Deep North (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 2)

by Barry Knister

  He had told Louis where to find the keys, and now saw lights through the trees.

  The house was barn-like and made of cedar. His father had built it. Reaching the gravel turnaround, he snapped on the high beams to see the cabin’s roof. Just like every spring, lichen was growing there and would have to be scraped off. He swung the truck to the right, stopped in front of the new pole barn and turned off the ignition. In the quiet, Schmidt heard music.

  He got out and crossed the spongy mat of pine needles. The music grew louder, blaring when he opened the door. Greeted by smells of chili and mildew, he saw a fire was going in the big stone fireplace. He looked to the open bedroom doors, two each on either side of the big, all-purpose room. The wood of the walls and pitched ceiling had grown dark over the years. Depending on your mood, the place was gloomy or cozy. An old wagon wheel with electric candles hung from the rafters.

  He closed the door and walked to the front. A boom box rested on the plank coffee table, and a man lay face down on the leather couch. It wasn’t Louis Rohmer. Schmidt stepped around and turned off the radio. The man didn’t move. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels rested on the rag rug.

  He moved to the kitchen, around the table to the glass door wall leading to the patio. Cupping the glass, he looked to the lake. The Nielsons had made good on their promise to get the dock in early, and Rohmer’s Cessna was tied to it. A light glowed in the plane’s cabin. Schmidt's utility skiff was tied up in front of the plane. Someone had put a motor on it.

  He glanced back at sleeping beauty, then to the kitchen table. Stacked there were cans of smoked oysters and goose-liver pate he remembered Louis bringing last summer. He stepped to the refrigerator and looked in. Lots of Beck’s and butcher-wrapped packages.

  Schmidt got out two beers and opened them. He pulled open the heavy door wall, stepped out and eased it shut. The night was country-silent. Moonlight lay splayed out on the lake, the Canadian shore opposite completely dark. He took the shallow steps and started down the grassy slope.

  “Hey Louis—”

  He reached the aluminum dock, and as he walked toward the plane, the light went out. The cockpit door swung open.

  “Hi there.” Rohmer swung down. Schmidt reached him, knelt, and pulled the tie-up line until the plane’s pontoon nudged the dock. Louis jumped across.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Holding both beers in his left hand, Schmidt stood and held out his right. “Good to see you, Louis.”

  “Right, yes—” Rohmer shook his hand. “How have you been?”

  “Okay. I see you brought someone.”

  “Listen, Charlie, I’m sorry about that. It was a mistake. He works for me and got into some trouble. It was a last-minute thing, I should have called you.”

  “No problem, plenty of room.”

  Hands on his hips, Rohmer looked toward the house. “His name’s Jerry Rizzo. A sewer cleanout guy. He was doing some plumbing in a building I bought. Try to do someone like that a good turn, it never works.”

  “Here.” Schmidt held out a beer.

  “Thank you.” Louis took it, drank and shook his head. “I knew he was strung out…” He drank again. “I thought it was just trouble with his wife. Said she left him, emptied the savings and checking. Took the car. An ordinary Joe Sixpack, you know? Hell, okay, I said, if you can leave town for a few days, come with me. Take your mind off it. In the plane he starts drinking, telling me how she got mixed up in some accounting scam where she works. She was cooking the books. He claims it was her idea, but I know he put her up to it. They nailed him at the trial, not her. Something over two hundred thou they stole. He’s up for sentencing soon, looking at jail time.”

  “Has he done time before?”

  Rohmer looked back at the house. “No idea.”

  “I’ve hired people who did time,” Schmidt said. “The ones that get it straight and climb back on the bike do fine.”

  “I think you told me. That’s maybe why I thought you wouldn’t mind. But I don’t know.” Louis drank and looked out over the lake. “You talk to him?”

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Ideally, he’ll drink and sleep. He’s not a bright guy. Very sorry for himself, a whiner. I told him, this is not the woman’s fault. Get yourself together and do your time. Keep your nose clean, I’ll help you later. All he can talk about is how some lawyer blind-sided him.”

  Schmidt drank his beer and studied the dark Canadian shore. It almost made sense. But Louis Rohmer was a fussy guy. Smoked oysters, liver pate. He took himself seriously and didn’t come off as likely to invite someone who worked for him to join him for a long weekend. Maybe post bail, or put in a good word, but not bring him fishing. Louis was a bit of a dandy, even up here. Everything new—expensive Orvis clothes, top-of-line fishing tackle. He had shown up last year with the “right” stemware for the wine he brought. In a fancy picnic hamper from Harrods, the London department store.

  “I see you got the ten-horse from Nielson,” Schmidt said.

  “I walked down, he drove me back with it. I wanted to refresh my memory. See if I remembered anything.”

  “How’d you do?

  “Pretty well. Lost Bay, Mica Bay. I went up the Ash River to Gustofson’s. They had charts for sale.”

  “Good idea. If you aren’t familiar, everything starts to look the same.”

  Rohmer nodded, drank from his beer. “They were prepping boats. He said the season hasn’t started yet.”

  “Not for another couple weeks. He has an early party up this weekend.”

  Rohmer nodded again, looking out. A loon called. The sound echoed out over the quiet night. “Yes. Gustofson told me someone won a trip in a charity raffle.”

  Schmidt listened to the loon. The haunting sound was one his wife Lillie had said made her feel at home here. “I met them outside Orr,” he said. “Four women. They had a flat.”

  Louis lowered his beer and looked at him.

  “I knew you’d be waiting, but I saw a wheelchair in their truck. Two from Detroit, two from Milwaukee.”

  “Huh.”

  “One was a lawyer. She was worried I’d pop a disc and sue.”

  “This is the same party going on Gustofson’s boat?”

  “Same ones. They had enough stuff for a month in the Yukon. Anyway, we’re invited to dinner.”

  “A lawyer,” Louis said. “Better not tell Jerry. The one who jerked his chain was a woman.”

  The cutoff from the county road was clearly marked with a large Northern Lights sign. Next to it were family names on picket-fence boards nailed to a post, as if every family here were a town.

  Brenda slowed the Suburban, turned, and crept forward. In the dark, the two-track dirt road ran between narrow ditches. Cedars and pines had been bulldozed on both sides in a wide swath, leaving only plowed earth and tree stumps. For the next three miles, the women were jolted along in weary silence.

  At last, the headlights revealed shuttered cottages and log houses. Then came boats stored under blue shrink-wraps, large steel sheds, Old Style and Miller beer signs. Behind the sheds shone the Ash River, black and narrow. The opposite shoreline rose sharply in the glare of the truck’s high beams.

  “There—”

  Marion pointed. A broad gravel parking area appeared on the right. At the far end rose a bulky log barn or lodge. Brenda pulled in and stopped. The headlights were now trained on houseboats moored in the river. Brightly lighted inside, the largest boat loomed massively at the dock.

  “That must be ours,” Marion said. “They rent it mostly for corporate retreats.”

  “Looks good to me,” Tina said. “Home sweet home.”

  “God, at last.” Heather zipped up her parka.

  Other houseboats, ranged in descending order of size, floated between pilings. They were oblong with flat roofs, like mobile homes. When someone stepped from the big houseboat onto the dock, Sonny started barking.

  Marion got out and crossed in front of the headlights. Once she d
isappeared behind the lodge, Brenda turned off the ignition. “Thank you, Mr. Schmidt.” She stretched her arms and neck.

  “You must be exhausted.” Tina sat forward and kneaded her shoulders.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Heather said in what Brenda now thought of as her little-girl-lost voice. “It was the boat. It just made me so nervous.”

  Heather was apologizing for not having helped with the driving. She had taken the wheel once, in Wisconsin, but kept letting the truck veer onto the shoulder. She had said it frightened her, seeing the trailer sway in the rearview.

  “Thanks, that feels great.”

  As Tina kneaded, Brenda studied the coarse gravel parking lot. It would be tough going in the wheelchair, but the sloped path leading down to the dock looked to be asphalt. From here, the massive houseboat was level with the shore. Getting Tina on board would be simple.

  Floodlights came on. The river and opposite shore leaped into garish brightness. Rounding the corner of the lodge, a man lumbered toward the Suburban. He was huge, in jeans cinched under an enormous belly. His flopping hands looked like fielders’ gloves. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were unbuttoned, his wrists too big. He seemed to move like a force of nature, a land mass.

  “See you made it!” he called in a high-pitched voice. More first impressions. Man Mountain sounded like Don Knotts.

  Brenda got out. “Right, sorry we’re late. We had some car trouble.”

  “No problem, we got ‘er all ready for you. Get you unloaded in the A.M., take you out first thing. I’m Gus Gustofson. You eat on the way?”

  “We were hoping to eat here.”

  “That’ll work. You got your microwave, your ovens, two ‘frigerators. Two gas grills—” He pointed to the dock. “Anyone in your party knows boats?”

  “Not really.”

  “No matter. Get you out to the channel in the morning. After that it’s pretty simple. Looks like you timed it good. A front went through this afternoon, sunshine due in starting tomorrow. Should work out. We’ll finish unloading you in the morning.”

  The dog barked again and the back seat’s window buzzed down. “Hello,” Tina called. “Sonny here is demanding a walk. Heather wants to know if it’s safe to take him along the road.”

  “Sure is,” Gustofson said. “No one’s around except us regulars. But city dogs go kinda nuts up here, critters and stuff like they never smelled before. I’d keep him on a leash. Otherwise, you could be looking for him half the night.”

  Heather got out the other side. The dog was straining at the leash, nose to the ground. “Sonny… Heel, Sonny…”

  “So much for obedience school,” Tina said. “He must think he died and went to heaven.”

  Brenda explained about the wheelchair. When she opened the Suburban’s rear gate, Gustofson swung the chair out with one hand, shook it open and brought it to the open door. He lifted Tina out and down into the wheelchair, as though she were a weightless doll.

  He straightened and studied the gravel. “Tell you what, let’s do this simple. Can you stand?”

  “If you can deliver.”

  Tina pushed up on the armrests. Gustofson reached down and again gently cradled her in one motion. He turned and carried her casually toward the floodlit path. Brenda bumped along behind him with the chair. When they reached the lighted patio in front of the lodge, she saw Marion inside, doing paperwork at a counter. Canned goods and sundries rested on shelves, there were racks of sweatshirts, caps, and novelties. She guided the chair behind Gustofson, remembering what Charlie Schmidt had said about… Raphaels? Rapellers? No, Rapalas.

  He reached the dock, and smoothly carried Tina aboard. The two disappeared inside. Seconds later they reappeared forward, in the bright windows of what looked to be a lounge. The huge man set Tina on her feet, then pulled a captain’s chair out from under a table. Tina sat and began clapping.

  Seconds later, Gustofson came out the stern entrance. He crossed the loading ramp, folded the wheelchair and took it aboard.

  “Great idea.” Brenda followed. Maybe up here, people thought less about lawsuits.

  “My wife’s sister was in one of these last summer,” he said. “Got both legs busted between cars in an outlet mall. Comes up here in August, lands a thirty-pound northern. Did it sitting right on the dock, using a spinner and twelve-pound test.”

  Gripping the wheelchair, he opened the door and led the way. As she followed, Brenda glanced into tidy, lighted cabins. There were four, with freshly made-up double births. Each cabin had a tin sink, open mahogany storage bays, shelves. She passed a bathroom bigger than her own back in Michigan.

  This would work. This was not roughing it.

  But three hours later, she was still awake.

  Staring up at the cabin’s low ceiling, she looked again at her watch. 2:10. She turned to the window next to her bunk and parted the curtain. The Northern Lights lodge was now a massive, dark presence, not even a nightlight on.

  After Heather came back with the dog, Gus Gustofson had taken them through the boat. Storage lockers stuffed with life jackets, fire extinguishers. Be sure to seal your trash in plastic bags and store it topside, he said. You don’t want a bear coming on board for a snack. They all wanted a nightcap, and Gus had taken the keys, returning with their box of wine and liquor. Water in the tanks for bathing, he explained. Spring water in jugs for drinking.

  Ten minutes after he left, a young girl Brenda took to be his daughter had come down with a tureen of potato soup. But not the daughter. No more than five feet tall, with her small face wreathed in cherry-scented blond hair, Mrs. Janey Gustofson told them the soup was a favorite with her three children. “I’m chief cook and bottle washer around here,” she said. “Bookkeeper, purchasing and booking agent, shop manager. It’s sixteen-hour days for five months, but then we get to veg out all winter in the Florida Keys.”

  Brenda reached out from under her sleeping bag, released the window latch and slid it open. The scent of pine floated in on cool air. A slight movement rocked her, followed by the sound of the big boat easing against rubber bumpers. Forces at work. Hidden currents.

  It was the first time she’d been on a boat since the Nauro Maru. Her book Blue Sky Six dealt mostly with corporate crime, but its big selling point had been the story of her ordeal at sea—two weeks adrift in the Pacific, on a rudderless tuna trawler.

  For no reason, the idea made her again crave a cigarette.

  That’s why she was awake. Not strange low ceilings. Not even the friendly, well-worn features of Charlie Schmidt, though off and on his face had come to her as she drove. No, it was tobacco.

  She unzipped her sleeping bag, swung off the bunk and shoved into her boat shoes. Thinking of Brian Reese’s smokeless ashtray, she got her jeans from the wall hook and pulled them on. She groped in her bag for the pack of Marlboros. Secretly she had purchased two more packs at the last rest stop and squirreled them away, like a drunk hiding bottles for later. She found the cigarettes, then her heavy rag-wool sweater. She pulled it on and stepped out into the passage.

  Marion’s cabin door hung open, her friend curled in sleep. Good for you, she thought. Turning over your phone, giving Carrie some elbow room. Brenda now padded along the spongy shag carpet and stepped out onto the open upper deck. The wet bar was moon-blue, also the cover on the hot tub. Chaises and deck chairs stood waiting. She crossed to the ladder and stepped down to the stern. Carefully she opened the door and moved in darkness, through the narrow passage to the big front lounge.

  A light had been left on under the cupboards. She got a plastic tumbler and poured from the water jug on the counter. Ready now to commune with the night, ready to smoke, she found an ashtray, and crossed to the glass door wall separating the lounge from the forward deck. She pulled it open, stepped out, carefully shoved it closed. Brenda lit up, suppressed a cough, then stretched out on a chaise facing the river.

  The water lay at peace under moonlight. Up the river, docks jutted from either bank.
Wooden stairs led to cottages and decks; motionless trees hung above the water. It was placid. Peaceful. She smoked and tapped the ash, glad now that sleep had not come. What were they all dreaming? Three women asleep on a boat. Families and houses, so many connections.

  The idea led to the image of her mother, in her big house in Larchmont, New York.

  Brenda saw Reva Contay in the den, smoking. She was just sixty-four, but already starting to forget things. That was because of early widowhood, and no second marriage. During their last phone call, she had said the garden would be too much to manage this year. Brenda had seen it coming, the next retreat from better days. Reva Contay now spent her time on cruise ships with other widows, or shopping in New York. Otherwise, it was television, smoking, and popping mints in front of the set.

  Still Brenda saw her mother in the house’s gloomy, stuccoed den. Unchanged for twenty years, the room glowed sub-aquatic blue from a huge TV. Around Reva Contay’s red leather club chair, the fireproof beige carpet was spotted with scorch marks from the cigarettes she often dropped.

  Brenda put out her cigarette and lit another. Mother and daughter and nicotine. There were worse family connections. Dozing in the big leather chair, Reva Contay would wake soon. Confused by a movie or talk show different from what had been on earlier, she would use the remote. After a moment, she’d push up and slowly make her way through the cave-like living room to the hall. In a few years, she would be living in a one- or two-bedroom apartment, in an upscale retirement center. A place with perpetual mahjong and bingo, where staff members called everyone dear or honey—the turnover would be too fast to keep track of residents’ names.

  Seeing her mother slowly mounting the stairs, Brenda knew the retirement home would give Reva Contay a better life. But thinking this was also self-serving, to ease the guilt of not being there. Still, once the move came, there would be others with her mother. And some sense of community. Connection.

  She heard a small click, and turned.