Cold Land: A Mystery Thriller

by John Oakes

  “Can’t say for sure.”

  “No chance you have any contact info for any of these guys.” Jake shook his head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was a long shot…” For a moment, Jake felt dizzy. He gripped the bar to stay steady and a sheen of sweat broke out on his face. Something inside Jake swirled, telling him everything he was doing was wrong. He was in the wrong place, solving the wrong case.

  “You okay?” Hanna asked.

  “Yeah,” Jake wheezed. “Yeah I’m fine.” He swallowed and turned to put both elbows on the bar, and pressed the heel of his palm into his eye. “Traveling’s getting to me. Sorry.” He sniffed and exhaled slowly, getting his bearings back. “Looks like you’ve told me all you can. Can I give you my number?”

  “Sure.” Hanna whipped out her phone faster than Jake could reach for a pen.

  “Right,” he said. “I guess that works the same.” He rattled off his number, then she texted him her name so he’d have hers.

  “Thanks for your time and the water,” Jake said.

  “Promise to come back.”

  Jake put his hat on and stepped out onto the sidewalk, minding his breathing to avoid any sense of disorientation. He hit the crosswalk button at the corner and tucked his hands into his jacket until the light told him to go.

  Jerry was waiting across the street inside a restaurant called “Anchor’s Away.” The smell of the fryers hit Jake’s nostrils halfway across the intersection, sending his stomach into fits. It dawned on him why he must be feeling so loopy. Not only had he not slept in some time, he hadn’t eaten. He pressed through the door and loped to Jerry’s table by the window, lightheaded and nauseous, sitting down heavily.

  “Best fish and chips in the city,” Jerry said. “Crab cakes, you name it.”

  “Texans are generally a mammal-eating people,” Jake said. “But whatever. I’d eat a stick of butter rolled in acorns right now.”

  Jerry sipped at a soda and looked out the window. “Yeah, I knew a couple fellas from Texas in my platoon in Vietnam. One was named Rodger and the other had the last name Rodgers. So Rodger just became ‘Tex.’”

  “That so.”

  “Being from the state of Texas they were easy friends. Yeah. One day they went on patrol with me and three others, Randal, Marks and Sergeant Timmet. We were supposed to be looking for booby traps, pits, anything Charlie had put up the night before.”

  The waiter came up and asked Jake if he needed anything. “I’ll take any sort of sandwich without fish. Or with. Surprise me.” Apparently, Jerry had already put in for the fish and chips. The waiter left and Jerry started up again, still looking out the window.

  “So, Rodgers has point and Tex is second, I’m third and so forth. We’d been in country at least six months by that point, else Sergeant Timmet would’ve been up front. Our eyes were sharp as lasers by then. Could spot fishing line on the ground at ten paces. Fishing line was what they’d use to string grenades together or trip a claymore. Well, Tex and Rodgers start talking about barbecue. Up to this point, whenever anyone mentioned barbecue, Tex and Rodgers would be the ones defending Texas barbecue as the ultimate achievement of mankind, over the Carolinas, Chicago, Saint Louis, even over Kansas City. But this time they got into a dispute over different cities in Texas and dry rub versus sauce. Things grew a little heated to the point that Sarge threatened to take Rodgers off point.”

  Jerry’s fish and chips came, and the golden battered pieces of cod, which normally would have done little to excite Jake, glowed like the Glory of God was upon them.

  “We were about a half hour from our camp, when Rodgers quietly remarks over a shoulder to Tex that when they got back home to Texas, he was going to eat his words. Literally.”

  Jerry picked up a french fry and bit into it.

  “That was the moment Rodgers stepped on a land mine. They heard the click as far back as Sarge in the rear. Now the idea is if you don’t move, you can set a weight on the mine, like a tool box or a heavy radio, and then step off none the worse for wear. Rodgers went stiff as a board. We all did. He starts huffing and puffing, though. Sarge runs up, all cool, telling Rodgers to stand still, and we can get him off. But we look around, and no one has anything heavy enough to keep the mine depressed. Rodgers starts sputtering and crying. Sarge turns and asks me and Marks who’s the faster runner. We didn’t answer right away. Maybe because we weren’t sure, or because we didn’t want to run a mile and a half through possible booby traps to camp.”

  “Jesus.” Jake muttered, completely forgetting his hunger. “What happened?”

  “Sarge picked me.”

  “So you ran that whole way?”

  “After a few minutes of running along the trail, I heard a big boom off to my rear.” Jerry dipped his fish into tartar sauce and took a bite. “Ohh, shoot-a-pickle, that is piping hot, I tell ya.”

  “The mine went off? So what did you do?”

  Jerry fanned his mouth with one hand and breathed in and out over the fish until he could chew it properly. He took a sip of his soda. “I figured I could run another ten minutes to camp and maybe die in a booby trap. Or I could run back to the way I’d come and most likely live, since I’d already covered that ground. But I’d been ordered to run to camp. If I turned back then, I could get brought up on a charge. So I decided to take my chances with the booby traps and follow orders.”

  Jerry took a bite, leaving Jake wondering what happened. He told himself that Jerry obviously didn’t die, but still.

  “I got back to camp and told a superior what happened. They sent me out again with another squad, going the way I’d run. When we found my team, everyone was dead. Sarge and Randall were shot dead, and curiously so was Rodgers, who’d been standing on the mine. Tex had been shot up and something had blown his bottom half to shreds. Marks was nowhere to be seen.”

  “Rodgers didn’t blow up?”

  “I thought about that scene for years after. You could say it was my first murder case.” Jerry wiped his mouth with a napkin and balled it in his fist. “I finally decided that Charlie had set up a far more powerful device than a mine. Charlie knew now that a group of GIs would stand around trying to disarm it. So they rigged it not with explosives, but with a battery to send a little electrical impulse to a small light or buzzer, maybe. Then within five or ten minutes or so, they’d be there to ambush the whole team. Crafty devils.” Jerry sipped from his soda, and carried on in a conversational manner. “Charlie swooped down and shot them all. But they took Marks alive, it turned out.”

  “But you said there was a boom.”

  Jerry raised a finger. “Ah yes. The boom I figured was a grenade they left on Tex to make it look like the mine went off. So maybe then we wouldn’t catch on to their trick. When the internet came around I listened to different examples of grenades versus mines, and I became certain.”

  “But Rodgers had been the one on the mine.”

  “I puzzled over this too. I figured once hell broke loose, they’d just mixed them up. White people look the same to them. But actually, Marks had the real story.”

  “How’d he escape?”

  “He didn’t. Poor fella spent three years in captivity before dying from sickness. But thing was, he told the story to another fella who was lucky enough to survive his stretch and ended up in the Hanoi Hilton. That fella, name of Wickers, he finds me one day right here in the Cities and calls me up. This must have been 1980. I had a few years on the force. He tells me about a fella named Marks he was a POW with and asks if I’m the Jerry Unger that served with him.”

  Jerry shrugged and ate a fry.

  “I tell him I am. I find out how poor Marks met his end, may he rest in eternal glory. Then Wickers tells me the full story of what happened while I was running for base. Before Charlie showed up, Tex told Rodgers on the mine to admit that the dry rub was superior. Eventually, Rodgers sees Tex with tears in his eyes. And Rodgers is so scared, he tells Tex that it’s tr
ue. The dry rub is superior to sauce. After that, Tex ran at him, stepped on the mine and shoved Rodgers away. Shoved him hard enough he tumbled ass over teakettle. Tex told everyone to go and leave him. Before anyone could tell him no, the shooting started.”

  Jerry took another bite of his food. “Wow that is a good piece of fish, I tell ya.”

  Something woke Jake from a trance. It was the waiter slipping his tray onto the table before him. Jake ignored it.

  “Wickers said that what Marks wanted to know all those years in prison camps is if he should have volunteered to run the gauntlet. Because if I’d lived, then, basically, he should have volunteered. Wickers made sure to say Marks didn’t mean it personally. He hoped I lived. But that question bothered him more than anything, more than missing his family or hamburgers or beer. Then Wickers said to me, ‘Well, guess the answer was yes. Marks should have run instead of you.’”

  Jake’s hands were trembling. Maybe from low blood sugar, he told himself.

  “Now what in the world got me thinking about all that?” Jerry asked. “Oh, it’s ‘cause a fella my age maybe shouldn’t be eating fried food and french fries dipped in tarter sauce.” Jerry gave a hearty chuckle. “But then I remembered that ever since that conversation with Wickers, I’ve run at least a mile and a half every single day. Doctor says I’m healthy as any man in his practice, my age or no.”

  “You run a mile and a half every day?”

  “Sometimes I go farther if the weather’s nice. Never missed a day, not even after my accident. Old fella with a head bandage just truckin’ along the side of the road.” Jerry tittered. “Gave the nurses a fit.”

  “What happens if you don’t do it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What happens if you miss a day.”

  “Son, I said, I haven’t near missed a day.”

  Jake looked down at his sandwich and took a bite without seeing first what the waiter had brought him. He finished his food quickly, barely registering the flavors, mind elsewhere almost dreaming.

  “So, Jacob Adler from Texas. You ever run?”

  “Sometimes. I usually get plenty of exercise on the job.

  “What do you make of this murder situation so far?”

  “I’d put heavy odds on one of David’s close associates being the culprit.”

  “That trucks with me. An odd scene, though.”

  “You didn’t get a chance to see David, but his wallet was emptied, and it’d been carrying a gang of bills. So greed was part of the picture. I think that printing stuff was left there on purpose. To leave it all at David’s feet.”

  “I’ve never seen such a knife collection. Musta been some kind of nerd,” Jerry said. “Live by the sword, I guess.”

  “The neighbor lady I talked to indicated they were trouble, the Young boys. But she didn’t go into much detail ‘cept she was certain the older brother, Russell, killed her cat.”

  “Killed her cat? Well, that’s psycho behavior.”

  “Best I can tell — without up to date resources — we’re gonna have to track down David’s associates the old fashioned way. The two twins, his brother and especially his girlfriend, who by-the-by is probably pregnant. Might be pretty far along by the sound of it.”

  “Where do we begin?”

  “You’ve got friends in various police services around here, yeah? Think you could try and run down some more info on these folks?”

  “Sure I can.”

  “I’ll hit the bricks, then, and see what I can find that way.”

  Jerry insisted on paying the bill. “Can’t have you pay for your first meal in town.”

  “Thank you kindly.”

  “Welcome to Minnesota. Where the men are strong, and the women are well-behaved—er no.” Jerry shook his head. “That’s not the saying. Anyhow. I forget.”

  At the cruiser, Jake assured Jerry he was okay on foot, and Jerry drove off, turning a corner out of sight. Now that he was all alone in a strange city, Jake looked around at the street and store signs, at the cars passing by in all directions, none of them with any idea of who he was or a care for what he was doing. Jake pulled out a packet of dip and stuck it in his bottom lip, and took a few long, calming breaths as the evergreen scent opened up his airways and the nicotine hit his system.

  It was the one thing his girl had liked least about him, apart from the fact that he wasn’t from Minnesota. He’d gone back to the dip in the last week, somewhat the way everyone goes back to bad habits in hard times and somewhat in protest.

  Jake narrowed an eye, glaring down the street toward the Young residence, and turned all his latent hurt and anger on the associates of David Young.

  SIX

  They Came for the Brats

  Jake sat in a rocking chair on Mrs. Holbach’s three-season porch, sipping an iced tea and thinking the case over. He worried that the Minneapolis cops were already pulling in suspects and compiling evidence on the killer. He couldn’t let them get ahead if he was to solve it first, and yet, he had little to no resources. The one thing he knew more about than the locals was what Nelson had strung together about the money orders. Dustin, the squirrelly mechanic, had said he’d been mad enough at David Young to do something about it. He had motive and means, as did anyone else David had scammed. But opportunity? It was hard to imagine Dustin showing up at David’s house after getting swindled and David inviting him on in to eat yogurt and check out his collection of potential murder weapons.

  No, Jake believed Dustin when he said that smart people in his immediate circle had advised him to forget retribution. Why they would do such a thing was another matter.

  In the final tally, despite what he knew, Jake wasn’t sure he was better off than the city investigators.

  Mrs. Holbach opened the door. “Can I get you anything, dear?”

  “No thank you ma’am. Hope my presence isn’t any bother.”

  “Oh, no. It’s nice to have someone around. And maybe if you don’t have to arrest a murderer, you could move a couple pieces of furniture for me before you go.”

  A thirty year old two-door car with an elongated body slowed before the Young residence and turned into the driveway, creaking as it did so. The car stopped and kicked as the engine turned off. Two figures emerged with shoulder-length tawny hair in curls, but they moved with the plodding gait of males. They went around back and out of sight.

  “Go back inside, Mrs. Holbach. Might need a rain check on the furniture thing.”

  Jake kicked up from his post and out of the enclosed porch. He ran at an angle across the street and got behind the rusty old tuna boat in the driveway. After checking the front windows of the house for movement, he examined the inside of the car. The backseat was covered in blankets and old quilts. The front seats were torn and tattered. The passenger side had a Vikings seat pad probably to cover an exposed spring.

  The young men were already out the back door, each with armfuls of food.

  Jake stood. “Gentlemen, could I have a word?”

  They froze, shoulder-to-shoulder, appearing nearly identical. Their shoulder-length, rust-colored curls wafted in the breeze. Apart from their similar boots and ratty jeans, one wore an olive drab army surplus coat, large sunglasses and a chin beard. The other wore a scuffed and faded Vikings jacket and had a trimmed mustache matching the hue of the other’s chin beard.

  “Who are you?” the one with the shades and chin beard asked.

  Jake hesitated, again confronted with his hazy status. “I work for the police. Could we have a word?”

  Shades shifted from side to side. “Wha— what about, man?”

  “Did you hear what happened to David Young?”

  The men looked at each other, both growing more skittish in their small movements.

  “What if he isn’t a cop?” Shades asked.

  “He kinda seems like one,” Mustache answered.

  “There’s no way he’s from around here.”

  Mustache shrugged under the
fifteen pounds of bratwurst slung over his shoulder. “Come on.”

  Before Jake could react, Mustache ran at him hoisting the brats like a battle axe. Jake flinched and turned a shoulder up just before many pounds of processed meet slammed into his shoulder blade, spinning him around onto his rear in the gravel. “Son of a—”

  Shades ran past hurling yogurts at Jake like suppressive fire as he made for the driver’s door. Mustache raised his package of brats high as if to deliver the coup de grace, but Jake’s fighting instincts took over, and he planted the heel of his boot on the top of Mustache’s shin, just below his knee. The shoving blow stopped him painfully in his tracks, but the impetus of his meat weapon pulled him off balance and down onto Jake, who hooked a right fist into his ribs as he collapsed upon him.

  Jake stood over Mustache and grabbed him by the back collar of his Viking’s jacket, then pulled his .45 and yanked him to his feet simultaneously.

  “Hands where I can see them, chuckle head.”

  Mustache obeyed, and Jake walked backward down the driveway toward the rear of the house.

  “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” Mustache said. “What you want, man?”

  “Is that your brother?” Jake asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “He gonna leave you here?”

  “No way,” Mustache whined.

  “Good. Guess I’m gonna get to have my chat with y’all, after all.”

  Jake took him inside, sat him in a dining chair and holstered his weapon, looking about for a restraint. He found a roll of cellophane packaging tape and figured it would have to do.

  “How come you can never find the ends on these dang things.” Jake picked over the tape uselessly. “Yes. Finally.” He peeled a pointed strip back, only for the strip to tear and make another mess of the tape. “Ah, hell.” Jake threw the tape down and put a hand on his pistol. “You move out of that chair, and I shoot. Cool?”

  Jake stepped to the front door and unlocked it. When he got outside, Shades had the car started and backed to the edge of the street. Jake waved him in. “Come on. We need to talk.” He saw uncertainty in Shades even though he couldn’t see his eyes. A twitch of his head straight back toward the rear of the house told the story.