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

by Barry Knister

  Did you untie the rope? He had not asked her. Flushed with relief, Brenda walked quickly to the pickup. As she got in and slammed the door, she felt it was going to work. For no reason, Charlie being allowed to help search for Heather convinced her.

  Then she remembered Carrie.

  The truck reached the gravel road and started down. “Charlie’s boat,” the driver said. “You saw it go over?”

  “Heard it first,” she said. “We were on the trail to the Canadian side. I insisted we go, just in case. Charlie said there was no hope but I insisted. Then we heard this hollow boom. You couldn’t see from the trail, but it was there when we reached the Canadian side.”

  Shut up, she thought. Too much detail, too much talk. But that was their story. Where the path to Rainy Lake ended at the water’s edge, side by side they had stood on matted bark, mounded with froth from the falls. In a shower of sun and vapor they had been able to make out Charlie’s boat. The hull had stood upended in boulders, the motor gone.

  “Never happened since sometime like in the forties.”

  Brenda looked at him. The boy was hunched forward, the truck now creeping down at a steep angle. For the first time, she saw he had a large purple birthmark on his neck.

  “It’s posted all over,” he said. “You have to want to go over, almost. People come to Voyageur’s, they got a lot of maps and brochures. It’s not like parks where you have RVs and day-trippers. You have to want to be here. People know about the falls.”

  He was defending the place against outsiders. Brenda sat back, and they rode in silence. At the base of the hill the driver eased to a stop. She got out and thanked him, slammed the door, then walked toward the dock. Seated on one of the benches, a man in uniform now stood and raised a radio.

  As she neared, he lowered it. “Sheriff Gertz says to put you on the houseboat.”

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  In three minutes, she could see it, cream-colored and top-heavy. It looked like a huge mobile home, lifted in a tornado and dropped where it least belonged. As they neared, Brenda saw Brian Reese’s boat trailing behind, still mounded with bedding. The canoe was where she had left it. She would have to tell Gus Gustofson.

  The driver was again using his radio. Seated on the padded engine cover, Brenda now stood. She worked her way to the cabin, grabbed a handgrip. “Are you talking to the houseboat?” He nodded. “Ask if the woman onboard knows anything.”

  He brought up the mike. “Yeah, Dean, the lady there? Anyone talk to her about this?”

  “She knows what happened at Charlie Schmidt’s, not the falls.”

  “Okay, good.” He looked at Brenda. “You still want on?” She nodded, and he again raised the mike. “Yeah, Dean, hold up a minute.”

  She worked her way back to the motor cover. It had an official seal, eagles rampant with talons gripping gold spears. She sat, seeing for the first time the boat’s equipment, tools and instruments she couldn’t name. All the ropes were arranged in perfect circles on the spotless deck. It was serious to her. Military and threatening.

  ◆◆◆◆◆

  Two minutes later, they reached the houseboat. As the launch slowed, Brenda saw boats with fishermen, off the south shore. Men in one of the boats waved, and without thinking, she returned the wave. It was crazy, she dropped her hand. She had killed someone, and was waving. But it was just the ordinary world reasserting itself, where people woke to rain. Then conditions changed, and they went fishing.

  Someone Gustofson had sent now stepped out onto the stern of the houseboat. The launch nudged forward. As it touched the houseboat’s bumper, Brenda stood and gripped the driver’s arm. She stepped across, and was helped down from the transom. She turned, shielding her eyes as the launch drifted back.

  “Is she up front?” The launch now rose and swung away.

  “Pretty cold there, from the broken window. She’s in one of the back cabins.”

  Still looking out, she waited for him to enter. What to say? What not to say? That she had taken a life? Taken it for herself? What about me!

  Seconds later, vibration came underfoot as the big outboards began to rev. A sluggish wake formed off the stern. Tied there, Brian Reese’s runabout now swung sharply. The current had taken Charlie’s Stratos in just that way, to the lip of the spillway. The rope rose from the surface, and the small boat drew in behind.

  Ties that bind. Someone had said the two halves of Karma were the cards you were dealt, and how you played them. Brenda sensed herself using whatever was at hand. Words, images, catch phrases.

  She turned away, entered and closed the door. Gently she knocked on Tina’s cabin. The dog barked. “No, Sonny. Come in, Brenda.”

  She was propped in her bunk, Sonny at her side. The wheelchair stood crowded against the washstand. The engines grew louder, impossible with the door open. Brenda got the wheelchair and scissored it closed. She rolled it out into the passage, went back in and closed the door.

  She moved to the end of the cabin and leaned against the closet. “Heather’s dead.”

  Tina nodded. “I thought she must be. The boats and police. No Heather.”

  “She. Drowned.”

  Tina looked out her window. Dappled water was now sliding past. “Do you think she suffered?”

  “Yes, but not long.”

  Brenda fixed on the force of moving water outside. To think about what might already have happened to Carrie Ross, or what she herself had done—it would do to her what had happened to Marion. Then she would be useless. To herself and others.

  “Not long,” Tina said. “That’s something. I didn’t think he would hurt them. For some reason, I just didn’t. He was loud. He wanted to frighten us, wanted attention. For some reason I just didn’t think he would really do anything like that. I wanted him to take me, but he wouldn’t. He knew I didn’t care. He needed people with families.”

  She looked from the window. “Charlie Schmidt?”

  “He’s helping the Canadian police.”

  “A decent man. You thought he was part of it.”

  “I was wrong.”

  “I wish I were closer to her husband and son.” Tina reached down and scratched Sonny behind the ears. He raised his head, eyes closed. “Maybe it’s better I’m not. I know them, but Heather’s the connection. Have they been told?”

  “I don’t know. You and I will drive back tomorrow.”

  “I’m very glad you’ll be there. I’m a real baby at such times.”

  “So am I.”

  “Two cowards,” she said. “Strength in numbers.”

  Watching Tina with the dog, her lined face full of consciousness, Brenda felt bold. There was no need to pity her. “I am not decent,” she said. “But I am resourceful. Some would say opportunistic.”

  “Decent and resourceful aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “What happened is bad and ugly. There’s more and I’ll tell you, but not now.”

  “No, not now.”

  They were silent. Brenda watched Sonny being scratched and felt jealous of the dog’s pleasure. Its simplicity. “Tina dying,” she said finally. “I feel cheated. But this is what I want to say and then I’m going to clean up. What I got in meeting her is meeting you, I—”

  “You said Tina, you know.”

  Brenda looked up from the dog.

  “You used my name instead of Heather’s.”

  “The point—”

  “You’re worried about me and made a slip,” Tina said. “I find that very moving, Brenda. It reveals what I think you want to say.”

  “Tina…”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “Not coming here would have meant not meeting you. But now—”

  Tina smiled the slightest of smiles. “You’re afraid, because of what happened, I’ll see your interest in me as some do-gooder act.”

  “Yes. That’s exactly right. And it’s important to me that you know I made up my mind yesterday, before all this. You and I got to a point so fast, it mean
t something. Heather, too, that’s my regret. We had one or two talks. I almost wish we hadn’t.”

  Tina took a deep breath, and let it out. “I can tell you this. She admired you. Before the man came this morning, I was up, we were having coffee. She told me what you said before taking the canoe. About us all being types. It’s true, Brenda. Until you know someone, that person is just a handful of details. And I’m full of regret you only knew Heather that way.”

  Tina looked down at the sleeping dog, still stroking him. “If you want to come see me, come see me,” she said. “I never would consider you a do-gooder.”

  Another way to Rainy Lake led down from the service area in back of the hotel. It was a staircase made from railroad ties, and as Schmidt reached the top step he saw a tractor with reel mowers was now parked on the gravel. Next to it, the kitchen’s big smoker grills had been scrubbed and opened to dry.

  He moved down the drive toward the main building, then along the hotel’s north end to the front greensward. The red and white striped awnings were gone from the lawn. He looked up and saw they were now in place, over the upstairs windows.

  Preparations for the summer season, and the sameness from year to year gave him something like confidence. Schmidt moved along the front walk. A flagpole rose on his left, surrounded by flowerbeds. There was too much sun here for impatiens, so they planted petunias or dahlias.

  What the hell was wrong with him? People had died, people might still die, and he was thinking about flowers. He looked up, walking, and saw the flag was still missing. The ordinariness of his thoughts seemed…disrespectful. Out of touch. She killed someone, he thought. Never mind why, that’s what she did.

  He reached the porch stairs and went up, seeing Lester inside. He was talking with Chuck Anders’ boy, Stevie. Crossing the porch, Schmidt knew what had to be done. He would get it over with, right now. They had been his guests, his party and his boat, and he had sent it over the falls. But as Schmidt reached the door, the boy with Lester glanced to the window. He had his cap on backwards, like Schmidt’s son Andy, before he got serious. Charlie let himself in.

  “Those times,” Gertz said, pointing at a card in his hand. He gave it to Stevie and looked over. “I hear they made recovery.” Schmidt closed the door as the sheriff turned back to the boy. “Got that now? You give the card to Carl, so he knows which calls and who to bill.”

  “Okay.” The boy started for the back entrance.

  “Cold?” Gertz said. “You look like a man could make use of some whisky.” He folded a sheet of paper and tucked it in his inside jacket pocket. “Come on, I’ll buy. We’ll bill the county.”

  A door opened and closed at the far end of the dining room. Gertz followed where Stevie had gone, Schmidt behind him.

  “We reached the deceased’s husband,” he said. “Her friend in the wheelchair knew where he works, we got him there. He’s an underwriter for Northwestern insurance. You use them?”

  “Travelers.”

  “Yeah, they merged with someone, I think. The husband had some family between here and Duluth, they’re coming for the boat. This Lomak mention anything about family?”

  “A girl.”

  “Doreen Taylor. No, that doesn’t work. He torched her house on Friday night, before he left Michigan. You say him and this Rohmer flew in the next day.”

  “About three, they said. I got there after dark.”

  The passage ended at stairs leading down to the bar. Gertz took them and moved along the part of the floor that was level. Charlie followed as Gertz raised the hinged bar top and creaked over duckboards. “They got their priorities straight here. No water yet, and still on the generator for electric, but they got the bar set up.”

  He lifted a lowball glass from a pyramid of clean glasses under the mirror, and held it up to the light. He blew in it and set it down. “Ever tend bar?”

  “Short-order cook,” Charlie said. “After the service.”

  “What you want?”

  “Well bourbon is good.”

  Gertz looked down. “Nope, nothing in the well yet. You get to go premium.” He turned back and reached for the Wild Turkey. “Was Lomak on the sauce?”

  “He drank. Mostly beer. How’s John Nielson?”

  “Didn’t talk to him. We divvied it up with the troopers, them to your place and us out here. They towed your utility to the landing for the coroner. Last I heard, they sent John home. What do you bet he’s out in the barn, working on lawn mowers? I’m glad we divvied it that way.”

  Gertz poured and put down the bottle. “That way they get to sort out what’s what with the plane.”

  Schmidt sipped his whisky. “I forgot about that.”

  “Yeah, well, not at the top of your list today.” Gertz braced both hands on his hips and stretched. “I bet that woman never leaves home again.”

  “Not the daughter—”

  Gertz shook his head and dropped his shoulders. “Still waiting on that,” he said. “First they want to evacuate the neighbor houses. My guys put the mother on a plane, the troopers said she could go. If Mrs. Ross isn’t just crazy worried, it would fit with the house he torched in Hazel Park. Taking care of business, tying up loose ends. He did work for the gas company.”

  Schmidt sipped his whisky. It was like some new weapon to go with smart bombs and video war. A device with different times and places, going off whether you were alive or not.

  “I don’t suppose we’re going to find out why they killed Lars Nielson,” Gertz said. “Gustofson says this Rohmer sent a check to the landing. For a rental car he wanted to drive to Canada. From what Mrs. Ross told me, Rohmer planned to cut his buddy loose, soon as they made the wire transfer to Costa Rica.”

  Gertz disappeared below the counter and opened a cabinet. He snapped it closed and came up holding a can of Coke.

  “The medical examiner called, I passed on what Mrs. Ross said about the anchor wounds.” He popped the top. “Yeah, money or no money, to see that—” He shook his head.

  “See your friend go over. I guess, though, she didn’t actually see it. She was throwing float cushions, then she put him down with your anchor.”

  Schmidt couldn’t think about it. He saw John Nielson kneeling in front of him, pulling at duct tape, his father dead. But Lester was right about him. By now, John would be fixing mowers out in his father’s barn. He would still wave to Charlie Schmidt up here. Help put in the dock in the spring. But it would be different. Full of things both of them were thinking, and couldn’t say.

  “Yeah, plenty angry,” Lester said. “And your lady friend. If it was someone I knew, I think I just might untie that rope and sing Nearer My God to Thee all the way home.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  “I’m talking about myself,” Gertz said. “Show up and hear all this shit? What Lomak already did and still had planned? Alone with him? Sheriff or no, yeah, that’s maybe what I’d do. Which would explain the keys still in the ignition. They told me, when they found the motor it was angled up, that’s how your Stratos cleared the spillway. But that’s all just speculation, Charlie, and you don’t need to say anything at all here. And you shouldn’t, because you and Miss Contay had your say clear enough, don’t you think? How’s Andy doing?”

  Gertz drank from his Coke in a long swallow, expecting no answer. He lowered the can and sighed. “She wouldn’t say, being a lawyer, but five’ll get you ten Mrs. Ross would agree with me. Especially if her house goes up.”

  It was almost three when she finished her shower in the upper-deck bath.

  Toweling off, Brenda looked out at the Canadian shoreline. She remembered Sunday morning, how she had showered as the big boat slowly worked its way through the Ash River. With the skylight hatch open, she had felt a sense of welcome. Even intimacy. Now, toweling her hair and looking out at the lake’s shoreline, she felt all nature holding her at arm’s length. Sunny and alert, it was now a thing apart.

  She swung at the waist to inspect the baby-pink scar
against white skin, where they had removed her left kidney five years ago. Her butt still looked decent. The boys washing awnings had checked her out. Men still turned on the street when she passed, interested enough to see whether the promise of her face and hair carried over to the flip side. Facing forward, she decided it pretty much did, and would a while longer.

  It had to do with people dying, looking at herself this way. She rubbed her hair hard with the towel. If she bothered to keep track, it would probably turn out that such body inspections occurred after funerals, or visits to hospitals. After reading certain news stories.

  Enough. She hung up the towel, pulled on fresh panties and a tee shirt, then stepped out and moved to her cabin. It was less chilly up here, all the windows closed, the sun heating up the roof. She got clean jeans from her bag and pulled them on, then reached for the black cashmere turtleneck.

  No, not black. Black would somehow help the worst thing to be true. Brenda stuffed the sweater back in, pulled out and slipped on her green chamois-cloth shirt. Her feet were still slightly orange from the soggy boat shoes. After buttoning the shirt, she found her Nikes under the tin sink and shoved into them. She knelt to tie the laces.

  Lomak jumped and fell.

  Finished, she stepped across to Marion’s cabin and began collecting things from hangers and drawers. She laid the clothes on the bed and started refolding shirts, sweaters. Shrinks called it displacement. Channeling disturbing thoughts into action. Most of the clothes were familiar to her from fall dinners on the Rosses’ patio, or at her own A-frame cottage in Port Sheldon. Sometimes, Carrie was there.

  If she lived, if she was not maimed or killed, those times were not over. She crossed the arms of Marion’s red crewneck. If Carrie was all right, Brenda Contay and Marion Ross would remain friends. For a time, when she saw Marion in the fisherman’s knit sweater, or in the bathing suit—it was still damp from yesterday—if Marion was in this same one-piece Speedo and pulling herself up out of her backyard pool, just as Brenda stopped her car on the driveway and got out, there would be a moment of confusion. If Brenda was quick to smile and wave, her friend wouldn’t notice. Such moments would weaken. Each new time would be more easily remedied with a quick switch to different topics, waiting distractions.