The Land of Dreams (Minnesota Trilogy)

by Vidar Sundstøl

  “So what’s your opinion about the tip we got?” asked Nyland. An anonymous woman had called the FBI, claiming that the motel clerk was generally a suspicious type who liked to spy on the guests.

  “Probably bullshit,” snorted Fries. “Do you really think the clerk would have followed those two Norwegians all the way out to Baraga’s Cross, and then beat one of them to a pulp? Doesn’t sound very likely. Let’s hope the guy has an alibi so we can stop thinking about him. It’s probably just somebody who has a grudge against him. The same thing happened when I was out at the Indian reservation. That was on Friday, when you and Lecuyer were in Duluth to interview the Norwegian. Did you know there’s a reservation near here?”

  “I think Lecuyer mentioned it . . . and that you had gone out there.”

  “I had to go see a guy with a police record. A typical small-time crook. Some minor drug arrests. Drunk driving. He had an alibi, but he told me, ‘I’ve got bad friends, and my enemies are even worse. Plenty of people are going to cheer if I get locked up for life.’ That’s just the way things are. In small communities like this, there’s always somebody who’s got a beef against somebody else. And they’re the ones who usually call in these kinds of tips.”

  Fries got out of the car, and Nyland followed. The motel was an L-shaped building with long rows of reddish-brown doors. A gilded room number on each door. Identical orange curtains at all the windows. The office was at the end of the short leg of the L; a big metal sign that said “Whispering Pines Motel” was screwed to the wall next to the door. The logo was two stylized pine trees.

  They went inside. The man behind the counter looked up from his newspaper. He had a dark, nicely trimmed beard and looked to be around fifty. He was wearing a cap with the words “Whispering Pines Motel.”

  “Welcome. Can I help you?”

  Jason Fries placed both hands on the counter, as if taking possession, and said, “Are you Garry Yuhala?”

  The man nodded. His name badge said Garry Yuhala.

  Nyland wondered whether it was a Finnish name. Right across from the motel was the road that led to the community of Finland. He remembered that Lance Hansen had mentioned that as they drove up here on Thursday.

  Fries held up his ID and introduced both himself and his Norwegian colleague. “We’re investigating the murder that was committed near Baraga’s Cross,” he said. “The two Norwegians stayed here before they set off on their last canoe trip. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yup,” said Yuhala.

  “How would you describe them?”

  “You mean what did they look like?”

  “No, we know what they look like,” said Fries. “What I want to know is what sort of guys would you say they were?”

  “What sort? Hmm . . . I don’t really know. They were just staying here. I don’t talk to the guests much.”

  “So you’re not interested in what the guests might be doing?” Nyland interjected.

  “I run a motel,” said Yuhala. “The only thing I care about is whether the guests pay the bill and don’t wreck anything.”

  “What about immoral activities?” asked Fries.

  Yuhala laughed. “It’s none of my business what grown-ups do behind closed doors.”

  “But to get back to the Norwegians,” said Fries, “how would you describe them?”

  “I didn’t really talk to them while they were here. What do you want me to say?”

  “Was there any indication that they might not be getting along? Did they have any arguments?”

  “No, not at all. Nothing like that.”

  “So where were you on the night that Georg Lofthus was killed?” asked Nyland.

  “I was here until midnight. After that I left for home and went to bed.”

  “What time did you get home?” asked Fries.

  “About a quarter past twelve.”

  “Is there anyone who could confirm that?” asked Nyland.

  “Yes, my wife.”

  “Anybody else?” asked Fries.

  “No. I think the kid was asleep. One of the neighbors might have seen me getting home.”

  “Okay,” said Fries. He handed the clerk his card. “If you happen to think of anything that might be of interest to us . . .”

  Yuhala nodded and slipped the card into his shirt pocket.

  “Christ, I almost forgot!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Wait just a minute.” He dashed out the door but was back in seconds. “Here,” he said when he reappeared. “They left this behind. And I assume I should give it to you.” He was holding what looked like a Bible.

  “Is it in Norwegian?” asked Nyland.

  “Some language I can’t read, at any rate,” said Yuhala.

  “Let me see.” Nyland took the dark-green, leather-bound Bible and opened it. On the title page was an inscription written in an elegant, old-fashioned hand: “To our dear Georg on his Confirmation day. From Grandmother and Grandfather (1 Tim 4:4).”

  For a moment Nyland pictured in his mind a white-painted church. A spring day in Vestlandet, maybe no more than five years ago. The grandparents in attendance to see their grandson confirmed.

  “What does it say?” asked Fries.

  “It’s a dedication from his grandparents. The Bible belonged to the dead man. A confirmation gift.”

  “Isn’t that a Bible verse in the parentheses?” Fries went on.

  “Yes. First Timothy chapter four, verse four,” murmured Nyland hesitantly as he ran his fingertip over the table of contents. “Paul’s first letter to Timothy,” he said in Norwegian, which made Yuhala raise his eyebrows in bewilderment.

  “Is there anything else you haven’t told us?” asked Fries.

  “No, that’s it,” said Yuhala calmly.

  They said good-bye to the clerk and left. Nyland carried the Bible. He had stuck his finger inside, to mark the place. When they were back in the car and about to put on their seatbelts, Fries said, “So what exactly does it say, that Bible verse?”

  Nyland opened the Bible and read the quote first in Norwegian and then translated into English. “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving.”

  “Hmm. And you said it was from his grandparents?”

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t tell me much,” said Fries.

  “Me neither,” said Nyland. “But it must have meant something, or why would they include it in the inscription?”

  12

  THAT SAME DAY Lance Hansen was on his way to Two Harbors to visit his brother. He didn’t know what to think about the fact that Andy had been in the vicinity of the crime scene on the night in question. Maybe he’d be able to find out something by talking with him in person.

  As Lance drove, he plucked a heart-shaped Dove chocolate out of the bag and carefully peeled off the thin foil wrapper with his fingernails before he stuffed the chocolate in his mouth. Then he smoothed out the wrapper and held it up so he could read the message on the back.

  “Follow the compass of your heart,” it said.

  Lance snorted scornfully. He’d already followed that particular compass one time too many. It wasn’t worth following, any more than an ordinary compass was in this part of Minnesota. There was iron just below the surface of the ground everywhere in the Arrowhead region. The iron was an extremely magnetic type, so the needle of a compass had a tendency to point in all the wrong directions.

  He caught sight of someone at the end of the long, winding road stretching out before him. A person was walking along the road. That in itself was a remarkable sight. Of course there was no law against walking down this part of Highway 61, and on rare occasions a tourist might choose to walk here instead of taking one of the many beautiful scenic paths in the area. But this person was different. Lance could see that at once. There was nothing the least bit ordinary about this man, who looked as if he�
�d stepped out of another era. It must have been his clothes that gave that impression. His jacket and pants seemed to be several sizes too big, and they were worn shiny. On his head he wore a round, wide-brimmed hat, which had also obviously seen better days. He looked like an old-fashioned tramp. Lance noticed that the face under the hat brim appeared to be covered in soot, as if he’d spent a long time sitting in front of a fire.

  What a strange-looking man, Lance thought. As a police officer, he always noticed people who stood out in some way, and this man definitely seemed out of place. For a moment he wondered whether he ought to drive after him and warn him to be careful, because the traffic could be dangerous for a pedestrian. Just have a little chat with the man, as he often did with people if for some reason he had doubts about them. In the course of a brief conversation Lance was usually able to determine whether the individual was on the level or not. Most people were okay, some were not.

  But he decided to keep heading south toward Two Harbors. There has to be a limit, he thought. And there was no reason to be overzealous about what the obligations of his job entailed.

  Skunk Creek runs through Two Harbors. Large sections of the waterway now pass through pipes underneath the town, but in a few places it still flows in the open. When there’s a heavy rainstorm, the creek overflows its banks, giving off a smell that matches its name. It’s not really the smell of a skunk, but it’s just as foul, and no one has ever been able to find a viable explanation for the smell. But some people think it’s because Skunk Creek runs along the cemetery, so when it overflows it carries large amounts of soil from the graves. If this theory is correct, it means on certain days it’s the stench of several generations of Scandinavians that makes it difficult to breathe freely in the small town of Two Harbors, on the shore of Lake Superior.

  He turned in to the local Dairy Queen and approached his brother’s house from the rear. The family’s Ford Freestar was the only vehicle around. Andy’s old Chevy Blazer was gone. It didn’t look like he was home yet from work.

  Lance parked, then got out and rang the doorbell. Soon he heard someone hurrying across the floor somewhere inside the house, and then the sound of the door to the hall opening. A moment later Tammy Hansen opened the door. She failed to hide her surprise at seeing her brother-in-law standing there. It took her a couple of seconds to muster a strained smile of welcome.

  “Lance! Good Lord. Come in,” she said, her voice loud and shrill. He took off his shoes in the hall and followed Tammy into the kitchen.

  He couldn’t remember ever being in this house without the TV blaring. This time it was the game show The Price Is Right. The studio audience was howling with laughter at something the host had just said.

  “Andy’s not here,” said Tammy.

  Lance could barely hear her over the TV.

  “Is he at work?”

  “What?”

  She seemed stressed.

  “Is Andy still at work?” Lance repeated.

  With a look of annoyance she went into the living room to turn down the sound. Lance followed her. “Did you want to talk to Andy?” she asked.

  “Yes. Is he here?” Lance said.

  He could hear a rhythmic thudding bass line coming from somewhere in the house.

  “No, but he should be home pretty soon. Would you like a cup of coffee or something?”

  He noticed that she was trying to play the role of hostess, though not very successfully. She just couldn’t be anything other than what she was.

  “Sure, thanks. A cup of coffee would be great,” he told her. Tammy went back to the kitchen without inviting him to have a seat.

  He sat down in one of the two easy chairs. Hanging on the opposite wall was the usual collection of family photographs. And of course there was a picture of Jimmy as well, taken when he was two years old. Lance looked at the photo, thinking that he had been living in a different world back then. It seemed incredible that only five years had passed since that picture was taken.

  Tammy soon returned with a mug of coffee. She set it in front of him on the coffee table and then sat down on the sofa. It was a U.S. Forest Service mug, the kind sent as Christmas gifts to the major logging contractors.

  As Lance raised the mug to his lips, he noticed a couple of undissolved specks of instant coffee stuck to the inside of the mug, just below the rim. He blew on the hot liquid and then set down the mug.

  “Need to let it cool off for a while,” he explained.

  Tammy took a pack of cigarettes from the newspaper rack underneath the coffee table. She shook one out of the pack and lit up.

  “Well . . . ,” she said and then took a long drag on her cigarette.

  She exhaled a whole cloud of smoke. Lance watched as it rose in the sunlight that filled the room. He waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t. The maniacally pulsating bass continued to thud.

  After a while Lance said, “So, what’s Andy up to these days?”

  “He’s logging over by Inga Lake,” replied Tammy. “He should be here in half an hour. Is there something wrong?”

  Lance laughed off the question. “Does there have to be something wrong for a man to visit his family?” he said.

  He hardly ever came over to have a chat with his brother. He really never came into this house at all. The only exception was when deer season was approaching. Going out hunting on the second weekend in November was the only thing that the two Hansen brothers still did together. But today was June 30, and deer season was light-years away.

  “Is it about that dead guy?” she asked.

  “Er . . . yes . . . partially,” said Lance.

  Tammy gave him an expectant look. He remembered that at one time she’d actually been quite pretty. Now she looked like a person who had seen it all, even though she’d hardly seen anything outside of Two Harbors.

  “I want to talk to him about Chrissy.”

  “What’s she done now?” she asked anxiously.

  Lance held up his hands to reassure her. “Relax,” he said. “Chrissy hasn’t done anything. But we’ve got a killer loose on the North Shore. At least, that’s a possibility. We don’t know for sure. But everybody needs to be cautious about where they let their kids go, how late they’re allowed to stay out, and things like that. Not that I think there’s any imminent danger, but you can never be too careful, right?”

  He looked at Tammy. He had finally managed to get her attention. The bass sound kept on thudding.

  “My God,” she said. “A killer on the loose!” She put her hand to her lips for a moment, as if to underscore the drama of the situation. “And Chrissy wasn’t even home on the night of the murder! From now on, she’s not going to be allowed to spend the night anywhere but here at home. At least until the murderer is caught.”

  “So where was Chrissy on that night?”

  As soon as he asked the question, Lance wished that he hadn’t. “I mean, she wasn’t anywhere near the cross, was she?” he added.

  “Of course not,” said Tammy. “She was spending the night with a girlfriend in Duluth.” She took another drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke in a thick stream out into the room. “And I was here all alone!” she said, as if she’d been in real danger. “Andy went out to the cabin to go fishing. I didn’t hear about the murder until he and Chrissy came home later in the afternoon.”

  “He and Chrissy?” said Lance. “But I thought she was in Duluth.”

  “She was. Andy went to Duluth to pick her up before he came home.”

  “Oh, right. Doesn’t she have a driver’s license by now?”

  “Sure. But we don’t like to let her use the car. At least not the Freestar. It’s okay for her to drive the Blazer, but Andy likes to have it available. He says it’s perfect for driving on the forest roads around here.”

  “So he drove her to Duluth on Tuesday and then picked her up on Wednesday? Sounds almost like the ol
d days when she was taking lessons . . . What was it? Ballet?”

  “Well, dance lessons, anyway. But I was the one who always drove her there and back. And Andy didn’t drive her to Duluth on Tuesday either. A girlfriend did. She came over and picked up Chrissy. Andy just went to get her in Duluth on Wednesday.”

  Suddenly she seemed to get suspicious, or at least found the situation a bit odd.

  “So how are you doing?” Lance hastened to ask. He knew that almost everybody likes to talk about themselves. Especially people who sit home alone on a beautiful summer afternoon, watching game shows on TV.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I just try to go with the flow. It’s not that easy with a daughter who’s seventeen, and a husband who’s . . . well, who’s . . . Andy,” she said.

  It didn’t sound like a joke, but Lance couldn’t help laughing, and this time his mirth was genuine.

  “Sure. It’s not easy for any of us,” he said.

  “But we’re doing fine,” she said. “I mean, we have our disagreements, just like everybody does, but we stick together. We’re family.”

  Lance didn’t know whether she’d intended to hurt him with that remark, but it made him think about Jimmy and Mary again.

  “My God, you’re the one who found the body. Isn’t that right?” she suddenly exclaimed.

  “Yep,” said Lance. He had no desire to talk about that.

  “Was it awful?”

  “I could have done without the experience.”

  “Poor you,” she said. “I would have been totally . . . ” She held up her hands and pretended to be shaking all over.

  “No, actually it didn’t make me shake,” said Lance. He instantly felt that he’d said something too personal. But Tammy merely raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  At that moment the music stopped. The constant, monotonous bass notes that had been playing in the background were gone. “Finally,” she said, listening.

  But after a few seconds it started up again, although the beat was different.

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Tammy got up. “I’m just going to have a few words with that young lady,” she said, and left the room.