A River Through Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

  They said goodbye and wished Deidre luck with the investiga­tion that they knew was not going to be simple. She looked at Melissa. “If you don’t have a place to stay, why don’t you come to my place for the night? I’m alone—except for my dog, and he doesn’t bite. We can get up early and head into Two Harbors in the morning and find out how Judy’s faring.”

  Melissa called Judy on her phone to see if she needed help, and Judy assured her that nothing exciting was going to happen while the body thawed. She was going to stay at the mortuary that also served as the county morgue to keep an eye on the process, but she’d see them in the morning.

  “Let’s stop and get something hot before we leave town. I’m about frozen to the core and could use some caffeine,” Melissa said as she involuntarily shivered. “Do you have any good coffee shops in town?”

  Deidre laughed as they walked toward their vehicles. “If you look on the Internet for eating places in Silver Bay, you’ll find only one listed, Northwoods Cafe. The info says its a local coffee klatch hangout. We’ve missed their daily breakfast and lunch specials. When we get there I’ll fill you in on the town’s history.”

  In five minutes they were at the shopping center, the only one in Silver Bay. As they entered the warm confines of the small shop, several patrons turned their heads to look at the two women coming in from the cold.

  George was there and appeared to be holding court at one of the tables, because all eyes were glued to him. When he looked up and saw Deidre, his eyes widened, and he stopped in mid-sentence.

  “Deidre. Good to see you’re finished with whatever you were doing.” His face flushed, and he averted meeting her gaze. “Well, boys, I better be getting home. My wife’ll be wondering where I’ve been. I’m usually home by noon. See ya, guys. Deidre.” George nodded to her as he pulled a stocking cap low over his ears.

  Deidre and Melissa chose a table in the far corner of the room, as far away from the rest of the customers as they could, although every time they looked up, they could see the patrons looking at them as if seeking clues about a mystery.

  Deidre gave Melissa a brief history lesson of Silver Bay, how it hadn’t even existed before 1954, how it was built by Reserve Mining for its workers, and how the company had dictated who could live where and what businesses could exist. She went on to explain how the community had boomed, reaching a peak population of nearly four thousand in 1960, almost all of them young families with children.

  “I remember when their school was bigger than the one in Two Harbors, graduating two hundred per class.” Deidre explained. “Then disaster hit when the company was charged with violating the River and Harbors Act of 1899. That’s the oldest piece of federal environmental legislation on record in the U.S. It makes it illegal to dump waste of any kind into navigable water without a permit. I guess they didn’t have the proper permits or something.”

  They ordered when the waitress came by before Deidre continued. “Anyway, a few years later the taconite plant closed, and residents were forced to seek employment elsewhere. It did reopen under different management, but the workforce really dropped. Our population is pretty stable at around eighteen hundred. Now too many of the residents are past childbearing age, so the school’s taken a big hit. I think they have about thirty-five students per grade. It’s sad.”

  Melissa asked, “So that’s why you agreed to fill in while Officer Butler’s out? This is kind of a sleepy community, out of the way, and you thought not much could go wrong?”

  Deidre smirked. “Yeah, that’s why. Guess I was wrong, huh?”

  They had each drunk two cups of coffee and were warmed up. “Let’s go,” Deidre suggested, and she and Melissa walked out the door, feeling the glances cast their way as they left.

  *****

  As Deidre followed the driveway to her cabin, Melissa scrunched down in the seat so she could see the tops of the massive pine trees. The private road to Deidre’s place traced a serpentine path through the woods, following the route of least resistance. Bumping over the rutted, dirt road for a half mile, Deidre pulled up next to her rustic home.

  “Look at that view,” Melissa exclaimed as she stepped out of the car and looked across Cedar Lake. It was partly frozen, and what ice had formed was covered with snow. Its pure whiteness intensified the lake’s blue-black in the evening sunset.

  “This is perfect,” she said in awe of the setting.

  Just then Deidre’s dog came bounding around the corner of the building, and Melissa stooped to ruffle his ears. “And I see you even have a roommate,” she said as she lavished attention upon him. “What’s his name?”

  “That’s Pete. I named him after a friend of mine who lives even further in the sticks than I do.” She laughed, obviously happy to witness Melissa’s approval of her living conditions.

  The two women entered the cabin with Pete leading the way. He headed straight for his dog dish and immediately set to crunching dry dog food, his tail wagging in delight that his master had returned home.

  Their breath hung in clouds of condensed vapor, and Melissa shivered. “Don’t you have a furnace?” she wondered.

  “Oh, I’ve a small propane heater, but I don’t use it unless I have to. I’ll have a fire going in the woodstove in two minutes. It’ll heat up quickly. I’d leave my jacket on until then if I were you.”

  Deidre balled up a few sheets of newspaper and crammed them into the stove before stacking a few pieces of kindling on top. She struck a match and lit the paper, which burst into flame. After adding a few sticks of split maple, she closed the door, and the stove came to life. Soon the red enamel of the Vermont Casting heater turned a deep burgundy as it became hot, and Deidre shed her coat.

  “Why don’t you hang your jacket over here. In a few minutes, it will be so warm you’ll even want to shed your heavy sweater.”

  Melissa looked at the logs that formed the walls of the structure, then looked overhead at the beams supporting the roof. “This is like something out of a Terry Redland painting. I can’t believe it. I could stay here forever.”

  Deidre busied herself, deciding what to fix for supper. “It’s beautiful, but I tell you, it gets old after a while, lonely.” She looked at Pete who turned his head to stare at her. “Sorry, Pete, but sometimes you just don’t fill the bill.”

  Pete wagged his tail and came over to rub his head against Deidre’s leg. She reached down and patted his neck.

  “Well, enough of that. What would you like for supper? How does tube steak and sauerkraut sound?” She held up a ring of kielbasa sausage.

  “Sounds good to me,” Melissa answered. “Especially if you have some wine to go with it.”

  “That I have.” Deidre reached under the counter and came up with an unopened bottle of chardonnay. “This is a good one, my favorite.”

  By the time the sausage and kraut were heated, the cabin was almost too warm inside and Deidre opened the kitchen window a couple of inches. It had become dark, and a full moon had risen over the lake. In the distance a pack of timber wolves began their serenade. Melissa felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

  “No need to worry,” Deidre reassured her. “They won’t come near humans. They’re too smart to have anything to do with our species.” She halfway meant what she said.

  After supper, the two friends sat on cushions in front of the glass doors of the stove. They were mesmerized by the yellow and blue flames of the burning maple, and Pete lay with his head resting on his paws. Every so often he would twitch in his sleep, then look up, trying to orient himself.

  “So, how are you doing, Deidre?” Melissa asked, concern in her voice.

  “Okay, I think, at least until this happened. I vowed I’d never put on another badge again.”

  Melissa swirled the wine in her goblet. “That wasn’t exactly what I was talking about,” she p
ressured. “I mean, how are you coping since John’s death? How are you surviving?”

  Deidre watched the fire, and tears formed in her eyes. She shrugged. “I’m doing about as well as I can, I think. Most days I look forward to getting up in the morning, and I really am happy living up here. Do you remember Ben VanGotten?”

  “Of course. He was the FBI agent who was a high school classmate of yours. What about him?”

  Deidre cleared her throat. “Ben’s wife died a little over a year ago. She was such a lovely woman and a terrific mother. Did you know that she and Ben had twin girls? They’re four years old. Anyway, Ben told me that she was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and died only months later.”

  Melissa broke in, “What does this have to do with how you are holding up?” She calculated that Deidre was trying to change the subject.

  “I volunteered to baby sit the girls if Ben wanted to get away sometime, and he took me up on my offer. He went camping for a weekend, and I watched the little ones. I guess I fell in love with them the first day. Now, Ben and I try to get out and do something with them every Saturday. We take in a movie or sometimes go to a museum. They treat me almost as if I’m their mother.”

  Deidre paused to let the emotion subside. Then she continued. “Ben brought them up here a few times. We went fishing. A couple of times they’ve stayed overnight, and we built a bonfire and toasted marshmallows. They’re so much fun, it’s hard for me to leave them.”

  “And what about Ben?” Melissa looked at Deidre expectantly.

  “What about him?” She answered a little too quickly. “Oh, wait a minute. It’s not what you think. We’re just good friends, and his daughters need a female around to balance being with Ben all the time.” She blushed and got up to pour another glass of wine.

  “If you say so,” Melissa said with a laugh, which made Deidre blush all the more. “On a work-related note, are you all alone in this job?”

  Deidre was glad the subject had changed. “There’s a part-time officer on weekends. He’s quite a guy. Jerry looks like everyone’s grandfather with his gray hair and moustache. But he’s surprised more than one suspect. He’s retired from the Minneapolis Police Force where he was lead detective with the drug unit. One time a young man tried to take a swing at him. Jerry had him on the ground and handcuffed in less than ten seconds. Other than that, though, a town the size of Silver Bay can’t afford to have round-the-clock service, so you might say I pretty much work alone.”

  Melissa looked at her with concern. “How much longer before Dan Butler returns to duty?”

  “The end of next week. Then I can take my bows and turn the case over to him. I only wish he’d been able to come back to work before this happened. I didn’t need this.”

  Melissa knew she was pushing it a little when she asked, “What if the case is still active? Do you think you can walk away from it?”

  “Just watch me,” Deidre answered emphatically, then downed the last swallow of chardonnay.

  Melissa smiled. “Then you can spend more time with Ben and his daughters.”

  “Exactly,” Deidre shot back and then caught herself. Again her face turned red, and she got up, poked at the glowing embers in the stove and added two sticks of split firewood.

  Melissa laughed, enjoying Deidre’s discomfort. “Well, I’m glad you two are just friends.”

  Deidre sat back down on the floor cushion. Pete came over, his tail wagging, and laid his head in her lap. She scratched behind his ears, and the lab closed his eyes in satisfaction. Soon he was wheezing as he slept.

  “We’re good friends, and I don’t think it’ll ever be any different. He loved his wife deeply, and I loved John the same way. Right now, I think we’re two injured people who need each other’s company.”

  Melissa stared at the logs that had burst into flame and said nothing. The two women sat for a half hour in silence, Deidre petting Pete’s head and Melissa savoring the last of her wine.

  Finally Deidre announced, “I think we better turn in. Judy expects us in Two Harbors by nine o’clock, which means we have to get up at six-thirty. I’ll get you a down comforter. I warn you, though, it’ll be cold in here by morning. The fire will have gone out, and I’m not getting up to stoke it in the middle of the night. We can build a fire to take the chill out of the air before breakfast, which by the way will be pretty simple: oatmeal, toast, and coffee.”

  Deidre helped Melissa make up her bed and both of them retired for the night.

  She thought she would fall asleep immediately after a difficult day and all the wine she’d consumed, but she was mistaken. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the pathetic figure of the body they had removed, and she tossed and turned. Once, she lifted her head and looked at the red numbers on the face of her digital bedside clock. One o’clock, and Deidre did the math: only five and a half hours until the alarm would go off.

  When it seemed she had just fallen asleep, she heard the buzz of her clock, soft at first but gradually increasing in volume until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She reached over and shut it off, her eyes still closed, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The cold floor jolted her, and she opened her eyes. Pete came into the room, looking at her with an urgency that said he had to go out. A cold blast of air hit her in the face when she opened the door, and she became fully awake.

  Deidre’s head ached, from lack of sleep she thought. Certainly it wasn’t from the wine she had consumed the night before. She started a fire in the stove. By the time she had the coffee pot on the kitchen range, she could feel the heat beginning to radiate into the cabin.

  She heard Melissa’s feet make contact with the floor. “My God, is it always this cold in the morning?”

  Deidre laughed. “No, sometimes it’s a lot colder. Let’s fix breakfast and eat before we clean up. By then the cabin will be warm, and we’ll be able wash, brush, and flush in comfort.”

  Melissa didn’t object.

  Chapter 4

  Neither woman said a word as they traveled down Highway 2 toward Two Harbors, each absorbed in her own thoughts. Finally, Melissa spoke. “What do you think Judy is going to find when she examines the body?”

  “I can only guess,” Deidre answered, shrugging. “My thought is the girl was at a party and had too much to drink, or got into some bad drugs and ended up dead. At least that’s what her friends may have thought. They panicked and dumped her body so they wouldn’t be implicated.

  “I suppose she might have been violated by male party goers while she was passed out. Because she was frozen in a fetal position, it was difficult to determine the full extent of her injuries. Some of the bruises we saw might have been the result of her being thrown into a car and then off the bridge.

  “But, there are so many other possibilities. I don’t know. We do have that key we found. If we can figure out what RRR stands for, it’ll make our job a heck of lot easier.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this one,” Melissa said, rubbing her temples. She had gotten no more sleep than Deidre. “I don’t know what it is, but I can’t buy into the idea that this is the result of a party gone bad. I wish I could tell you why, but I don’t know. We’re trained to follow the evidence and not go with our gut feelings, but right now, my guts are telling me a lot.”

  “Like what?”

  “Why wouldn’t her friends help her?”

  Deidre was silent for over a minute. “I have a friend who’s an EMT. He told me one time he and his partner were called to a party where someone had fallen off a balcony. When they got there, the party was still going strong, and everyone was pretty wasted. The young man who had fallen was lying on the ground, and no one was paying any attention to him. They were too busy partying to care about him. All my friend and his partner could do was load him in the ambulance and take him into the hospital. Not one of the par
tiers even asked how he was doing. He said when you’re at one of those bashes, you have no friends. I still think we’re looking at the consequences of an underage party.”

  “Yes, but in your friend’s case, somebody at the party took the time to call 911 or else the EMTs would never have been alerted. Right?”

  Deidre had to agree.

  “So if this isn’t the result of a pit party gone bad, what is it? There isn’t much else that goes on in this neck of the woods that would end up with a young girl naked and dead.”

  They passed a roadside sign that read Two Harbors, pop. 3,750, and Deidre said, “Well, we’ll know more in a few minutes after we’ve talked to Judy. I wonder if that poor girl’s body has thawed yet.”

  Melissa, so deeply in thought that she really hadn’t heard Deidre’s comment, didn’t answer. They pulled up behind the funeral home and walked up the steps in silence. Deidre pushed a button that rang a buzzer inside the building, and a solemn-faced funeral assistant opened the door.

  “Hi, Deidre. Dr. Coster said you’d be getting here about now. She’s downstairs, still sitting by the cooler where we hold bodies before embalming. I think she only slept in spurts last night and could probably use a fresh cup of coffee. There’s some in my office if you want to take a cup to her.”

  Deidre thanked him and filled a mug with the steaming brew. Then she and Melissa descended the stairway to the lower level where bodies were delivered into an underground garage and receiving area. Judy was seated on a stool, looking haggard and emotionally exhausted.

  “You look worse than a mouse that’s been toyed with by a cat,” Melissa remarked as Judy looked up. “Didn’t you sleep at all last night?”

  “Not much, only a few short naps in between examinations. Because it wasn’t frozen to the core, the body is almost completely thawed. I somewhat expected that, because it hadn’t lain in the cold for more than several hours before being found.”