Safely Home (2 page)

Well, any more so than she’d been suffering since being released from the medical center, pronounced ready for multiple forms of therapy, patted on the shoulder, called a hero and shoved out the door into a blazing hot Twin Cities afternoon.

Life pitched downhill from there, until she’d gotten her
step-mother’s phone call. The call that brought the sisters together on a united cause.

“Cress, I could have bought a freakin’ Starbucks and hired the staff in the time it’s taken you to make a simple pot of coffee.”

United cause? Did soroicide count? Only if Audra acted in collusion with her, plotting Kiera’s unfortunate demise. Cress grabbed the mugs, restrained from adding strychnine to Kiera’s, and headed toward the stairs. “Like you didn’t hear the phone? Or figure someone had to answer it?”

Kiera stood at the top of the stairs, bent over the banister, hands clasped, perfect hair framing a face that looked amazing even without make-up, her expression
runway-friendly.

She stretched two hands toward the steaming mug. “Gimme.”

“No one’s that addicted. Are they?”

“Nope. But any excuse to leave the room was welcome. We’ve moved to the fifth item.”

“Five things?” Cress paused, incredulous. “We’ve only sorted five things? In all that time?”

Kiera nodded, her eyes teasing, her mouth glum. “Every item has a story.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“And Audra is required to jot down minute details.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“When we’re done with these two chests
, we move to the attic.”

A fire marshal would condemn the house based on volume alone if they spotted Gran’s attic.

“That will take—”

“Forever. Tell me about it. And I’ve got a shoot in London starting Tuesday.”

“That’s five days.”

“Five days of torture.”

“But we can get a lot done in five days,” Cress argued, more with herself than her sister, knowing what didn’t get done with all three girls present would be left to her.

“Then the barn.”

Cress firmed her jaw, but it took a minute. Maybe two. “Not the barn. Not really.”

“Oh, yes. Really.”

“And where’s Eric in all this?”

“Forging ahead in his medical career, unlike those of us with potential to carry future generations within.”

“Why weren’t we born boys?”

“They smell.”

Cress didn’t disagree.

“And they do yucky things like dig up septic systems. Clean out gutters. Gut fish.”

At the moment gutting fish didn’t sound all that bad. Cress eyed the front door at the bottom of the stairs. “Think we can make a run for it?”

“Girls?”

Gran’s voice hailed them from the back bedroom. Without a word, Cress knew they both recognized the diminished timber, the slightly higher tone. Cress sucked a breath, glared at the door, turned and climbed the last two steps, resolved but not even close to happy. “Coming.”

Chapter Two

Alex
Westmore eyed a contract, satisfied with the latest revisions, then hit ‘send’ as his inter-office phone dragged his attention. “Yes?”

“Package via messenger.”

“Houston Environmental?”

“That would be it.”

“Bring it in, Mags.”

“It’s safe?”

He laughed and didn’t deny the truth in her words. “For the moment. I’m done with the Schelke file. As much as I can be at this point. I’ve calmed down.”

Maggie Kennison bumped her way through the door, her hands clutching a thick manila envelope and a tall stainless steel coffee mug. She nodded toward the curling steam. “Thought you might be needin’ this.”

“You thought right.” Alex reached for the envelope as Maggie set the travel mug to his right. “Tell me again when the world became so totally self-absorbed that a campaign bid for state legislator takes precedence over the welfare of children.”

“Influx of television, circa 1965, when the American public carried their first media outrage to the polls,” Maggie shot back. “Civil rights, Viet Nam, Tricky Dick, assassinations. No one can afford to look bad on the tube,
Alejandro.”

He grinned. Only Maggie and his mother used his full name, and since they were of similar age and friends, he didn’t argue with either. He ran a cutter along the envelope’s upper edge. “Well, let’s see what Tommy Houston has to say.”

“And be grateful for environmental insurance,” Maggie noted. She eyed her watch. “I’m grabbing lunch with your mother. Do you want me to bring something back? She’s buying.”

Alex
shook his head. “Actually, I owe her. Put lunch on my tab and surprise her.”

“She’d be more surprised if you showed up and ate lunch with her yourself.”

Alex eyed his desk, the clutch of papers in his hand, and the office in general. “I’ll catch her for supper some night this week. Promise.”

“Then I’ll hound you until you do.”

“There are limits to administrative assistant duties. You understand this, don’t you? It’s not exactly a new concept.”

Maggie did an about-face and headed for the door. “Not in this office. I used to change your messy diapers. Don’t be forgettin’ that, boy.”

“As if I could.” Alex laid out the report before him, scanned the pages with care, then focused on one key phrase.

“…former owner accepted compensation for rights of disposal.”

Alex flexed his hands, re-read the words, and fought a growl. If accurate, and it most likely was because Houston Environmental didn’t make mistakes, Horst Johansson allowed dumping on the land he’d slated to be the green zone for
The Northwoods
, the inviting upscale home development Alex nestled into the sloping fields of the old Johansson/Ekstrom farm.
“What on earth was the old coot thinking?”

“Possible sources of contamination: Drexler Machining, Kurt Manheim, owner, deceased (out of business), Chippewa Paint, Tandy Bartwick, Jerold Bartwick, co-owners, deceased (out of business) and Wurstheim Auto, Wilhelm Wurstheim, deceased, company purchased by nephew Daniel Wurst, currently known as Big W Auto Depot, 17410 Albemarle Street, Rummy, Wisconsin
.”
Alex leaned back in his chair, fingering the page.

So Horst took money in exchange for allowing caustic chemicals to be dumped in the upland edge of the over two hundred acre farm they’d inherited from Norma’s parents. Why?
Did his illicit late-life habits have such deep roots? Or was he looking for the lazy man’s way to bilk every cent he could out of what had been a gracious, well-cared-for farm? Even without today’s knowledge concerning environmental hazards, a farmer understood the sanctity of top soil, the friability of land, the preservation of natural resources.

“Contamination likely occurred in a twenty-plus year span concluding in mid-nineteen-seventies.”

Additional documents confirmed the likelihood of that assertion when compared with waste produced vs. identified toxins. Horst wasn’t the only landowner who sought additional cash flow during tight times or bad seasons, which was why Alex shelled out big bucks for environmental insurance each time he purchased speculative parcels. He’d only had one other occasion to use its benefits, when a strip mall site near the Interstate turned out to be a former dumping ground for a major Wisconsin company. In that case the company coughed up over three million to foot its share of the clean-up, the county an additional one-point-five million, and Alex had been given a tidy sum of insurance money to make up for lost time and profits, money he promptly re-invested in stocks and more real estate.

But there would be no corporate or city help for the
Johansson/Ekstrom land. The paper trail was thin and provisional when involving small local businesses, especially those whose owners and managers were deceased, and the company defunct.

He’d applied for a Brownfield exclusion, and had approached the state for grant money to aid with clean up and park development, but the application process was tedious, hinged in part on the report he held in his hands.

He’d put off Norma Johansson’s questions. Her puzzlement was his own fault in promising the parkland green zone before he realized something had contaminated the upper acreage, and probably the drinking water below. Luckily the former well owners had tied into the water main three decades back. That averted direct human contamination via the water supply, but the land slope brought gully water into the catch basin to the south of the Johansson homestead, a farm pond that used to comfort their cattle through the heat of summer.

He’d kept quiet because the old lady had enough on her plate. No way did he want to stack grief upon grief. Even tough old birds like Gran
Johansson needed a break, and he suspected she had no idea her upper lands were used as a dump zone. Her paternal grandparents had been original settlers of the land, pioneers whose Swedish history trekked back to the mid-nineteenth century. Of the land and for the land, the Ekstroms headed west, settling in Wisconsin’s heartland. They’d shepherded that land for well over a hundred years, caring for it like a mother does a child, the farm’s welfare first and foremost. By three generations in, Norma’s generation had increased the initial farming enterprises. Ekstrom properties and businesses dotted the perimeter of Watkins Ridge and Chippewa Falls. Strong people, driven and prideful, nurturers of the land and their pocketbooks.

But Horst
Johansson had betrayed that trust, which meant Norma had little recourse when faced with harsh reality upon his death. Alex had been glad to help, payback for the old woman’s continued kindnesses to a little boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Frustrated, he decided not to tell her unless absolutely necessary
. No sense adding more weight to the yoke she already carried. Pride was big among the old clans, German and Swedish. Alex knew that. Respected it, in some ways, except when that old-world pride interfered with law and justice. Then pride downgraded to racism and injustice.

Not Norma, though. The aging matriarch
had never been anything other than good to him despite her sharp ways, especially in the wake of his father’s death.

That thought took his gaze to the
faded newspaper clipping, a brief, yellowed reminder of the cold, wet day when they laid his old man in the ground with little ceremony, no more than a handful of people in attendance. He stood and crossed the room, examining the aged photo again. Funny how he remembered the stark funeral more than the man, but considering his father, pretty understandable. Alongside the framed clipping was a current picture of his older brother Cruz in his trooper uniform, his gaze serious as the camera freeze-framed him, stoic and stern, choosing a career rife with temptation and danger.

Cruz
had chosen the very career Alex hated, a chasm they carefully avoided from both sides. Cruz chose to fight for good police internally. Alex opted to use the law to shackle bad police tactics. Different men, affected by the same set of childhood circumstances, marking individual paths toward a similar end. Would it help?

Maybe. And maybe not. But the one thing the Westmore boys had in common
besides a love for football? They’d never stop trying.

*

“Easy there.” Gran’s caution came with an edge. Cress fought a retort, nodded, and eased the hinged cedar top back as they tackled the second hand-tooled chest later that day. Chains dangled from both corners, jangling against the striated sides of the fine grain, probably amazed to be utilized after all this time.

Crammed full, the smell of cedar rushed forth as if anxious to welcome the day, its strength compounded by being closed for
decades.

“Take care,” Grandma issued once more, her voice tart, but softer. Cress glanced up as Kiera and Audra stepped back into the room, heads ducked, smiles hidden. Kind of.

“I will.”

“An
d you two: no nonsense.” Gran sent a look across the room, knowing.

“Come
on, Gran. None?” Audra crossed the floral throw rug, bent and gave the old woman a gentle hug. “Just a little. Please?”

Gran
’s chin came up. Her glasses came down. She stared at Audra as if weighing words, then sighed. “You have the way of your mother.”

Silence reigned.

Carol Anne Dietrich lost her battle with cancer a long time back. She’d left her extended family, a grieving, worn-thin husband and four young children behind. Like thunderous air crashing into the schism left by flashing light, the loss of their mother gaped each history. Cress broke the silence from her spot on the floor. “Audra’s the nice one among us.”

“Hey. I’m nice.” Kiera raised her objection as she settled into the onl
y comfortable chair in the room while her aged cancer patient grandmother stood nearby.

Silent, Cress eyed the chair and her youngest sister.

“We’re like one of those romance trilogies,” Audra offered as she re-opened her full-sized notebook.

Kiera
trained her gaze on Cress. “The sweet heroine, the beautiful heroine, and the—”

“I’
m trained in self-defense and pack a Glock .45. Discretion is recommended.” Cress kept her voice mild, letting the gun inference underscore her point.

“Why can’t I be the pretty one?” Audra wondered, but then shot Gran a quick, ende
aring smile. “Okay, Gran, your show. Let’s continue.”

Kiera stood up from the chair to grab a seat on the floor beside Cress, but Gran’s squawk stopped her. “Don’t be gettin’ them clothes all dirty sittin’ on the floor. Stay right there.”
Gran’s worried look gave Kiera’s upscale outfit a once-over. Ivory designer pants topped by a cowl-necked black silk blouse adorned with thick, clunky black and brown beads that set off the outfit to perfection and probably cost a month’s pay at Cress’s level.

And dirt wouldn’t dare
descend on Gran’s room, her floor, her dresser, her… anything. Gran fought dirt and dust like Churchill waged war. All or nothing. And she always won. “But Gran, I—”

“
Sit.”

Kiera sat, victorious, and managed to look self-sacrificial in the process. Brat.

“Cress.”  Gran’s look shifted down.

“Yes?”

“How long will you be here?”

Cress ignored her sisters’ exchanged look
as she sipped her second cup of coffee. “Until my leg’s healed.”

Gran huffed. “That’s not an answer.”

“Best I can do.”

“
Stacey said your lieutenant called the other day.” Kiera’s voice delved deeper, but stopped short of prying. Barely.

Cress pretended to be absorbed in the task at hand. “Yup.”

“So…”

She turned then, wishing they’d all shut up, wishing her leg didn’t hurt, wishing—

“I’m here until I’m ready to go back. Minneapolis isn’t going to fall apart because one hard-nosed detective has run home.”

“Cress, I…”

“We’ve got work, girls.” Gran stepped closer to the chest, effectively ending the moment.

Cress took the cue
. “How can we help you speed this along?”

“Some things need quick.” Gran
peered down, over her glasses, meeting Cress’s gaze. “And some need thought. No need to hurry work like this, not when there’s things you should know.”

Cress didn’t do slow. If she had, she’d still be a beat cop. But she hauled in a breath because this was Gran’s timeline. Not hers.
“Not to split hairs, but you’re the one fighting life-threatening illness. Kiera was right.” She hated admitting that. “Shouldn’t you sit?” She indicated the edge of the old-fashioned bed with a nod. “I can hand things up to you.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for restin’ soon enough.
” Gran’s tone said the topic was closed. “I’ll do while I can do.”

Of course.

Audra pulled up a chair from the old oak desk in spite of Gran’s words. “If you get tired, we can switch up. Okay?”

“Or stop,” Kiera suggested, her left leg already twitching from immobility.