Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  “What good are secrets if you can’t share them?” I said.

  “Exactly. So here’s what I was telling the lovely Miss Berglund. It’s about that ‘cloud fund’ Peter was pouring money into. Well, guess what? It was blackmail money. Somebody had their hooks into him.”

  I’d entertained the same idea, but with no proof, and I wasn’t sure Ed could be believed. He likes to tell stories about white mischief in all of its varieties, but sometimes he greatly embellishes the details. “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say I have a very reliable source in the banking community.”

  “As in Toby Lucker at the State Bank of Pineland,” I said, recalling my earlier conversation with Peter’s main finance guy in town. “He told me he thought the money was going to charity.”

  “I have no comment in regards to that,” Ed said. “But believe me, Peter admitted to a certain person that he was being blackmailed.”

  “Over what?”

  Ed shrugged. “Who can say? Peter was a man with many vices. My guess is that it was some sort of sex thing. Peter never could keep his dick in his pants.”

  “Definitely a problem with Peter,” Kat agreed. “Restless dick syndrome, I think the doctors call it.”

  “Many must have it,” I said, then asked Ed how much money the blackmailer had supposedly extracted from Peter.

  “Close to a hundred grand from what I’ve been told. Not a fortune for a man like Peter but enough to worry about.”

  “And you think the blackmailer may be the same person who caused Peter to disappear?”

  “That’s for you to figure out,” Ed said as he slid out of the booth. “Me, I’m just an old Indian trying to keep white people honest. It’s a never-ending job.”

  “Don’t complain,” I said. “At least you’ve found a way to take white people’s money. Didn’t the casino have a record profit last year?”

  “It did and this year is looking even better. The Great Spirit works in mysterious ways.”

  “He really wants to sleep with you,” I said to Kat after Ed left.

  “Do you think? Talk about restless dick syndrome. He has a perfectly lovely wife at home, so I’ll pass. Now, are you drinking tonight, Mr. Zweifel?”

  “One more margarita,” I said and then told her about my meeting with Cassandra at the Tropics.

  “Sounds like you two are on a mission,” Kat said.

  “You’re right, and Cassandra’s a really good partner to have. She’s a tough customer.”

  “So are you planning to sleep with her?”

  “You’re acting like you’re jealous, Kat. We’ve been through this before. I like Cassandra but, no, she’s not my type. I’m not hers either. ”

  I didn’t mention that Cassandra had told me she preferred women to men. That was her business, not mine, and I saw no point in bringing it up.

  “I am not jealous,” Kat protested. “Just curious, that’s all.”

  My margarita arrived, and I hoisted the glass. “Well, here’s to us, Kat, and also to my mission, which is trying to find out what the hell is going on here. I’ve developed a permanent headache just from thinking about it.”

  “I can tell you something that won’t make your head feel better,” Kat said. “One of Arne’s deputies was in earlier tonight and he said the BCA has prepared a profile of the Serenader. Care to hear what it says?”

  “Sure. I need the aggravation.”

  “The Serenader is a white man in his thirties or forties, a resident of Paradise County, a white-collar worker or professional, possibly divorced, a loner, and someone who, believe it or not, probably drives a high-mileage car like a Prius. Sound like anybody you know?” Kat asked with a grin.

  “Can’t think of a soul who’d fit that profile,” I said, feeling the noose tightening around my neck. “The BCA must be mistaken.”

  30

  On Sunday Pineland went to church, I did some reading at home, and Camus enjoyed an intoxicating ramble through fields and forests while warm sunshine buttered the countryside, hinting that spring might finally be near. But as darkness fell, a hard wind came in from the east and sirens began piercing the air.

  After Paradise County’s old pines were cut down and their remains incinerated in the Great Fire, a new growth of far less impressive trees—mainly aspen and birch—filled the void. These scrub species, worthless as lumber, did have value, however, as a potential source of pulp for papermaking. Darwin Swindell, Peter’s grandfather, saw a moneymaking opportunity at hand and in 1920 he and other investors, among them William Zweifel, founded the Paradise Paper Company. They secured financing from a big Eastern bank and built a massive brick-and-concrete mill beside the Paradise River at the east edge of town, along with a dam to provide hydroelectric power.

  All hailed the new mill when it opened in 1922. It provided hundreds of jobs and proved Pineland was an up-and-coming place, not just another forgotten hamlet in the woods. But progress is never perfect, and from day one the mill excreted from its tall smokestacks a sharp, sulfurous stink that on many days made much of Pineland smell like a huge pile of rotting garbage. Some people left town because the odor was so bad, but everybody else just got used to it as the olfactory price of prosperity.

  The plant’s signature product was Soft Swirl toilet tissue, which for many years could be found on every grocery store shelf next to the Charmin and Scott’s. A YouTube video posted by some enterprising Pinelander shows a Soft Swirl television ad from the 1960s. In it a Betty Crocker-style housewife stands proudly in her immaculate bathroom, a toddler at her knee, and proclaims Soft Swirl “as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

  Naturally, Pineland’s most famous product was the source of much earthy humor. As a teenager I certainly found it amusing, and when the town sponsored a contest one year for a new municipal motto, I offered an anonymous suggestion: “Pineland, we wipe America’s ass.” To my profound disappointment, it didn’t win.

  For a long time, Soft Swirl was money in the bank, at least for the Swindell family, but not even nice toilet paper can be eternally profitable. Peter’s father sold the mill in the 1970s, and after that it went through several owners before a big Canadian paper company acquired it in the early 2000s. But the old mill rapidly faded into obsolescence, and it closed for good in 2012. About one-hundred-fifty jobs went with it, but at least the big stink was gone. The Canadians were in no hurry to spend millions to demolish the mill and remediate the polluted ground beneath it, so the old industrial hulk still stands as Pineland’s largest ruin.

  Around ten o’clock Sunday night, as banks of low clouds slid beneath a waxing crescent moon, a homeowner a mile or so from the mill heard a loud boom and went out to investigate. Before long he saw an orange glow off to the east and knew at once the old mill must be burning. Pineland’s volunteer fire department arrived at the mill twelve minutes later and encountered a towering conflagration well beyond their means to contain.

  Firefighters also found a dead man and they all knew who he was. His body was slumped up against a chain-link fence in a dog walk area the mill’s owners leased to the county. A single bullet hole pierced the man’s forehead. There was also an interesting piece of paper folded in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt.

  Marty Moreland’s troubles were over. Mine were about to become much worse.

  The fire, later determined to be the work of an arsonist, raged all night and left behind another ruin to go with the two Swindell mansions. More importantly from my point of view, the location of the fire—the mill is just outside Pineland’s municipal limits—meant Arne’s office had jurisdiction over Marty’s murder. The wolf, it seemed, would be in charge of looking into the unfortunate demise of the sheep.

  I didn’t hear the sirens because my house is on the opposite side of town from the mill, but I did hear my phone just after midnight. Arne was callin
g. He instructed me to come to his office at once for an interview.

  “What about?” I asked.

  “Just get your ass down here.”

  “No, I think I’ll stay in bed with Camus. He likes to cuddle this time of night. Of course, if you’ll tell me why you’re so desperate to see me—”

  Arne finally shared the bad news. He added, “Marty left behind a note and your name’s on it. So we need to talk. Understand?”

  I probably should have known my name would come up front and center in Marty’s death. I’d become the magnet attached to every bad thing that had happened over the last week. Now I’d have to tussle yet again with Arne, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  The dreary concrete-block building occupied by the Paradise County Sheriff’s Department is a stone’s throw from the courthouse. Arne’s office is just off the main entrance, and I found him there working on a Marlboro as he scrolled through his iPhone. His office is as spare as a monk’s cell, as though any sort of memorabilia or even family photos might be a sign of weakness. I was surprised to find Arne alone.

  “Where are the BCA boys?” I asked. “Don’t they want a piece of me?”

  “They’re on their way. Apparently they don’t like it here so they go home on weekends. I really miss them.”

  “Me too.”

  Arne handed me his phone. “Here’s a picture of the note we found in Marty’s shirt pocket. Why don’t you tell me what it’s all about?”

  The printed note read: “If anything happens to me, ask Zweifel what I told him.”

  I ignored the note and said, “I assume you’ve notified Doris.”

  “Yeah, I went over to the house and talked with her a little.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  Arne shrugged. “Poorly. What would you expect? Her husband’s on the way to the morgue. But let’s talk about you and that note.”

  “First I need to know more about Marty’s death.”

  “There’s not much to say. He left his house around nine, supposedly to go out for a few drinks. That’s the last Doris saw of him. We found his car in the lot at the dog park. Somebody met him there and put a bullet through his brain.”

  I had no faith that any investigation conducted under Arne’s direction would be fair and impartial, given the fact he appeared to have a good motive for killing Marty. But I wanted to see if Arne was at least going through the motions.

  “So you don’t have any suspects at this point?”

  “Maybe I’m looking at one. Didn’t you and Marty used to walk your mutts at the dog park?”

  “Camus is not a mutt and, yes, I was out there with Marty and his dog a few times. So were many other people.”

  “Okay, so the two of you were dog-walking pals. That’s nice. Now, how about you fill me on what Marty told you? Must have been something important or he wouldn’t have bothered to mention it in his note.”

  Arne’s face is usually as impassive as granite, but I sensed he was anxious, probably because he suspected what Marty had told me.

  “Yeah, Arne, you could say it was something important,” I said before delivering a full account of my last conversation with Marty. When I was done, Arne slowly shook his head and said, “Well, that’s too bad. I don’t blame Marty, though. He’s been a sick man for quite a while now.”

  Arne clearly had his defense all lined up and ready to go. “And just what kind of illness was Marty suffering from?” I asked.

  “From what I understand, he’s been depressed. That’s what Doris said. Maybe he was a little paranoid, too. He thought people were after him. And I guess he believed I was one of them. Let me show you something.”

  Arne opened his desk drawer, dug out a pair of traffic citations and passed them over to me. “In the last month alone Marty was cited twice by my deputies for speeding—one time he was doing seventy in a forty zone—and I’m sure it made him suspicious I was somehow out to harm him. I became the enemy in his mind and so he struck back at me.”

  Did Arne really expect me to believe such nonsense? “Ah, I see. He was so unhappy about two speeding tickets he decided to implicate you in Jill Lorrimer’s death. Quite a leap on his part, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Strange but true, I’m afraid,” Arne said, his hard blue eyes as dead as last spring’s flowers.

  “So let’s be clear. Are you saying you never called Marty and told him to ‘shut up or else’ about Jill Lorrimer? That sounds like a threat to me.”

  “I called him and told him he shouldn’t be spreading malicious rumors. There was no threat.”

  “And you didn’t have anything to do with Jill’s death?”

  “Of course not. I hardly knew the woman.”

  There was no point in going further. Marty’s statements to me didn’t amount to real proof of anything, as Arne was well aware. He’d just deny everything and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  “Now, back to you, counselor,” Arne said. “Where were you tonight?”

  “Home, sleeping, until you woke me up.”

  “Alone?”

  “Camus was with me.”

  “Yeah, and he’s a great alibi witness. So I’ll ask: Did you kill Marty?”

  “No, and besides, what would my motive be?”

  “Who the fuck knows? Who knows anything about all this shit that’s going on. It’s driving me crazy. None of it makes much sense.”

  “I agree, but maybe it will before long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll say no more. Nobody’s sharing anything with me these days so I’ll return the favor.”

  “So you’re playing boy detective, is that it?”

  “Something like that,” I said, but I didn’t tell Arne that the real detective, looking into her own family history, was Cassandra Ellis.

  Camus was barking at the front door when I pulled into my driveway. Dawn was still hours away, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Camus and I had a long discussion while he chewed on a bone. By the time daylight arrived, I’d made up my mind what to do.

  First, I called Cassandra to update her on the latest news, including Marty Moreland’s murder and my interview with Arne.

  “Was Mr. Moreland a friend of yours?” she asked.

  “An acquaintance. He was a decent guy.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear about it. Do you really think the sheriff was involved with his murder? That’s a scary idea.”

  “Yes it is, but I think it’s possible. All I lack is anything that resembles concrete proof. What about you? Making any progress on the Earl Bradley front?”

  “Not sure. Jocko is working on it. ”

  “All right, keep me posted.”

  “Will do,” she said and disconnected.

  My next call went to Jason Braddock at the BCA. “I have some interesting information for you,” I told him. “Where can we meet?”

  Jason had been staying at a motel out by the interstate, with a Perkins restaurant next door. We met there and found a booth well away from other diners. Jason was in a well-tailored blue suit that showed off his muscular frame. His shaved head—standard cop issue—gave him the menacing, tough-guy look law enforcement types seem to prize. He’d been an asshole in his dealings with me, but I was hoping he would at least listen to what I had to say.

  “This better be good,” he said, and he wasn’t talking about the omelets we’d ordered.

  “I promise you, it will be, if you’re willing to keep an open mind.” I then shared all the details of my talk with Marty and Arne’s reaction to it. I finished by lining up the pieces as I saw them. “I think you should look into the possibility that Arne killed Marty to shut him up about what happened to Jill Lorrimer. And if there was a coverup, and things started going south, who’s to say Arne didn’t have something to do with Pe
ter’s disappearance and maybe even Dewey’s murder?”

  “Well, that’s quite a tale,” Jason said. “I don’t suppose you have any proof?”

  “All I know is what Marty told me, and I think it was pretty close to a dying declaration. What reason would he have to lie?”

  “Maybe he was paranoid, just like Arne said. Or maybe you just like to lie.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I believe. You of all people know that. So you’ve told me this wonderful story. Now, what the hell am I am supposed to do about it?”

  “Start looking at Arne, and in the meantime don’t trust him for a second. It’s the only way you’ll ever get at the truth.”

  “You know what, the one thing I’ve learned since coming to this snake pit of a town is that I can’t trust anybody here, least of all you. So, thanks for the information. I’ll take it all under advisement. How’s that?”

  “You’re making a big mistake, Jason,” I said, and for once I was right.

  31

  Marty was sliced open for an autopsy in Duluth that afternoon. The coroner’s report, followed by ballistics tests at the BCA, revealed that the .38-caliber slug recovered from Marty’s brain had come from the same gun that killed Dewey Swindell. Since no cartridges were found at either murder scene, the assumption was that both men had been shot with a revolver.

  Toxicology tests showed Marty had no alcohol in his system, indicating he’d lied to his wife about going out for a drink. No drugs of any consequence showed up, either. If Marty was depressed, as Arne claimed, he wasn’t taking anything for his condition. A careful examination of Marty’s body and clothes uncovered no trace evidence that might help identify his killer. Whoever was on a crime spree in Pineland remained a ghost, invisible as the wind.