An Iron Fist, Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

  “It’s a simple meal, but easy to reheat what’s left over,” Estelle stated. “I know this is a difficult time for you, and I’ll not stay, but rest assured, you and the others are in my prayers. I’ll specifically pray that your family be given strength to withstand this ordeal.” She gave Deidre a hug and left without saying more.

  As Deidre unpacked the basket, Estelle’s words kept going through her mind, and she realized her pastor’s wife hadn’t said she’d be praying for a miracle. Instead, Deidre realized, she said she’d pray for strength and perseverance. That sat well with Deidre. She believed she was going to need all the strength she could muster in the days to come. As she was pondering that thought, Dave tapped on the door and walked in without invitation. He went over to Deidre and kissed her on her cheek.

  “Has Jeff called?” was the first thing he wanted to know. Deidre said no, but they were expecting his call at any time.

  Dave wandered into the living room, and Deidre heard him ask, “Is Ben around?” Deidre didn’t want to shout, so she left what she was doing and stood in the living room doorway.

  “Ben’s upstairs. He laid down after Pastor Ike left and is resting. I hope he slept some. He was looking pretty frazzled.”

  Just then they heard movement upstairs, and Ben started down to them. He looked worse than when he had laid down to rest. Megan came behind him. The two were near the bottom step when the phone rang, and Ben sprang across the floor to answer it.

  “Hi, Jeff. We’ve been waiting for you to call. Have you discovered anything? . . . Oh. . . . Yeah, I’ve heard of him. . . . No, don’t really know anything about him. . . . Well, do they have any idea where he is? . . . I understand. . . . Tomorrow morning. Eight? Sure, that would be okay, I guess. . . . Yeah, see you then.”

  The others couldn’t piece anything together from Ben’s side of the conversation.

  “That was Jeff?” Deidre asked, and then realized her question was redundant to what she had heard. “What did he have to say? Does he have any idea where Maren is, or who she might be with?”

  “Why don’t we sit down? I’m still a little groggy, but I’ll tell you what Jeff told me. They haven’t found Maren, but he thinks they might have a lead.” He happened to look at Dave and couldn’t help but notice he was distressed. He was perspiring and his hands shook worse than ever. When Dave saw Ben looking at him, he wrapped his arms around himself to steady his hands. Ben didn’t think much of it. They were all trembling.

  “There was a notice in the paper a few months ago about a sex offender moving to Two Harbors,” Ben said. “I don’t know if you remember. His name is Jacob Burns, goes by Jake. Jeff checked on him to make sure he was still at the listed address, and he couldn’t get anyone to answer the door. He checked at his workplace, and his boss told him that Jake hasn’t shown up for work for three nights in a row. He said that Jake doesn’t have a telephone, so there’s no way to contact him. Jeff ’s going to get in touch with the proper authorities to report him missing. They’ll put out a bulletin asking other agencies to be on the lookout for him. That’s about it. Oh, and Deidre, Jeff wants to see us in his office at eight tomorrow morning.”

  Dave looked startled. “Did he say what he wants to talk about?”

  “No. He just said he wanted to include us in the investigation. Said outside help will be valuable.” Ben covered his eyes, and again, Deidre could see his chest heaving.

  “I’m setting the table for supper,” she said. “We have to eat something, and Estelle Johnson brought us a hot dish and the rest of a meal. Come, Megan, give me a hand.”

  Deidre heard the crunch of tires on the gravel in their driveway and then a commotion as Steve and Jack leaped up the steps and ran across the deck. The kitchen door was thrown open, and before Deidre could say, “Take it easy,” Steve asked expectantly, “Did Maren come home?”

  Deidre knelt down to be at their eye level. “We don’t know where Maren is yet. Go upstairs and wash your hands for supper, please. We’ll talk about it then.”

  The four adults managed to choke down a few mouthfuls of food and drink a sip or two of water. No one, except for the boys, had much of an appetite. Ben took his plate to the garbage and scraped most of his meal into the plastic bag. He went outside and sat staring into space, lost in his thoughts.

  “Dave, come outside and play catch,” Jack urged. “We’ve got an extra glove, and we can play three-way.”

  Dave looked at Deidre and Ben and half smiled. He followed Jack and Steve outside, and Deidre wondered where he found the energy to accommodate two eight-year-olds. After a half hour he begged off the game and came into the living room where Megan, Deidre, and Ben were seated. Deidre thought he looked refreshed from the physical activity.

  Soon he was wandering around the room and then announced he was going back to town. Before he left, he hugged Deidre and whispered in her ear, “It will be okay.” He shook Ben’s hand and said, “I’m sorry.” His eyes held such pain that Ben wrapped his arms around Dave and patted him on the back.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow. The only way we’re going to get through this is if we lean on each other.”

  As Deidre saw Dave’s car pull out of the driveway she thought, Damn, I forgot to give him his jacket. Oh well, tomorrow.

  Chapter

  Ten

  DEIDRE AND BEN CLIMBED the stairs to the sheriff’s office on the top floor of the Law Enforcement Center, feeling as if their feet were cast in concrete, neither of them wanting to face what Jeff might have to say. They were buzzed in, and Jeff invited them into his office.

  “Well, first of all, we haven’t found Maren. I’m afraid that’s the best news I have for you. Have you talked to Dave since I saw you last?”

  “He was at our house when you called yesterday,” Ben said.

  “How did he seem to you?”

  Ben and Deidre looked at each other, and Deidre answered. “Dave’s pretty broken up. He seemed really dejected to hear that this Jake Burns has disappeared. He didn’t say anything, but I know he was thinking the same thing we were, that Jake had abducted Maren and might be holding her. We had supper together, and he left for home quite early in the evening.”

  Jeff paused, deep in thought. “Did he tell you that I spoke with him yesterday?”

  Deidre flared. “Now wait a minute, Jeff. We’ve known Dave for two years, and he has become a part of our family. I know he seems very agitated, but we all are. He doesn’t know which way to turn. You saw how upset he was when we were at Maren’s car in the woods. He couldn’t even go over and look in it.”

  Ben cleared his throat, and put his hand on Deidre’s. “It’s okay, Jeff is just doing his job. In most cases, a disappearance is related to a family member or close acquaintance. Jeff has to keep an open mind. Let him do his job.” He turned to Jeff. “Did Dave reveal anything?”

  “Nothing. He said he was at work until one o’clock on the day Maren went missing. I checked with his employer, and he confirmed that fact. The day before that, he worked all day. In fact, he worked late that night. Didn’t leave the office until six, and was back to work at eight the next morning, the morning of the day he reported Maren missing. He could account for almost all of his time, except for the hours he would have been alone with Maren. But that would be expected. They were living together.”

  “How did he seem to you?” Ben questioned.

  “Same as you said, really upset. I don’t think he’s responsible for Maren’s disappearance, or he’s one heck of an actor.”

  Ben fiddled with his wedding ring.

  “Then how about Jake Burns. What do you know about him?” Deidre wanted to know.

  “Jake spent ten years in prison for a crime he committed when he was nineteen. According to state guidelines, he was sentenced to fifteen years by a hard-nosed judge. Jake served ten of those fifteen with no incident. He was deemed not a risk to repeat his crime and was released under supervision. This is the third community in which he has stayed w
ith no incidents.”

  “Do you know the specifics of his crime?” Ben asked.

  “His record is public. When he was nineteen, he and some buddies had been drinking heavily in a lake cabin. They left and he stayed behind. Two eighteen-year-old girls were boating that night, and their motor conked out in front of Jake’s cabin. They paddled the boat to shore seeking help, and Jake invited them in. He offered them alcohol, which they consumed, and while they were impaired, he raped both girls. The next morning they all woke up, and the girls left to find a ride into town. They went to the police and filed a complaint, were tested for rape evidence, and the rest is history for Jake. After reading his record, both of his time in prison and while he’s been out, I doubt if he had anything to do with Maren.”

  “But you will follow up on him, won’t you?” Deidre demanded.

  “Oh, we will. I’m interviewing one of his co-workers this afternoon. The guy might have been Jake’s only friend in town. And, also, I notified the state corrections office, and they’re using their connections to locate him. Just don’t set your sights on him quite yet. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

  *****

  “ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’RE going to do today?” Deidre asked Ben on the way home.

  He shrugged. “Hadn’t given it any thought. I called the office yesterday, and they said to take as much time as I need. I don’t know, maybe work would be good for me. Take my mind off the pain.”

  Deidre reached across the armrest and patted his hand. “Don’t rush it. Give yourself time to absorb what has happened.” She began to sob. “I think we have to begin to face the possibility that Maren will never come back to us.” This time it was Ben who tried to comfort her with his touch. Neither felt like talking anymore.

  When they were getting out of the car at home, Deidre asked Ben if she could borrow his SUV. He asked where she was going.

  “I need to be alone for a while. I think I’ll take a ride up the Drummond and walk one of the trails. Maybe I can clear my head.” Ben nodded and asked her to not get off the trail.

  “Be home by five?” he asked, and he looked at her in a way that told her he knew where she was headed.

  Deidre turned off the Drummond Road onto the Spooner Road. She didn’t intend to drive all the way back to where Maren’s car had been found, but she knew she wanted to walk the trail where Maren might have been. It wasn’t logical, she knew, but not knowing what had happened was eating at her insides.

  She parked the SUV partway in and began walking, not paying attention to time or distance. She came to a long, low spot in the road that had been underwater until recently. The standing water was gone, but the clay mud lingered, a plastic kind of mud that held its shape. Several vehicles had been driven through the mud, each driver following the track of the previous. She remembered riding through it yesterday when they had come to examine Maren’s car. She tried to walk the edge but even that was muddy, and her feet sunk into the goop. The brush and other vegetation came to the very edge of the trail, and Deidre could see patches of standing water in the shallow ditches. She decided the only way to get past the low spot was to put up with the wet clay.

  She happened to look at the other side of the road. A set of foot-tracks was preserved in the mire, heading toward the main road. She began to pay closer attention and realized there were no tracks going in. If she kept walking, which she intended to do, she would have to come out the same way. She would leave tracks going in and out. Whoever left the other set had not walked in. She walked another fifteen minutes, and the nagging realization that she had possibly discovered a vital clue forced her to turn back. By the time she got home, the mud on her shoes had dried and made a mess of Ben’s SUV, but she ignored it.

  “Hello, is Jeff in? . . . Jeff, I think I may have discovered something of value.” She was in the process of explaining what she had found when Ben came into the kitchen. Deidre was alarmed to see the deep purple bags under his eyes, and she put one arm around his waist while she finished her conversation. Ben heard her say, “Okay, I’ll meet you at the entrance to the Spooner Road in twenty minutes.”

  “What’s up?” Ben asked, a puzzled look on his face.

  “I think I found the footprints of whoever has taken Maren. Come on. I’m meeting Jeff there in a few minutes.”

  Ben looked dazed. “No. No, you go ahead. I don’t think I can do it, and besides, I want to be with Steve and Jack. Megan’s had them all day, and I think she deserves a break.”

  Deidre kissed him. “Would you sweep up the dirt I tracked in? And call Dave. Tell him we want him to come for supper again. Tell him we need him and he needs us.” She rushed from the house to the SUV and sped away.

  Jeff brought a kit used for making casts of footprints, and before dark he had three very clear molds of someone’s shoe prints.

  Chapter

  Eleven

  NOTHING WAS NORMAL at Ben’s and Deidre’s home. Megan had moved back home for the time being so she could be with her parents, and so she could be there to receive the latest news. Dave surprised everyone and returned to work only a couple days after he discovered that Maren was missing. He said he’d go crazy if he had to sit around and wait for something to happen. Everyone grieved in their own way. Ben pretty much sat on the deck and looked out over the neighbor’s hayfield, and Deidre tried to stay busy. The only ones who seemed oblivious to Maren’s situation were the boys.

  On the sixth day of their ordeal, Pastor Ike called and asked if he could pay them a visit. Receiving the family’s consent, he arrived at mid-morning. They met on the deck, where they could smell the grass, hear the birds, and feel the slight breeze that wafted across the field. Deidre brought out a tray holding several cookies and four glasses of iced tea. They sat for a few minutes, nibbling at the cookies and sipping the tea.

  “I won’t ask how you’re doing. You’re probably sick of people asking that question. Instead, I’ll ask, is anything you’d like to talk about?” Pastor Ike sat quietly, not rushing an answer.

  “How will I get through this?” Ben asked in a voice so quiet it could hardly be heard. Ike waited to see if he had more to say, but Ben sat still, staring into the empty sky.

  “I don’t know, Ben. Everyone handles stress in their own way. I do know this: you’re walking a terrible journey right now. But if you look around, you’ll see that you’re not alone. First you have Deidre by your side, because both of you are on the path, together. And I am convinced that you have God walking with you. There’s a well-known scripture from the book of Ecclesiastes, ‘Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, but a cord of three strands is not easily broken.’ You have that core of three strands: you, Deidre, and God. But you have so much more, Ben. Every day someone has delivered a meal to you. Law enforcement is working to find answers, and although you might not feel it right now, there are countless people praying for you, people you don’t even know. Lean on these people, Ben. Let them be a part of the cord that will sustain you.”

  Deidre was totally taken by the pastor’s words, and she could almost picture herself being woven into a many-stranded rope. For an instant, she believed she would make it, but that belief disappeared as soon as it came. She, Ben, and Megan said nothing for a long time, trying to digest what Pastor Ike had said. “I wish I had an answer for you, but only time and work will bring you the closure you need,” he continued. “My prayer for you is that you be given a patient spirit and eyes to see those who are by your side.”

  No one said a word, and after a few minutes, Ike stood and offered his hand to each of them. “God bless you,” were his parting words.

  Again, Deidre was struck by the pastor’s words, or rather by what he didn’t say. All he had said was that God was with them, and she became aware that she had given up hope of ever seeing her daughter alive.

  Jeff called in the afternoon to ask if he could swing by. He said he wanted to bring them up to date on what was happening with the case. Deidr
e repeated the same motions she had when Pastor Ike had visited in the morning, iced tea and a few cookies. Jeff passed on both, but Deidre, existing in her own world, brought them anyway.

  “We’ve gone over Maren’s car as thoroughly as possible. Whoever is involved did a lot of planning and wasn’t panicked. Every possible place where there could have been fingerprints left was wiped clean, the lab said probably with something like Lysol and paper toweling. That made it easy for the abductor to burn any evidence. I told you there looked to be blood on the headrest of the driver’s seat. It was tested and wasn’t blood after all. Lab people think it was a stain caused by some sort of dye quite some time ago. So we drew a blank with her car.”

  He decided to take a sip from the glass of iced tea Deidre had left on the stand next to his chair. Then he continued.

  “Jake Burns, the convicted felon, hasn’t been seen for over a week. I spoke with his fellow employee. He said about two weeks ago, Jake showed up for work looking like he had been beat up pretty badly. Jake wouldn’t talk about it, and his co-worker said they never spoke of it again. We got a search warrant, and Jake’s landlady let us into his apartment. Kind of sad, actually. It was only three small rooms and a bath. Pretty neat and clean for a bachelor pad, but Spartan I guess is the only word for it. He left clothes in the closet and personal belongings in the bathroom. We thought we’d find some porn magazines or stuff on a computer. Heck, he didn’t even own a computer. The books and magazines we found were mostly history or news related. All in all, I think he was just a loner. There’s a nationwide alert for him, though. It would be nice to know where he is.”

  Jeff took a gulp of the tea while the others waited for him to continue.

  “Then there’s Dave.” He paused and examined the facial expressions of the others. “Has he been in touch with you?”

  “Dave eats supper with us every night. He went back to work shortly after Maren went missing. Said it gave him something to do besides moping around. Why do you ask?” Deidre wanted to know.