Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  So equipped, I settled in. There was a television set in Dale’s office and I watched talking heads on CNN, a Twins game and other fine programming until the local news finally came on at five. I was not mentioned, which was good.

  I debated whether to call Tommy to see if a search warrant had indeed been served at my house, but decided against it. Tommy liked nothing better than sharing other people’s secrets. He might report to Jason that I’d called, and then it would be easy to track me down via a phone trace.

  So I waited around for the ten o’clock news. I tried the ABC affiliate from Duluth first and there I was, the lead story, my less than gorgeous visage plastered across the screen. A warrant had been issued for my arrest on three counts of murder following a search of my house. The report didn’t say what the searchers had found, but it had to be the murder weapon.

  Later, I learned that the two Jasons along with a bevy of other law officers had come to my house just after one o’clock. I’d conveniently left the door open, figuring they would have battered it down otherwise, and so the lawmen waltzed in and proceeded to tear the place apart with all the enthusiasm of monkeys at a banana plantation.

  I turned off the television and tried to sleep on Dale’s leather couch, but it was no use. I was still wide awake by the time Cassandra arrived the next morning.

  40

  Cassandra pulled into the funeral home’s parking lot just before eight. She was driving a nondescript Hyundai Elantra instead of her usual high-profile Beamer. I’d asked her to rent an inconspicuous car. The Hyundai, I figured, wouldn’t attract much attention in the lot.

  “What the hell is this place?” she asked when I came out to greet her. I gave her a sort of semi-hug—Cassandra isn’t the touchy-feely type—and said, “It’s a famous building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.”

  “Looks more like some crazy-ass spaceship,” she said.

  “Too bad we can’t fly away in it. Look, before we go any further, I want to be clear about one thing. You can get back in your car and drive away from all this ridiculous shit right now if you want to. Come with me and you’ll be harboring a fugitive, and then all sorts of unpleasant things could happen to you and your career.”

  “I think you’re worth harboring,” she said. “Just don’t get caught. We need time to figure this out. Besides, I’m sure the press would be all over me if I was in Chicago. That story your buddy wrote must have hit the national wires by now, so you could say I’m a fugitive, too.”

  She had arrived, as always, in a state of elegant attire, wearing dark slacks and a high-necked cashmere sweater that looked expensively Italian. He buckled shoes, from Gucci, weren’t cheap either. She’d brought along some breakfast sandwiches and coffee from Starbucks and we went into Dale’s office to eat and talk. Cassandra dug into her purse and handed me an LG phone.

  “Straight from Walmart,” she said. “Nineteen ninety-nine, plus tax. I’ve got one, too. We have ten hours of use. Make sure you memorize your number and mine.”

  “Will do. Makes me feel like a real criminal.”

  “You are, until we can prove otherwise.”

  “That’s going to be the trick. If St. Cloud is a dead end, I don’t have a plan B except to be arrested and become a criminal celebrity. And even if we do find what we’re looking for in St. Cloud, we’ll still have to figure out how to get that information into the hands of the right law enforcement people. The delightful Jason Braddock is convinced I’m guilty and he’s running the show here.”

  “What about that assistant attorney general who’s handling the case now? Maybe he’d be the guy to go through. What his name again?”

  “Chad Barrington. I’ve had only minimal contact with him. All I know is that he thinks he’s the smartest man in the world because he went to Yale Law School.”

  “Harvard’s actually much better,” Cassandra said.

  “You would know. Me, I’m just a dumb kid who went to Billy Mitchell.”

  “You’re not dumb. You’re plenty smart, no matter where you went to law school.”

  “Well, let’s hope I’m smart enough to get out of this mess. As for Chad Barrington, I’m not sure he can be trusted. In fact, I’m not sure of much of anything when it comes right down to it. I have a feeling this is all going to end badly.”

  “That’s what I like about you,” Cassandra said. “You’re such a fucking optimist.”

  Dale’s hearse is a 1990s-vintage Cadillac Fleetwood with a vinyl top, a huge V-8 and a front seat wide enough to hold my Prius. White lettering on the front doors identifies the vehicle as belonging to “Swaboda’s Funeral Home.” I’d found a chauffeur’s cap and a black suit coat at the mortuary, along with a nice metal coffin, which Cassandra and I mounted on its stand in the back of the hearse. For all the world knew, I’d simply be a hearse driver on the way to a funeral. Probably, I thought, my own.

  We pulled out a few minutes before nine and headed toward St. Cloud. I guided the Caddie along at a respectable fifty-five miles an hour, its engine purring like a fat old house cat. Just out of town a state trooper went by in the opposite direction but didn’t appear to give me any notice. Cassandra was in the back seat, behind tinted glass, because I thought the sight of her up front might arouse suspicion as we passed through small towns where Black people are generally seen only on television.

  Along the way, we worked out a strategy for our visit to St. Cloud. Under normal circumstances, we would have gone to law enforcement there and made inquiries about the murdered Biersdorfs and their foster children, Peter Swindell’s illegitimate son possibly among them. But that wasn’t an option now, so we decided our first stop would be at the offices of the local newspaper, the St. Cloud Times.

  Cassandra had already done a variety of deep online searches looking into the fate of the Biersdorfs. She’d found some straightforward news accounts of the crime, along with photos of the couple, but no images showing any of the children who’d lived at their home. Cassandra said the most detailed stories online all came from the Times.

  “One said the police had identified a person of interest in the murders but didn’t name any names,” she told me. “Another one said the cops in St. Cloud believe whoever killed the Biersdorfs also burned down their house. But the bottom line is that the cops weren’t able to make a case against anybody.”

  “So if your brother murdered the Biersdorfs, it looks like he got away with it.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Cassandra said. “Maybe he fooled the cops but he won’t be able to fool me.”

  St. Cloud is the largest city in central Minnesota and I didn’t think most people there would pay much attention to news out of Pineland concerning a certain fugitive county attorney. I wanted to remain on the loose as long as I could and being in a city of St. Cloud’s size provided some measure of anonymity. At least, I hoped it would.

  “You went to school here, didn’t you?” Cassandra said as we rolled into St. Cloud just before ten.

  “I did. I can’t remember many of my classes but I got to know every bar in town. It was quite an education. How about you? Any wild college days?”

  “Not really. I’ve never been much of a drinker.”

  “I wish I could say the same. Believe me, you haven’t missed a thing.”

  Our first stop was at a newspaper box, where we bought a copy of the Times and found its office address. The newspaper occupied a one-story brick building in an industrial area on the north side of the city. I parked in a lot out front and stayed in the hearse while Cassandra went into the newsroom. She intended to present herself as a producer for Investigation ID, the all-crime, all-the-time cable network. Her cover story was that the network planned to do a story about the Biersdorf murders and she was gathering background information.

  Cassandra was gone for nearly an hour. When she returned, she slipped into the back seat and said, “Start
driving. I’ll give you directions. I think we may have gotten really lucky.”

  Our good fortune stemmed from the fact that a reporter working in the Times newsroom had written extensively about the Biersdorf murders in 2001. Her name was Marjorie Flahave and she and Cassandra had hit it off immediately.

  “Before long I was calling her Marge and we were chatting away like sisters,” Cassandra said. “She told me a kid named Phillip Gordon, who was sixteen at the time and lived with the Biersdorfs, was the person of interest in the murder investigation.”

  His last name told the story. “It has to be my brother,” Cassandra said. “I guess he kept, or was given, my mother’s name. As for Phillip—”

  “My father’s name. Maybe not a coincidence either since dear old dad handled the adoption proceedings. I take it the kid was never arrested.”

  “No. Apparently the cops put all kinds of pressure on him but he never cracked. He and five other foster kids were at the house the night the Biersdorfs were shot. All of them, Phillip included, claimed to be asleep upstairs and said they didn’t hear a thing. The Biersdorfs had a downstairs bedroom and that’s where they were killed. There was a safe in the bedroom and it was open when the bodies were discovered the next morning by one of the foster kids. Marge told me the Biersdorfs were rumored to keep a lot of cash in the safe but the cops were never able to figure out how much might have been taken.”

  “Did the cops think it was a robbery and murder by someone who broke into the house?”

  “No. Marge said the cops never bought the robbery idea because the gun used to kill the Biersdorfs was their own. It was a revolver they supposedly kept in the safe. The gun was found on the floor next to their bed. It would be a real stretch to think a burglar broke into the house, managed to open the safe, found a gun inside and then used it to shoot the Biersdorfs.”

  “So the cops assumed it was an inside job.”

  “Right. They believed that Phillip, who was the oldest and known to be the most rebellious of the foster children, did the deed. The other kids, three boys and two girls, were quite a bit younger. The oldest was only eleven, according to Marge. She said the cops, despite their suspicions, just couldn’t pin the crime on Phillip. ”

  “They must have done a gun residue test on him.”

  “They did and found nothing. They didn’t find the stolen money either, or fingerprints or any other trace evidence that might link him to the murders. And no matter how hard they pressed him, he stuck by his story.”

  “Pretty cool, calculating behavior for a teenage boy. So what would have been his motive for killing the Biersdorfs?”

  “No one knows for sure, but Marge told me something very interesting. It seems there were allegations of abuse, sexual and otherwise, at the home. An anonymous complaint was made to the St. Cloud police and they opened an investigation just before the Biersdorfs were murdered.”

  “Did the cops find evidence of abuse?”

  “From what Marge said, they didn’t really have time to make any findings. So it’s hard to say what happened. But if Phillip was abused, that would certainly be a motive for murder. He also had a reputation for being very belligerent and hard to control, so it’s pretty obvious he didn’t get along with his foster parents.”

  “Was Marge able tell you anything about Phillip’s background?”

  “A little. She described him as a ‘foundling’—there’s an old word for you—and she didn’t know the circumstances of his birth. But get this: Marge told me young Phillip was a genius. Supposedly had an IQ of one-sixty-five.”

  “Great. Too bad he also may be bat-shit crazy. What happened to him after the murder investigation?”

  “Marge didn’t know. Presumably, he went out on his own when he turned eighteen and left St. Cloud.”

  “I don’t suppose your friend Marge had any photos of him?”

  “No. The cops never circulated photos of Phillip or the other foster kids to the media because they were all juveniles. Obviously, we can’t go to the cops right now and ask to see a picture of him. But Marge told me where we might find a photo. Turn right up ahead.”

  We were driving along St. Germain Street, St. Cloud’s main drag. I took the next right, went north a few blocks and saw sign for “Sunset Ridge Care Community.”

  “Park as far from the building as you can,” Cassie said as we pulled up. The nursing home was brick, oblong, two stories, and charmless, a warehouse for the old and infirm.

  “I take it we’re visiting someone,” I said.

  “We are. Her name is Emma Biersdorf. She’s James’s sister and his only surviving blood relative. Marge interviewed her after the murders, and they’ve kept in touch. She had a bad fall recently and her health is deteriorating. Mentally she’s still in good shape, or at least she was the last time Marge talked with her. So, do you want to go in with me or should I handle this on my own?”

  “I’ll tag along. What’s the routine? We’re not family or anyone known to the staff at the home. I’m sure we can’t just waltz in and talk to her.”

  “I think the TV producer thing might work again,” Cassandra said. “You can be my assistant.”

  “Good, because that’s how I think of myself. I imagine you’ll want to do most of the talking.”

  “You imagine correctly.”

  “Lead on,” I said and followed Cassandra into the nursing home.

  41

  To Cassandra’s immense surprise, the nursing home’s receptionist was a tall young Somali woman in traditional attire.

  “May I help you?” the woman asked, with a Minnesota accent as pure as it comes.

  “Why, yes, I think you can,” Cassandra said.

  She quickly established rapport with the receptionist, whose name was Mara. We learned she’d been raised in Minneapolis, which has a large Somali community. She’d moved to St. Cloud a year ago with her husband, who worked in a meat-packing plant. She didn’t mind St. Cloud but thought Minneapolis was better.

  Cassandra soon spun out her story about being a television producer from New York researching the Biersdorf case. She introduced me as Roger Smith. Mara didn’t know about the Biersdorf murders but Cassandra was entirely convincing, and we were soon heading down a long, antiseptic hallway toward Emma Biersdorf’s room.

  We stopped just outside and Mara said, “Emma’s kind of a crabapple. I’m not sure she’ll even talk to you.”

  “Well, we’ll give it a try,” Cassandra said as we stepped into the room.

  “Emma, you have visitors,” Mara announced and then left.

  Emma Biersdorf was sitting in a wheelchair at her window, swathed in a pink robe, a colorful afghan spread across her lap. I guessed she was in her mid-seventies. She had high, proud cheekbones, the kind supermodels would die for, and well-proportioned features, but age had made its usual assault. Her face was blotched and puffy, her skin a maze of wrinkles, her long gray hair an untended tangle. Cataract lenses magnified her hazel eyes.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  Cassandra offered up our phony identifications and said, “We’d like to ask about your brother, James. We want to feature him in a story about what happened back in 2001.”

  “You want to dig that up, do you?” Emma said, wheeling her chair away from the window and eying us like the dubious customers we were. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

  “To be honest, we just found out about you today when we talked to Marge Flahave over at the Times,” Cassandra said. “She sends her regards, by the way.”

  The mention of Marge seemed to give us credence. “Where did you say you’re from again? Is it the same channel that Kenda fellow is on? I like him.”

  Cassandra paused, clearly unaware of the exploits of the retired Colorado Springs police detective who’d become a minor celebrity as the “Homicide Hunter.”

  �
��That’s right,” I said. “Joe Kenda is quite a guy. We’ve enjoyed working with him.”

  “So what do you want from me?” Emma said, looking pleased that I supposedly knew Kenda. “If you ask me, that kid did it, but they never caught him.”

  “Yes, I believe his name was Phillip Gordon,” Cassandra said. “Did you know him?”

  “Not really. I didn’t see their kids very often. Jimmy and his wife never had much time for me.”

  “So you weren’t close to your brother?”

  “Half-brother. Truth is, I never liked Jimmy. He was ten years younger than me and his father had a lot of money. Mine didn’t. That’s how Jimmy got that big house. Money from daddy.”

  “And then he and his wife began fostering children?”

  “Yes. I guess Janice couldn’t have kids so they started a group home. A whole bunch of kids went through the place. Too many, if you ask me. Who’d want to deal with all that trouble?”

  “Did you ever visit them there?”

  “Over the Christmas holidays was usually the only time. They decorated the house like there was no tomorrow. Christmas crap everywhere. Just before dinner, the kids would come marching down the steps, all dressed up, with some stupid song Jimmy wrote playing over the speakers.”

  Our ears perked up. “Did the song have a title?” Cassandra asked.

  “It was some kind of serenade thing.”

  “‘Pineland Serenade?’” I suggested.

  “Yes, that might be it. How did you know?”

  “It turned up in our research,” Cassandra said. “We understand your half-brother taught music at the high school in Pineland.”

  “That’s right. But then he got a job teaching here and married Janice. Pretty soon his father died. Our mother was already dead by then, so Jimmy made out like a bandit in the will. Got a big house and a lot of money. After that, Jimmy quit teaching and started the group home. You know what I got in the will? A thousand dollars and ‘nice knowing you.’ Life isn’t fair, is it?”