Grand Lake. Another weather system had moved in and we could see the waves exploding against the breakwater, sending spray forty feet into the air. The wind was cold, and it howled across the water, whipping Leyla’s hair around her face.

  “I’m not ready to enjoy this yet,” said Leyla. “It brings back some bad memories.”

  “I don’t think it would be enjoyable even without the memories,” I said.

  We drove up to my cabin on the ridge and I built a fire out of seasoned birch and oak. When it started to crackle and roar, we sat on my couch and looked at it.

  “Hot cocoa?” I asked.

  “Tea.”

  I made the drinks and brought them back to the couch. Leyla sipped her tea. I sipped my hot cocoa.

  “Jonah,” she said, turning to me. “I want to talk about something. I want you to just listen to me for a minute.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. “It’s just that I love the sound of my own vo
ice so much.”

  She patted my cheek. “I know.” She sipped some more tea. “I – I don’t really know how to start. I guess…I just know that when we were in the lake after the boats had gone down, we all thought we were going to die.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “No,” she said. “Let me finish. I have known for a long time that you are the man for me. But it sounded like you only realized that I was the woman for you when we were about to die. I understand that in the cold light of everyday life, things may feel differently for you. I want you to know that I will not hold you to your marriage proposal.”

  I met her eyes steadily and waited. She kept looking at me. The silence stretched on.

  “You can talk now,” she said suddenly.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.” I sipped some cocoa and then put the cup down. “Hold on a sec.”

  I lit several candles that I keep around for power outages and romantic evenings. I went to my stereo, where my iPod was plugged in, and started playing Marc Cohn’s True Companion. Then I turned off the main lights. Outside, the silver light of dusk softened the lines of the gray lake and the endless horizon. I came back to the couch and knelt down in front of Leyla.

  “I realize,” I said, “that the first time, conditions were not ideal. I remember that I said our situation had caused me to realize how I really feel. But today, being of sound mind and body, with, as a far as I know, decades of life ahead of me, I do not want to contemplate those decades without you. So here, with candles, a fire and music and tea, I am asking you, Leyla Bennett, to become my wife. I love you. I want you. Always. Leyla, I am asking you again – will you marry me?”

  She looked at me. I could have waited contented in that gaze for a very long time. “Yes,” she said at last. She reached for me and we held each other tightly.

  “You think this one took?” I asked, my voice muffled by her hair. She punched my shoulder in response.

  ~

  Four days later, I drove through moody jack-pines and bare-branched birches. I was listening to a mix of Bruce Cockburn, Jackson Browne and band called East Mountain South. The sounds and the drive were peaceful, even hopeful. It was cold, but the sun was out in full force, bringing joy to the wild, empty land around me. I shared that joy, and more.