The Confessors' Club

by Jack Fredrickson

  ‘Did he leave by cab?’

  ‘No. He drove himself.’ She took coffee cups from a cabinet and was about to pour coffee when suddenly she shook her head. She set down the coffee pot and reached over to the counter for a corked bottle of Shiraz.

  ‘In that tan Buick?’

  She spun around. ‘Why shouldn’t my father give Jim Whitman a ride home? They were friends. They served on boards together.’

  ‘As I said before, giving Whitman a ride home the night he died doesn’t mean your father killed him.’

  ‘My father was better friends with Arthur,’ she said, her voice quieting.

  ‘I don’t like your father buying into Lamm’s insurance brokerage.’

  ‘Arthur must have really needed money.’ She smacked the bottle hard as she started to fill one of the coffee cups. ‘Where’s my father?’

  ‘No wine for me,’ I said. ‘I’m driving.’

  She looked up, startled. ‘Where?’

  ‘The only place I’m thinking your father would need to take a suitcase.’

  ‘Bent Lake,’ she said.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  My first run north, by borrowed Porsche, had been a breathtaking mix of German engineering, fast speeds and precise, road-hugging turns. I’d had time, and something of a plan.

  Now I was clattering to upper Wisconsin in an aged Jeep Wrangler that shook and trembled in perfect accompaniment to the fear and confusion playing tag in my gut.

  I’d lied to Amanda. I had no belief that Wendell was innocent of anything. He and Lamm were friends, going way back. Some sense of loyalty, or just as possibly some sense of greed, might well have gotten Wendell to fold himself into whatever Lamm was up to, including buying into the scams Lamm was running from his insurance brokerage.

  I could only blunder around blind. I’d ask around town to see if anyone had seen Wendell, or Lamm. I’d confront Wanda, the hostile girlfriend of the dead Canty, or at least see if the sheriff’s department had protected her from Lamm.

  Only as a last resort would I come up on Lamm’s camp to see if he, or Wendell, was there.

  Amanda demanded two things before I left her apartment. The first was that I take the two-million-dollar Carson payout along to Bent Lake, for no other reason than Arthur Lamm wanted it and it might be leverage, somehow, in keeping her father safe.

  Her second stipulation was simpler: if any danger arose, I was to call Krantz.

  I phoned when I got to within an hour of Bent Lake. She answered on the first ring.

  ‘No word from my father,’ she said.

  I told her I might lose cell phone contact in a few miles, hung up, and went back to hoping Wendell wasn’t involved up to his neck in whatever Lamm was doing.

  I got to Bent Lake later than the last time. It was now pitch black. The used-to-be service station was closed, its concrete island, shorn of pumps, looking like a casket vault left low and forgotten in the shadows. Of more interest was the phone booth next to the service bays. It had been awhile since I’d seen one, but then again, it had been awhile since I’d been any place where cell phone reception was considered so unpredictable.

  Like last time, though, the Dairy Queen across the street was bright with lights and lust, and the same carb-swelled high school lovers were framed, embracing, in the order window beneath the yellow bug lights. Such was their intensity that neither looked up as I drove by.

  I passed by the neon Budweiser sign beckoning in the middle of the block and pulled to a stop in the gravel lot of Loons’ Rest. As I’d feared, it was dark. But there was a note handwritten on lined tablet paper taped to the inside of the front window. ‘Closed for a while,’ it read. ‘Off for New Adventures.’

  I drove back to the gas station, parked in the dark next to the pay phone, and took the aluminum case for a walk to the bar down the block. My footsteps echoed off the deserted store fronts, loud and alone, though I imagined the Bent Lake Children’s Club would soon come to fill the evening air with joyous sounds of beating brooms and stomping feet. It felt like a night for death all around.

  The same three flannel shirts were perched at the bar, talking with the bartender. All four remembered me. In appreciation, I slapped a five-spot on the bar and bought short beers for the house.

  ‘Come back for more excitement?’ the beard behind the bar asked. I wondered whether he knew I’d been shot at during my last visit, or was just being witty. I played it like he was a comedian.

  ‘The excitement’s already started,’ I said. ‘There’s a note taped at Loons’ saying it’s closed.’

  ‘Wanda and Herman took off,’ the bartender said.

  The faces above the flannel shirts nodded in agreement.

  ‘Who would know where they went?’

  ‘Who would want to?’ the bartender asked.

  The flannel shirts laughed.

  ‘I don’t suppose Arthur Lamm’s been by?’

  The bartender shook his head.

  ‘How about this guy, drives a tan Buick?’ I set an Internet photo of Wendell Phelps on the bar.

  The bartender’s eyes narrowed. No longer was I some fisherman pal of Lamm’s. Now I was a guy asking too many questions.

  I laid another five on the bar for a second round, and tapped the photo. ‘This is my girlfriend’s father. He’s a friend of Lamm’s, too. I think he came up here looking for him.’

  The bartender relaxed, and they all shook their heads. The second five-dollar bill disappeared, and more beer was poured.

  I put the photo back in my pocket. ‘I’m afraid I know the answer to this, but is there a place I can stay for the night?’

  ‘Yep,’ the bartender said. ‘Chicago.’

  That brought outright guffaws from the gents in the flannel.

  ‘How about the ski lodge?’ Red Flannel asked.

  ‘Closed by now, I think,’ Green Flannel said.

  ‘No place within thirty miles, mister,’ the bartender said. He poured me another beer, set it next to the second I hadn’t yet touched. ‘On the house. Just kidding about the Chicago part.’

  ‘No offense taken,’ I said, and took a sociable sip of one of the beers in front of me. ‘You’re sure there’s nobody watching Loons’ for Wanda, someone who might rent me a room?’

  ‘Like I said, she ain’t got nobody,’ the bartender said, ‘exceptin’ Herman.’

  ‘Best I get looking for a room elsewhere,’ I said, getting off my stool.

  ‘What you got in that metal case, mister?’ one of the flannel shirts at the end of the bar asked as I started towards the door.

  ‘Two million in cash,’ I said.

  It dropped them. They were howling as I walked out.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  I went back to the Jeep. Across the street, past the bug bulbs and the greasy plastic of the order window, the young man stared deeply into the girl’s eyes as his hand rustled at the pulled-out hem of her DQ blouse. I envied him his youth and his certainty that miracles could be touched so simply.

  I drove to the sheriff’s office. A different deputy was on duty.

  ‘I’m looking for this man, Wendell Phelps, drives a tan Buick.’ I handed him the Internet photo of Wendell.

  ‘Who might you be?’

  ‘His son-in-law. If you need to verify, you can call his daughter.’

  He shook his head. ‘What was he doing up here?’

  ‘Looking for Arthur Lamm.’

  ‘Man, that Lamm must be in some big-time trouble. Federal guys called about him a couple of days ago. Likewise a Chicago cop, all of them wanting us to look around. I went to his place myself. Lamm wasn’t there.’

  ‘I heard his car is there,’ I said, like I didn’t know.

  ‘Damn shame, a fine Mercedes taking bird doo, tree sap and stuck bugs.’

  I held up Wendell’s picture again. ‘Any chance you or the sheriff could run out to Lamm’s place with me tomorrow, take another look for this guy?’

  ‘Your father-in-law is law enforceme
nt?’

  ‘He’s just a friend of Lamm’s.’

  ‘He got Alzheimer’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then no can do. There’s just me, another deputy, and the sheriff. We got plenty to keep us busy, busting up bar fights and scraping drunked-up teenagers off the roads, without looking for Chicago people who might be up here, visiting friends.’

  At the door, I turned back to look at him. ‘I was hoping to stay in Bent Lake, but I heard the woman who runs the motel might have run off with Lamm’s caretaker, some guy named Herman.’ I tried to make it sound easy, like I was just making conversation.

  The deputy grinned. ‘Don’t that beat all? They been rocking the cot back of Loons’ office for damn near ten years. Now, all of a sudden, they get the urge to see the world? Don’t know a thing about it, mister.’

  ‘You don’t suppose they’re in trouble?’

  ‘Am I missing something? I thought you were up here looking for your father-in-law.’

  ‘Where’s the nearest place to sleep up here?’

  ‘This is a dead time, too late for snowmobilers, too early for summer people. Lots of places closed.’

  ‘How about the ski lodge?’

  ‘Oh, they’re always closed up by this time of year. Best you call around, if you can get your phone to work.’ He was done providing information.

  It was dark like it never got in Rivertown, except inside closets. I drove back to Bent Lake along deserted roads, unchallenged by anything except an occasional stop sign and hundreds of pairs of eyes, low to the ground, watching me from the edges of my headlight beams like I was dinner.

  Bent Lake had become a veritable festival of beacons since I’d left for the sheriff’s office. White lights swarmed along the sidewalk like frenzied giant fireflies. The young broom beaters were out with flashlights, aiming up, then after a little jig, down at the soles of their boots, to admire what they’d turned to goo.

  I nosed the Jeep back into the darkness alongside the gas station and found, by jockeying the Jeep around a little, that I could raise enough service bars to use my cell phone. I called Amanda.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I haven’t found anyone who’s seen your father, which I’m hoping means he didn’t come up here. I’ll have a good look around tomorrow.’ I gave her the number of the pay phone. ‘In case my cell phone gives up from weak reception, I’ll hear the pay phone from the Jeep.’

  ‘That’s not the number at the motel?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sleeping in the car, next to a pay phone. Wanda is not here.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Not so anyone has noticed. She left a note taped to the window, implying she’s run off with Herman.’

  ‘Is that town safe?’

  I glanced down the street, at the white lights of flashlights crisscrossing up into the canopies. ‘This place is so quiet, the teenagers bring out brooms at night, just for something to do.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ she said, too distracted by worry to tell me I must be exaggerating, and hung up.

  Romeo and Juliet separated when I materialized into the DQ’s yellow light. Juliet came to the order window, hurriedly jamming her wrinkled blouse into her jeans.

  I showed her the picture of Wendell Phelps, said he drove a tan Buick. She shook her head twice. Romeo came to the window and shook his head, too. They were earnest and nice and so focused on each other that they wouldn’t have noticed Attila the Hun thundering by with his herd of marauders.

  I had two burgers, fries and a chocolate shake at the picnic table, and left weighted sufficiently to withstand even the fiercest of windstorms, should one arise. I climbed in the Jeep and fell asleep more easily than I would have thought, beside the aluminum case that, until recently, had shared its nights with a dead man.

  Despite a thunderstorm that rolled in, I slept almost until six the next morning, when my cell phone beeped with a text message: Still got my picks?

  FIFTY-NINE

  For sure, the guy had brass in his pants.

  Delray? I typed.

  He messaged back instantly: good name as any

  Who are you?

  u took

  Turn yourself in.

  u only 1

  I don’t understand, I texted, but of course I did. Either Delray was working with Lamm, or he’d found out about Second Securities on his own, perhaps through Rikk. No matter; he’d known to go to Second Securities, to look for cash. But what he’d found was a splintered door, a trashed Ford, and the realization that, with my extensive insurance company contacts, I’d gotten the address of the Carson beneficiary, and beaten him to the money. I shivered, realizing we must have missed each other by only a few hours.

  u bring, he wrote.

  Bring what? I texted, still playing dumb.

  we trade

  For what? I wrote, like I didn’t know.

  wp

  And there it was. Likely enough, Wendell had driven right into his own abduction.

  I’ll have to call Wendell, I texted.

  noon bl will tell u where then

  I don’t understand, I wrote again.

  wp not where u think

  I need more time.

  He didn’t respond. He had gone.

  I called Amanda.

  ‘Delray’s in it with Lamm. They’ve got your father.’

  She inhaled sharply. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Delray just texted me. They want to trade your father for the payout, up here at noon.’

  She paused, thinking. ‘We should call Krantz?’

  ‘They’ve anticipated that. Delray wrote that your father’s not where I think he is, meaning not at Lamm’s camp. Since there’s two of them, they can operate from two locations.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘We’ve got a big advantage. They don’t know I’m already up here. That buys us six hours, time enough for me to sneak out to Lamm’s camp, to see who’s around before I call the sheriff.’

  For a minute, only the rain made a sound. ‘You’re sure this is the best way?’

  ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t have spent the night sleeping in a leaking Jeep in the rain.’

  SIXTY

  A faded brown Chevy Malibu pulled into the DQ and parked next to the overhang above the restrooms. I needed that overhang, too, and I needed hot coffee. I drove across the street, wondering what the hell I was doing, considering a new kind of insurance.

  A fiftyish woman with stringy blonde hair dangling limp from her scalp and an unfiltered cigarette dangling just as limp from her mouth got out of the Malibu and ran for the door as I pulled up, covering her mouth so the rain wouldn’t extinguish her smoke. I backed up as close as I could to the overhang.

  I got out when the inside lights came on and jumped over the growing puddles to the order window and tapped on the plastic. She nodded and slid open the window, offering up the smell of old grease and new cigarette smoke. I ordered coffee and eggs on muffins. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed to get her away from the window long enough to work at the back of the Jeep. She told me in a hoarse voice that the griddle wasn’t warm yet. I said I could wait, and went around to the side, first to the Jeep, then, after five minutes, to the men’s room. It was puddled too, though I did not linger to determine whether that had resulted from the rain. Fresh from a cold water rinse of my face – there was no soap – I went back to the order window. My coffee was sitting outside on the counter, cooling in the downpour. I took the cup to the picnic table under the side eave, sat, and watched the red clay beside the cement slab dissolve and run toward the road.

  ‘Up here fishing?’ the woman rasped through the screen.

  I went to press as close as I could to the window, out of the rain. ‘I came up here looking for a guy who came up here looking for a guy.’

  ‘Huh?’

  I showed her Wendell’s picture. ‘Have you seen this man?’

  ‘He was here,’ she said, l
ighting a fresh unfiltered Camel. It was the same brand Debbie Goring used to hoarsen her own voice.

  ‘You saw him?’

  ‘Yesterday. I worked a long shift.’

  ‘He drove a tan car?’

  She nodded. ‘Parked right where you did, ordered coffee.’

  ‘At night?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘He came in at night?’

  She exhaled smoke. ‘I don’t work nights. Teenagers work that shift because they like to screw when things are slow.’

  ‘Afternoon, then?’ That would have fit, time-wise. Krantz had said Wendell packed a bag at eight in the morning.

  The Camel hung limp from the edge of her mouth, confused.

  ‘The man came in the afternoon?’ I repeated.

  ‘About three o’clock. Not that I mind a little screwing.’ The Camel was rising between her lips. Her eyebrows had risen, too. Her hair, though, stayed limp.

  ‘This man, did he say where he was headed?’

  ‘I don’t expect much,’ she added, after giving me a head-to-toe look.

  I had to look away. ‘Anything you remember will help,’ I said to the clapboards next to the order window.

  She pointed down Main Street in the direction of the road to Arthur Lamm’s fishing camp. ‘He gave me a five-dollar bill, told me to keep the change, and shot out of here like his britches were on fire.’

  I nodded. It was not hard to fathom.

  She went to pull my two egg muffins off the grill. She wrapped them in paper, slid them through the little window. I gave her a five-dollar bill, and told her to keep the change because I was no slouch either.

  She said I owed another buck seventy-five.

  SIXTY-ONE

  The rain came down in sheets of gray glass beads, dissolving my headlight beams into mist and blurring the trees alongside the road into seamless dark curtains. Every few seconds, great jagged spears of lightning gave me enough of a snapshot of the narrow gravel road ahead to speed forward another hundred yards before everything went dark again, and I had to drop back to my snail’s safe crawl.