The Land of Dreams (Minnesota Trilogy)

by Vidar Sundstøl

  “The two Norwegians?”

  “Yep. They knew a lot about canoes. Real pros. And nice too. It’s so awful, what happened,” he said.

  “Tell me, did you happen to notice anything else besides the fact that they seemed nice and were real pros?”

  The young guy paused to consider the question. Then he shook his head. “No, I just got the impression that they were very experienced canoeists. And they seemed to be in a really good mood. In fact, they were positively beaming.”

  “Beaming?” Lance repeated in surprise.

  “Yeah, that’s right. They were beaming.”

  “Hmm . . . Do you know where they were headed?”

  “No, but they were gone for two nights.”

  “And when was this?”

  “Last week. They left on Tuesday and came back on Thursday.”

  “Did you get the impression that they’d already been here for a while? That they’d be leaving soon?”

  “I remember they said something about Finland. You know, that town down the road. I think they’d spent some time there. They thought it was a fun name. A fun place too.”

  “Hmm . . . ,” said Lance. “Tell me, how can you be so sure we’re talking about the same Norwegians?”

  “How many young Norwegian men do you see around here?” the clerk replied. “Besides, they said they were going to spend the last part of their trip paddling on Lake Superior. So we were positive those were the same guys, when we heard the news on the radio.”

  “I see,” said Lance. “Well, thanks for the info. I suppose you need to get back to work?”

  “I probably should. Did you want to buy anything?”

  “Actually, I do. Do you still sell sandwiches here?”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “Can I get a ham and cheese?”

  “Ham and cheese it is.”

  Lance watched the guy go over to the café area, which consisted of a counter with a cash register and a few tables.

  While he was waiting, his cousin Gary reappeared. “I’ve got a few minutes now,” he said. “Should we sit outside and have a cup of coffee?”

  AFTER HE GOT HIS SANDWICH, Lance went out the back door of the building. Gary was already sitting at a table with a pot of coffee and a sandwich in front of him. The same young brunette who had called him earlier was there, talking to him. Lance noticed that she was standing very close. It almost looked as if her hip was touching Gary’s shoulder. When they caught sight of Lance, they abruptly ended the conversation, and the brunette turned on her heel and walked away.

  “Come and sit down,” called Gary.

  Lance went over to the table and sat down.

  “How’s business?” he asked.

  “Can’t complain,” said Gary as he filled their coffee cups.

  There was a real hustle and bustle all around them. Couples and groups were constantly showing up to rent canoes. Kids were shouting, dogs were barking. Tourism was the new lifeblood for the entire Arrowhead area. These crowds also represented the majority of the public that Lance Hansen dealt with on a daily basis.

  “It’s a helluva thing, that murder,” said Gary. “And to think you were the one to find the body. Was it bad?”

  “I could have done without it.”

  “They were here, you know. Those Norwegians.”

  “That’s what I heard. Did you talk to them?”

  “No, I just heard about them from some of the staff.”

  For a while they ate in silence. Lance wondered whether his cousin had something going on with the young brunette. Gary’s wife, Barb Hansen, was a good friend of his, and he didn’t know how he was going to act around them in the future if he found out Gary was cheating on her. He sincerely hoped he was mistaken. But then he remembered how close the brunette had been standing.

  “How’s it going with Inga?” Gary asked suddenly.

  “Pretty good, thanks,” replied Lance. “I went to see her at the nursing home the day before yesterday. She asked about you, in fact. You and Barb. Wondered how the two of you were doing.” Lance peered at his cousin over the rim of his coffee cup.

  Gary cleared his throat. “The two of us? We’re fine.” He met Lance’s eye as he set his cup down.

  “How long have you guys been married, anyway?” asked Lance. Gary looked away. “Twenty-four years,” he said.

  “Silver wedding anniversary coming up, then. Has it really been that long?”

  His cousin nodded.

  “I remember your wedding like it was yesterday,” Lance went on. “Good Lord, you were so young!”

  Gary just sat there, looking past him without saying a word. “Do you remember how drunk Chad Aakre got?”

  Gary nodded and smiled, but it was a distant, melancholy sort of smile, the kind provoked by the thought of happier times that had long since passed.

  The two cousins sat there with their cups of coffee and half-eaten sandwiches, silently staring ahead at the end of County Road 2. The road was usually just called the Sawbill Trail, after the original path that had once been the only accessible route. It was made sometime in the 1870s by the first pioneers in the area who were first-generation Americans. Men who were driven by dreams of gold and silver, although no significant amounts of precious metals were ever found. But it was the energy from those dreams, long since relinquished and forgotten, that was the reason County Road 2 even existed.

  “I don’t know . . . I guess we’re all getting older,” said Gary, looking at his cousin again.

  Lance wondered if this was meant to be the answer to his question. Because he thought that he had, in fact, asked a question. In his own way he was asking Gary whether he was having an affair with the young brunette. But he couldn’t really tell whether Gary had answered him or not. If he had, what then was his answer? Lance thought that in good faith he couldn’t do any more digging. A per-son’s private life was just that: private.

  “So how is . . . Do you see much of Andy lately?” Gary went on.

  The mention of his brother’s name felt like a cold jolt in Lance’s stomach. He was trying to think of something natural and noncommittal to say when he was saved by the ringing of his cell phone.

  It was his mother, Inga Hansen.

  When Gary realized who was calling, he mimed the words “Say hi from me,” and then got up and went inside the shop.

  Inga Hansen had just heard that her elder son was the one who had found the murder victim the day before at Baraga’s Cross. She was worried about how he was doing.

  “Did you get any sleep, my boy?” she asked. “You didn’t have nightmares, did you?”

  “I’m perfectly fine, Mom,” he said. “I’m a police officer. I can handle things like that.”

  “Oh, right, of course,” exclaimed his mother in the nursing home in Duluth. “Just don’t forget that you’re talking to a police-man’s widow. So tell me how you’re really doing. And be honest.”

  Lance sighed in resignation. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think I’m fine. You shouldn’t worry so much.”

  “You’re not as tough as you think,” said his mother.

  “You’re probably right about that.”

  “Do you really think there’s anyone who knows you better than I do?”

  They went on talking like that for several minutes, exchanging reassurances and sympathetic complaints. Finally Lance promised to visit her that evening, even though he’d just seen her two days earlier. She wanted to make sure he was okay, as she said.

  As soon as he finished talking to his mother, Lance got up and headed for the parking lot. When he looked over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of Gary inside the shop talking to the brunette. Suddenly laughter suffused her whole face—an open, youthful kind of laughter. It was undeniably a lovely sight.

  6

  DULUTH IS LOCATED AT THE WESTERNMOST TIP OF LAKE SUPERIOR, where
the St. Louis River runs into the lake. That’s as far west as you can go on the Great Lakes of North America. It’s the point where the world’s largest freshwater lake system ends. But of course you could also say it’s the point where it begins, and that it ends where the St. Lawrence River pours out into the Atlantic Ocean near Quebec City in Canada, half a continent away.

  Where he was sitting in room 22 in Lakeview Nursing Home, Lance Hansen was approximately at the midpoint of the North American continent. To the east were the five Great Lakes: Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario. To the west were the Great Plains, and beyond them the Rocky Mountains. To the north the boreal forests stretched all the way up to the tundra. Barely two hours’ drive away, beneath the bridges of the Twin Cities, the Mississippi River flowed southward. With its numerous tributaries and tributaries of tributaries, the river resembled a great tree made of water, with its roots in the Gulf of Mexico and its sparse crown sticking all the way north into Minnesota.

  From his mother’s room he had a view of the steep-sloped city where he’d grown up. The roofs of the Victorian houses lining the slope. The tops of the big oaks and maples growing in neglected gaps between the houses. Farther down was the town’s business district, with modern glass-and-steel structures mixed with elegant art deco buildings. The smokestack of Fitger’s Brewery stuck up like a signaling index finger. Beyond it Lance could see the structure that more than anything else had become the symbol of Duluth—the Aerial Lift Bridge, which was over a hundred years old. Even from a distance of several miles you can see the big steel construction looming above the entrance to the harbor when you come driving south along the North Shore. It looks like an enormous steel gateway, and when a ship needs to pass, the bridge is simply lifted up under the top span, high overhead.

  At the moment the bridge was being lowered. Lance and his mother had been watching a ship pass through. How many times had they done just that? From their house on Fifth Avenue they had also had a view of the harbor and the Aerial Bridge.

  “There used to be more ships going through,” said Inga Hansen. “It probably varies from year to year,” replied Lance.

  There were coffee cups and a tray of cookies on the table between them. On the wall hung a series of photographs. Baby pictures of her sons. High school photos. Andy and Tammy’s wedding picture. Lance’s class at the police academy in Minneapolis. Her own wedding picture. Her husband in uniform. And the same photo that hung in Lance’s home office, showing a group of people, both adults and children, posing on the deck of a ship. On this one someone had also written in black ink “Duluth, October 3, 1902” in the right-hand corner. There were also baby pictures of Andy’s daughter, Chrissy. She had a faraway, dreamy look in her eye—something that Lance had never noticed before.

  “But I remember sometimes counting thirty lifts in one day. The most I’ve seen since I’ve been here is twelve. Twelve!” his mother said, as if she could hardly believe it.

  Lance wondered if this was how she spent her days, sitting here and waiting for the old bridge to be raised. He thought that he ought to take her for a drive along the North Shore so she could see all the places she loved. She was seventy-four and could easily live another ten years, maybe more, but he could see how fast she was aging these days. Only a couple of years ago it had been a very slow process, but all of a sudden it was speeding up, and he was starting to realize that it wouldn’t be long before she too would die. His father had been dead for seven years. There sat his mother with her white hair, and soon both of his parents would be gone.

  They had already talked about all the family members, what everyone was up to lately, and now they were just sitting together without saying much. Lance was always disinclined to leave once he sat down in his mother’s room. He liked sitting there and looking out the window. It reminded him of his childhood and youth, since the view was almost the same as he’d had from his boyhood room. And his mother was the same, even though she seemed to be on a steady decline. Fewer things claimed her attention. But now it was almost eight o’clock, and he couldn’t stay any longer.

  “I think Chrissy looks like an angel in that picture,” his mother said. She was looking at the most recent photo of her granddaughter, taken about a year ago.

  Lance took a closer look at the picture, studying the strange expression that he hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it was simply because she was discovering something new about herself. That’s how her life is right now, he thought. And that’s how it’s going to continue for many more years to come. A constant discovery of new things. Both good and bad.

  “An angel from Two Harbors,” Inga went on.

  That made him laugh.

  “But don’t you see it?” exclaimed his mother, laughing too. “She looks like an angel!”

  “Sure, but Two Harbors is a long way from heaven.”

  “Don’t say that,” she told him.

  That was where his parents had lived the first year of their marriage. Lance knew that. He looked at the picture of Chrissy again. It had to be her hair that was making Inga think of an angel. Her blond hair was like a halo around her head. “All right, that’s what we’ll call her, then,” he said. “An angel from Two Harbors.”

  At that moment his cell phone rang. He apologized and then took the call. It was Sparky Redmeyer. Lance could tell at once that he wanted to ask a favor. “Is there something I can do for you?” he said.

  “As you know, I’m working for the FBI now,” said Redmeyer.

  That’s one way of putting it, thought Lance. “Yeah. So I hear.”

  “But tonight there’s something I’ve got to do that’s going to make it difficult. So I was wondering if you might do me a favor.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Well, you see, I’m supposed to pick up a police officer at the airport in Duluth tonight. A homicide detective from Norway. And then I have to drive him up to Tofte, to the Bluefin Bay.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it turns out that my wife is going to be away overnight, with her knitting club. I promised to stay home with the kids, but I forgot all about it.”

  “Aha! And you’d rather lie to the FBI than disappoint your wife. Is that it?”

  “You know my wife, don’t you?” said Redmeyer.

  “So you’re wondering if I could pick up the Norwegian for you?”

  “You’d be doing me a big favor. I can’t ask just anybody, you know. It has to be a police officer.”

  “Sure. That’s fine, Sparky. I’m actually in Duluth right now.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m over at Lakeview, visiting my mother. When does his plane arrive?”

  “It gets in at eight thirty.”

  “Jesus Christ! It’s already eight!”

  “I was going to give him a call and ask him to wait at the airport,” said Redmeyer.

  “Hmm . . . Sounds like you’re having a stressful night.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. But don’t tell Laura, okay? And it’d be great if you could get the Norwegian detective to say that I was the one who picked him up, if anyone asks. Do you think you could do that?”

  “Sure, sure. Relax, Sparky. I’ll take care of it. Now go send Laura off with her knitting club.”

  “Great! Thanks a lot, Lance. I owe you big-time.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lance. “How will I find this Norwegian?”

  “Oh, that’s right, I almost forgot. His name is Nyland: n-y-l-an-d. You’ll have to make a sign with his name on it, and then he’ll be able to find you.”

  When he finally ended the call, his mother held up the palm of her hand toward him. “Spare me,” she said. “I know everything there is to know about policemen and personal lives and jobs and all of that.”

  Lance smiled.

  “So you’re going to pick up a Norwegian at the airport?”

  “Yeah. Someone who�
�s supposed to help the FBI investigate the murder.”

  He realized instantly that he didn’t feel like talking about the murder again. His mother had begun asking about it the minute he stepped in the door. He told her that he was perfectly fine and that he’d put the whole case out of his mind. He assumed she didn’t believe him, but in the end she relented and switched to talking about the family instead. Now he could sense she was on the verge of asking him a new round of questions about the murder. He had to find another subject to conclude his visit.

  His gaze fell on the group photograph from 1902. The boat was the steamship America, docked in Duluth. On deck stood a large share of the population from Tofte on Halsnøy in Norway, posing for the photo. After sending a steady stream of letters from America over a period of fourteen years, the pioneer Knut Olson—Lance’s great-grandfather who had left for the United States in 1888—had finally managed to persuade family members and neighbors to follow. It took fourteen years for the sober-minded fishermen and farmers to leave behind everything they’d ever known. Until that time, only one person had followed Knut across the Atlantic: his sister’s son, Thormod Olson, the boy who fell through the ice.

  “There we all are,” said Lance.

  “Hmm?” said his mother.

  He nodded at the photo. “There we all are, standing on the deck of the old America.” He knew his mother loved to talk about this subject.

  “Yes, there we are. Soon we’ll see the North Shore for the very first time. Can you imagine what it must have looked like?”

  “No highways,” said Lance. “No roads at all, except for the cart track that ended at Two Harbors. A few houses in small clearings along the coast. Huge scars in the landscape from the logging that was going on, and camps that housed hundreds of lumberjacks. A small cluster of buildings at the base of Carlton Peak when they arrived at last. The new Tofte.”

  “And all the hard work that awaited them,” his mother sighed. “But don’t you think they also had a feeling of freedom?”

  “Oh, of course. Here it didn’t matter where you came from, only where you were headed, and how hard you were willing to work to get there. Just think of Thormod Olson,” she said.