Blow Up on Murder

by Linda Townsdin

  Wilcox yanked the brim of his cowboy hat. “You do not know what you’re in for.”

  The wily sheriff and I had had our differences in the past, and he was not the type to want news people around his investigation. I expected to be sent away and wouldn’t fight it, if that’s what happened. Wilcox saved my life a couple of times. Of course, I’d helped his reputation by ferreting out the killers. He was mad at the world because he’d transferred to the Northland assuming the slow pace would be just right to ease him into retirement, but bad things kept happening.

  Barry’s head tilted up at Ben towering over her at six-foot-two. Her appraisal took in his wide shoulders, close-cropped black hair and hawk nose.

  She asked the sheriff, “Who’s this?”

  Wilcox said, “Meet Ben Winter, head investigator for the forest service. He consults with the Sheriff’s Office.”

  Ben said, “I’ve worked with Ed Matheson at the BCA.”

  She frowned. “Matheson’s on another case. I’m in charge of this investigation.”

  Ben flicked a look at me, no doubt curious about how I’d gotten attached to Barry.

  She gathered Wilcox, the police chief, Ben and her people into a circle and spoke in low tones. No one was to leave the campus. She wanted everyone interviewed. A crowd of students, professors and staff people had been detained in one of the auditoriums used for large general education classes.

  Me she ignored other than to signal when she wanted me to follow. That suited me. I’d have balked if she presumed to tell me what to photograph.

  I documented them interviewing and gathering evidence. Now that the immediacy had passed and the wounded taken away, I wanted to finish and get out of there. Chloe’s delicate face wavered in front of my vision, the cuts on her legs and arms, her shattered foot.

  To take my mind off Chloe’s condition, I walked over to the sneering young investigator taking a break. “Cory, how’d you guys get here so fast?”

  He said, “I don’t talk to the media, even hotshots like you.” His attempt to look down his nose at me failed. I was three inches taller. “Helicoptered up from the Cities.”

  The hotshot comment caught me by surprise. “You know me?”

  He snorted. “Robyn locked in on you right away. She wants the best and who could miss the tall blonde with attitude and a couple of Pulitzers?”

  I showed him some of that attitude by walking away.

  The older guy, Carpenter, had an easy way about him. I was relieved they weren’t all like Cory. I asked Carpenter about the woman in charge.

  “You don’t want to underestimate her. She’s the smartest of all of us. Iranian mother and German-American father—Special Forces. Robyn was born in the US, speaks Farsi and a couple other languages.”

  He gazed at a sliver of Branson Lake, visible through the classroom buildings and trees. A yearning expression crossed his face. I said, “I’m guessing that’s where you’d rather be today.”

  His eyes cut back to mine. “You called that right. I’m retiring next year. Then I’ll be fishing for something besides the scumbags who did this.”

  *

  At the end of the day, I followed Barry across the street from campus to the vacant storefront building where her people had set up their operations center. She stopped at the door and I nearly trampled her. “I won’t be needing you anymore.” She checked her watch. “Have your reporter come by and I’ll give him ten minutes.”

  Much as I respected her commanding demeanor, it rankled to be summarily dismissed. However, I shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first time.

  A few blocks away at the StarTribune bureau, I ran up the stairs to the second level where the StarTrib leased offices from the downstairs neighbors, Lakeshore Realty. The bureau covered the entire northern section of the state, including several Ojibwe reservations. Two people were expected to handle it all.

  Cynthia was speaking on the phone in her office, the only enclosed space. Jason and I shared a pod of two desks with a partition between them, a micro-version of every newsroom I’d ever been in. I set up my laptop, inserted the memory card from my camera and studied each frame, already knowing which one was the money shot.

  Cynthia ended her call and stood behind me peering at the photos I’d taken of the quad. When she saw the one of Chloe—fresh young face turned toward the camera, dark eyelashes resting on pale skin, a smear of blood on her cheek, ponytail hanging from the gurney like a question mark—she tapped the screen. “That one. Page one.”

  People would be outraged, as they should be. I wrote a caption and sent it to Cynthia with a note for her to hold it while I ran it by Chloe. It was a news event in public so I wasn’t obligated to ask for permission, but this was Chloe.

  I scrolled through the pictures of Barry on my screen. An attractive woman, fit, tough and confident. Black hair pulled into a loose bun at the back of her neck, tendrils softening her thin face. Dark blue pants suit, white shirt open at the neck. Pearl studs in her ears the only jewelry, no ring. From the faint lines around her eyes, I guessed forty.

  It had pleased the feminist in me to see the all-male contingent of law enforcement leaning forward to get their instructions from this diminutive woman. I sent the two photos along with several others to Cynthia and was ready to head home when Jason came bounding up the steps, back from his interview with Barry.

  “Get what you needed?”

  He swiped a hand through sandy hair. “They won’t release the name of the kid who was killed until tomorrow. His parents are in Norway on vacation and they had to locate them.”

  “Do they have anything concrete yet on who did this?”

  “They’ve got a bunch of people talking to students and professors, and others are going through computer profiles of everyone on campus. It’s a beehive in there.”

  He sat at his computer cringing slightly. “It was so crazy today I was stunned for a minute. Nothing’s happened since you’ve been gone except the usual gas drive-offs, turtles blocking traffic, domestic disputes and drunk driving accidents, and now this? Anyway, it’s good to see you sitting across from me again.”

  “It’s good to see you, too.” I wanted to ask how he was doing now that his girlfriend, Thor, the sheriff’s forensic tech, had gone back to school in Minneapolis, but maybe that was better left alone.

  My stomach howled. The last food I’d eaten was a bowl of oatmeal at the campsite at six that morning. I’d seen Ben across the quad a couple of times during the day, but he’d be swamped until they figured out who detonated the bomb and why.

  I rolled my chair away from the desk. “Cynthia’s waiting for your copy. I’m heading out.”

  Jason’s fingers were already flying across his keyboard.

  *

  I stopped at the hospital before driving to Spirit Lake. Nurses and doctors hurried through the corridors. The hospital wasn’t as frenetic as earlier in the day, but the atmosphere of anxiety and disaster still filled the air. They probably wouldn’t let me see Chloe but might tell me how she was doing. I offered my best fake smile at the admitting desk and made my request.

  The clerk wouldn’t give me any information about her. Little would have contacted me if there was news so I figured I’d call him. “I’m at the hospital and it’s past visiting hours. They won’t tell me anything. What do you know?”

  His voice sounded tight. “I’m still here. Ray and I are in the surgery center waiting room. Chloe hasn’t come out of surgery.”

  Calculating the hours she’d been in there, I hurried toward the surgery wing still talking to Little. “I thought you were at the café. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You were working. There was nothing you could do.”

  The waiting room was half full of people desperate to hear about loved ones who’d been hurt in the blast, some whispering hopeful words to another, some staring unseeing, others pacing or fidgeting in their seats.

  Chloe’s dad sat with his elbows on his knees, head in his ha
nds. Little left his chair next to him, met me in the middle of the room and whispered, “Ray’s not doing that well. He’s been drinking.”

  I tilted my head toward the double doors leading to the surgery. “Has she been in there all this time?”

  “They took her right in. Lars was here earlier, but he went back to help with the dinner shift. Chum’s handling the kitchen.”

  Ray lifted his head, sent a furtive glance toward the double doors and slipped a whiskey bottle from his hip pocket. He took a quick nip and put it back.

  I walked over. “You okay, Ray?”

  He blinked, not remembering that we’d met. Everything about the man drooped, his head, rounded back, trembling lower lip.

  “I’m Britt, Little’s sister.”

  He took a second to digest that, then scanned the room, finding Little.

  People wouldn’t automatically guess we were related. I was five-ten, my brother five-five, and he was much better looking than me in my opinion.

  Little sat on Ray’s right and I took the chair on his left, hoping our presence would bolster him enough to help him get through this.

  We sat not talking for half an hour, my stomach the only entity carrying on a conversation. Little said, “Want me to get you a sandwich? There’s a vending machine down the hall.”

  “I’ll go. Do you guys want anything?” Little shook his head. Ray was about to hoist his bottle again. I put my hand lightly on the hand with the bottle. “How about some coffee, Ray?”

  He nodded without making eye contact and tucked the bottle away.

  When I came back, laden with two sandwiches and three coffees—not a simple feat—a doctor had taken Ray aside. He spoke softly but they weren’t quite out of earshot.

  “She lost her toes in the blast, but we’ve saved her foot.” He held Ray’s eyes. “I’ll be straight with you. This might not work and we may still need to remove the foot.”

  Little’s hand flew to his mouth. I dropped a coffee and registered the warm splash on my jeans, but didn’t take my eyes from the doctor. Ray swayed. “Her foot?” The doctor helped him to a seat. Little and I closed in on the doctor, firing questions at him.

  Middle-aged, with a slight East Indian accent, he hesitated. “Ray?”

  Ray’s voice wavered. “You can tell them anything you’re telling me.”

  The doctor faced us. “I’m Dr. Ansari. Chloe’s left foot sustained severe damage from the explosion. I don’t want to give you too much hope. We won’t know if the surgery worked for a few days.” He spoke in technical terms and ended with a concern about infection. That one I understood.

  Little whispered. “When can we see her?”

  “Tomorrow morning. You should all go home and get some rest. We’ll call you, Mr. Hutcheson, when she’s awake.”

  Ray lunged from his chair and went for Dr. Ansari. “You can’t take off her foot.” The alcohol reek was like a cloud around him. He stumbled and the doctor steadied him.

  His face lined with exhaustion, Dr. Ansari asked if we could take him home. We said we would and thanked him. He went back through the double doors.

  Little and I stared speechless at each other for a moment. I hugged him hard. “She’s alive and she’s a strong young woman.”

  As if trying to convince himself, he said, “They have to give you the worst possible scenario. She’s going to be fine.”

  Listing to the left, Ray took a long swallow from his bottle, not bothering to hide what he was doing. “I need Marcie. She would know what to do.”

  Little took his arm. “Marcie’s gone, Ray. You need to be there for Chloe. Let’s go home now.”

  I hooked Ray’s other arm through mine and we led him away from where his daughter was lying unconscious. I asked, “Do you have family to help you and Chloe through this?”

  Ray wiped a hand across his face. “Marcie’s sister had cancer, too. She died five years ago. There’s no one else.”

  Little said, “We’ll help you.”

  Ray’s head hung low. “You’ve been more of a father to Chloe than I have since her mother died, and you’re just a kid yourself.”

  We eventually made it to the parking lot where I convinced Little to let me drive Ray home.

  Strain made my brother’s skin appear chalky in the lighted parking lot. “Stop by the café when you get back. I’ll make you something to eat.”

  Ray passed out on the way to his home in Medicine Falls. He woke when I tugged him out of the car. I put my arm around his waist and half carried him, as weightless as if I carted an armful of used clothing. I dropped him on the bed and draped a blanket over him. Maybe he’d be better in the morning after sleeping it off.

  Chapter 3

  Nearing ten o’clock, I pulled off the highway at Charley’s Bait Shop and angled south passing the single row of businesses on Main Street, including the post office, tourist and antiques shops, a mom-and-pop grocery, and drug store, all dark except for Olafson’s bar. On any other night I’d pull over to watch the navy blue waves rippling under a full moon.

  Little’s Café sat on a corner lot across the intersection at the end of the block. When Little and Lars renovated what had been our family home, they added windows all along the front section. Tourists liked the unobstructed view of the lake. June through August, the restaurant was usually crammed to capacity—fifty or seventy-five if you counted the outdoor bistro—but this time of year tourists headed home and business slowed.

  Little and Lars were in a back booth while the staff finished the restaurant’s closing chores. Lars tugged at the wisps of hair circling his nearly bald head, his jaw tight. My brother’s voice was firm, but his eyes pleaded. “You can’t.”

  They didn’t see me until I was standing next to the booth. “Can’t what? What’s wrong?”

  Their heads swiveled in my direction. Lars said, “I was there today. I wasn’t where the explosion happened, but my students and I went to see it.” He raised his face to the sky. “Jayzus, I didn’t know how to help. I just stood there until an officer took my statement and asked me to leave.”

  Little put his hand on Lars’s arm. “You’re still recovering.”

  “Chloe was hurt and I didn’t even know it.” He slid out of the booth. “I’m going to the back.”

  We watched him make his way through the kitchen, a slight limp still noticeable. He opened the door to their two-bedroom apartment at the back.

  Lars looked like his familiar self—curly fringe of reddish hair, his usual plaid flannel shirt, jeans held up with suspenders—a cross between a circus clown and Paul Bunyan. But he wasn’t himself.

  I flopped into the seat Lars vacated. “Lars was teaching today? No wonder he’s a wreck.”

  Last summer Lars had been beaten by a deranged man intent on getting revenge on our family. The beating put him in a coma for a week. When he came out of it he couldn’t recall the incident and had been in a tailspin since. He’d started teaching history at Branson State and spending less time at the restaurant, hoping the distance from Spirit Lake would help. Little and Lars had been together for three years and loved each other, but their relationship had hit a rocky patch.

  I tried to get Little to tell me more, but he was already in his shell. There would be no talking to him until he was ready. Little was petite and sweet like our mother, and he’d inherited her Norwegian stoicism. My father, now deceased, and I were the ones with our hearts on our sleeves and no inner censor. I’d also inherited his height and bad temper.

  Little brought his attention back to the present. “When I told Lars about Chloe, he got angry, the way he was after he came out of the coma.”

  We sat in silence until my gurgling stomach reminded me why I was there.

  Little rose from the booth. “I’ll get you something to eat.”

  “Sit. I can do it.” I headed to the kitchen.

  Chum was getting ready to leave for the night. “Hey, Chum, been busy?” He usually worked a split shift—lunch and dinner
. A skinny guy with a beer belly, Chum was a good chef but lacked confidence when it came to cooking and self-control when it came to drinking.

  “Real busy. The explosion brought them out. Everyone likes to hash over a disaster and when people learned what happened to Chloe, well, it’s been nuts.” He wiped down his food prep station. “They know who did it yet?”

  I rummaged through the giant refrigerator, found a container of baked chicken and bit into a chicken leg, not bothering with a plate. “Ben’s still there. He’ll let us know when they have details.”

  Still hungry, I slapped together a chicken sandwich with Little’s homemade bread. Chum slid a plate under it and I took it and iced tea back to the booth. Little barely registered my presence. I ate in silence, then gathered my plate and glass. “Rock and I are heading to the cabin.” I wanted to be with Ben but was too tired and dispirited to drive back to Branson. He’d likely be working half the night anyway.

  Little focused on me as if trying to place me. His brain locked into gear and he said, “Rock should be out back.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “You guys will work this out.”

  His mouth made a straight line. “Maybe. Right now I’m more concerned about Chloe.”

  Little and Lars had talked about returning to their teaching jobs at the U of Minnesota in Minneapolis after what happened to Lars, but they’d decided to stay. However, this explosion might have been the final straw. I hated for them to leave Spirit Lake, but my own record on big decisions like that didn’t exactly put me in a position to offer advice. Little was still miffed that I’d left Spirit Lake right after high school and had only come home after a too-long absence.

  I called out to Rock. He raced up from the grove of trees next to the café and hopped into the SUV. I hugged him and scratched his ears. He was forty pounds of exuberance and looked like someone had splashed black and white paint all over him. He’d stayed with the guys while Ben and I were on our camping trip. In fact, he stayed with Little and Lars a lot, because I couldn’t take him on my LA Times assignments. Little and Lars also cared for Knute, a white-muzzled arthritic old mutt, who preferred to spend his days snoozing in the garage. Lars had set up a workshop there with a barrel stove and a couple of old, overstuffed chairs on a grease-stained rug. The dogs loved it—a warm fire, free to come and go, oil and exhaust smells, old bolts and greasy rags, and bones leftover from the restaurant to chew on.