Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries)

by Tom Hilpert

  Jensen's blue eyes became very still. “Anything else?”

  “Not much,” I said. “They were operating in the far north, like here. Could have run for Canada when they were done.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “The state police got involved. Started staking out likely targets at likely times. They got lucky, and the gang did a bank while they were there.” I sipped some more coffee. God's gift to Lutheran pastors, and to anyone else who saw the light.

  “Jonah,” said Jensen, “you don't have to make a big production out of it. Tell me what happened.”

  “There was a firefight. One of the robbers was killed. They figure after that, the gang kind of broke up, like the James gang did after the failed raid down in Northfield, way back when.”

  “You're rotten at this,” said Jensen. “I can see there's more. Come on, I thought you wanted my help.”

  “The guy who shot the perp was my dad.”

  Dan was silent for a bit. “That is truly weird,” he said at last. “They get anything on the dead guy?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “He was from Duluth.”

  CHAPTER 14

  On Friday night I went to the WW. 'WW' stood for Wally's Walleye Bar & Grill. It was an old establishment in downtown Grand Lake. They served walleye fingers, which were good, and hamburgers, which were also good. They also served alcohol, which was good, in my opinion, if taken in moderation, but it was rarely consumed in moderation at the WW.

  I slid into my regular high-backed booth, and Ally, a petite, blond waitress in her thirties, came over.

  “Hi, Jonah,” she said, smiling devastatingly. “Want anything tonight?”

  “I'm working,” I said. “Coke on the rocks, and a cup of seafood chowder.”

  “You got it,” she said, turning away and drawing the eyes of about a third of the male occupants of the room.

  Before she could get back with my drink, Bud Richards slid into the booth across from me. Bud was big and burly with a pot belly, but still a manly, strong-looking man.

  We talked about the Vikings for a few minutes, and he gave me some pointers on catching fall crappie. There was a lull in the conversation.

  “Jonah,” said Bud at last, “you ever wonder if it's all just a crap shoot?”

  Across the room, I saw Ally raise a glass of coke and look at me, and then Bud. I shook my head slightly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked Bud.

  He waved his hands. “You know, life. Everything. I mean, maybe it's all just random, and there's no point to anything we do.”

  “Why do you care?” I asked.

  He stared at me. “I didn't expect you to say that. I mean, shouldn't I care?”

  “I'm not saying if you should care or not. But you seem to. So, why?”

  He looked into his beer for a moment. “I dunno.”

  “Look at it this way, Bud. If it's all just a meaningless, random crap shoot, then there's no reason why you – a product of that randomness – should care that there's no meaning.”

  “I've had a few beers already,” said Bud, nodding at me confidentially. “I'm not sure I follow you.”

  “The very fact that you wonder about it all, strongly suggests that there is meaning to life, and that you were made to find it.”

  “Oh.”

  “You ever see a lion in a small cage?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “Como Zoo, in St. Paul, when I was a kid.”

  “What was it doing?” I asked.

  He thought. “Pacing around like it was restless.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It was probably born in a zoo. That cage was the only life it ever knew. So why did it pace around like that?”

  “Because it wanted to get out?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “Oh, I get it. 'Cause lions weren't made to be caged up?”

  “Right. That lion was restless because it was made to live free in the wild. And even if it never experienced that life, at some level, it was still seeking that. It was made for more. In a cage or not, it still has a lion’s heart, a lion’s desires.”

  “So you're saying, I wonder about life, because I was made for more?”

  “Exactly. The very fact that the possibility of meaninglessness bothers you suggests that you were made for a meaningful life.”

  We chatted some more, and after a while, Bud left my booth. Ally came with my coke and seafood chowder.

  “You looked like you were in the middle of one of your sessions there,” she said.

  “Yeah. People need to talk sometimes.”

  “I know I do,” she said. “Got a minute?”

  “No one here but you right now,” I said.

  “I'll take a quick break,” she said, and slid into the booth. While I ate, she told me about her latest boyfriend. She was a single mom, probably too attractive for her own good, and she had experienced a string of bad relationships.

  Mostly, I just listened and offered support. After about ten minutes she thanked me, and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and went back to work.

  Over the next two hours, the bar got noisier and more full, and several other people stopped by to talk and share their problems. I liked to think of it as my public confession booth.

  At about eleven, I was getting tired, and ready to head home. I looked over at the bar and saw Jasmine and Tony Stone. He was sitting on a stool with his elbows on the bar, his legs spread wide. Jasmine stood next to him. They both looked relaxed and comfortable. I wondered again what the problem was with their marriage.

  He glanced up and saw me looking at them. He bent down and murmured in her ear, no doubt to make himself heard over the loud music that was playing.

  I stood up and reached for my coat, but someone grabbed my arm first. It was Jasmine.

  “Well hello, Pastor Jonah,” she said. She was wearing tight black leather pants and a close-fitting red tank top. She exuded a kind of animal attraction.

  “I didn't expect to see you here,” she said.

  “I'm sort of the bar chaplain,” I said. “How're you guys doing?”

  “Rotten,” she said. “He brings me here, and then sits all night eyeing the other girls.”

  The bar sound system began playing “Smooth” by Santana. Jasmine grabbed my hand. “Let's dance,” she said.

  “I don't think so,” I began, but her grip was surprisingly strong, and she seemed to know about physical leverage and how to use it. Before I could figure out how to gracefully break free, she had pulled me over to the tiny dance floor at the back of the room. True, I could have broken her hold, but it would have taken enough effort to make a scene. She slid her arms around me and pressed her body tightly against mine, moving with the rhythm of the song. I hadn't experienced anything like this since tenth grade, when Natalie Hensen gave me a dance that fired my adolescent dreams for years afterward.

  I tried to push her away, but she tightened her arms. “You're strong,” she said in a little-girl voice. “Please don't hurt me.”

  “This isn't appropriate,” I said. For some reason I was having difficulty with my breathing.

  “I know, isn't it fun?” She rolled her hips against me, and leaned in, and I could feel all the ways in which men and women are different. At one level, of course I liked it. But at a more fundamental level, it reminded me of my dead wife Robyn, and I felt violated to be so close to the body of another woman whom I barely knew. A second later, I also remembered that she was married, too. I chided myself for not thinking of that first.

  Abruptly, she flipped herself around, and backed into me, raising her arms and dancing, pulling my hands down along her sides and hips. I felt incredibly awkward and foolish. I could feel my face burning.

  “Jasmine,” I said, stepping back, “This is all wrong, at so many levels.” I could tell that many people in the room were watching us. I'm sure Tony Stone was.

  She stepped up and slid her arms over my shoulders again. “Would you fight Tony for me?”
she whispered, her lips tickling my ears. She slid her hands down to my butt. I reached back and grabbed them, and mercifully, the song ended.

  “I could ditch Tony,” she said. “We could go someplace.”

  “We're done here,” I said. “I don't want to see you, except with your husband, in my office.”

  Her eyes were unreadable. “You really don’t want to?”

  “Want to or not, I won’t,” I said. “You may have just ruined any small hope I had of helping your marriage. No way Tony will talk about anything with me after this.”

  Now she looked speculative. She waved her hand. “Oh, I can get Tony to come back, don’t worry.” She gave me another long, thoughtful look, and then walked toward the bar and her husband, glancing back at me once.

  My face was red, and I felt like everyone in the room was staring at me. I felt dirty, and had an almost overwhelming desire to go home and take a shower. As I gathered my things to leave, I thought at least one thing was clear: whatever the exact issues were, there was no doubt that the Stones had a deeply troubled marriage.

  CHAPTER 15

  On Saturday morning, Ethel Ostrand called me up.

  “What if I don't have enough money to pay for my funeral?” she asked me.

  There are, of course, a number of possible answers to a question like this. Most of them, I consider to be funny, which means they are probably in poor taste. Finally, I settled for a truism.

  “Ethel,” I said, “I promise you, you don't need to worry about paying for your funeral.”

  I took a sip of coffee. More than one person had observed that I drink a lot of it, and that it may possibly have side effects someday, so I was experimenting with instant coffee, on the theory that I wouldn't like it, and would quit drinking so much. So far, it wasn't working. It just reminded me of camping, and waking up to pleasantly chill mornings in the outdoors and how drinking instant coffee is a really excellent way to begin a new day. Or, in the present case, to continue it. The cat didn’t seem to like it, though. As a rule, I was sharing all my food and drink with him, but coffee hadn’t caught on. All the more for me.

  “Do you need anything right now, Ethel?” I asked.

  “I need groceries.”

  “All right, do you have a list?”

  She read a me a grocery list over the phone. There wasn't much to it, but since she lived alone and was not particularly active, I assumed she probably didn't eat that much. Maybe, I thought, I should teach her the finer points of cooking well for the single person. After all, since I'd been single for five years, and she for almost twenty, there was a lot she probably still had to learn.

  Her groceries added up to one large paper-bag full. When I got to her house, I put them in her kitchen for her. I noted approvingly that she still had plenty of other food on hand.

  “Anything else, Ethel?” I called from her kitchen. She was busy with something in her bedroom.

  “No thank you, Pastor,” she said.

  I noticed a few bills on her kitchen counter – gas and electric. Searching around, I found some scrap paper and a pencil. Quickly I wrote down the information and stuck the paper in my pocket. I came out of the kitchen and found her in the living room. She reached out a plump, vein-ridden hand to me, holding two twenty dollar notes.

  “No,” I said. “This one's on me. I owe you that, and more.”

  “You don't really owe me pastor. I was mad at you, and it was mostly your fault I lost that money, but you aren't the one who robbed me.”

  “Ethel,” I said. “Do you have any doctor bills or anything like that?”

  “I don't really think it's any of your business, pastor,” she said.

  “It isn't. But I want to help pay your expenses until we recover your money.”

  She looked at me, and her glasses reflected the light so I couldn't see her eyes. She sighed.

  “I’m fine, Pastor, really.”

  After I left her place, I ran by the utility companies and paid her bills, asking them to contact me next month about what she owed then also. I fretted a little that there must be other bills I hadn’t seen, but I couldn’t do much more without her cooperation. Afterwards, I went home to study and drink more coffee. The cat studied with me, purring and plopping down on every book I opened.

  “You’re a great help,” I told him.

  We had a brief dispute about the suitability of lying on my computer keyboard, but eventually I made my point clear, and he settled for the books only. At one point, he tried the coffee again, sniffing at the mug I had put out for him, but he rejected it. Cats are smart, but not that smart, I guess.

  Halfway through the third cup, my cell phone rang.

  “Did you remember you have an appointment this morning?” asked Julie, my secretary, without so much as a good morning.

  “Fine, thank you,” I said. “And you?”

  “Don't try to make me feel guilty. You forgot, didn't you?”

  “Have you ever heard of enabling?” I asked her.

  “I'm not sure.” She sounded suspicious.

  “Sometimes, when someone is addicted to alcohol or drugs, the people around him kind of help him to stay addicted. It's not intentional, they just do things to compensate for his problems, and keep him from suffering the consequences. This allows the pattern to continue.”

  “You never answered my question,” said Julie.

  “I think you are enabling me,” I said. “But I do appreciate it. Deeply. Now, see if you can figure out the answer to your question.”

  “Things at Harbor Lutheran would fall apart without me,” she said defensively.

  “Now you get it,” I said. “I exist primarily so that you feel needed. It too, is part of the whole enabling system.”

  “You are a very frustrating man, Pastor Borden.”

  “I aim to please. By the way, Julie...”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  She snorted and hung up.

  Now that I had been reminded, I remembered perfectly well that Angela the feminist was coming back for another appointment, and what's more, she was bringing her husband. I still had time to make it to the church by foot.

  ~

  When my wife Robyn had died, we were young, and life insurance was cheap. The result was that when I moved to Grand Lake, I paid cash for my land and cabin up on the ridge, about two miles or so from the lake. The Superior Hiking Trail passed nearby on its two-hundred-and-seventy-mile trek from Duluth to Canada. I had cut my own trail through my property to reach it, and by this path I made my way north, and then took another cutoff trail east down the ridge into town, coming out near Harbor Lutheran Church. I took five minutes at the lookout above the town, blinded by the blaze of fall colors against the impossibly bright blue of Lake Superior in the September sunlight. All art is merely a poor imitation of the work of the One Creator. I could be wrong, of course, but I'm not.

  I made it to the church with five minutes to spare. After I opened up the doors and turned the lights on in my office, I thought I'd better make a pot of coffee for Angela and her husband. My keen memory recorded that Angela was a partaker of the third Lutheran sacrament.

  When the coffee was done, it was only natural that I should taste it, to make sure it was acceptable. It was. Angela walked in halfway through the first cup. She had ditched her hippie outfit for expensive jeans and a long-sleeved orange shirt with frills at the sleeves and down the front. As before, her expression was troubled and serious. Beside her, was a man in his late thirties, clean shaven with messy brown hair and dark brown eyes of the type that I always thought women would find sensitive and appealing. He also wore jeans, and brown boots, with a light colored blue denim shirt that might have been either pretty cheap, or very expensive, depending on whether he'd bought it at Wal-Mart or a boutique.

  I got up and greeted Angela.

  “Pastor Borden,” she said. “This is my husband, Philip.”

  “Phil Kruger,” he said, sticking out
his hand. It was hard without noticeable callouses, but his grip was limp, like a man who doesn’t really know who he is. His brown eyes met mine, briefly, and then slid away. There seemed to be too much tongue in his mouth. He kind of left his lips parted, and I could see it in there. It was vaguely sensual, in a way that was gross to me; maybe Angela found it attractive. Or maybe that's why she'd had her affair.

  We exchanged the normal pleasantries, and then got seated in my office. I was happy to see them sit together on the love seat. Angela seemed to sit very close to her husband, which was another encouraging sign.

  “Philip has agreed to come and see you,” she said, unnecessarily. “I haven't spoken with him about – what you and I talked about last time,” she said.

  “Is that what you want to talk about now?” I asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “Let's just start at the beginning, and see where things take us,” I said.

  Angela seemed much less rigid in her opinions than she had been when she met with me on her own. I invited her to share her reasons with Phil for wanting marriage counseling. Phil and his sensual mouth sat there looking insecure, and when I thought about the secret his wife was keeping from him, I felt a little sorry for him.

  “Really, I don't have any complaints,” he said, patting Angela's hand, which he was holding. “But I want her to be happy too, and I'm willing to do what it takes for that to happen.”

  “I just sometimes feel like you don't recognize who I am as a person,” said Angela. “I am a woman. I am powerful. I'm not just an accessory to your life.”

  Kruger looked at her with an expression of quizzical concern. “I know that, Angela,” he said, respectfully, and patted her hand again. She slapped his hand away. “Don't patronize me,” she snapped.

  Kruger looked at her strangely, but he kept his cool, and the moment passed. All in all, when the session was winding up an hour later, I thought the prospects for their marriage were good. There was still the matter of Angela's affair to negotiate, but I felt like with a solid beginning, they might be able to handle that.