Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  I knew I had to report what I’d found. Before I went back to retrieve Robby, I looked up at the security camera over the door and wondered if it would reveal who left the mysterious message. With Camus pushing ahead on the leash, I walked back to Robby’s cruiser, where I found him working on a burrito.

  “Don’t want to spoil your gourmet lunch,” I said, “but there’s something you need to see. It’s on the back door of the courthouse.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just put down the damn burrito and follow me. ”

  I let Camus pee on the courthouse lawn, installed him in my car, and then went back to the door with Robby. He read the message with a suitably dumbfounded look and pondered the thumb drive as though in the presence of the Sphinx. “Weird,” he opined.

  “That pretty much sums it up,” I agreed.

  Robby got on his handset and contacted Arne to explain the situation. Fifteen minutes later Arne arrived with a couple of deputies and two rangy guys in their thirties I’d never seen before. They introduced themselves as Jason Braddock and Jason Grinnell. They were agents with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, better known in law enforcement circles as the BCA, and they’d been sent to Pineland to assist in the investigation into Peter’s disappearance.

  Once everyone had a look at what was on the door, Arne radioed for a forensics team to process the scene. Then he turned his attention to me. I knew I’d be in for a grilling but there wasn’t much I could say other than the obvious fact I’d stumbled across the message.

  Before long, Pineland’s Chief of Police, Jim Meyers, joined the crowd. He’s an outsized ex-Minneapolis cop who found Pineland the perfect place for on-the-job retirement. Now he finally had something to do and the prospect seemed to perturb him, as did Arne’s presence. The two titans of local law enforcement can’t stand each other, and they squabbled over jurisdictional matters before determining both of them needed to talk to me. The two Jasons also had questions. I told my simple tale forward, backward and sideways over the next hour, sticking to the basic facts, which weren’t especially enlightening.

  “So what do you suppose earned you a mention in the message?” Arne asked.

  “I guess I’m just a popular guy. How about you? Any thoughts on why you’re also one of the anointed?”

  “How the hell would I know? I didn’t write the goddamn thing. Maybe some jerk is just fucking with us.”

  “Could be, but I’m not so sure. The writer had to go to a lot of trouble to post it here along with that thumb drive.”

  “Does make you wonder why he just didn’t post a message somewhere online,” Arne said. “Maybe the guy’s not all that smart.”

  “Or maybe he’s very smart,” I said. “Anything digital leaves all kinds of tracks. But a typewritten message on a sheet of paper could actually be much harder to trace. I doubt the thumb drive will point us to the guy, either. I’m really curious what’s on it.”

  “We’ll handle that,” said Jason Braddock, the taller and apparently senior member of the BCA team. “It’ll have to be processed by our lab.”

  “Well then, I guess I’m done here,” I said. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Jim Meyers seemed satisfied and left, but Arne and the Jasons wanted to squeeze me a little more.

  “Mind if I have a quick look in your briefcase?” Arne asked.

  “Be my guest. You won’t find any duct tape. I didn’t plant the message, if that’s what you’re thinking. By the way, why is Robby following me around?”

  “Just a precaution,” Arne said as he did his rummaging. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you now that you’re involved in this business.”

  “Thoughtful of you, but you can call Robby off. I can take care of myself.”

  “Whatever you say, counselor.”

  He handed the briefcase back to me and said, “Well, it was worth a try, wasn’t it? And I still think that message on the door is pretty interesting. Almost seems like something you’d write, seeing as how you’re so big on anonymous communications.”

  Arne was referring to my alleged habit of leaking news to the Paradise Tattler. He’d long suspected I was the courthouse’s loose faucet, although I’d never owned up to it, my quaint philosophy being that a man is innocent of telling the truth until proven guilty.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told Arne. “I’ve always assumed you’re the leaker-in-chief. Dewey would agree, I’m sure.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I recounted my phone call from Dewey and said, “You must have talked to him, Arne. How else would he have found out about that message from Peter on my phone?”

  “I have no goddamn idea,” Arne said, leaning into me. “You’re just looking for trouble, aren’t you?”

  Jason Braddock intervened. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said in a level voice. “Speaking of your phone, Mr. Zweifel, do you plan to turn that over to us today?”

  Robby, who’d been listening in on the conversation, chimed in: “Oh, I forgot. He gave it to me. I’ve got it in my squad.”

  Arne stared at Robby and it was not the look of a happy man. “Why don’t you go fetch it right now,” he said, “before you lose the fucking thing.”

  Then Arne turned to me and said, “Your phone will go to the BCA lab, too. I hear the people there can work miracles. What do you suppose they’ll find on it?”

  “Less porn than on yours, I’m guessing,” I said and went on my way.

  The idea of doing office work had lost its appeal, so I returned to my Prius. I found Camus with his head out the window, basking in some welcome attention from his old pal Marty Moreland. Marty’s surname nicely evokes his line of work as a real estate agent. He also heads the local chamber of commerce. Tall and balding, with a sandy fringe of blond hair and unthreatening blue eyes, Marty is in his mid-forties, well spoken and eager to please, and a salesman to the core. Everybody seems to like him, and he’s our town’s biggest booster, always upbeat and brimming with enthusiasm.

  Like me, Marty owns a border collie, a rambunctious character named Rafferty, and now and then we join forces and take our beasts for a romp in a fenced dog park along the Paradise River. Marty’s real estate office is across the street from the courthouse, and he’d been putting in some Saturday hours when he noticed the gathering of law enforcement outside his window.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Why all the cops?”

  I wasn’t sure how much I should tell him, but then I thought, why not? News of the message, every word of it, would blow like a jet of hot air through town. I gave Marty the lowdown.

  “Geez,” he said, “that’s really strange.”

  Yes, Marty still says “geez,” without a trace of embarrassment, and I guess that’s why I like him, despite his shady dealings with Peter. He’s hopelessly earnest, a Boy Scout lost in middle age, but it seems to come so naturally I’ve given him a pass.

  “Can you think of any reason why you’d be mentioned in the message?” I asked.

  Marty shook his head—earnestly. “No. I don’t know anything about what happened to Peter. What about you?”

  “It’s all a mystery to me, too. How about the Serenader? Does that name ring any kind of bell?”

  “No, not right now, but maybe something will come to mind.”

  “Well, let me know if it does,” I said. “How’s Rafferty, by the way?”

  “Driving me crazy.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said and got into my Prius, where Camus was looking anxious. Time to get him home.

  The security camera footage proved to be of no help. When BCA technicians examined the camera, they found it had been disabled for thirty seconds at three-fifty a.m., only hours before Peter’s disappearance. An ultra-bright LED flashlight shined directly into the lens had do
ne the trick. The camera’s positioning was also defective, so that someone sneaking up to the back door along the walls of the courthouse would be out of view.

  As for the contents of the thumb drive, Arne and the BCA decided not to share that information with me. I knew why. They already viewed me as a possible suspect and suspects don’t get to see the evidence piling up against them. Even so, I learned via back channels that there was a snippet of music on the drive. How it related to the typewritten message was anyone’s guess.

  In the meantime, my own problems began piling up as an old enemy saw a chance to gain a measure of revenge and force me to the sidelines.

  5

  After chatting with Marty, I drove to the Walmart Supercenter along the interstate to buy a new phone, and it was almost five by the time I got home. I was feeling tired and put out. I wanted a serious drink, badly, but I knew if I had one Jack another would quickly follow. I found a Summit Pale Ale in the refrigerator and I settled for that. A lot was going on and I had to keep a clear head.

  Then more trouble came my way. My land line rang, identifying the caller as LaVerne Blankenberger, chairman of the Paradise County Board of Commissioners, the august body that sets and pays my salary. Vern is a devious customer and my spit travels much farther than my trust in him. Also, he views me as a giant pain in the ass. I’m not especially fond of him, either.

  “Good afternoon, Vern,” I said. “Whatever could you be calling about?”

  There’s a ritual here in Pineland—a kind of slow waltz that usually precedes getting to the point. To be fast and blunt is to be rude, especially if it’s anybody you know. I’ve been at county board meetings where getting to the point is a journey along many winding byways, like swamping through the Everglades in an airboat, and if you aren’t willing to go along for the ride, you might end up going nowhere at all. Vern, however, got right to the point.

  “You know why I’m calling. We’ve got a situation here and we need to deal with it.”

  “Well, that certainly sounds alarming. If there’s one thing that strikes fear into my heart, it’s a ‘situation.’ Care to be more specific?”

  “Sure. It’s simple. You’ve got big problems. Arne told me about that text from Peter. Very interesting, if you ask me. And of course there’s that thing on the courthouse door you discovered. Quite the coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “You’re reaching, Vern. Just because the text came from Peter’s phone doesn’t mean he sent it. Or if he did, he was just trying to fuck with me because, as you well know, he hates me. As for that ‘thing on the door,’ I just happened to be the one to find it. It could just as easily have been you or the courthouse janitor who stumbled on it. And who knows what it means? Not me, and for sure not you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re in the middle of all this crap now and we can’t have our county attorney handling a case in which he’s also a suspect.”

  “Since when am I a suspect?”

  “Since Arne and the BCA said so. Here’s the deal. We need to get someone from the Attorney General’s office up here to take over. You’re compromised.”

  Arne had used the same word, and I didn’t think it was an accident.

  “I’m not compromised,” I said. “Far from it.”

  Actually, I was, and I knew it. The text from Peter had turned me into a legitimate suspect, and the message on the courthouse door hadn’t helped matters. Recusing myself from further involvement in the case would have been the proper thing to do. But something just didn’t smell right. Vern wanted me on the sidelines, the sooner the better, and I wondered why.

  Vern’s voice turned hard and cold. “Listen to me, buddy boy, and listen carefully. People need to know there’ll be a full, fair investigation into Peter’s disappearance. That’s the way I see it and that’s the way the board sees it. We can’t be screwing around with this. Right now, you’re a problem. You need to go. Understand?”

  “I’m not your ‘buddy boy,’ Vern, and never will be. Understand? But you sure seem eager to get me off the case. Why’s that? Afraid something might come up and bite you?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You tell me. You’re a lot closer to Peter than I ever was.”

  “All right, enough of this shit. If you don’t recuse yourself, we’ll get a court order to force you out. Don’t be an asshole.”

  And with that friendly piece of advice, Vern hung up.

  My problems with Vern go back to 2014, when I ran for county attorney and then, to almost everyone’s surprise, won by the resounding margin of fifty-six votes. My strategy was one of the oldest in the books. I ran a classic throw-out-the-rascals campaign, the rascals being two of Vern’s fellow county board members I strongly suspected had accepted kickbacks in exchange for green-lighting Peter’s resort hotel project. I thought Vern was dirty as well, but he was too smart to leave much of a trail and I was never able to pin anything on him.

  The resort was built on Clear Lake, a spring-fed body of water that used to live up to its name. I’d fished and swam there as a kid, at a cabin owned by my uncle. Now, runoff from the resort’s perfectly manicured lawns chokes the lake with algae, and swimmers dip into the cruddy water at their own risk.

  It shouldn’t have happened. Two years before Peter unveiled his plans, the county acquired fifty wooded acres along the lake with the intent of developing a park there. But Peter saw the site as an ideal spot for his resort, and before long the county board decided to sell the park property to Peter at a most attractive price. The board approved the deal on a three-to-two vote, with Vern and his two corrupt pals in the majority. At the same time Peter began his maneuvering to stick the county with the bill for constructing a new road to the resort.

  It was a naked sellout in the best American tradition, so blatant that local environmentalists filed suit to stop the resort project. I was their lawyer. We eventually lost the case—I knew from the start it would be a tough go—but along the way I managed to excavate plenty of smelly dirt about the county board and its dealings with Peter.

  The whole thing pissed me off, plain and simple. Pineland is at bottom a pretty decent place, and I hated what Peter and his lackeys on the board had done. It didn’t help that the county attorney at the time, a nice old fellow who’d held the post for years, seemed oblivious to the stench. So I decided I’d run against him. The fact the job paid over a hundred grand a year—far more than I’d ever earned since returning to Pineland—served as a marvelous catalyst for my newfound idealism.

  After my unexpected victory, I wanted to go after Peter and his two county board pals, both of whom had been voted out of office, thanks in large part to the stink I’d raised. Arne, however, showed no interest in pursuing an investigation. I couldn’t get the FBI or the state Attorney General’s office to bite, either. Peter, meanwhile, donned the heaviest legal armor money could buy, and in the end I couldn’t make a case. But I did make plenty of enemies in town, including Vern, and I knew he’d work tirelessly to screw me if he could.

  Peter’s disappearance touched off what would eventually become the biggest criminal investigation in the history of Paradise County. It did not begin well, however. Arne’s deputies and a squad from the BCA spent days sifting through the ruins of Peter’s mansion but found nothing of evidentiary value. Peter’s SUV proved to be equally bereft of useful clues—no blood, no tissue, no fugitive fingerprints, no signs of a struggle.

  Investigators did have Peter’s phone, with me as the recipient of his last known text, and there was hope it would yield some promising leads. It didn’t. The BCA went through his calls and messages going back for months and came up with nothing. It was all routine stuff. My confiscated Moto was another disappointment. Other than Peter’s mysterious early morning text, it harbored no incriminating information, much to my relief. Unfortunately, it would be more than a month before I got th
e phone back.

  As is usual in missing person cases, investigators monitored Peter’s credit cards and bank accounts for any activity. There was none. Nor did anyone send a ransom note. A tip line was set up, and a number of callers claimed to have seen Peter here or there, but nothing panned out.

  Agents were able to establish that Peter had last been seen by his secretary, Helen Forsberg, as he left his office near the hotel shortly after noon on Friday, the day before he vanished. Peter told her he was going home early to “conduct some personal business.” Helen, a salt-of-the earth woman in her sixties who’s worked for Peter ever since his return to town, explained to investigators that “personal business” was Peter’s euphemism for spending some quality time with a hooker. Finding the prostitute in question became a top priority, but the search produced another dead end. If Peter did employ a local hired hand that night, none of the usual suspects would admit to it.

  Investigators also talked to Peter’s friends and co-workers as well as Dewey, but learned very little. No one knew of an enemy who would have gone so far as to kidnap and possibly murder him. The idea that Peter might have orchestrated his own vanishing act also fell flat. He had no financial worries—it turned out he had ten million dollars stashed in various accounts—and there was nothing to indicate he was upset or depressed. Nor, apparently, were criminal charges in the offing in the Jill Lorrimer matter or anything else. Peter simply had no good reason to go on the lam.

  All of which left investigators with little to show for hundreds of hours of work. Peter was still gone, and no one knew whether he was being held captive in a shed somewhere or sunning himself on a Caribbean island or lying in a shallow grave out in the woods. But it wouldn’t be long before investigators had other mysteries to occupy their attention.