The Damage Done

by P J Parrish

RESULTS OF ANALYSIS

  It was the piece of metal he had found in the mine. Louis opened the envelope and shook the piece of metal out into his palm. Except for a few spots of tarnish, it was almost as shiny as a newly minted coin. The etching showed the head and shoulders of a benignly smiling man, flanked by two boys who seemed to be looking up at the man with adoration.

  Without his glasses, Louis couldn’t read the small etched letters over the man’s head. He turned back to the form and read the results: Acid cleaning and examination of the object reveals medallion, composition silver, age unknown. Front reveals three (3) human figures and words SAINT JOHN BOSCO PRAY FOR US.

  Louis stared at the image. He had seen this Bosco person before, but he wasn’t sure where. He had been in so many churches lately he couldn’t even make a guess.

  He turned over the medal. There was an inscription on the back, too tiny to read.

  “Damn it,” Louis said. He grabbed his reading glasses from his pocket and slipped them on. The inscription was faint, only five words.

  To my good son Antero

  Antero. Antero Prinsilä. Anthony Prince.

  Suddenly, everything around him blurred and grew distant and it was just him and the medal and those five words carved into the silver.

  Louis realized he wasn’t breathing and he drew a deliberate breath, then another, before he looked across the office at Steele.

  “Captain,” he said. “A moment, please. Outside.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  As Louis led Steele outside, his brain was in overdrive, flashing back on everything that he had seen and heard on his first trip up here and struggling to connect all of it to what was happening now.

  They stopped on the front lawn. Steele pulled his collar up against the drizzle. “Talk to me, Louis.”

  “He killed the boys. Anthony Prince killed my boys.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The missing years in Emily’s report, they were spent here,” Louis said. “And they left here because of the boys in the box, because Anthony killed those boys. This proves it.”

  Louis held out the medal and Steele took it, examining it slowly. But when he looked up his face was blank.

  And Louis knew why. “You didn’t read my reports on the boys in the box, did you?”

  Steele squared his shoulders. “No, I didn’t. I set them aside. Your cold case was on hold and Jonas Prince took priority. We talked about this.”

  Louis turned away and walked a small circle. He wasn’t even sure who he was mad at—Steele? Anthony Prince? Louis turned back to Steele, but he had disappeared. Louis finally spotted him, taking shelter from the rain under the aluminum awning that housed the county cruisers.

  As Louis approached, Steele was looking at him the same way he had looked at Cam across the conference table, like a lab clinician studying the behavior of genetically altered rats.

  “All right, tell me now,” Steele said. “Tell me about this medal.”

  “The remains of the two boys were in an old candle box that had been left in an abandoned copper mine,” Louis said. “When I went to the mine, I found that medal in the area where the box had been found. The box was discovered in 1979, but the medal couldn’t have been there then or the forensics team would’ve found it. Someone had to have put it there later and I think it was Anthony.”

  Steele looked at the metal’s image of the man and the boys. “The Prince family is Methodist, and their symbol is the Luther Rose. It isn’t common for non-Catholics to wear or carry saint medals.”

  Louis remembered the two other times he had seen the Saint Bosco figure. “This medal meant something important to Jonas Prince. This same image is on a prayer card I found in his home and it’s on the keychain to his dressing room.”

  Steele fell silent, turning the medal over in his hand.

  “The medal was important to Anthony, too,” Louis said.

  Steele shook his head slowly. “I can maybe buy the idea that the medal meant something special to Jonas. He was a devout man. But Anthony Prince is not . . .” Steele paused. “He is not guided by the same forces. So why would he leave a Catholic medal in the cave? Especially one with his name on it?”

  “I don’t know,” Louis said. “Maybe it was his way of immortalizing the act, just like the way he plasters his walls with plaques. Or maybe he was just upset because the bones were no longer in what he considered their proper place.”

  Steele handed the medal back to Louis. “Now we know why Lampo made that sudden trip down to Grand Rapids,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It can’t be a coincidence that he drove nine hours to go see a father he hadn’t seen in thirty years on the same day we reopened this case. He must have gotten wind of it.”

  “It’s a small town,” Louis said. “People—”

  Steele silenced him with a hand. “Weems said he saw a man outside Jonas’s house on Wednesday morning. For Buddy Lampo to be there at that time he had to leave here Tuesday night. The same Tuesday you arrived here. That only leaves a couple hours for him to hear something, and that tells me there was a leak.” He looked to the station house. “And I’d bet the leak came from inside that building, maybe from Nurmi himself.”

  Louis shook his head. “I called the sheriff and told him I was coming. He had someone pull the case file and make copies. Deputies were in and out. When people see a state police car parked out front here, they get curious. I don’t think it was a leak. It could have come from anybody.”

  “Who else did you talk to?” Steele asked.

  Again, Louis did a mental review of everyone he had encountered on his first trip here. Faces floated into his head—the waitress who had served him his hamburger. The bartender at the Eagle River Inn who had poured his whiskey. The girl who had served him coffee the next morning. All of them had seen him working on the file or asked about the case. But the face he couldn’t conjure up was Lampo’s. He was sure he had seen him somewhere before, but he couldn’t remember talking to him.

  Cam’s technique . . . the one he had used on Weems.

  Louis closed his eyes and lowered his head.

  “What are you doing?” Steele asked.

  “Bear with me,” Louis said.

  He took himself back to when he pulled up to the front door of the station. The brisk wind and the smell of the coming snow. The Band-Aid on the chin of the deputy he passed as he walked into the outer office. The place was hot, over-heated. No one else was there except . . . Monica, wearing a pink sweatshirt with SISU printed on the front.

  Louis kept going back in his memory. The firm, moist grip of Nurmi’s hand as he greeted him. The cold mist on his face as he went back outside, the jangle of the evidence room keys in hand, and then walking across the grass to the . . .

  Louis looked up and opened his eyes. Right in front of him stood the old, pillared courthouse. There was no one outside today, but there had been someone there that day. A man holding a rake and wearing a ball cap. The man who had given him directions to the Eagle River Inn. The man who had asked . . .

  You from downstate? What you looking for?

  Louis remembered clearly what he had answered.

  Just some evidence. And an old candle box.

  It was a simple question. But his answer, and what came after, had set off a murderous chain of events.

  Louis looked back at Steele. “It was me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I was the one who tipped Buddy Lampo off,” Louis said. “I told you inside I had recognized Lampo from somewhere before. I met him over there at the courthouse. He had to let me in. And he asked me in passing what I was looking for. I told him I was looking for an old candle box.”

  Steele looked toward the station door and he was quiet.

  It had been an accident, him running into Anthony’s brother. No, it wasn’t an accident. It was worse. Just a weird but deadly twist of fate. Wasn’t it?

  Louis
heard a door close and turned. Nurmi had come down the ramp of the side door and was rolling across the parking lot toward them.

  “How did Nurmi not recognize a man who works next door?” Steele said. “I still think he’s holding out, maybe protecting someone.”

  There was no time to answer before Nurmi got to them.

  “Hank got a hit at the UPPCO office,” Nurmi said. “I got an address for Buddy Lampo.”

  “Where?” Louis asked.

  “It’s south of here, down near Conglomerate Falls,” Nurmi said. “Cabins out there are few and far between and the roads not much more than trails.”

  Steele looked at his watch. “I’m going to get some backup rolling. We’ll also request Blue Falcon air support be on stand-by.”

  Steele walked away. Nurmi’s gaze followed him until he disappeared inside the station, then he looked back at Louis.

  “Maybe you ought to give that bottle of scotch to your boss,” Nurmi said. “Loosen him up a little.”

  “He doesn’t drink.”

  “Maybe he should.”

  Louis said nothing, still thinking about Steele’s last comment about the sheriff.

  “So, what was in that FedEx envelope from Marquette?”

  Louis knew Steele wouldn’t want Nurmi to be more involved in all this, but Nurmi was invested in the boys in the box case. He deserved to know what was going on.

  Louis showed him the medal. “It’s something I found in the mine where the candle box was.”

  Nurmi took the medal and examined it, concentrating on the inscription. It was a long moment before he looked up at Louis.

  “Damn,” he said. “There’s two little boys on the front of this thing.”

  Louis nodded. “I remember now where I saw Lampo. He’s the guy who let me in the courthouse the day I picked up the evidence. Sheriff, I have to ask you again. Do you know Buddy Lampo?”

  Nurmi frowned and looked toward the courthouse. When he turned back, Louis scrutinized his face for some reaction or recognition, but Nurmi’s expression was blank.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I still can’t place him. They hire a lot of day workers over there, vets, homeless guys. I swear I never saw him.”

  Louis hesitated. “Okay. I believe you.”

  “But I bet your boss doesn’t.”

  Nurmi gave the medal back to Louis and looked back toward the station. Steele was coming out, zipping up his windbreaker against the chill.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Louis and headed toward the Explorer. Louis slipped the medal into the pocket of his jeans and hurried to catch up.

  “Captain!”

  Louis turned at the sound of Nurmi’s voice. Steele had stopped as well.

  “I’d like to ride along,” Nurmi said.

  Steele’s eyes moved to the wheelchair. But Louis knew it wasn’t the chair he was concerned about, it was the man himself.

  “Sheriff, I think—” Steele began.

  “You think I’d be in the way,” Nurmi finished for him.

  “This is a state operation,” Steele said.

  “You’ll never find Lampo’s place without some help.”

  Louis waited as the two men stared at each other.

  “All right, let’s go,” Steele said. He headed to the Explorer.

  “I’ll go get my gear,” Nurmi said to Louis, and rolled off toward the ramp.

  Louis jogged to the Explorer and got in the driver’s seat. He started the engine and pulled around the station, parking at the bottom of the ramp at the side door. He and Steele sat there, with the heat on high and the wipers on low.

  “I asked him about Lampo working at the courthouse,” Louis said. “He said there are lots of day workers. He swears he didn’t recognize him.”

  “He stays in this only as long as he’s useful,” Steele said.

  The tone in his voice told Louis the subject was closed. It was warm in the Explorer, but every muscle in Louis’s body felt cold and tight. He dug the medal out of his jeans pocket, not sure why he wanted to look at it again.

  “Do you know who Saint John Bosco is?” Steele asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Louis said. “What?”

  “Saint Bosco,” Steele said, nodding toward the medal. “Do you know who he is?”

  “No.”

  “He’s the patron saint of lost boys.”

  Louis looked out the dirty windshield toward the station’s side door. “No disrespect, captain,” he said, “but it seems to me that in this case, Saint Bosco wasn’t very good at his job.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The road to Buddy Lampo’s cabin was a cracked strip of asphalt that ran south out of Eagle River along the shoreline of the Keweenaw Peninsula. As Louis drove, he caught flashes of the metallic roiling waters of Lake Superior to his right, but then the road turned inland and there was nothing but walls of giant pines, their trunks shrouded in the fog.

  Nurmi said he had a fair idea of where the cabin might be because he had hunted in the area before his accident. There were only a handful of houses, he added, most used as hunting cabins or occupied by hermit-types who stockpiled guns for Armageddon.

  The Explorer led a small caravan of two county Jeeps and two state patrol cruisers. They were looking for Farmers Block Road, which would take them uphill to the cabin. There was nothing beyond the cabin, Nurmi said. The road ended at Split Mountain Gorge.

  “There’s the turn up ahead,” Nurmi said.

  Louis slowed and made the turn onto a dirt road. About a mile later, the road veered right.

  “Wait, stop!” Nurmi said.

  Louis stopped the Explorer.

  Nurmi leaned forward from the back seat. “Go left here.”

  Louis peered through the dirty windshield. The fork to the left was a rutted one-lane mud track. “You sure?”

  Nurmi hesitated. “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.”

  Louis turned left, but they made it only about fifty yards before the Explorer tires caught deep mud and they came to a hard stop. So did the Jeep behind them.

  Louis hit the wipers to clear the mud from the windshield and stared at the trail ahead. Maybe six feet wide and carved with deep ruts and puddles, it curved upward into the hulking pine trees, where it was devoured by the fog.

  Steele grabbed the radio and instructed his two state troopers, driving low-riding cruisers, to secure the turn-off in case Lampo somehow managed to elude them and double back. That wasn’t likely since this was the only road to the gorge, Nurmi said, but he added that there could be trails known only to the locals. Steele instructed Nurmi’s two Jeeps to stay with the Explorer.

  Louis shifted into four-wheel drive and moved forward, mud pulling at the tires. As he picked up a little speed, the truck bounced and jolted.

  “How far on this?” Louis asked Nurmi.

  “Not sure. It’s not like we can check mailboxes out here.”

  Louis leaned forward, trying to get better visibility through the muck-covered windshield. He hadn’t seen a house or any kind of building since they had left the main road out of Eagle River. He didn’t even recall seeing any power lines along Farmers Block Road, and he was starting to get a hard pit in his stomach, thinking that this was a waste of time.

  He glanced at Steele, seeing the same doubt in his face. Then Steele rolled his window down and stuck his head out, hawking the thick trees for any sign of human presence.

  “Keweenaw seven to S.O. one.”

  “That’s me,” Nurmi said, grabbing his portable radio from his belt. “Go ahead, seven.”

  “Be advised we’re bogged down here,” the deputy said.

  “Is Keweenaw six with you?” Nurmi asked.

  “Right behind us. We’re blocking him.”

  Louis looked in the rearview mirror. The county Jeep was angled sideways, quickly becoming a green and white blur in the spray of mud.

  “Sir, do we stop?” Louis asked.

  “No. We’ll never get traction again.” Steele swung aro
und to talk to Nurmi. “Tell your officers we’re going on and we’ll wait for them at the top.”

  The road was narrowing, branches scraping against the truck, but it didn’t seem to bother Steele—he was still hanging out the window. Louis watched the odometer as they rumbled higher up the hill and deeper into the forest. Half-a mile. Then a mile.

  “You guys smell that?” Steele asked.

  “It’s smoke,” Louis said.

  When Steele dropped back into his seat, he looked like he’d been hit with a brown paint ball. “There’s a dry place up there to stop, next to that downed birch,” he said.

  Louis eased the Explorer toward the bed of pine needles on what he hoped was solid ground. When he stopped, he rolled down his window. It was definitely chimney smoke. Steele grabbed the radio mic and identified himself to the regional command post in Houghton.

  “Is Blue Falcon in the air?”

  “Negative. They are delaying take-off until visibility improves. It’s pea soup here.”

  Steele swore softly under his breath before he keyed the mic again. “Be advised, we are approximately three miles southwest from the Five Mile Road turnoff onto Farmer Block Road, on the left fork of a heavy-mud trail heading uphill. We need some off-road back-up headed to our location ASAP.”

  “Ten-four, captain.”

  Steele pushed open his door and got out. Louis followed, joining Steele at the open hatch at the rear of the Explorer. Steele grabbed two Kevlar vests and thrust one at Louis.

  “We’re going up to take a closer look,” Steele said. “Get the binoculars and find out where Nurmi’s guys are.”

  Louis secured his vest and went back to retrieve the binoculars from the compartment between the seats.

  “What’s the 20 of your guys?” he asked Nurmi.

  “Still stuck,” Nurmi said. “They got a tow truck coming that can get through muck. They’ll be here.”

  “Okay, good. We’re going up the hill.”

  “I guess I’m the lookout, eh?” Nurmi asked.

  “I guess so. Are you good here?”

  “I’m good,” Nurmi said, patting the rifle laying across his knees. Louis had to admire him. He seemed incredibly calm for a crippled man about to be left out in the middle of nowhere with a killer on the loose.