“I don’t understand what’s taking them so long to find the killer,” Mr. Berman said. “The newspapers say the soldier the sheriff arrested turned out to be innocent.”
“That’s right,” I said. “They don’t seem to have any other leads.”
“Why, what about Shirley’s journal?” Mrs. Bergman asked. “That ought to give them some clues.”
“Journal?” Shirley had never mentioned one to me.
“Shirley told us she kept details of her investigation in some sort of journal,” Mrs. Bergman said. “If the person who killed her had anything to do with that investigation, I’m sure her journal would provide some answers.”
My suspicions that an intruder had searched Shirley’s house for something other than money came roaring back.
“The authorities don’t have Shirley’s journal,” I said. “I don’t think they even know it exists. Who else besides you two knew about it, Mrs. Bergman?”
“As far as I know, we’re the only ones. Shirley kept things like that to herself. She mentioned the journal when she was here in April.”
“I’ll look for it when I get back to the Soo,” I said. “I’ll go over the house inch by inch.” I didn’t mention the fact that someone else had probably already done that.
It was suppertime and there was no point in keeping the Bergmans from their meal. It was time to leave.
“Thank you so much for trusting me,” I said, standing up. “You’ve been a great help.”
“Shirley spoke about you so fondly that I feel we know you,” said Mrs. Bergman. “And you remind me very much of her. I was fixing a beef roast when the deputy called and I can have it back in the oven in a jiffy. Won’t you stay for dinner?”
I’ve never been one to turn down a home-cooked meal.
78
The Bergmans invited me to stay the night, but I decided that with Mick and all, it would be better to go back to the cabin I’d rented.
As I lay in bed later that night, a chilling thought went through my head. I knew from experience that Joe Zerilli and his mob cohorts wanted me out of the picture. That’s what got me to the Soo in the first place.
Now there seemed to be a suspicious stranger in town. How long had he been there?
Shirley and I had looked enough alike to be mistaken for each other from time to time. Could Shirley have been murdered by mistake? Was the stranger really after me?
The idea sent a shiver through my spine.
But then my thoughts returned to Shirley’s work with the FBI. It seemed much more logical that she had been murdered in the line of duty. If the Bergmans were correct, the answers lay in a journal she had been keeping. I vowed to find it when I got back to the Soo.
If Shirley’s murderer hadn’t already beaten me to it.
79
Wednesday evening, Sault Ste. Marie
Where was Kate Brennan?
The clock on the bed stand marked the time at ten-thirty p.m. and Jimmy Shoes Pecora paced the floor of the rented cabin. He’d grown tired of hanging around this hick town; it was time to get the job done and get the hell out of Sault Ste. Marie.
A city boy all his life, Pecora found the wilderness of northern Michigan unsettling. This was country that stretched for miles without buildings or even people. Country inhabited by huge moose, bear and coyote. A country bordering on a body of water that was more ocean than lake. He had read that depths in Lake Superior plunged almost fifteen hundred feet in places and its violent November storms were known to devour giant freighters and the men who sailed them.
There was something else. Maybe just nerves, but he had the feeling over the past day or so that someone was following him. He was tailing the Brennan woman, and someone was tailing him.
Then Kate Brennan disappeared. Fearing she had gotten wise to him, he phoned the News, posing as a reader who wanted her to do a story on a giant bass he had caught in the St. Marys River.
“Sorry, Kate’s not in the office today,” said the woman who answered the phone. “She won’t be back here until late tomorrow afternoon. But we can send one of our other reporters to interview you.” Jimmy Shoes hung up. Knowing the Brennan woman would be back tomorrow made him feel better. He’d be heading back to Cleveland soon.
He glanced around the small cabin. He felt restless, not at all ready to sleep. He noticed a web in the corner of the cabin and walked over to it. At first it appeared to be just a cobweb, but then he saw the spider, almost invisible against the dark wood of the wall.
In the web was an insect, probably a fly, wrapped in silk and ready to serve as the arachnid’s breakfast tomorrow morning.
Percora heard buzzing near the top of the window just to his right. A fly. He reached up and, when the insect landed for a brief moment, took a swipe at it. He missed, but caught it when it landed on the window a second time.
He reached into his fist with the thumb and index finger of his other hand and watched the fly as it moved its legs in panic, trying desperately to escape. He reached down and tossed the insect into the spider’s web.
The spider raced out to greet it, holding the fly to its mouth, biting and then wrapping it in a sheet of silk.
Lunch.
Pecora glanced around the cabin looking for another victim.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
80
The knock startled him. Who could know he was here besides Palazzolo’s uncle, and what the hell would anyone want at ten-thirty at night?
Pecora strode to the door and opened it a crack, peering out into the darkness, seeing no one. Must have been his imagination; he closed the door.
Looking about the cabin again, he spotted a tiny white moth fluttering against the window over the sink. Pecora grabbed it with a single swipe and walked back to the web. He threw the moth into the web and enjoyed watching as it struggled helplessly against the silk strands. The spider raced over and soon the thrashing ended.
Supper.
Another knock. This time he was sure. He flung the door open, ready to confront whoever stood there.
No one.
Who was stupid enough to play games with Jimmy Pecora? Whoever it was would pay dearly. He walked to the chair that held his coat and gun. He pulled the suit coat over his bare torso and took the .38 from the holster that hung on the chair.
Outside, he reached through the open window of the Studebaker’s passenger side and retrieved a flashlight from the glove box. Playing the light around the front of the small brown log cabin, he saw no one. The next cabin stood thirty feet away and its lights were out. Behind the string of cabins lay a thick forest. He decided to look for the intruder there.
The night was cool and Jimmy Shoes tugged the coat tightly around him. He jumped involuntarily as the hoot of an owl broke the silence. He continued on, reaching the rear of the cabin. The forest loomed twenty feet beyond.
As he began walking in the direction of the forest, he heard a rustling behind him. Turning, he was startled to see that the dim light shining through the blackout curtain of his cabin’s rear window framed the silhouette of a large man.
“Who are you?” he asked. Something about the man made him nervous and he was surprised to hear his voice cracking as he spoke. “What the hell do you want?”
As the stranger approached, Jimmy shined the flashlight on him and could clearly see the features of the man’s face. For the first time in his life Jimmy Shoes was confronted by someone who didn’t seem afraid of him. Or of the pistol he held.
Jimmy Shoes’ last thought on earth was how odd that was. And how odd it was that the man actually smiled when he spoke.
“Mein name ist Claus Krueger.”
81
Thursday, July 8
Three days before the dedication
Mick and I got an early start from Negaunee and arrived back at the Soo late that afternoon. I let Mick out in the backyard and began searching the house thoroughly for Shirley’s journal; hoping whoever had broken i
nto the house days ago hadn’t beaten me to it.
I went through the first and second floors as I had before, this time much more carefully. I knocked on walls here and there as I had seen detectives do in the movies, listening for a hollow sound that might be the clue to a secret compartment.
Finding nothing, I went down into the basement. Shirley’s basement was unfinished, the cinderblock walls painted white. I searched the perimeter, looking for tiny cracks in the cement between blocks. Perhaps one was a false door leading to a small storage space.
No luck.
The generous space under the washtub made it easy to see nothing had been hidden there. The workbench in the far corner yielded zip, zero, zed and a goose egg as I ran through its four drawers.
So much for the basement.
I searched the attic again with the same result. Shirley’s bedroom was next to mine on the main floor and I left it for last. I went through her closet item by item finding nothing.
Her chest of drawers proved equally uneventful, just the usual assortment of blouses and underclothes.
Shirley’s jewelry box contained a variety of earrings, bracelets and a couple of necklaces. As I sat on her bed going through the items, I picked up a necklace Shirley had worn constantly in high school. It was heart-shaped, and when I snapped it open my eyes started to tear. The necklace contained a picture of her father and mother who had been killed in that tragic automobile accident. When closed, it was as if they were kissing. I sat for a moment, my eyes watering, as I realized what that locket must have meant to Shirley, a teenager coping with life without parents.
I could identify with her, because I had been left in the care of my uncle. But when my emotions got the best of me, I could at least talk with my father on the telephone. Shirley couldn’t. It must have been terribly lonely. I sat there on her bed for a while, my feelings washing over me.
Then it was time to get back to reality. I finished my search of the house and came up empty on every count. Either the intruder had found the journal days ago, or Shirley had hidden it somewhere else.
I had missed Scotty while I was gone and thought about looking him up. But first I’d check in with G.P. and Crawford at the office.
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“He was a mob hit man and someone treated him like a schoolboy,” G.P. was saying. He leaned back in his chair, his head nearly touching the American flag in the stand behind him.
“The man’s neck was broken very cleanly,” G.P. continued. “Whoever did it was incredibly strong. And fast. There was a loaded .38 caliber pistol lying next to him. Whoever did him in never gave him a chance to use it.”
“Where did the murder take place?” I asked.
“Outside one of Palazzolo’s rental cabins,” G.P. said. “Crawford found the body.”
“Did I hear someone mention my name?”
I turned to see Jack Crawford standing in the doorway, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loosened.
“I was just telling Kate about our friend who the authorities say is Jimmy Shoes Pecora.”
“He bumped into someone who wasn’t very friendly,” Crawford said. “Who was the guy, anyway?”
“I’m sure it was the fellow everyone talked about the other night at Blades Larue’s place. Sheriff says he was the Cleveland mob’s best hit man. ‘Button men,’ they call them,” G.P. said.
“Cleveland, huh? Any idea what he was doing up here?” Crawford asked.
Knowing my background with the mob, both men turned to me. “He might have been looking for me,” I said. “Detroit and Cleveland mobs have been known to work closely together. Maybe they figured I’d recognize one of their Detroit thugs and they recruited one from Cleveland.”
“So you think he was here to deal with you?” G.P. asked.
I shrugged. “They tried it back in Detroit. It’s not far-fetched to think they’d track me up here.”
I turned to Crawford with a reporter’s question. “How’d you happen to find Pecora’s body?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Went for a walk. Found the body near one of the rental cabins just outside of town.”
“That’s a long walk from where you’re staying at G.P.’s house,” I said.
“I was in the mood for a long walk. As I said, I couldn’t sleep.”
“Jack and I stayed up late talking,” said G.P. “Jack retired for the evening, but got up again about a half hour later. I saw him go out for a walk.”
“What time was that?” I asked.
G.P. turned to Crawford. “What do you think, Jack? Eleven thirty?”
“Sounds right.”
It sounded strange to me. My uncle was an early riser and in all the years I’d known him he never stayed up later than nine or ten o’clock.
83
Friday, July 9
Two days before the dedication
Scotty’s big blowout aboard the Caiman was scheduled for Friday evening, and I looked forward to it with anticipation. With a crowd of notables in town for the dedication of the MacArthur Lock, the guest list promised to overflow with dignitaries. Not to mention the fact that I planned to spend as much time as possible with the host. That is, if he still wanted me to. Scotty had begged off seeing me when I called last night, saying he was busy with last minute preparations. I hoped that story was true and he wasn’t just making up something to avoid me.
My car windows were down as I drove into the Riverbend Marina’s gravel parking lot. I was wearing a stylish black dress I thought fit the occasion, topped off with a pearl necklace I inherited from my Aunt Betty. A small musical group was playing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy on the deck above the Caiman’s fantail and I could see a few people in a dancing frenzy in front of the band.
Scotty couldn’t have picked a more perfect evening. The sun shone brightly in the western sky and I could smell the crispness of the gentle breeze blowing in from the St. Marys River. Almost a mile across the river lay the endless tree line of Sugar Island.
I heard talking and laughter coming from inside the Caiman as I strolled up the gangplank, once more dazzled by the immensity of Scotty’s yacht.
The Caiman’s salon was packed with people talking in small clusters, dressed to the nines and holding their Tom Collins, high balls and Scotch and waters. There was a smattering of uniforms, mostly higher ranking officers from Fort Brady. Chef Joseph and an assistant fussed over a buffet table positioned against the far wall.
Some of the guests I knew, some I didn’t. Blades Larue stood in a group that included Len Townes, Bill Milton and their wives. Standing in a small group next to them were two men I recognized from photographs as the U.S. Congressman from the district and our State Senator. A third member looked a lot like our former U.S. Senator.
I recognized a couple of newspaper reporters from downstate holding up the bar and walked over to say hello. A week ago I would have worried about blowing my cover, but if my suspicions about Pecora were correct, the mob already knew too well where to find me.
Bill Ronson of the Detroit News was the first to wave a greeting. “Why, Kate Brennan! You left us all wondering where the hell you were.”
“Say,” said Curt Neumann, “Harry Houdini would have loved your vanishing act.” Neumann was a veteran reporter who had been with the Cleveland Plain Dealer before deciding to join the Associated Press wire service and moving to the Arsenal of Democracy. Although he had me by at least twenty years in the age department, his ready sense of humor had made us fast friends.
“It was getting a little too warm around Detroit,” I said. “I decided to come up here to cool off.” I chose not to mention that someone from the mob had created a bit of unwelcome heat up here, too.
“Who’s here from the Times?” I asked.
“Stan Dreslinski,” said Bill Ronson. “We’re staying together in a hotel across the river in Canada. Your town is filled.”
“Where is he?”
Bill laughed. “We came in separate vehicles. He had a little trouble cros
sing the border. He was just ahead of us driving off the car ferry. The customs officials asked him if he had anything to declare.”
“Yeah?”
“He told them, and I quote, ’Only my love for Canada and all things Canadian.’ They’re probably still searching his car.”
“That sounds like Stan,” I laughed. “But Wells is going to raise the roof if he doesn’t file a story.”
“He’ll be along,” said Curt Neumann. “I think he learned a hard lesson. You don’t mess with the Border Patrol during a world war.”
Curt then introduced me to the others in the group, treating them to a brief description of my series of articles and subsequent troubles with the Detroit mob.
“Detroit’s not the only city with that kind of crime problem,” Curt said. “I covered the Cleveland mob for the Plain Dealer. ‘Big Al’ Polizzi runs the show, there.”
We traded Zerilli and Polizzi stories for a while, before I excused myself and walked aft through the cabin door to the fantail. I found Scotty there chatting with some of the townspeople. He looked smashing in a gold blazer that matched the color of his hair, and a tie that accented his blue eyes perfectly. A waiter passed by carrying a tray of champagne and I reached for one of the glasses. Scotty excused himself from the group and walked over to me.
“I was hoping you’d make it,” he said. I felt a tingle as he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. The evening was starting off just as I had hoped. I tried to act nonchalant.
“Just try and keep me away,” I said breezily. “By the looks of your guest list, I should feel honored to be here.”
“We expected Governor Kelly,” Scotty said. “But he was kept in Lansing with some last minute business. He’ll be aboard Sunday.”
“Where are all these people staying? I heard the hotels around here are all booked up.”
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