by Neal Griffin
“I’m still not following you, Gus.” Ben gave a smile of encouragement.
“Petite went and killed his girlfriend and got his ass thrown in prison for it. No surprise to me. He always was a moody little prick.”
Ben was stunned. “When, Gus? How long ago did this happen?”
Gus pushed his mop in long smooth strokes across the linoleum and spoke in a cadence. “Heard tell from an old partner of mine who finished up a hitch just as Petite was coming in. Wasn’t much more than a few weeks ago, but Petite pled out quick. Cut himself the best deal he could. Serves him right. He was known to serve up a few deals back in the day.”
When Ben was certain the man was finished, he double-checked the facts. “So the former district attorney of Florence County, William Petite, is in prison for murder?”
Gus looked at Ben like he thought the stranger was simpleminded. “Yep.”
A district attorney had gone down for murder. A district attorney who might have prosecuted a killer named Harlan Lee. Ben’s pulse raced and his mouth started to water. He asked a few more questions, but it was clear Gus knew nothing else. Knowing that the sheriff was probably headed back and might walk in at any moment, Ben prepared to leave.
He’d originally intended to make this trip a quick turnaround, but he couldn’t take the word of an old felon from a county lockup. No one in Newberg would believe him. And if McKenzie found out before he got back, he’d figure out some way to discredit Ben’s information. Ben knew he needed more. He turned to Gus and did his best to sound casual.
“Hey, Gus. You wouldn’t happen to know where Petite is now, would you? Where he’s locked up these days?”
“Course I know. He pulled the worst card a man can in this state.” Gus never missed a stroke with his mop. “He landed at Red Cliff.”
FIFTY-THREE
Doyle McKenzie walked into the quiet room and took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Hello, Red.” McKenzie smacked Lars twice on the face with an open hand, hard enough to get the old man’s attention. McKenzie wanted Lars to know this was no social visit. “Damn, old boy. You have most certainly looked better.”
Lars looked back with distrust in his eyes. McKenzie knew the former chief had never cared for him, and the feeling was mutual.
“You’re probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here, huh? We sure didn’t see much of each other on the job. Truth be told, Lars, I had every reason in the world to avoid your ass. But no hard feelings. Turns out Jorgensen’s every bit the pain in the ass you were, just for different reasons.”
Lars kept his eyes focused on McKenzie, and the detective kept talking.
“I imagine that son-in-law of yours has come by and filled your head with all sorts of bullshit, huh?”
Still McKenzie got nothing but a hard look so he kept talking.
“Yeah, Sawyer is a real piece of work. A fucking straight arrow if there ever was one. You ever have a sergeant like that? Meddling around in your affairs? I’m sure you can appreciate what a pain in my ass he is.” McKenzie delivered the lines as if to say the two old cops had some shared history with by-the-book sergeants.
“I suppose you think I’m here to talk about your daughter, but that’s old news. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but she’s bought and paid for.” McKenzie’s tone was flippant. “Now, this ancient shit here, this we need to talk about.”
McKenzie pulled yellowed papers from an envelope. “You remember this? Long time ago but, hey, it was a hell of an arrest. I seem to recall they made you Officer of the Year off of this, right? The big time comes to Newberg.”
McKenzie held the report out where the old man could see his handwriting from almost twenty years ago. “But I got some bad news for you, Lars. Seems this old boy, Harlan Lee, might be out settling some old scores. Can you believe that shit?”
McKenzie waited for some acknowledgment and was certain he saw a look of understanding in the old man’s eyes. “Problem is, Lars, Jorgensen’s worried you might come around and get all talkative, about what I sure as hell can’t say. Course, that don’t seem to be much of a concern at present, huh?”
McKenzie waited as if expecting a response. After a long moment of shared silence, McKenzie went on.
“I told him, Lars Norgaard is a stand-up guy. Good copper. It’s just…” McKenzie paused, as if what he had to say caused him personal discomfort. “There’s a lot at stake, Lars. And with your little girl up on a murder rap, that shit has got to screw with your sensibilities.”
McKenzie pulled a syringe from his pocket and removed the orange cap over the needle. He took hold of the plastic tube that ran food into Lars’s body. “I’m just as sorry as I can be, old man. Hell, if you had something to live for, we could work through all the details. I’d be happy to somehow spring your daughter and figure out another way to take care of this mess. But that damn son-in-law of yours … It’s best this way, Lars.”
McKenzie lifted the syringe up to the tube and poked the needle through the plastic. His thumb pressed down on the plunger just as the old man somehow raised his arm. He cuffed McKenzie across the wrist, and the syringe fell to the floor.
“Goddamn it, Lars,” McKenzie said. “Knock it off. Take this shit like a man.” He dropped to his knees and cursed as he got down on his belly and low-crawled halfway under the bed.
“Excuse me? What’s going on here?”
McKenzie recognized the voice and cursed under his breath. He shimmied farther ahead and saw the syringe clear against the wall and well beyond his reach. He stretched his full length just as the voice sounded again, this time with her usual tone of superiority. “Come out from under there this instant.”
McKenzie struggled to back out from the tight fit under the bed. Frustrated and out of breath, he stood and turned to the familiar face of Bernice Erickson.
“Oh,” she said, her voice full of contempt. “It’s you.”
McKenzie could barely conceal his own irritation. He knew there would be no fooling this one, but he had to play along as best he could. “Hey, Bernice. Paying your old boss a visit?”
Bernice walked deliberately to the bed, putting herself between McKenzie and Lars. She clearly wasn’t buying it. “Get out, Detective.”
McKenzie dug deep to put some authority in his voice. “Listen here—”
Bernice put her shoulders back and faced the much larger man. Her voice was firm. “I said get out. If you don’t, I’ll call security.”
“I’ve got as much right to be here as you do, you old—”
McKenzie stopped when his cell phone chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the area code was out of Florence County. McKenzie glared at Bernice as he stepped into the hallway.
The two-minute conversation left McKenzie shaking his head wondering when he was going to catch a damn break. He hung up the phone craving a drink and a smoke. McKenzie needed to make arrangements for what he knew would be Sawyer’s next move. And his last one, if I have anything to do with it.
McKenzie poked his head back inside the old man’s room and saw Bernice Erickson had now pulled up a stool. The old bitch was already on the phone speaking to someone about an unauthorized visitor. Defeated for now, McKenzie scowled at Lars. The old man looked back with what seemed a sideways fuck you sort of glance. McKenzie headed down the hallway with pressing matters at hand. He’d deal with Lars Norgaard another time.
FIFTY-FOUR
The Gothic building jutted against the morning skyline. Seeing it, Ben thought, Now, that’s a prison. Red Cliff State Penitentiary was the remotest of all Wisconsin’s prisons, cut into the southwestern corner of Lake Superior. The severe structure would have looked forbidding even if you didn’t know it was a prison—the whole building seemed to have a piss-poor attitude.
Built in the late 1800s, Red Cliff looked nothing like the campus environments of modern correctional facilities. The towering walls were thirty-inch-thick stone and topped with six feet of looped razor wire. Pe
rimeter positions equipped with floor-mounted binoculars and industrial-grade air whistle alarms were built into the walls every fifty yards and on each corner. Inmates and visitors alike passed through thick steel gates that Ben estimated were thirty feet high. Ominous gray stone gargoyles stared down on all who entered, as did the flesh-and-blood guards who walked along the top of the wall, their high-powered weapons clearly visible. Ben drove through the gates with a sense of foreboding, thinking sarcastically that at some point in the prison’s history someone must have decided to fill in the moat.
The night before, he’d driven across the top of Wisconsin, following the two-hundred-mile southern shoreline of the world’s largest freshwater lake. When exhaustion overtook him, he’d pulled into a deserted rest stop and slept fitfully for a couple of hours, lulled to sleep by the lapping waves of Lake Superior outside the minivan. Alex haunted his dreams, calling out from a dismal jail cell, begging him to come back. At one point Ben woke to see Alex’s face pressed against the window of the van. He screamed and sat up, and the image disappeared. Shaken, he’d driven to a nearby café, not because he craved food but because he realized it was either eat or stop functioning. He powered down a plate of eggs and a pot of coffee before resuming his journey, tracing long, winding roads through the virgin forest of towering pines.
The sun was halfway to its noon position when Ben arrived at the prison and took his place deep in a long line of would-be visitors that stretched a hundred yards or more along the exterior wall. Frustrated, Ben craned his neck to try and see the front of the line, without success. Soon enough, the guards announced that the number of visitors had reached the maximum permitted, and no one else was allowed to join the line. Ben felt a wash of relief as he watched the news fall heavily on late-arriving families, who, he assumed, had probably driven hours to spend time with a loved one.
“There’s a Motel Six four miles up the road.” The guard’s voice was robotic. “If you want to come back tomorrow, you should get here by six A.M. to guarantee a spot.”
“But visiting hours start at one o’clock,” a woman said, sounding perplexed.
“Fine.” The guard shrugged. “Show up at noon. See how much good that does you.”
Ben stood in line outside for over two hours, then waited in a reception area for another forty-five minutes. He filled out the prison visitation request, using his real name and address with no mention of police affiliation. He endured a near strip search without complaint. He’d get in on his own merits or not at all.
Ben was certain McKenzie had made his search at the sheriff’s office come up dry, but there was no way McKenzie could have anticipated Ben’s conversation with Gus. Learning of Petite’s existence and location was just plain old dumb luck, the cornerstone of any successful investigation. Ben figured he had a few hours at best before McKenzie learned of this development and figured out a response.
A guard entered the room and began to summon the next round of visitors.
“Jacobs, Allison, Myers, Diaz, Monroe, and”—the guard ran his finger down the page and Ben sat up, hoping—“Whitfield. Step forward for visitation.”
The guard continued giving instructions, but Ben tuned him out, remembering his early visits to Alex in jail, before Tia flexed her muscle. Ben had spent years locking people up, and it had never crossed his mind to wonder what happened next. You throw a crook in prison for ten, twelve years and then what? The guy is going to have family, he’s going to have folks who care about him. Those people, Ben thought, are right here. They’ve driven hundreds of miles, waited in line for hours, to have a chance to spend a few minutes with a loved one. What kind of system allows that? Ben answered his own question. Your system. You spent your life in it.
Alex. He tried to send good thoughts her way, then dozed fitfully until a voice said, “Are you Sawyer?”
Ben opened his eyes and saw the guard staring down. “Yeah,” he said, straightening up. “I’m Ben Sawyer.”
“You get forty-five minutes. Clock’s ticking.”
Ben got to his feet and fell in with his group as they were hustled through a series of tunnellike corridors lined with men in dark uniforms. Their footfalls echoed ominously against the hard surfaces of the floor, walls, and low ceiling. In the distance Ben could hear the loud voices of anxious men shouting among themselves. The vulgarity reminded him of the way cops talk when they’re alone. From the changes in the sound, it seemed that the men were being shuffled along much like the visitors. Suddenly the voices grew louder, then stopped.
The guards guided the group of visitors through a door and into daylight. Ben was surprised to find himself in an open yard, surrounded on all four sides by walls three stories high. The walls were intersected by a “ceiling” of thick chain-link fencing that created a caged-in effect over the entire yard. The crisscross pattern was tight enough to keep anyone from squeezing through but loose enough for a sniper to track a target. Underfoot was hard brown dirt with short tufts of dead grass. Several chair-sized tree stumps served as evidence that nothing was allowed to interfere with a sharpshooter’s line of sight. Several old wrought-iron park benches and two dilapidated, drab green picnic tables were the only furniture. Guards roamed the yard, tapping billy clubs in their palms or against one leg. Looking up and around, Ben saw rifle barrels extended from the highest windows, swinging in one direction, then another.
In the center of the yard stood about twenty men. All wore dark blue trousers and light blue collared shirts with a six-digit number stenciled over the right pocket. When the visitors arrived, the men cheered in unison and sought out their loved ones, hugging and kissing the new arrivals. Ben watched, happy to see that this simple pleasure was allowed. Alone in the middle of the yard stood an odd-looking character who looked to be a few years older than Ben and of slighter build. His clothes were much darker and crisper than those of all the other inmates, and his nervous energy was apparent. His skin was smooth with a deep tan, but he bore fresh bruises under both eyes and his lip was swollen with an ugly welt. His haircut was neatly feathered and looked like one of those two-hundred-dollar jobs from an upscale salon. He reeked of fresh meat. Ben walked straight over to him.
“Mr. Petite?”
“Who are you?” The voice was educated but nervous, the diction precise. Every bit the convict lawyer.
“Mr. Petite, I’m Ben Sawyer from Newberg. I appreciate your being willing to see me.”
Petite’s gaze roamed over Ben’s face, his voice sharp with worry. “Newberg? I told your people I’m not going to make any trouble. Why are you here?”
Ben did his best to hide his confusion and play along.
“Uh … they sent me to check on you.” Even he heard the bullshit in his voice, but he kept trying. “So how are you doing?”
“What do you mean how am I doing? How do you think I’m doing? I’ve been here less than a week. Somewhere around three thousand days to go. I was told I’d be left alone. Just do my time, right? Unless—” There was hope in Petite’s voice. “Has something changed?”
“Changed?” Ben couldn’t hide his confusion. “No. Everything is uh … everything is still like we planned.”
Petite’s pinched face hardened a bit. “Who did you say you were? Who sent you up here?”
Ben took a stab in the dark. “Doyle McKenzie sent me.”
“Never heard of him.” Petite looked around nervously. He turned and began to walk toward the door marked INMATES ONLY. VISITORS STAY BACK 100 FEET.
“I’m going back to my cell. We’ve got nothing to talk about.”
“All right, Petite. I’m on my own. I want to talk to you about Harlan Lee.”
Petite stopped. After a frozen moment, he turned slowly to look at Ben.
“Say that again? You want to talk about who?”
“Harlan Lee. Do you remember the case?”
“Why do you want to talk—” Petite shook his head as if clearing away a bad idea. “I don’t know any Harlan Lee and I don
’t think we should be talking, so if you will excuse me…” He turned away again.
Ben called out, “Okay. I just thought the Lee case might be related to something going on down in Newberg. Damnedest thing. My wife? She’s locked up on a murder rap just like you. She’s locked up in a county facility. She’s not in prison yet.”
Petite stopped and looked back, a perplexed expression on his face. “What do you mean?”
“My wife, she’s locked up on a murder charge, but I can guarantee you, she didn’t kill anyone.”
“Your wife?” Petite asked. “Murder?”
“Alex Sawyer. She’s the daughter of Lars Norgaard,” Ben said in a matter-of-fact tone. “He arrested Harlan Lee. Still don’t remember?”
Petite turned his head in both directions, then reluctantly moved back toward Ben. When he was close enough, he whispered, “What do you mean, your wife didn’t do it?”
Ben kept his voice low to keep from spooking the man. “My wife is being framed for murder. She didn’t kill anyone.”
“But what has that got to do with—” Petite caught himself. “With this person you mentioned. This Harlan Lee.”
Ben knew he was getting to Petite.
“Because of another cop involved, Henry Lipinski. Don’t tell me you don’t remember him.”
“What about Sheriff Lipinski?” Petite’s interest grew.
“Mr. Petite, Lipinski was arrested for some very serious charges involving child pornography. A charge he denied, by the way. Then he was found hanging in his cell in the Chippewa County Jail. They’re calling it a suicide.” Ben shrugged and let the idea take hold. “Course you never know. Maybe he did kill himself.”
Petite stood silent, staring into space.
“A man named Donaldson is on the hook for a murder down in Illinois. I’m betting he also played a role in the case against Harlan Lee. Does that help your memory, counselor?”