Ice-Out

by Mary Casanova

  The sheriff parked halfway between the creamery truck and the shack, then he and the deputy walked to Owen’s truck.

  “Okay,” the sheriff said, poking his head into the passenger window. “Should be quick. We’ll cuff him and you can finger him.”

  Deputy Kranlin added, “Wait for us.” Then he trotted after Vandyke.

  Fingers drumming his steering wheel, Owen waited with a good view. The sun was high. Set against a backdrop of dense black spruce, the shack was surrounded by spindly young aspen, stretching up toward the patch of sky.

  Kranlin knocked three times on the wooden door.

  Something inside the small shelter crashed.

  A muffled sound of footsteps followed.

  “Open up,” the sheriff said, pressing closer to Kranlin. “We just want to have a word.”

  Boshelink probably didn’t even have a wife, Owen mused. Just rotgut or moonshine for companionship.

  The sheriff nodded toward a nearby shed of boards and wood. The deputy trotted over, grabbed a long board, and returned. Then he wedged the board into where the door and frame met.

  The sheriff’s hand slid onto his revolver.

  As Owen watched, a sick feeling—an unexpected knowing—rose in his chest.

  The sheriff and deputy were met by sharp, resounding shots from a large-caliber rifle—Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Startled, Owen jumped, slamming his head into the truck’s ceiling, then he slid to the floor as Tipper cowered beside him, whining.

  Owen peered out the passenger window.

  Sheriff Vandyke and Deputy Kranlin were down, silent heaps on the porch in an expanding pool of blood.

  He caught a glimpse of Boshelink—or someone—fleeing from the back of the shack and into the dense woods.

  He couldn’t move or think. He couldn’t remember why he’d come there in the first place. Light streamed down through the treetops, creating flickering patterns of light and shadow.

  Gunshots echoed in Owen’s head.

  The sheriff and deputy are down.

  Willing his legs to move, he walked in eerie silence to the porch, peering around for anyone who might be watching him, ready to shoot. He had no gun. No way to defend himself. But he had to do something. He drew a breath and braced himself—he’d never seen someone shot before—and stepped onto the porch.

  A ragged hole in the sheriff’s chest.

  Eyes wide open.

  Owen leaned down.

  He listened for a breath.

  There was none.

  Hand shaking, he closed the still-warm eyelids with his fingertips.

  Owen exhaled, turned away, and doubled over, vomiting.

  Then he turned to the deputy’s facedown body. He carefully rolled him over. Like a gut-shot deer, blood poured from the deputy’s belly.

  “Get help,” the deputy croaked, his eyes unusually bright, and with those two words, blood spilled from his lips.

  In the quiet, a chickadee called out: Dee-dee-dee!

  Owen would be the last one to be seen with these men. The secretary had watched him leave the sheriff’s office. She’d wished him a good day.

  Everything in him tumbled. Half blind, he stumbled through the grassy clearing back toward his truck. He hadn’t planned any of this to happen. And now, what if everything about Jerry’s death rose to the surface? It wouldn’t be too hard to find motivation to pin all of this on him. Who wouldn’t feel anger and the need for revenge after losing a friend? He’d be locked away—or worse. He’d lose everything he’d been working toward—everything in this world that mattered.

  He swore, jumped into the truck, willed his left hand to grip the wheel. Willed his left foot to the clutch, his right to the gas pedal, his right hand to the shift. He cranked the wheel, backed up, then jolted ahead. Tipper, who’d always hated the sound of gunshots, whined from the truck’s floor.

  “It’s okay, boy, it’s okay,” Owen said over and over, as he sped away. He had to get help. Though he knew . . . nothing in this world could help the sheriff and the deputy now.

  FATAL SHOOTING OF Sheriff AND Deputy! COMMUNITY IN SHOCK!

  This morning, at approximately 10:45 a.m., Koochiching County Sheriff Vandyke and Deputy Kranlin were fatally shot in the line of duty. They were following up on a complaint registered by Owen Jensen of Ranier, who alerted law enforcement that his family’s creamery had fallen victim to a forgery. When Jensen led the sheriff and deputy to the suspect’s location on the edge of woods, the suspect, now identified as Peder Skogland of Minneapolis, shot through the walls of his shack, killing the sheriff and deputy, and then fled into the woods. The witness, Owen Jensen, immediately drove to the International Falls Police Department and reported the heinous crime.

  As word of the event spread, local outrage erupted. By mid-afternoon, a search party of over 200 men had gathered to comb the woods east of the suspect’s shack. By day’s end, the suspected murderer had made it on foot as far as Ray, 20 miles south. But when Skogland tried to check into the Ray Hotel, the hotel operator, Samuel [Sammy] Blackwell, reported that the man asking for a room seemed “exceedingly nervous.” When Blackwell confronted the man with the morning’s murder, gunfire ensued, and Blackwell shot Skogland in self-defense. The community of International Falls and surrounding county are shocked at this unthinkable tragedy and are in deep mourning.

  36

  THE SUN ROSE HIGH AS OWEN RETURNED HOME, CLIMBED into bed, and pulled the gray wool blanket to his shoulders. Tipper jumped up, padded in circles at Owen’s feet, then lay down with a groan.

  A few minutes later, Mom climbed the attic steps and sat on the edge of his bed. “There’s nothing then?” she asked. “Nothing I can get you, Owen?” She set the newspaper with its front-page article on the bed.

  As he read the story, Mom fluttered over him, and he clenched his teeth. It wasn’t her fault. None of it was her fault, but at this moment if she didn’t let him be . . .

  “Owen? I’m worried about you, honey. Everybody says it couldn’t be helped, but still I can’t imagine. Having to see such a tragedy. Maybe a cup of tea with a bit of honey would—”

  “Mom, please!” he said too harshly, but he couldn’t help it. “Let me be!”

  The mattress sighed as she stood up.

  “If that’s what you want, but sometimes . . .”

  To his relief, she left and headed down the attic stairs. At least his brothers were all off to school. He needed sleep. He’d been up all night.

  After the murder of Vandyke and Kranlin, he’d sped back to town to the police department. Within hours, news spread and hundreds of men were out combing through bog and brush to find Boshelink.

  Three deaths in fewer than twenty-four hours. And he’d set it all in motion. How could it not somehow be his fault? Under the blanket, he closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop replaying what had happened.

  In the dark predawn hours, he’d stood over the third body at the makeshift morgue in the basement of the police department. The sheriff and deputy were laid out on tables, draped in white sheets. On the other side of the room lay Boshelink, his trouser legs ripped and muddy, his face covered with a burlap feedbag. Owen lifted the burlap from the face of the small man, his eyes open. “That’s him. Boshelink is what he called himself.”

  Then Owen spent hours answering questions from police, questions from the local newspaper reporter, and was told to be ready for more questions soon. Outside investigators as well as reporters would soon make their way north from Duluth, St. Paul, and Chicago.

  Chicago.

  Now the word clanged in his head until it formed a sentence, until it took on life—blood and bones and breath—until he could hear his father’s last words as clearly as if he were standing at the foot of his bed.

  The word churned in his brain and his gut.

  “Chicago,” he said aloud.

  After Kettle Falls and his encounter with Mr. Vittorio, he had no doubt about Pengler’s connections to Chi
cago.

  What if the death of Vandyke and Kranlin were some plan of Pengler’s? Had he orchestrated it all? Had Boshelink been on his payroll? Get Owen to go to the sheriff, lead him out to the shack, and with gunfire, end Pengler’s problems with the sheriff?

  Owen hated Vandyke for blackmailing him into silence, chaining him to secrecy about what happened to Jerry. Owen would resent the sheriff forever for it. But that didn’t mean the sheriff—and the deputy—deserved to die.

  He bolted to his feet.

  “Harvey Pengler!” he yelled, storming into the White Turtle’s lobby.

  “No need to shout,” Pengler said, standing right behind the counter. “I’m right here, son.”

  “Don’t call me son. And don’t make me do your dirty work for you! You gave me directions to that shit-bag’s shack. You knew where he lived! So I’m asking you straight up. Straight up and—” Owen’s voice was on the verge of breaking, but he was enraged, and he needed that anger now. “You gotta answer me. No spins or twists. Did you set me up?”

  “Set you up? I have no—”

  “Did you set me up? Lead the sheriff to Boshelink’s to get murdered? It would make your life easier, wouldn’t it? Get the vigilante sheriff out of the way of your operations—payback for taking away Jimmy.”

  “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “Boshelink! Was he on your payroll, too? Like Jerry and half of Ranier? Did you have a plan—a scheme, to see them killed? It was you who gave me directions to his shack!”

  “Hold on, hold on! After we got scammed here, I asked around. Someone knew where he lived. I wrote it down.”

  Pengler stepped out from behind the counter. Like a bear scenting something foreign on the wind, he stopped, head high. “Honest to God, Owen, I had no idea anything like this would happen.”

  “He took Jimmy, practically your own flesh and blood, right out from under your nose. Put him in foster care. Has to make you plenty mad.”

  “Yes, I’m mad. And I don’t like you putting me on trial. Accusing me!” Pengler’s eyes pierced Owen’s. “I’m mad as a hornet at Vandyke! Each time Jimmy runs away from some damn foster home, Vandyke puts him in another. Poor kid!” He cussed. “But mad enough to get the sheriff killed? God no! No matter what you might think of me, I’m not that kind of man.”

  “Isn’t that how they do it in Chicago? How about your friend at Kettle Falls? The one who’s on a first-name basis with Al Capone.”

  “What are you, some lawyer, for God’s sake? Yes, in fact, I’ve had Vittorio at my farm. But this is Ranier. I treat folks right and expect the same in return.”

  All the air was suddenly gone out of Owen. He believed Pengler. “Then who? Why?”

  Pengler motioned for Owen to follow to the blind pig. At a table, they sat across from each other. “Someone gave you a bad check. You did your job to report it.”

  “Yeah, but had I known—”

  “I didn’t always agree with how he did things, but the sheriff was doing his job. Sometimes bad things happen.”

  The shack. The sheriff and deputy. Pools of blood.

  Owen closed his eyes and winced.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Pengler asked. “You don’t look good.”

  When the ice water came, he gulped it down.

  “I don’t believe in Prohibition,” Pengler said, lighting a cigar. “Never will. So I’m not law-abiding in that sense. But in everything else that matters under the big sky, I’m not a bad man. There are men like Boshelink. They’re not serving anything higher than themselves. How can you lie and pretend to be something you’re not? Pretend to be good, then steal from the ones you’re fooling? That’s another kind of criminal. I’m moving booze. I don’t deny it. But I’m never going to lie to you or intentionally hurt anyone.”

  The room felt too dark, too smoky, too much like its walls were closing in on Owen. He had to get out of there. He had to get some fresh air.

  No.

  He needed to tell the truth. He couldn’t hold it back another second. With the sheriff and deputy dead, he didn’t have to pretend any longer. “I know what happened to Jerry.”

  Pengler’s visage darkened. He looked hard at Owen.

  Then Owen told Pengler everything about their desperation to come up with money to pay off the sugar truck. How they’d fallen for bait to pick up cases of whiskey and deliver them south of the area. How the sheriff wanted them to lie and say the stash was Pengler’s—to testify against him.

  “You wouldn’t lie about me, even with your necks on the line?”

  “No.” And then, drawing a deep breath, Owen forced himself to continue. He told Pengler about both vehicles breaking through the ice—the sheriff’s Model T and Pengler’s Whiskey Six—with all the cases of booze and “planted evidence.” Somehow, miraculously, three of them survived.

  “And Jerry?”

  Owen answered with a slow shake of his head.

  “I’m truly sorry,” Pengler said, his whole countenance softening. “What a waste. What a blasted shame.”

  Owen suddenly felt overcome by telling the truth. As he exhaled, his shoulders shook. He wiped back tears.

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this sooner? You boys could have worked extra for me. We could have worked something out.”

  “Harvey, I didn’t know that. Early on you made it clear. And besides, I don’t want to work for you. I don’t want to be part of bootlegging or anything that comes with any more favors. Jerry and I, we thought we could make quick money—it was too easy, I know that now—but it was a way out. Figured we’d pay off what we owed you. Get free of all these strings.”

  “You really think Jerry would have moved on to anything different? He was a natural for taking risk. He wasn’t going to be happy running that mechanics shop he talked about.”

  Owen shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. He never got the chance.”

  Owen pressed on.

  “Vandyke didn’t want any backlash about a local boy going through the ice with handcuffs on. He swore he was just doing his job. And I guess he was. But he told me if I talked, he’d press charges on me for bootlegging. Promised I’d serve time. I couldn’t put my family in that kind of bind.”

  Pengler listened. “So what are you going to do now?”

  “Make a deal with you,” Owen said. Pengler had money, but a thin reputation in the eyes of the law.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’ve already said you gave me the directions to Boshelink’s shack. You’ll be questioned soon enough about motive regarding the sheriff’s and deputy’s deaths. When that happens, I’ll stand up for you. And if you have any trouble in court getting Jimmy back, I’ll stand up for you on that, too.”

  “Okay. And in exchange?”

  Owen had never imagined how far he could go down a wrong path, how badly things could fall apart. He’d never imagined that he would barter Jerry’s death to get out of debt to Pengler. A guy couldn’t fall much lower.

  “A favor,” Owen continued. “You’ll forgive the debt on the sugar truck. Part of doing business. You sent me out to follow Jerry and help unload. He took a shortcut and lost the truck. In trying to pay you for it, I lost my best friend. I’m begging you—pleading to your better angel. Moving forward, consider us even.”

  “Hmm.” Pengler looked sideways at Owen, as if trying to see his opponent’s cards. “That’s it?”

  Owen nodded.

  “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.” Then Pengler extended his hand across the table. They shook on it.

  Owen added, “And I owe you a Studebaker.”

  37

  LATE AFTERNOON, THE AIR WAS HEAVY WITH REGRET.

  As Owen climbed out of his truck at Melnyks’, the sun beat down on his head. His shirt stuck to his back.

  He wiped sweat off his forehead before it ran into his eyes.

  He had to face Jerry’s family and tell them the truth.

  He asked to speak to Je
rry’s mother and father in private. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He told them about that night in March.

  The handcuffs.

  Everything.

  “You knew for months and you no tell us the truth?” Mr. Melnyk shouted.

  “You lied to us,” Mrs. Melnyk whispered through tears.

  No apology could ever change their opinion of him. He had lied. He had gone to the farm, gathered their milk and eggs, and pretended he knew nothing of what happened to their son.

  Maybe someday they’d forgive him. And maybe they never would.

  Maybe someday they would let him back into their lives as Jerry’s best friend.

  Maybe with time.

  When he returned to Ranier, he was drained with deep exhaustion. He parked the creamery truck in the shade of an oak beside the creamery. He sat there until the sun was low and red and dusky. Beside him, Tipper panted. When Owen finally noticed saliva dripping from the dog’s pink tongue into a small pool on the truck’s floor, he pulled out of his stupor.

  “You need water. We need a swim,” Owen said, and peeled himself off the seat and out of the truck. Tipper followed.

  But instead of heading to the sandy cove where locals gathered, or jumping off the pier into the cool waters of Rainy Lake, Owen started walking. It was as if the deepest recesses of his being knew what he needed, even if his mind was murky, overwhelmed by heat, by the events of the past two days. Tipper walked beside him, veering off to mark a telephone pole or bush, but always returning to his side again, panting.

  They crossed the railroad tracks, the smell of hot creosote rising from the railroad beams. From somewhere in Canada, a train horn sounded as it wound its way toward the border to cross into Ranier with its cargo.

  The candy shop’s Closed sign was on its window, but music and laughter drifted from the screened windows on the second floor.

  The bank, with its arched Tiffany glass windows, was closed.