Jack Pine, page 12
“Perfect timing!” Tom Jorde shouted, jumping up around the desk. “I was just telling the deputy sheriff here I’m not murdering loggers, but now you can deal with what passes for the law in this town.”
Reuger stood and turned like a soldier to Patricia in a dark pants suit and clutching a burgundy briefcase. Two diamond studs were in her ears, and all traces of the single mother with a son were gone. She extended her hand and met his eye firmly.
“Patricia Helpner.”
22
The creaking stairs smelled of cigars, wood, and the slight old scent of papers and erasers. Reuger strode past the fuzzed glass doors of offices, remembering the light in Jorde’s office as he faced Patricia. They had stood under the glare of the neon lights, and then the veil came down.
“Do you have a warrant, Sheriff?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Nope. I don’t,” he said meeting her eyes.
“Then you had better leave and please don’t question my client again without me or some other representation present.”
He nodded and stood up.
“All right, Patricia, if that’s what you want.”
Jorde’s mouth dropped, and he looked from Reuger to the woman who just walked in his office.
“What the fuck…you two know each other?”
“Sure, we know each other,” he said easily. “Tell your son we’re going fishing this afternoon.”
“We know each other professionally,” she nodded coolly.
“That’s right,” he continued, walking to the door. “I showed her the stars, and we saw the northern lights, professionally of course, then I helped her with her groceries. All very professionally.”
Her eyes snapped like a light winking out.
“I think you have made your point, Deputy.”
He nodded to the cell phone on her belt.
“Don’t know if you can pick up much there with that phone.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Just trying to help,” he said touching the brim of his hat.
“Oh great! Just fucking great,” he heard behind him. “They send me a lawyer dating the deputy sheriff!”
* * * *
Reuger came to a door with black-stenciled oversized letters: COUNTY ATTORNEY. A blob moved behind the opaque glass. He opened the door to a small office consisting of a desk and a coat rack in one corner supporting a charcoal fedora. A man studied a plate of eggs crisscrossed with ketchup over a newspaper. His long mustache and slow blinking eyes gave him the air of a walrus. The air smelled of eggs, ketchup, and coffee.
“How she go there, Bruce?”
“Just a minute,” he muttered. “Let me finish this article here.”
Reuger settled into a chair missing an arm and watched the man mouthing words. Bruce Anderson’s shaggy peppered hair and droopy mustache hadn’t changed for decades. When he first became the county attorney he only wore three-piece suits. He had been a corporate lawyer down in Minneapolis until he got on the wrong side of a federal judge and was held in contempt. He quit the firm and drove until he found a place where he could hole up and write the great American novel.
After a year of doing nothing more than producing prose he could barely read without flinching, he drifted back into the law. Bruce married a local girl, had children, and roared up to three hundred pounds. Reuger never saw the suit after that, and Bruce’s uniform became a pullover sweater and khaki pants.
Reuger glanced at a calendar hanging crookedly behind the desk advertising Durning Hardware, then watched Bruce devour the rest of his eggs.
“Lot of fat in that food, Bruce.”
His eyes rolled up gray and almost colorless.
“Since when did you come here to comment on my eating habits?”
Reuger tossed his hat on the oak desk that creaked as Bruce shifted his weight.
“Came to talk to you about some dead loggers.”
Bruce flicked the paper with his forefinger.
“Ya, and so I heard.”
Reuger leaned over.
SECOND LOGGER FOUND MURDERED IN BOUNDARY WATERS.
“John Mcfee’s handiwork there, I’d say.”
Bruce looked down and shook his head doubtfully.
“Going to have an environmental war soon here, Reuger.”
“Maybe.”
“For sure,” he nodded, closing the paper.
“Think so?”
“Guaranteed.”
Reuger kicked back in the chair as Bruce sugared his coffee. Nothing was on the walls, save the calendar and paint from a tired 1930s era of pale green. A steam radiator hugged one wall and gas outlets poked plaster. Sun blared an open window behind. The only thing missing was a fan rotating slowly overhead. Bruce raised his eyebrows as he swiped sugar from his desk.
“I assumed you would be getting around to solving these two murders some day.”
Reuger rubbed mud off his boot.
“Thought the first one was a suicide.” He dropped his boot to the floor. “Foster caught his slasher and finished the job with his .45.”
Bruce sat back like a pregnant woman and stared at him blankly.
“So what made you change your mind?”
Reuger paused.
“Second murder…physical evidence.”
Bruce reached inside his sweater.
“You’re thinking they’re related?”
“Don’t you?”
“Asking you here.”
“Maybe.”
“Uh huh,” he nodded, drawing out a cigarette.
“I’m going to try to make a case here, Bruce.”
“Oh ya?” He wiped his chin and leaned back with the cigarette dangling. “What do you have?”
“A gun that probably belongs to Tom Jorde.”
“Probably?”
“It’s his gun,” Reuger nodded, clasping his hands.
“Okay.”
“Probably matches the bullet in Carter’s head.”
“Whose head?”
“Second logger with the spike.”
“Oh, ya, sure, OK then.” Bruce reached forward and flared the cigarette, then lifted a foil-covered plate. “Smoked salmon?”
Reuger leaned over the desk. The fish was smoked brown and piled around a sauce dish.
“Smoked it last night. Try the sauce there. I made that too.”
“Didn’t know you smoked your own fish, Bruce.”
He nodded sucking on the cigarette.
“Bought it on that Ronco show. Works pretty good here. Bought the rotisserie there, too, for turkeys. You can smoke just about anything.”
“Didn’t know that,” he murmured, taking a piece and dipping it in the sauce. “So…I found an Earth First button next to Foster’s slasher.”
“Convenient.” Bruce popped the cigarette from his mouth. “Think it’s a plant?”
“Maybe,” he nodded, reaching for a napkin.
Bruce sat back with the piled gray fish and the bottle of tartar sauce and the ketchup eggs and coffee. And the cigarettes. Ashtray.
“What else then?”
“Spike driven into the center of Carter’s white pine.”
Bruce drilled his ear with his finger.
“Any prints on the spike?”
“Nothing yet.” Reuger shook his head. “Have the crime lab going up there this afternoon.”
Bruce rolled back on his weight and his neck jowled his sweater. He sucked the cigarette dry and stabbed it in the sand ashtray.
“Need a witness here, Reuger.”
“Might have one.”
“So then it’s getting better. Who?”
“Big Indian who worked with Foster out there just before he was murdered, Tommy Tobin.”
Bruce whistled out a blue stream.
“You’re going to need more credibility than that there, I’m afraid. We get in court with Tobin and any lawyer will shake him upside down, and we won’t like what falls out, I can guarantee you that.”
“He says Jorde asked him to burn out Foster and put the spike in the tree.”
Bruce came down like an avalanche.
“Ya? Did he really say that?”
“So many words.”
“How many?”
“Maybe twenty.” Reuger shrugged. “Maybe more.”
“Ya.”
The two men stared at each other, then Bruce shook his head.
“So there Reuger, you want me to believe now that Tom Jorde’s latest tactic here is murdering loggers to stop the logging going on here in the Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters?”
“Short of it.”
Bruce reached forward with the cigarettes small in his hand.
“You want me to believe he’s going back there and shooting these loggers thinkin’ he’s going to get away with it and using his own gun and leaving his buttons scattered around?”
“Yep.”
Bruce put the aluminum foil back on the fish and clasped his hands like a priest.
“Okay then, convince me here.”
“I think things may have gotten out of hand. Tom Jorde has driven more than a few trucks into the lake, Bruce. I think he went out there to burn that slasher and Foster come on him and pulled down with his .45, and they struggled then boom.”
Bruce stared at him.
“Boom?”
“Boom,” he nodded.
Bruce swiped his hand across the desk with a stickpin in a red tomato.
“Mary off today?”
“Ya, her mother’s sick again.” He put the cigarettes down, his eyes flat like two pennies. “Look here Reuger, this is very treacherous water with these environmentalists. They use big time New York lawyers and don’t worry about the fees. We could get blown out of the water.”
“Using a Chicago lawyer this time.”
“Ya, well, whatever.” Bruce raked a donut from a wax-coated bag and sprinkled the desk with snow. “I’d like to help you here. I really would because I don’t need this kind of shit up here, but you need a witness.” A cloud of powdered sugar escaped his mouth. “A credible witness who I can put against these environmentalists.” He shook his head. “I have to say I don’t hear a case yet.”
Reuger nodded slowly. They did this little dance every time. Bruce played the skeptic while he was the salesman. He wasn’t sure himself what he was going to say when he walked in the door, and Bruce saw this. They nudged each other into new areas. Bruce had his own ideas about the murders, but he wanted to know what he had to say first. Bruce was waiting for his trump card.
“Tommy saw more than he let on.”
He nodded slowly. “What do you think?”
“I think he knows who shot Foster. I think he’s scared to say anything.”
Bruce leaned forward and stared at the box of donuts. His eyes drifted up.
“Then find out what the Indian knows there.” He pursed his lips and breathed tiredly. “Get him to write out a statement, and we’ll see if we can sew something together here before Mcfee has us burning the forest down.”
Reuger grabbed his hat and stood. Bruce leveled his finger like a gun.
“But I can’t go up against environmental lawyers with circumstantial evidence, Reuger. That Jorde will say his gun was stolen, and that will be that then.” He held up another powdered donut. “Get Tobin to give you more here, like saying he actually saw the crime committed by Jorde.”
Bruce inhaled another donut and Reuger opened the door.
“Maybe the crime lab will find something.”
“Ya, let me know here…” He tilted his head up. “Heard you had some trouble the other night at the lodge?”
Reuger fingered the brim of his hat.
“Girl said she was attacked in the shed then recanted her story.”
Bruce leaned back.
“Say who did it?”
“Said it was a big Indian.”
“Jesus, Reuger.”
23
THREE SQUADS WITH peace signs fingered on the hood dust were parked in the weeds. Bright yellow and black police tape wrapped the trees and ringed in the cars. Reuger ducked under the tape and saw Jerry Abrams striding out of the swale. He breathed heavy through his nose and wiped sweat from his brow.
“How she go, Jerry?”
“Ya, not too bad. Hot.”
Reuger reached him inside the tape. Jerry’s owl glasses were dusted and his tie was loosened to his chest. He smoothed a wisp of hair starting behind his ears like a bonnet. In the harsh sunlight he was bald. Reuger grinned at the man with the fussy air of a professor.
“So then, find anything here?”
Jerry squinted into the midday sun.
“Boy, it gets hot up here.”
“We have our days,” Reuger nodded, breathing the dry scent of pinesap.
“Thought the Twin Cities be hotter you know.”
“Have air-conditioning down there.”
“Ya, you bet.”
Jerry put back on his glasses and stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket.
“Well, she’s pretty dry up here, so we took some soil samples and dusted the trees and dug up the dirt here.” He turned and hair loped out like a string hanging down his neck. “But I don’t think she gave us much, you know.” He tucked the hair firmly behind his ear again. “We did find another bullet in the tree with the spike there and a shell.”
Jerry walked to the splintered tree.
“And from the looks of her, she matches the caliber of the handgun you found at the scene,” he murmured, bending over to the bark. “See here is where we found the bullet.” He leaned closer, pushing up his glasses. “And from the penetration, I’d say the shooter was close here.”
Reuger hunched down and put his finger on the hole.
“Man, it’s hot! Windy, too.” Jerry wiped his forehead then bent over with his hands on his knees. “Small-caliber round, so the penetration was minimal.” He stabbed his glasses back again. “.22. So the shooter missed here with his first shot and then fired again and hit the victim here.” He stood and pushed his hair back in place. “It wasn’t point-blank, you know, but darn close.”
Reuger stood and squinted at the sun-field of broken stumps littered with sawdust and limbs. Wind volleyed across the field and moved the trees like a distant ocean. Jerry grabbed his hair like a man holding onto his hat.
“Have that cartridge, Jerry?”
He reached into his pocket.
“Here she is.”
Reuger held the baggy up.
“.22 with a silver percussion cap,” he murmured.
Jerry took off his glasses.
“Well, she sure is. Must be a reload then.”
Reuger handed him back the baggy.
“Appreciate your time here, Jerry.”
“Ya, well.” He shook his head. “We went by the other site, but you have too many rains up here to get much, and the sun cooks it all away then.”
Jerry stared at the pine with the stain slopping the trunk. A gust blew his hair back and he was bald again. He sighed and shook his head.
“You have someone doing some nasty business, for sure.”
24
RATCHETING LIKE A boy pedaling backwards, the line arced out then gulped below. Reuger waited until the bait popped the bottom then hooked a boot over the gunnels. He dropped his hat next to a thermos of leeches and looked at the boy staring at the evening colored lake.
“Beautiful evening,”
“Sure is,” Kurt nodded, scratching a mosquito bite on his leg. “I’ll bet you fish all the time.”
“First time this year.”
They held rods off both sides back to back.
“Jerky?”
“Um…” he said, studying the petrified meat. “No thanks.”
Reuger split the package and bobbed his line again, and then again. A dog barked somewhere. He looked up and saw smoke hazing the trees.
“Sounds like a terrier there.”
Kurt looked up.
“Where is he?”
“Sound travels a long way over the open water.” Reuger pointed to the trees hanging smoke. “Probably that campsite over there.”
Kurt nodded then reeled his line.
“So there, having a good time on your vacation?”
“Yeah.”
Reuger turned and opened a red cooler.
“What’ll be? Root beer, orange cream or 7-Up?”
Kurt examined the contents of the cooler.
“Orange cream,” he nodded.
“One orange cream coming up,” Reuger murmured, cracking open the plastic bottle and handing it to Kurt.
“Hey…” He held the bottle high. “These are pretty cool.”
“No cans in the Boundary Waters,” Reuger nodded, taking a root beer. “All right, we have Oreos or one of Diane’s caramel rolls or some peanut butter cookies.”
Kurt shut one eye. “How about an Oreo?”
He handed him the cookies and they ate in silence. They drifted closer to land and Reuger smelled swamp. Birds shot the horizon as early night hovered the water like cold breath. He gestured to a far tree spidering the dusk.
“Eagle over there.”
Kurt jerked around.
“Where?”
He jumped the other way and the boat rolled. Reuger saw his rod seesaw over the edge and hooked the reel with his tip.
“There you go,” he said handing him the dripping rod. “Your first fish there, and she’s a keeper.”
“Sorry about that,” Kurt muttered, his face crimson.
“Seeing your first eagle is worth a rod overboard,” Reuger pointed behind him. “You see him there, right at the top of that tree.”
Kurt squinted at the old pine against the sky.
“That’s really an eagle? A bald eagle?”
“Right there on the third sister island” Reuger nodded. “You can see the white on his head.” He handed Kurt a pair of binoculars. “Take a look with these. Should be able to get a pretty good look.”
Kurt held the binoculars to his eyes.
“I don’t see anything.”
Reuger sited the bird then handed the binoculars back.
“There, go up the tree to the very top there. See him, he’s that dark blob.”
