Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (8 page)

“The sun doesn't set over the lake.”

“They go down
to see the
eastern sky darken,” I amended,
“
a
nd to watch as the silvering waters softly fade into the still, clear evening.”

“That was nice,” said Leyla admiringly.

“I am a wordsmith,” I said modestly. “Anyway, down there at the beach
,
they sit on some rocks. They are holding hands, and Janie is positive this is it. Dan's hand is kind of shaking, and he keeps clearing his throat, but he keeps not asking the question.” I took a sip of water. “So now sh
e's starting to get nervous too. S
he can't believe the moment is finally here. All of a sudden
,
he says
,
'Janie!' very sharply, like that. She jumps almost two feet. She stares into his eyes and says, 'yes?' And he says, 'Janie!' but he's not really looking at her. It's like he's looking past her. 'What is it?' she says. And he says
,
'Janie! There's a skunk! Run!'”

Leyla titled her head at me and got a quirky, puzzly expression on her face. “There was a skunk? A real skunk?”

“A real skunk,” I said. “This part, I know the specifics. So they leap up and
start running. They are both
muddled and flustered at this point. As they are running, Janie shouts at Dan, 'Will you marry me?' The skunk doesn't notice them until now. When Janie shouts and he sees them running, he turns around and lets loose on them.”

“Wait,” said Leyla. “Janie asked Dan?”

“Yep,” I said.

“And then they got sprayed by a skunk?”

“Spaghetti or no spaghetti, that's exactly what happened,” I said.

My mom called from Washington state that evening. We exchanged the normal greetings.

“Did you get the package I sent you?” she asked.

“I showed it to Alex Chan – my lawyer,” I said.
The orange kitten raced into the room and screeched to a halt in front of me, puffed up like a blowfish. I wiggled my foot at him. I had been unable to locate any owners, and no one else seemed to want him. It was too cold at night to kick him out.

“That wasn’t estate stuff,”
Mom
said. “I
just
sent it to the church out of habit.”

“I know. Alex said it was just old case files of
D
ad’s.”
The cat pounced on my foot, and then curled around it, attacking it with all four paws and his teeth. I winced and poked at him with my other foot.

“Did you read any of it?”

“Not yet,” I said. “It’s been kind of crazy around here.

“What's been going on?” she asked.

When you've been shot by a bank robber, it is a major moral choice to decide whether or not to tell your mother. Kind of like when you break a neighbor's window with a baseball.

I told her. After all, I'm supposed to be one of the moral bastions of the community.

She was quiet for a long time.
The cat chewed on me in the silence.

“I'm OK,
M
om. I hardly even limp now, and it's only been like a week.”

“I think you should read the papers of your father's I sent,” she said.

“Are you saying they have something to do with the bank robbery?”
Abruptly the kitten released me and went tearing out of the room at full speed. Somehow, he managed to make galloping noises on the floor as he did it.

“I don't know,”
Mom
said. “But I know he had a case a lot like that just a few years ago. Check it out.”

We talked some more. When we hung up,
M
om was still worried about me, but that was probably just because she was a mother.

I
found the envelope
and opened it.
I pulled out the papers, extracted the first few
,
and set the others and the envelope beside me on the couch. The kitten came in, climbed up onto the couch and collapsed on the papers.

Since I was about ten years old, my dad, the police detective, had talked about some
of
his cases with me. If something was particularly interesting or unusual, he told me about it. He didn't really know how to talk to children, and I remembered him seeming a little uncomfortable when I wanted him to play kid-games with me. But once we started talking about his cases, we had common ground, and it was one way
we had become close. Twice in his career, Dad had discharged his weapon. I knew this, but I didn't know much else. He never talked about those cases.

The papers I had
weren't the official files, of course, but they were his notes, and sometimes photocopies of other evidence.
Some of the
m
were a trip down memory lane for me, and I recalled old conversations with my dad about this or that case.

After about twenty minutes I found the one
M
om was talking about. I began to read
carefully
.
Suddenly
,
something smacked the paper in front of me aside and two big eyes were staring at me out of a fuzzy orange face.

“I’m reading,” I said.

He crouched
on my chest and wiggled his bottom
, like he was going to leap and attack my face.
I reached for him, and he
seized
my hand instead. Several painful minutes later, I resumed reading.
Fifteen minutes
after that
,
I called the Grand Lake police department.

“This is Jonah Borden,” I told the dispatcher. “Please leave a message for Chief Jensen to meet me at Lorraine's tomorrow morning.”

I hung up and went back to the file. After another half hour,
and a few more tussles with tooth and claw
,
I went to bed
with a purring puff ball.
But
t
his time, the presence of the kitten did not relax me.
All night, I tossed and turned, dreaming over and over again that I was shooting a man who wouldn't die.

The next day I had breakfast at Lorraine's. I was eating the
Superior
Skillet, which lives up entirely to its name. It comes in a skillet, so that
part is
right. It contains hash browns, country sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers and eggs done however you want. The whole thing is topped with cheese
,
hollandaise sauce
and a dash of cayenne pepper
. It also accompanied by two pancakes. If you're going to die of a heart attack, I say, do it right.

I was on my second pot of coffee when Chief Jensen came in.

“A little late this morning,” I commented as he sat down in
the
booth opposite me.

“Had a B & E to deal with first,” he said.

“Breaking and Entering? In Grand Lake? What is the world coming to?”

He grimaced. “Turned out to be Jimmy Lenske, breaking into his mom's store. She locked her keys in last night, and he was trying to help her.”

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “You've still got the bank robbery.”

“Just 'robbery,'” he corrected me, accepting a cup of coffee from Lorraine herself. I was pretty sure she gave it to him for free. On the other hand, with
the
amount that I drank, she probably lost money on my coffee too. “They didn't rob the bank, remember – just the customers.”

“How's that going?” I asked. I had more than a passing interest.

“I know you're uptight about Ethel's money,” said Jensen. “We're doing our best.”

“Which is?”

“We got nothing.”

I sipped some coffee. A comfort in every trouble. “I may have something,” I said.

“Jonah,” said Jensen, “this is police work, detective work. I know you are the police chaplain, but that doesn't make you a detective.”

“My dad was a detective,” I said mildly.

“That doesn't make you a detective either.”

“But my dad – the
detective
?
– did some
detective
work on our bank robbers.”

“Just 'robbers,'” he said absently. “I thought your dad was dead.”

“He is. But I think he came across the same gang about two years ago, shortly before he died.”

Jensen sipped his coffee. Just to be sociable, I sipped mine. “How do you know it's the same gang?” he said at last.

“Gang of robbers in northern Washington,” I said. “Police figured there
was
maybe five or seven altogether. They went into bank lobbies, usually four at a time. Dressed in black with ski-masks. They
made the customers lie down, and then robbed them, leaving the bank itself alone. Usually came in on paydays or big deposit days for cash businesses.”

“Ours could be copycatters,” he said.

“They hit only small towns, remote counties, so the police manpower would be limited. And because they left the banks themselves alone, no FBI.”

“Still no reason they aren't copycats.”

“One of them was smaller than the other three. After a few jobs, the small guy got trigger happy, started shooting at security guards. No one else, just the guards. Couple people got killed.”

Jensen's blue eyes became very still. “Anything else?”

“Not much,” I said. “They were operating in the far north, like here. Could have run for Canada when they were done.”

“What happened to them?”

“The
s
tate police got involved. Started staking out likely targets at likely times. They got lucky, and the gang did a bank while they were there.” I sipped some more coffee. God's gift to Lutheran pastors, and to anyone else who saw the light.

“Jonah,” said Jensen, “you don't have to make a big production out of it. Tell me what happened.”

“There was a firefight. One of the robbers was killed. They figure after that
,
the gang kind of broke up, like the James gang did after the failed raid down in Northfield
,
way back when.”

“You're rotten at this,” said Jensen. “I can see there's more. Come on, I thought you wanted my help.”

“The guy who shot the perp was my dad.”

Dan was silent for a bit. “That is truly weird,” he said at last. “They get anything on the dead guy?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “He was from Duluth.”

On Friday night I went to the WW. 'WW' stood for Wally's Walleye Bar & Grill. It was an old establishment in downtown Grand Lake. They
s
erve
d
walleye fingers, which were good, and hamburgers, which were also good. They also served alcohol, which was good,
in my opinion, if taken
in moderation, but it was rarely consumed in moderation at the WW.

I slid into my regular high-backed booth, and Ally, a petite, blond waitress in her thirties, came over.

“Hi
,
Jonah,” she said, smiling devastatingly. “Want anything tonight?”

“I'm working,” I said. “Coke on the rocks, and a cup of seafood chowder.”

“You got it,” she said, turning away and drawing the eyes of about a third of the male occupants of the room.

Before she could get back with my drink, Bud Richards slid into the booth across from me. Bud was big and burly with a pot belly, but still a manly, strong-looking man.

We talked about the Vikings for a few minutes, and he gave me some pointers on catching fall crappie. There was a lull in the conversation.

“Jonah,” said Bud at last, “you ever wonder if it's all just a cr
ap shoot?”

Across the room
,
I saw Ally raise a glass of coke and look at me
, and then Bud
. I shook my head slightly.

“What do you mean?” I asked Bud.

He waved his hands. “You know, life. Everything. I mean, maybe it's all just random, and there's no point to anything we do.”

“Why do you care?” I asked.

He stared at me. “I didn't expect you to say
that
. I mean,
shouldn't
I care?”

“I'm not saying if you should care or not. But you seem to. So, why?”

He looked into his beer for a moment. “I dunno.”

“Look at it this way, Bud. If it's all just a meaningless, random crap shoot, then there's no reason why you – a product of that randomness – should care that there's no meaning.”

“I've had a few beers already,” said Bud, nodding at me confidentially. “I'm not sure I follow you.”