Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

6

  Welcome to Paradise County! We’re Minnesota’s playground and there’s lots to do! Boat and fish and swim in our crystal clear lakes. Take in the scenic wonders of the Paradise Dalles. Visit our quaint shops and stores. See Paul Bunyan’s axe (yes, it’s mighty big!). Oh, and don’t forget to eat! Our fine restaurants are eager to serve you and you’ll also find the best in clean, modern lodging at our resorts, hotels and motels. And wherever you go, you’ll meet warm, friendly people. So come see us soon and enjoy your very own adventure in Paradise.

  So states a tourist brochure from 1960, its anonymous author shamelessly playing on our county’s name to convince visitors they were about to encounter heaven on Earth. For all I know, our little corner of the world may have been a sweet place back then, although I have my doubts. It’s certainly not paradise now, but it’s not some remote hellhole either. What’s it really like? You’ll get different answers from different people, but here’s my personal guide to Paradise County and Pineland, scoured of the usual chamber of commerce hyperbole:

  The county is poor, rural and its year-round population is declining, although the casino and the resort hotel bring in thousands of annual visitors. It’s not the whitest place in America but it must be close. Blacks, Hispanics and Indians make up only six percent of the population, and at last count there were no Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders among the county’s twenty thousand residents. I can’t imagine why.

  The climate is bitterly cold in winter, while the short summers seem largely designed to ensure that mosquitos do not go extinct. The landscape is mostly flat, consisting of hardscrabble farms and vast expanses of scrub trees that took root after the lumbermen cut down all the pines. Interstate 35 cuts through the county, providing easy access to the Twin Cities and Duluth. Like all interstates, it swerves around the small towns along the way, leaving them with dead main streets as small galaxies of gas stations, restaurants, and motels spun into existence out at the interchanges.

  As for the county’s lovely name, it would nice to think that an early settler, enchanted by the sylvan beauty of the surroundings, saw it as a veritable Garden of Eden. Not so. The county was actually named after Jonathan Paradise, a lumberman from Maine who arrived in the 1870s. His lumberjacks went after the prized white pines, felling one great grove after another and leaving behind a landscape of waste and ruin. In honor of this magnificent achievement, a grateful citizenry named the county after Paradise in 1878.

  His work of deforestation produced thousands of acres of woody debris known as slash—a deadly fire hazard that ignited on a hot, bone-dry September day in 1892. What followed was the worst catastrophe in the county’s history, known today as the Great Pineland Forest Fire, which claimed more than four hundred lives. The fire destroyed Pineland and a half-dozen nearby towns, torching hundreds of square miles all the way to the Wisconsin border. Pineland was completely rebuilt after the disaster, with new wooden buildings as flimsy as the ones that had burned down. Some people still wonder why anyone bothered.

  As for the city of Pineland, here are a few essential facts:

  Population: 2,847, according to the 2010 census. That’s ten more people than the town had in 2000. Talk about a growth boom.

  Elevation: 1,021 feet. Rising seas should not be a problem.

  Year incorporated: 1882.

  Original name: Chengwatana. This was an Anglicized version of the Ojibwe word Zhingwaadena, roughly meaning “white pine town.” But when the time came to incorporate the village the old Indian name was ditched, maybe because people thought it was too hard to pronounce or because they didn’t much care for Indians. Too bad. Chengwatana has a nice, lilting ring to it; Pineland, not so much.

  Streets: Pineland is a standard Midwestern grid town, laid out like so many others around the rail tracks that gave it life, except for one peculiarity. All of our streets, instead of being numerical or celebrating the usual trees, bear biblical names. This happened because one of the town’s founders was a deeply religious man named Josiah Preston, who despite his close relationship with God perished in the Great Fire. Before going to his eternal reward, he surveyed the town’s initial plat. In a display of faith he gave the streets names from Genesis, including Adam, Eve, Eden, Noah, and Abel. Cain didn’t get a street, however, presumably because of his criminal record. Our main drag, Paradise Avenue, is actually named after the lumberman, who does not seem to have been a godly figure.

  Tourist attractions: Not many. A weird mortuary designed in the 1950s by Frank Lloyd Wright pulls in a few visitors every year. Then there’s Paul Bunyan’s axe, a twenty-foot-high fiberglass artifact located in a small park at the entrance to town. I once suggested Paul Bunyan’s penis might be a more spectacular and photogenic attraction, but the Pineland Chamber of Commerce disagreed. There also used to be a small amusement park called Bunyan World just south of town on old Highway 61. It offered a giant lumberjack smoking a corncob pipe, among other wonders, but the place went broke after the interstate hijacked all the traffic. The Pineland Fire Museum, located in the old Northern Pacific Depot, also roped in a few visitors until it burned down ten years ago—I believe this is what is meant by irony—and was never rebuilt.

  Politics: Trump is king. He took seventy percent of the vote in 2016. Some people in town love him, but mostly he got the vote because people couldn’t connect to Hillary Clinton, an alien in green pantsuits from some elite coastal world. Still, there’s no denying Pineland is deeply conservative and hosts its share of birthers, conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, anti-vaxxers, militiamen, and even a handful of holdouts still fighting fluoride. But most people aren’t at the fringes. They’re just regular folks who adhere to beliefs—in God, family, country, and duty—they fear are being lost elsewhere in America. It’s also worth noting that in 2016 the people of Pineland, while voting heavily for Trump, elected an openly gay and avowedly liberal woman named Mary Jane Bakken as mayor. Go figure.

  Gun and pickup truck ownership: Very high.

  Crime rate: It used to be very low, but the casino, which opened in 2008, attracted an unsavory element, and crimes of all kinds have been on the rise ever since.

  Drugs: Readily available in town and throughout the county. Out in the boondocks, meth making remains the most lucrative, if dangerous, profession. Other of our rural entrepreneurs deal in everything from heroin to pot, assuring that no one here with a drug habit goes unserved. Opiates—the bane of rural America—are the biggest problem, and for every one thousand residents of the county nine hundred eighty-eight opioid prescriptions were written last year. People here seem to be in a lot of pain.

  Economy: Struggling, especially after the Northland Consolidated Paper Mill, long the town’s biggest employer, closed five years ago. The casino and Peter’s resort hotel provide jobs, but few of them pay much, and most of the worker bees live in cheaply built apartments on the outskirts of town. Aside from Peter’s family, there isn’t much old money around to buy our way out of obsolescence, and it’s probably fair to say Pineland is a relic from an economic model that no longer exists.

  Indian affairs: Only a few choice bigots will admit it, but the Ojibwe who run the casino are widely disliked in Pineland, despite the money and jobs they’ve imported. These ill feelings seethe just beneath the surface, so overt displays of bias are rare. But the prejudice is there, and I doubt it will go away anytime soon.

  Best place to eat: At home.

  Bottom line: Because the casino and hotel are three miles west of town off Interstate 35, Pineland is isolated, a drive-past town in flyover land. In winter particularly, there’s a sense here of being unmoored from the rest of the world, like one of those “lost Swede towns” Fitzgerald mentioned in The Great Gatsby. But even lost places have their own small virtues and pleasures. As my father, who lived a life untainted by optimism, once said, “There are worse places you could live.” For once my father was right.

 
When I ran for county attorney, I won the unflagging support of our local newspaper, the aptly named Paradise Tattler. The paper is a story in itself. For many years it was known as the Pineland Pioneer, and it was a hopelessly dull rag, filled with less-than-scintillating accounts of church socials, city council meetings and the occasional tractor rollover or auto accident. Like so many small-town newspapers, the Pioneer eventually fell on hard times, and the local owners sold it to a regional chain based in Duluth. The new owners turned it into a shopper devoid of anything like real news, and in that condition it was on the verge of dying of its own irrelevance until Tommy Redmond came to the rescue.

  Arriving in town from points unknown, Tommy bought the failing Pioneer for a song, renamed it the Tattler, and quickly turned it into a quirky mini-tabloid full of gossip, crime news and, of late, frequent editorials extolling the underappreciated excellence of Donald Trump. Here’s a sample of recent headlines: “Wildcat Stalking Local Dogs,” “Minneapolis Man Found Naked in Casino Parking Lot,” “Farmer Says UFO Landed Near His Barn.” You get the drift. Naturally, the good people of Paradise County found this sort of news so distasteful they couldn’t get enough of it, and Tommy achieved a kind of non-digital miracle, transforming his little publication into an improbable moneymaker.

  He also writes a blog called “Paradise Detective Bureau” that’s devoted exclusively to crime news, much of it of a decidedly minor variety. Now and then, though, he gets into something more serious and usually pisses off Arne to no end in the process. I’m one of the blog’s five hundred or so subscribers, because I often learn more from it than I do from local law enforcement.

  Tommy is known around town as “Red,” not just because of his last name but because he always wears a bright red sportscoat that makes him as instantly recognizable as an approaching fire truck. All he lacks is a siren. He’s a sharp stick of man in his mid-thirties, with a dark complexion, big brown eyes, and a wild swirl of curly black hair. He pursues stories relentlessly, and he’s never been afraid to take on the “Swindeller,” as he likes to call Peter. I’ve leaked or steered a number of good stories to Tommy and he considers me a prime source.

  So I wasn’t surprised to find him at my doorstep Saturday evening, a few hours after the Serenader had delivered his first message. “Hey Paulie, how’s it going?” he asked as Camus came up to assess the situation. “I would have called but I thought we should talk in person.”

  For some reason, Tommy always calls me “Paulie.” I guess it makes him think I’m his friend. I’m not, but I do find him very useful at times.

  “Come on in,” I said. “I figured you’d be in touch.”

  Tommy bent down and rubbed one of Camus’s ears. “I like this guy. Where’d you get him?”

  “He got me. He came up to the door one day just after I moved in. He invited himself in, accepted a donation of chopped baloney, and then went to sleep on my couch. He had no tag, no chip and no owner I could ever find. He was a free being in the world, so I named him Camus.”

  “Funny name for a dog,” Tommy said, “but I like it.”

  Once we sat down Tommy said, “Boy, lots of big news, isn’t there? The Swindeller’s gone missing and then that crazy stuff on the courthouse door. I’m wondering, why did he send you that text this morning?”

  Here we go, I thought. The smaller the town, the harder it is to keep a secret, and if Tommy knew about Peter’s message, so did everyone else in Pineland by now. There was no point denying I’d gotten the text. All I could do was try to set the record straight, which I did.

  “So you don’t really know why he texted you?”

  “Right. It’s a mystery to me. And I can’t tell you anything else because I don’t know anything about why or how Peter went missing. Talk to Arne.”

  Tommy looked at me in disbelief. “You know Arne hates my guts, so he’s not saying shit. C’mon, Paulie, you gotta help me out on this. Biggest story ever here, as far as I know. I want to be out front on it. What about this Serenader business and the message on the courthouse door? Very weird, if you ask me.”

  “I agree, but I have no theories as to who the Serenader is or what he’s up to.”

  “So you have no idea why you were mentioned with the others?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “How about that thumb drive, which is also pretty weird? Any idea what’s on it? Arne won’t tell me squat.”

  “Sorry, Tommy, I’m in the dark about that. Arne doesn’t confide in me, either.”

  “I know. But guess what? I’ve been hearing stuff about Arne and Peter.”

  “Such as?”

  “Let’s just say I have good reason to believe some big shit is going to hit the fan before long.”

  “Care to be more specific?”

  “No can do, friend. But you’ll be reading all about it, I promise you. Let’s get back to Peter’s disappearance. Like I said, I want to be all over the story. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes national.”

  “You’ll just have to keep digging, Tommy. I’ll keep you in the loop if you do the same for me.”

  I gave him my new cell number and he said, “Okay, you’ve got a deal. Oh, one more thing. What about that Black woman in the photo? Know anything about her?”

  “Not a thing,” I said. Soon, I would know a great deal more.

  7

  The call came in Sunday afternoon on my land line, just after I’d returned from a long, rambling walk with Camus.

  “Hello, my name is Cassandra Ellis. Is this Mr. Zweifel?”

  I didn’t recognize the name or voice. “It is. Can I help you?”

  “I hope so. I’m in town from Chicago and I’d like to talk to you about an important matter. Is it possible we could meet today? I’d really appreciate it.”

  “What sort of matter?”

  “I’d prefer not to talk about it over the phone but it involves Peter Swindell.”

  “I see. And you have some information about him?”

  “Possibly. Is there private place we could meet?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you just come over to my house?” I gave her the address and directions.

  “Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Cassandra Ellis appeared at my front door twenty minutes later. Camus came up for an inspection, gave her two quick sniffs and went away, evidence he found her satisfactory. She introduced herself again and said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Not at all. Please come in.”

  She was slender and athletic looking, mid-thirties, with café au lait skin, short hair, and sharp brown eyes. She carried an elegant leather handbag that did not come from K-Mart. Her perfectly tailored gray suit was of a kind and quality rarely seen in Pineland, and her clipped voice lacked the slight Scandinavian lilt that forms Minnesota’s predominant accent.

  It took a moment before I recognized her, and if the Pope had come to bless me, I might have been less surprised. Cassandra Ellis was the woman from the photo found in Peter Swindell’s SUV.

  “Well, this is certainly unexpected,” I said. “You may not know it, but you’re something of a mystery woman in these parts.”

  “Really? I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s just say your face has become familiar,” I said, inviting her into the living room, which was a litter dump of legal documents, books and magazines. I cleared a space on the couch. “Please, have a seat and I’ll do my best to explain what’s going on.”

  Before she sat down, she handed me her business card. It was from a Chicago law firm called Randall, Morton, Muir and Feinstein and identified her as a “senior litigator.”

  “You must be very good,” I said. “I haven’t run across many senior litigators of your age.”

  “I’m a quick study,” she said. I didn’t doubt that for minute. Some people radiate intelligence, and she d
id. “I really do appreciate your taking the time to see me,” she continued. “I flew up from Chicago this morning and, of course, I don’t know anyone here. But I thought I might begin with you.”

  “May I ask why you selected me?”

  “I did some research. This is all foreign territory to me, as I think you can understand, and I didn’t want to come up here and have to deal with, well—”

  “A bunch of racist yahoos?” I suggested.

  “I’m not saying that. I just wanted to talk to somebody who wouldn’t be put off by who I am. I ran across your name as the county attorney here and learned you’d once been a public defender in Minneapolis. You handled a big case there representing a group of Black defendants being unfairly targeted by the police. So I figured you were somebody I could deal with.”

  She was right. I’d won the case, which involved a group of small-time pot dealers who were hardly upstanding citizens. But it was blatantly obvious the cops had been doing a little color selection when it came to their busts, and I’d managed to get the charges dismissed.

  “I’m impressed with your research,” I said. “But it’s not why you’re here, so we might as well get to the point. I’d really like to know how you’re connected to Peter Swindell. By the way, are you aware he disappeared yesterday?”

  “Yes, I just found out. I picked up a newspaper at the airport in Minneapolis. Now I have a question for you: what did you mean when you said I’m a ‘familiar face’ here?”

  I told her about the photo. “Since you’re from Chicago, I’m guessing that’s where the picture was taken.”

  “Very strange,” she said, a hint of alarm edging into her voice. “Do you have the photo?”

  “No, the sheriff here has it. But it looked like it was taken with a long lens. I doubt you knew you were being photographed.”

  “You think someone was stalking me, is that it?”

  “Could be. In any case, I’d really like to know what brought you here. It must be quite a story. And if you don’t mind, I think I should record our conversation, since anything you tell me could have evidentiary value.”