Dead Lock (21 page)

“Underneath?”

“Yeah, we’re going to see the new MacArthur Lock from below.”

Andy was already climbing down into the hole, going hand over hand on the metal rungs that had been positioned into the concrete wall of the tunnel. I followed closely, glad that Andy had told me to wear slacks.

I stepped down onto the cement floor in a small pool of light that came from above. It felt cool away from the sunlight and I pulled the light jacket around me. Andy switched his flashlight on and I could see damp cement walls that faded into darkness ahead. As we began to walk into the darkness, our footsteps echoed against the walls. The air was damp and smelled of mildew.

“How did you find this tunnel?” I asked.

“One of the soldiers from the Army Corps of Engineers tipped me off,” Andy said. “The tunnels run underneath the locks carrying hydraulic and electrical lines. They’re also used for locks maintenance.”

As we walked, following the beam from the flashlight Andy held, I felt thankful I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. I’d be running for the exit if I did. The damp cement walls seemed to close in on either side, although I’m sure it was my imagination playing tricks.

Andy must have read my mind. “The walls get a little narrower here but they’ll widen out as we get near the locks,” he said.

We were getting close, I reasoned, because the space between the walls now was widening. Suddenly we were inside a dark, cement-walled room. As Andy shined his light against the far wall, I could see huge gears that made the space look like the inside of a giant watch.

“This is as far as we go,” Andy announced. We stopped and examined the workings of the new MacArthur Lock from thirty feet or so underneath. “On the other side of that wall is the lock,” Andy said. He pointed to the gears. “Those are what cause the gates of the Lock to open and close.”

Just then a deafening roar sounded, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The gears began to rotate.

“Relax,” Andy said. “They’re just testing the gates.”

“Where does that ladder go?” I asked, pointing to a series of metal rungs climbing up the wall to a trap door similar to the one we had entered.

“It opens out onto the MacArthur Lock,” Andy said. “I climbed up the other day and surprised the hell out of an Army private who happened to be on guard. I had to talk fast to convince him I was on official newspaper business. I told him I had simply stumbled across the opening to the tunnel out on Portage Street and was just trying to see where it led.”

“And he believed you?”

“Well, I’m not in the brig. C’mon, let’s go back and check out the new lock from above.”

89

Claus Krueger watched the two reporters emerge from the tunnel from a distance of two hundred meters.

A safe distance; they would never see him. Now, as they came closer, walking toward the public entrance to the locks, he ducked into Adams’ Hardware.

He was on Portage Avenue for a last minute examination of the grounds around the locks. He made mental notes of the location of the hundred or so folding chairs set up almost to the edge of the new lock. He made note of where the bulk of the crowd would stand behind them.

There would be at least two thousand visitors here tomorrow. The more the merrier.

How had Roosevelt put it? December 7, 1941 - a date that would live in infamy?

July 11, 1943, was going to top that.

90

Andy and I had been tapped to write an article profiling some of the workers of the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company for tomorrow’s special dedication edition. These fellows had worked fourteen months straight in shifts that ran around the clock, in freezing cold and blistering heat, and they had built the MacArthur Lock in sixteen months. Years ago, the Weizel and Poe Locks had taken eight years to complete and the Davis Lock took six.

As we got to the gate, security was tight. An Army M.P. checked our credentials carefully as we entered the fenced area. The MacArthur Lock was closest to land, and a hundred or so folding chairs had been set up on the grass at the edge of the lock for tomorrow’s ceremony. The chairs were earmarked for the ceremony participants, their families and guests. Regular folks who got here early would take up the back rows, and there was a large area behind the chairs where visitors would stand. It was clear officials expected a large crowd in spite of G.P.’s editorial.

Andy and I split up. I interviewed half a dozen workers and then took a last look around the area. To my left, out toward the end of the MacArthur Lock, where it flowed into the St. Marys River, I spotted Corporal Cummins and his sidekick with their anti-aircraft gun. Cummins waved as I approached.

“Good afternoon, Miss Brennan. Collecting background for an article?”

“Yep. Any new word from Fort Brady on an attack?”

“Nothing. But we’ve been on full alert since yesterday.” He pointed to the ammunition clip hanging from the gun, “Old Betsy here is loaded and ready for anything the Krauts can fly at her.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

The telephones were ringing when I got to the office. As I suspected, the commotion was due to G.P.’s editorial. The first call had come from our illustrious mayor Roland Swenson, but others followed. The pressure on G.P. had been tremendous.

Not all the calls were negative; some praised G.P. for having the guts to run the editorial. Some callers merely had questions.

News of the war continued to pour in from the wire services all afternoon: an armada of some 2,700 ships was approaching the island of Sicily from virtually every port on the Mediterranean.

I was home soon after five, let Mick out and fixed supper for myself.

I was in bed by eleven. Tomorrow was the Big Day.

But I could never have guessed just how big it would be.

91

July 11, 1943

D-Day

Early on the day of the dedication, Andy Checkle and I stood beside the St. Marys River at the site of the original Fort Brady. Built in 1822, it was now a city park. Scotty had sailed the Caiman up here, just half a mile or so east of the locks. The huge yacht was moored at the dock just feet from us, ready to sail into the MacArthur Lock later in the day.

The sun shone bright and the temperature felt hot even at ten o’clock in the morning. The day promised to be a scorcher.

A crowd had gathered in the park to get a look at the ship they’d been reading about in the newspapers. Suddenly I heard someone call my name and turned to see Ellen Landon, my old high school chum, standing in the crowd.

We embraced, and she introduced her husband. “It’s Ellen McKenzie now,” she said. We spent a few moments catching up on each other’s lives since graduation; then began reminiscing about our high school days. Ellen had, of course, heard about Shirley’s passing.

“It was a real shocker,” she said. “It seems like yesterday we all met at Toad Hall, talking about teachers and . . .” her face reddened as she glanced at her husband, “boyfriends.” We both laughed as she told her husband, “That was before I met you, Honey.”

But Ellen’s comments about our Toad Hall hit me like a thunderbolt. Suddenly I had to find Scotty.

Andy and I bid a quick goodbye to Ellen and her husband and ran aboard the Caiman.

We found Scotty guiding a vacuum over the carpeted floor of the main salon.

“Scotty, I think I know where Shirley’s diary is,” I called over the roar of the vacuum.

Scotty turned off the vacuum; I had his attention. He listened as I told him about Toad Hall and why I thought the odds were good that Shirley had hidden her diary there.

“So you see, we’ve got to get to the Minneapolis Woods for a look around right away.”

Scotty seemed skeptical. “How can you be certain this Toad Hall of yours is still there?” he asked.

“I can’t,” I said. “But it’s our last chance to find the notes Shirley kept during her investigation. It’s sure worth a try.”

“People will be arriving to board the Caiman in less than two hours,” Scotty said. “Can’t it wait until after the ceremony?”

“Don’t you see? It may be too late after the ceremony. If there’s an attack, people will be dead. I need you to go with me. Andy can drive to town and file our story with the paper.”

“There’s too much for me to do here,” Scotty said. “Stay and help, then I’ll drive you there as soon as the dedication is over.”

“I’m going now,” I said. “Either you go with me, or I’ll get Andy to drive me.”

“What about your story?”

“Hell with the story. I’m talking about people’s lives. Maybe hundreds or thousands of them.”

Scotty drew a deep sigh. “Alright. I’ll go with you. But I damn well hope this isn’t some wild goose chase.”

Andy drove us the eight miles downriver to Scotty’s Packard, then turned around and headed for the newspaper.

The dedication loomed just hours away.

92

Scotty’s Packard made good time. We reached the Minneapolis Woods in fifteen minutes.

We left the Packard beside the road in front of the old Frederick’s mansion, a colonial style house that had seen better days. Much better. Windows were broken, the roof had caved in on one side and weeds replaced what had once been an elegant lawn. We walked around to the back of the house and after searching for a minute or two found the trail that led back toward Toad Hall.

Plant life had encroached on much of the trail making it narrower than I remembered. We followed the path as it wound around a gigantic oak and down a slight hill. We walked until we could see the cabin up ahead. It, too, had been a victim of overly aggressive plant life. As we came closer, though, I could see that brush had been cleared from around the doorway, making it possible to enter and leave.

Someone had been at Toad Hall within the past few weeks.

The old door creaked as we entered the cabin, stepping from the warmth of a July day into a cool, damp and somewhat bleak interior. I looked around the living room, streams of light coming in through windows that had long ago given up their glass. A table sat in the center of the room, wooden chairs were scattered about, some lying on their sides. Toward the rear there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. To the left sat a giant stone fireplace that hadn’t felt the heat of a fire in three decades.

The smell of the cabin interior was exactly as I remembered: a musty combination of wood and plants. The whole scene was pure nostalgia. As I gazed about the room I could picture the five of us. Shirley, Sue, Mary, Ellen and me sitting around this very table, telling stories and laughing uproariously.

That seemed so very long ago now.

It was time to get to work. The main room took seconds to search; there was nowhere to store anything. I headed for one of the bedrooms and hit pay dirt almost immediately.

93

Andy Checkle reached the
News
office just after noon. The parking lot adjacent to the
Soo Morning News
was filled with employees’ cars, so he drove two storefronts farther and parked in the city lot.

He sprinted to the office, anxious to file the story of the Caiman preparations and meet Kate back at the locks for the dedication ceremony. That was the real story today, and the
News
had promised a special edition to hit the stands later this evening.

Once inside the building, Checkle hurried to his desk. He spread his notes on the desk and began typing almost immediately. The story seemed to go as smoothly as the preparations aboard the Caiman.

When he finished fifteen minutes later, he looked up and noticed something was wrong. Mary Nelson was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

He approached her desk. “Something wrong, Mary?”

She looked up. “You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“G.P. He’s in the hospital. He had a heart attack.”

The shock ran down to his toes. “A heart attack? How bad? How is he?”

“No one seems to know,” Nelson said. Her voice broke as she said, “Why, we’re all in the dark.”

As Checkle looked around, he noticed for the first time the worried expressions on the faces of his co-workers.

The pressure had finally gotten to G.P. The man who nothing seemed to faze had succumbed after all. Checkle knew he had to get to Kate with the news. But he needed to know more. How serious was the attack? Was G.P. conscious? Kate would ask questions about her uncle’s condition and she deserved more than, “we’re all in the dark.”