"Lost my boot," he wiggled bare toes on one mud-caked foot, "and my sock." He lurched up like a harbor seal, bare elbows scraping against rock, and eyed the evil sinkhole for his stolen boot. Spotting the dark shape, he extended Erin's rescue stick and hooked the knobby end through bootlaces, prying it loose from the intense suction. He examined the mud-filled boot dubiously, peeled out a gooey brown layer and slapped it against his knee. "There's no hope for that sock," he said. He tore off his other boot and tied the laces of both together for easier carrying. Then he set off in his bare feet.
Erin followed him back the way they'd come. At the dock, he unfastened his duty belt and it landed on the wood with a dishearteningly wet slop.
"We could take the aluminum fishing boat by the shed," she offered half-heartedly. Even if they could find paddles, without an outboard motor it would be like trying to paddle a tuna can down the narrow stream. There was no hoping of catching the more agile canoe.
He didn't answer, just waded to his waist near the dock, being overly careful to keep his feet on stable ground. After much splashing and swearing, he emerged cleaner and picked up his duty belt to slosh off the worst of the mud. He left the sidearm fastened in its holster. It would require a thorough cleaning later.
"Well, don't you look like Miss Perfect." He scrunched his face at Erin.
She self-consciously brushed dirt and lichen from the knees of her trousers and ran a hand through short blonde hair. He grinned at her and she breathed in relief. He was being sarcastic. Z-man was back. Re-energized, he strode past her and she followed in the wake of his dripping uniform and the slap of his wet trouser legs until they reached their cars.
"We need to find out what the hell Derek is up to, and where Gunther is." Erin's eyes drifted toward the house and he shook his head imperceptibly. "First, let's go get that damn warrant." He slid behind the wheel of his cruiser and was gone.
Erin knew it would take him a couple of hours to clean up and do the paperwork. That gave her time for a little digging of her own.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Two miles from city limits, down a hard packed road, Erin parked her cruiser beside a newly built covered patio attached to a thirty-year-old farmhouse. When she stepped from her car, two red squirrels stopped their noisy arguing long enough to gawk at her and then ran off chattering into the trees. On the deck, potted plants hung in macramé baskets from every overhead beam, each design different, each plant thriving. Vibrantly colored flowers exploded from planter boxes surrounding the deck, and flowering vines crept up lattice borders. She shuffled dirt from her boots at the bottom of the steps and tromped her way up to the entrance. A half sanded wooden chair sat propped between two sawhorses in the middle of the deck, a work in progress.
Gina opened the door before she had a chance to knock and beamed in delight when Erin stepped inside. Her facial swelling had gone down and the transformation was striking. She'd trimmed her chopped hair short and the new look was surprisingly refreshing, younger somehow, less intimidating. Most of her scrapes were covered by an open necked denim shirt with long sleeves casually rolled to forearms. It was hard to imagine that the trauma she had suffered was so recent.
"I wasn't sure you'd be up and around yet," Erin began. "But they said you checked yourself out of hospital yesterday."
"What do doctors know? I feel fine. Look at you. You're back at work already." Gina glanced at Erin's rumpled uniform and waved her through to the kitchen. "About time you came to visit me. I've only been waiting since grade what? Five?" Erin's face flushed and Gina laughed again. "Don't worry, you know I'm all talk. I'm not going to eat you."
Erin plunked herself down onto a wooden chair and put on her best grin. She leaned forward, elbows on the table. All around her was evidence of Gina's dedication to, and obvious skill with, woodwork and handicrafts. Gleaming hardwood floors, custom cabinetry, and even the macramé on the brand new deck. She was good with plants too. Her indoor plants bloomed as cheerfully as those on the deck. It took a special person to breathe such life and happiness into her surroundings and Erin felt remiss. Gina was right. In the twenty-odd years she'd known her, she had never been out here. With her tough chick public persona, she hadn't imagined her living in such cottage chic.
"Coffee?" Gina rummaged through a hand-painted cupboard. "You love your coffee. I got some funky Eco-friendly beans in a Get Well basket."
Erin nodded and watched Gina make coffee.
"I know this isn't really a social call, but I'm going to pretend that it is." She smiled, sad little lines crinkling out from the corners of her eyes. "Sugar? Cream?" She sounded like a fifties housewife and Erin could find no words of response, so she shook her head. Black was how she had always liked her coffee. Gina slid a steaming mug over and sat across from her at the table.
She took a tentative sip, pleasantly surprised by the robust brew. She took another sip but, single-minded in her purpose, the niceties of the language still escaped her.
Gina directed her best come hither look at Erin and tried to flip non-existent long hair over her shoulder. Disconcerted, she stopped midway and tucked the new shorter locks behind her ear. She laid her chin on the back of her hand and sighed. "Fine. Ask your questions."
"Have you seen or heard from Gunther Schmidt since the fire?"
"No, and no," Gina said patiently. "Do you still think he's the one—?"
Erin ignored her question and posed another. "Do you have any idea where he could be?"
"He's hiding is he?" Gina eyed her with lifted eyebrow. "That old bugger is good at that, for sure." Excusing herself for a moment, she returned with a time worn photo album. She flipped pages until she settled on one black and white image and turned it around to face Erin. Two smiling men stood in front of a vintage milk truck, arms around each others' shoulders. Both wore ill-fitting deliveryman uniforms and tattered boots. She pointed to the baby-faced teenager. "That's Gunther Schmidt's father Heinrich." Erin could see the resemblance in the features of the proud boy. Gina's finger moved to the taller man, in his early twenties. "That is my great grandfather Albert."
"Your families go back that far?" Gina had told her that the families were intertwined but this was history. "That photo looks like it was taken in the dirty thirties."
"Sure was," Gina said, with an amused snort. "But those two rascals weren't delivering milk in that old Garford Truck! My great granddad used to ride with Gunther's dad all over the county hauling homemade whiskey. You ever hear of Minnesota 13?"
Erin nodded, a half smile on her lips. Like most kids around here, she'd grown up hearing all about the families who earned more money making whiskey than growing crops in the dirt poor Prohibition days of the 20s and 30s. Families almost seemed to take pride in their own ancestors' bootlegging stories, and even kids in the schoolyard bragged about great grandmas so tough they took the rap and served jail time so their husbands could quietly keep making whiskey.
"That whiskey recipe was passed around and for a number of years before the end of Prohibition, Minnesota 13 was made right here in Morley Falls," Gina told her. "My great granddad's neighbors were making it and needed someone with a truck to deliver it. Great granddad conveniently drove a milk delivery truck. He enlisted the help of Gunther's father who was the kid down the road with a strong back. Those boys knew how to keep a secret. Voilà, they were all making money. After a while, they did so well that great granddad quit his job."
Erin became aware that Gina's flirtatious pretensions had vanished. Was this the real Gina behind the tough façade? She leaned forward to listen while the enthusiastic family historian spoke. Erin had always suspected that there was more to Gina than she liked to show.
"The solid rubber tires on the truck made the ride bumpy and they were losing too much whiskey anyway." Gina put down her coffee mug, a wistful sparkle in her eye. "Great granddad bought a 1930 Ford Model A that he bragged could outrun the cops, but I doubt it was as exciting as all that. They spent most of their t
ime picking up supplies and delivering it to the hidden stills. Those two were a perfect pair. They regularly hauled seventy-five pound bags of sugar on wooden skids through the bush to wherever it was needed. They grew muscular and they learned to be sneaky." Gina winked at Erin.
"How does this help me find Gunther now?" Erin queried. The stories fascinated her but she had limited time to hear them all.
"I'm getting to that, girl." Gina frowned at Erin, a schoolteacher chastening an impatient student. "When Prohibition ended, the stills were abandoned and they turned to trapping. By then, Gunther's grandfather had learned a great deal about backwoods stealth and concealment and he, of course, passed this on to Gunther who became a pretty renowned trapper and fishing guide before he turned twenty. He had shelters built all through the woods that he would use when he needed to overnight out there. Sometimes he didn't return to town for weeks. Gunther also helped his dad with things that might not have been totally legal at the time."
"It's a small world and Gunther became friends with my Grandpa Jack before they both got called up for service in the seventies. All I know is that granddad came home from Vietnam a changed man, and he made sure we all knew that Gunther was the man who brought him back alive. Those two used to go out fishing for days and they must have stayed in some old shack because they never took any camping gear. Grandpa Jack is dead now and it feels like Gunther sort of stepped into his role. I can't believe—" Erin suddenly leaned forward and Gina stopped talking. "Sorry, I guess I went off on a tangent there about the war. You had a question."
"Vietnam? Did you say Gunther was in the Vietnam war?" She flashed back to Allie's texts this morning.
"Yeah, I think he did more than one tour. He was special ops or something. That's what they said."
"You said that he was good at hiding. Can you be more specific?"
"Right. That's what I was getting to before you distracted me." She winked at Erin again but her wink had lost its lascivious undertone. "All those guys became experts at hiding stuff and at hiding themselves. They kept stockpiles of emergency rations in little hidey holes near the still. Even after Prohibition ended, old habits died hard. When cops came out searching for somebody, the homeowner calmly sat out front, whittling and looking as innocent as a newborn cub. All the while, there might be a few of his wanted buddies hunkered down in an underground bunker nearby, sipping whiskey and dining on his wife's homemade blueberry preserves until the heat passed. Nearly every one of those old homes or shacks had a false wall hiding another room, or a secret basement dug out nearby."
Erin nodded her head, considering all the possibilities. "That same property has been in Gunther's family for generations."
"Most of the old hidey holes were converted to basements or root cellars, or demolished over the years, but some might still be in use." Gina stood up and took Erin's coffee mug.
"Gunther seems like a man with a few secrets and there must be a hidey hole out there somewhere." She rose to leave.
Gina pulled a small plastic Tupperware container from the fridge and handed it to Erin, who tentatively accepted it. It looked a lot like the mystery containers in the fridge at the police station. She thumbed the edge of the lid but Gina stopped her.
"That's not for you, Sugar," Gina told her, a familiar sly crook sliding into the corner of her mouth. "That is for your handsome friend Chris. Tell him they're fresh and there's more where that came from." She laughed out loud at Erin's expression. "Keep them cool, and give them to him as soon as you can."
Intrigued, but too hesitant to ask any more questions, Erin headed out to the deck. She remembered her manners before she slammed the screen door. "Thank you for the coffee, Gina, and for the visit. I'm glad you're feeling better."
"Come again sometime." Gina the fifties housewife waved goodbye to Erin when she backed the cruiser down the driveway. The radio crackled her name as soon as she arrived at the main road. It was Zimmerman.
"You are fast." Erin thumbed the mike in response.
"Meet me back out there in ten." The radio hissed when he released the button on his mike. He was not often a man of so few words. She stepped a little harder on the gas pedal.
By the time she pulled up at Gunther's house, Zimmerman had the trunk of his car open and pulled out a set of bolt cutters. Officer Mark Striker popped out the passenger's door like an eager puppy and took the cutters.
"Gina sent you this. She said to keep it cool and she has more." Erin paraphrased, and handed Zimmerman the Tupperware container. His eyebrows shot up and he flushed a mottled pattern from Adam's apple to earlobe. He peeled the lid and Erin turned away when he examined the contents. Whatever Gina had sent, she bore no responsibility. He laughed and trotted over to gently place the container in his car.
Erin followed Striker to the shed where he gleefully attacked the lock, and she gave the door a shove the second the shackle released. It opened with a screech and the two of them squeezed through, shoulder to shoulder.
Except for the empty space where two paddles had been, it looked virtually the same as before. While Striker rifled through drawers, Erin walked to the little fridge and yanked open the door. Gone were the half dozen cans of beer, the bread and the cheese. An empty plastic wrapper lay discarded on the bottom. Erin shut the fridge and turned to the cabinet. The last time she'd been here, the door had been closed. Someone had been in there recently and had left the door ajar. She opened it and compared the contents to her memory. Something was missing. One of the unlabeled dark bottles from the top shelf. She looked around and found it lying in a metal garbage can near the door, empty. She picked it up, held it to the light and then placed it into a plastic evidence bag.
"Might be something. Might not," she told Striker, who asked the question with his eyes.
"That cabinet looks like it's full of taxidermy stuff but those bottles are old. Now everything is bottled in plastic." He included the bottle in his photographs before she marked the bag and set it by the door.
She left Striker to finish up in the shed and joined Zimmerman at the house. She found him kneeling by the rear door of the house, happily whistling a little tune while he raked a set of lock picks in the keyhole. One thumb deftly kept pressure on the tension bar while light fingers on a pick in his other hand gently manipulated the lock.
"Z-man, you are full of surprises. I didn't know you could pick locks," she said. "You sound positively cheerful."
"Been doing it for years. I am a multi-talented man." He did not rise to her bait about his cheerfulness. As he worked, his whistling became more morose. He screeched to a halt a few minutes later when, moisture dripping from his temples, he wiped palms on thighs. "Darn it. It's too hot out here. You wanna try?"
She took the picks and emulated his technique, Zimmerman verbally firing instructions at her. "Cookies?" she queried. "She sent cookies." He didn't so much as twitch. "Cinnamon buns?" Her stomach grumbled with the sweet buttery possibility. A wily eyebrow raised and he began to whistle again, his devious manner beginning to grate on her. "Frigging butter tarts?" His whistling skipped a few beats and he chuckled. "Are you gonna hog them all for yourself?" This made him chortle loudly and she wrinkled her nose at him, working on the lock until Striker's amused face appeared beside them.
"Can I have my picks back?" He tilted his head in silent criticism of Erin's dubious technique. Finished a walk through the surrounding grounds, prickly thistles still clung to Striker's pant legs and he brushed a dried leaf from his sleeve. "I should have known better than to leave them in Z-man's car."
Erin shot an accusatory look at her smugly annoying whistler and backed away from the door. She handed over the picks. Striker bent, inserted the pick, and opened the door with a flourish a moment later.
"Bert's dad is a locksmith," Zimmerman said defensively. "I would have—"
"You did NOT just call me Bert!" Striker jabbed him in the ribs, feigning anger. Erin snorted through her nose trying to stifle a laugh. How could she have i
magined that she was the only one who thought that Striker and Jenssen looked like Bert and Ernie?
"I could have done it if my hands didn't sweat." Zimmerman shoved them into his pockets with a facetious pout.
"Don't think so, Zee." Striker said confidently, furry dark brows crowding down over his eyes in amusement. It occurred to Erin that he actually liked the nickname. He was hamming it up.
"Does that make you Kermit, Frog-man?" Erin directed this last at Zimmerman, who replaced his pout with open-mouthed faux outrage.
"Oh, Miss Piggy, you're so cheeky," he quipped back. He looked through the open door and his playfulness vanished. "Are we going to stand around here all afternoon or are we going to do this?"
She marched past them and began with the kitchen. There was always something in the kitchen. Zimmerman deposited a copy of the search warrant onto the counter and made for the bedroom. That was also likely to yield results. Striker busied himself taking photos and making notes while Erin sat at the table and rifled through Gunther's mail. The old man led a simple life with not many bills to pay: Power, electric, water. She opened each, and stacked them to the side.
The cable company was canceling service if the bill wasn't paid, the school wanted money for outstanding fees but offered to reduce the amount if Gunther filled out another form requesting financial assistance. Dated two months ago, the form was still blank. She was temporarily blinded by the brilliant flash from Striker's DSLR camera aimed in her direction.
"Whoa! I don't want to be in the picture." She bolted out of the chair. He shrugged and continued shooting. "Give a girl a little warning would you?" She took the last handful of mail and ducked out of camera range to finish.
There were three unopened envelopes from the First Minnesota Bank and she slid her pen down the flaps to tear them open. The monthly statements were what she expected: A pension deposit at the beginning of each month, followed by withdrawals for bills, gasoline and groceries. As she perused the itemized list, she noticed one oddity. Near the middle of the month, there was an extra deposit. Gunther was getting supplemental income. Income to the tune of $650 a month. She made sure that Striker photographed the documents before sliding them into an evidence bag and marking the label.
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