A River Through Two Harbors

by Dennis Herschbach

“Would you like that to be me?” she asked. The girls nodded.

  “Okay, then that’s me.” Her answer satisfied them, and nothing more was said.

  As they were cleaning up the paper mess, Ben leaned close to her. “I’m not putting them up to this, I swear.”

  “That’s all right. They’re just children. By the way, thank you for the beautiful sweater. I’ve always wanted one but never afforded myself the luxury,” she said, changing the subject.

  *****

  But for the glow of candles set in every window and a collection arranged on the altar, the church was darkened when they arrived. Deidre was not comfortable in that setting, but as she sat, taking in the shadows and light patterns produced by the open flames, she began to relax. She was seated next to Ben, and he reached over and took her hand. Megan was on the other side of her and intertwined her arm inside Deidre’s elbow.

  Deidre held a copy of the order of service in her free hand, and she noticed that even though much was strange, she recognized the titles of the hymns: “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

  The one tune she didn’t recognize was “Silent Night Benediction.” She didn’t recognize the name of the composer, but an asterisk after his name led her to a brief note that he was a local composer.

  Before she could read more, the service began, the congregation stood, and the house lights were brought up so they could read the words to the carol. By the time they finished the song, the processional had reached the front of the church, and the pastor began to speak. Immediately, Deidre’s mind began to wander, and she found herself lost in thought, wondering what the child victims were doing in the hospital, wondering if the abductors would be so brazen as to attempt one more delivery of human lives that was scheduled after Christmas, wondering how many more lives would be destroyed by the river of young women flowing from Thunder Bay to Duluth.

  Her thoughts were disrupted when a box of small candles was passed down her row. She watched as everyone took one and adjusted a wax guard to protect their fingers. Megan showed her how to do it, and she sat waiting for further directions.

  The pastor instructed everyone, “Please tilt your unlit candle toward the lit candle of your neighbor. That way, melted wax will not drip on the floor.”

  The house lights were extinguished, and the ushers lit the candles of those congregants sitting on the aisle. The next person in from the aisle lit his or her candle off the lit one and so on down the row. In seconds the wave reached Deidre, and she successfully passed on the light. Soon the sanctuary was lit by the glow of hundreds of candles.

  From the front of a church, someone began to softly play the piano, and a tenor voice softly sang, “Peace I give to you, not as the world knows peace. Peace I give to you. God grant us peace.”

  As the singer’s mellow voice led the congregation through the words, almost like a chant, Deidre felt herself being caught up in the moment. When will the world ever know peace, she thought. Will there ever be peace?

  A tear ran down her cheek and dripped off her chin, and she found herself singing the words, her eyes closed, and desperately, she wanted to claim the peace she was feeling at that moment.

  Without notice the song leader smoothly slipped into singing “Silent Night.” After the last verse was sung, everyone extinguished their candles, and the sanctuary went dark, except for the candles on the altar and those in the windows.

  Even though hundreds of people filled the sanctuary, there was not a sound, not the rustle of papers, not the sound of someone rushing to put on their jacket so they could make a quick getaway, not even a cough.

  Row by row, the ushers directed the exit of the worshippers. Still, no one talked, and even in the narthex, people were speaking in hushed tones. On the way home they were silent. Megan and Maren were half a sleep in the back seat, and Ben and Deidre were buried deep in their own thoughts.

  Why can’t our lives be filled with this kind of peace everyday, she wondered. Certainly humanity has made enough progress that we can cease injuring each other.

  Ben pulled into the driveway. Together they carried the sleeping children into the house and to their rooms. Deidre couldn’t get past their childhood innocence as, in their sleep, they curled up and buried their heads in their pillows. She kissed each of them before leaving their room.

  As they quietly made their way downstairs, Ben whispered, “Time for Santa to arrive.”

  He went to the basement, and Deidre could hear him rummaging around. In a few minutes he came up the stairs, laden with packages. “Santa had a good year,” he laughed.

  For the next half hour, they arranged the gifts. The girls had left out carrots for the reindeer and cookies for Santa. The carrots went back in the refrigerator, and Ben ate the cookies, making sure to leave some crumbs on the plate.

  Six-thirty the next morning, Deidre awoke to squeals of delight coming from downstairs, followed by racing footsteps coming upstairs.

  “Deidre!” Maren exclaimed, her eyes wide open. “You got to see this. Hurry! Santa came last night.” They grabbed Deidre’s hands and pulled her out of bed.

  Ben was already in the kitchen. He emerged with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  “Daddy, can we start now?”

  “Go for it,” he said, handed Deidre her cup, and sat down to watch the excitement.

  Amid exclamations of “Look what he brought me” and “It’s just what I wanted,” Deidre could do nothing but grin. She looked at Ben, and he winked at her.

  About mid-morning, Ben’s mother and father arrived. Rebecca gave Deidre the once over look. “Looks like you’ve been spending a lot of time here lately,” she said abruptly.

  “Rebecca,” Jim butted in. “We’re delighted to see you again, Deidre. “You must forgive Rebecca. She fell off the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

  Rebecca gave him a sideways glance and stomped off to the kitchen, where Deidre heard her asking Ben if he needed her help.

  Jim took Deidre’s hands. “It’s okay. She just needs some time to get used to things being different. She and Jenny were like mother and daughter, and I think Rebecca’s still mourning her death. Be patient,” and he gave Deidre a hug.

  At that moment, Deidre decided her only recourse was to show Rebecca rather than tell her how easily she was fitting into her granddaughter’s lives. By the time Christmas Day was history, she thought she had made some progress.

  When Jim and Rebecca were heading out the door, Jim hugged her and whispered in her ear. “Hang with us. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  That evening, after the kids had been put to bed, the two adults sat staring at the tree, exhausted.

  “Do you have a lot to do tomorrow and Friday?”

  Deidre looked at Ben and realized she had very little on her agenda until the next week when the Aegean Sea would be coming into port.

  “Not really. What do you have in mind?”

  Ben had an expectant smile on his face. “I’ve got just a few things to clear up at the office. I could be done about ten on Friday. What if you got your cabin warmed up? The three of us could be there by late afternoon. I know the girls would love being in the woods in the winter. What do you think? I’ll bring the food if you want, and we could stay ’til late Sunday.”

  Deidre was thrilled. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of the idea herself. As they sat staring at the tree again, she pictured what it would be like to be snowed in with them at the cabin.

  Chapter 27

  Deidre washed down the last bite of toast with what coffee remained in her cup.

  “Well, I’d better get going. Last night I decided I would stop and see how the three girls in the hospital are recovering. See you tomorrow. I’ll have a friend plow the road into the cabin, and the fire
will be going.”

  “Whoa. Just a minute,” Ben said, and he stood up from his place at the table. “You’re not getting out of here without a proper sendoff. He gave her a very tight hug, and kissed her forehead. “I’m getting to dislike the wait between our times together,” he groused.

  Deidre smiled as she buried her head on his chest. She reached up and gave him a quick kiss. “See you tomorrow.”

  It was shift change when Deidre stopped at the nurses’ station, and doctors were reviewing patients’ charts, preparing to do rounds. Deidre spotted Dr. Bilka, the pediatrician attending the girls. She looked up from the chart she was studying.

  “Deidre, you’re saving me a phone call. I have marvelous news for you. Kimi has responded so positively to Allison’s presence, that she’s begun to come out of her shell. She has a long way to go, but she’s conversing and initiating dialogue. Her appetite has even picked up. The other girl, she says her name is Jean, is out of ICU and has joined the two for daily visits. They don’t laugh much, but they share their feelings with each other, and that is so positive. I wanted to invite you to meet with them. Each is so thankful for what you did for them. If you have time, they should have been served breakfast, and could get together right now.”

  “I was hoping I could, but tell me, what happens to them now?”

  “We’ve been in contact with the chief of police of the Nishnawbi Aski Nation. He’s arranging all of the legal papers that will be needed to bring them home. He’s assured us that their social service organization will provide psychiatric assistance.”

  Dr. Bilka turned to a nurse. “Will you please tell Allison—she’s in room 420—and Jean in room 431, that Deidre is here and would like to see them in Kimi Thomas’s room? Thank you.”

  Deidre walked down the hall to Kimi’s room, dodging workers pushing food carts, lab techs with their baskets of needles, and everyone else who made the hospital a place of restoration. She knocked on Kimi’s door before entering.

  Kimi was sitting on the edge of her bed, finishing a glass of orange juice while she watched a morning TV show. When she saw Deidre, her eyes lit up in a way Deidre had never seen before.

  “Deidre!” but before she could say more, the other two victims entered the room.

  Allison touched Deidre’s arm. “Hi,” was all she said.

  A third girl entered. “You must be Jean. I’m Deidre Johnson,” she introduced herself, and for several minutes they talked about how the hospital food was, if they were comfortable, and other mundane bits of conversation. Finally, Deidre thought she could broach the subject she wanted to discuss.

  “I have an awfully big favor to ask of you girls. Maybe it’s asking too much, and if it is, I want you to tell me without hesitation.”

  Quizzically, the girls looked at her.

  “Can we talk about the place where you were held captive? Will you try to remember what the place looked like? If it’s too painful, please tell me, and we can just visit for a while.”

  The room went silent, then Allison spoke first. “I remember the cabin had one room.”

  Jean broke in. “There were eight beds, four along each wall.”

  “They were made of boards, and the mattresses were old and smelly,” Allison added.

  Kimi looked out the window, a faraway look in her eyes. “We were chained by one ankle to the foot of the bed. The chain was long enough for us to reach one of the pails they set in between the rows of beds. That was our toilet.”

  Deidre shuddered at the image.

  “There were two windows on each sidewall, and one in front,” Allison said.

  “And the door was heavy, like it was made of really thick boards,” Jean added.

  “It was locked from the outside with a large, brass padlock,” Kimi volunteered. The girl’s were beginning to feed off each other’s memories.

  Deidre thought for a moment and then asked Kimi. “Are you sure about the lock?”

  Kimi nodded. “Anna and I escaped through the front window. It was hinged and I was able to push out the bottom and crawl through the opening. I fell on the deck of a small porch, and the door was right beside me. I saw the lock.” Tears began to form in her eyes and dribble down her face. “We ran up a trail, but then we heard someone swearing and breaking through the brush. One of the men came after us. I ran one way, Anna, another. He went after Anna and caught her. I made my way to the road—it was a long way through the woods—and caught a ride with some logger going to Silver Bay. I had him drop me off at the main highway, thinking I could find my way back home. I ended up in that deserted cabin where you found me.” Kimi went silent, and neither of the other two girls had any more to say.

  Together, the four of them sat with bowed heads, and the winter sun shined through the hospital window.

  “I hear you will all be going back to Canada very soon. Will you please keep in touch with me? I truly want to know how you are doing.” She handed them her name card. “My e-mail address is on this. Contact me anytime. Perhaps when this is all over, we can get together for a picnic or a nice meal at a restaurant.”

  The girls took turns saying goodbye and offered their thanks one more time. It was especially difficult for Kimi to let go, and after a prolonged hug, Deidre whispered in her ear, “You’re safe now. It will be okay.”

  Two people were in the elevator when the door opened, and they looked at her face, then looked away in embarrassment. They didn’t want to stare at the lady dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose on the trip down to the parking garage.

  Before pulling out into traffic, she called the person who plowed the driveway into her cabin. “Hey, Jerry,” she said when he answered. I’m coming up to my cabin this weekend, and I need the driveway plowed out. It will probably take a while to clear the half mile stretch, but we haven’t had too much snow yet. How much do you think, a foot? . . . Oh, that much,” she answered after Jerry upped her estimate. “Anyway, do you think you could have it opened up by this evening? Thanks a million, Jerry,” she said to his reply.

  Chapter 28

  On the way north, Deidre mulled over her role in what was left of the investigation. She had been in daily contact with the BCA for more than a month, and they agreed with her that because the FBI had pretty much assumed the lead, she should back out. She planned to close her office next week and file her final report with the state agency.

  In a way it felt good to think of being free of the responsibility, but on the other hand, it felt like she was dropping out of a foot race. She wondered what would happen to Gerald Colter, both father and son. And what about Judge DeMarcus? Would he be implicated, or at least be barred from the courtroom? Of course, there were the three girls. Would they grow up in spite of their emotional scars?

  These thoughts and many more concerning the case crowded her mind, and she was almost to Two Harbors before it dawned on her how far she had traveled. It was noon when she stopped at Inga’s and picked up her dog. Inga wasn’t home, so she left a note on the door saying hi and that she had taken Pete with her.

  The thought occurred to her that she was only an hour from her cabin, and Jerry said he wouldn’t have the driveway cleared until five or so. She decided to stop and see her old friend Pete, the logger after whom she had jokingly named her black lab.

  He was outside, splitting wood for his stove, when Deidre pulled up alongside his rusted-out pickup. Pete straightened his back and shielded his eyes against the afternoon sun. His face broke into a grin and he put down his splitting axe.

  “Well, Deidre Johnson. How the heck are you? And you brought Pete with you. You know I still haven’t forgiven you for naming him that.” He chuckled and the gaps formed by a few missing teeth showed.

  A year-old lab came running in from the woods, and she circled the pair, her tail wagging and begging for attention.

  �
��Pete, you got another lab!” Deidre exclaimed.

  “Yeah. After the old guy died, I thought I wouldn’t get another. At first I thought it would be foolish, because I’m so old. But then I thought, heck, I might outlive another one, so I picked up this girl at the animal shelter in Two Harbors. Somebody dropped her off, because she had too much energy for them. I was lucky. She’s a great dog.”

  “What did you name her?”

  “Deidre.”

  “What?” Deidre asked in astonishment.

  “Fair is fair,” was all Pete had to say. Then he added, “I call her Deid for short, though,” and Deidre could see his shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter.

  “Come on in. Bring Pete with you. He can meet Deid, and we can have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.”

  As they sat at Pete’s two person table, he asked, “What have you been up to? Haven’t seen you for a good three months. I thought maybe you had gone south for the winter. Thought you might be wimping out on us.” He slurped his coffee, but he couldn’t stifle the mirth in his eyes.

  “Do you remember hearing about the girl that was found dead under the Silver Bay bridge?”

  “You know I don’t get out much, but Terry told me that he thought you were involved in it somehow. How’d it turn out?”

  “Can’t tell you too much until everything is done, but it hasn’t been a good scene. Somewhere up here, girls are being held and then sold into prostitution a few at a time, mostly to sailors on the ships docked in the harbor in Duluth.”

  Pete took another swig of coffee, got up, and spit out the door. “Those bastards. I’ve lived in the woods my whole life, seen a lot of things up here. I’ve watched a pack of wolves pull down a moose, seen a bear walk off with a newborn fawn, even seen a red squirrel climb my birdfeeder and snatch a pine siskin right off the platform. That unnerved me, I’ll tell you. Squirrels aren’t supposed to do that. But, you know Deidre, I’ve never seen animals do what humans are capable of doing to each other. I know it’s not right, but sometimes I’m happy to be so isolated that I can let all this crap pass me by. I get so angry when I hear of what’s happening out there,” and he swept his arm toward the south and east, “I don’t want to know about it.” He gulped his coffee.