Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  I called her at the hotel and was relieved when she answered the phone. I told her about the message at the cemetery, but she didn’t have much of a reaction, which I thought was odd.

  I switched the subject. “How did your interview with Arne and the Jasons go?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. I gave them the letter from the man claiming to be my father and the taped phone conversation. They in turn showed me the photo left in Mr. Swindell’s SUV.”

  “Were you able to figure out when it might have been taken?”

  The question seemed to offend her. “Of course I did. It was taken last October, about a block from the federal courthouse in Chicago. I had a motion to argue there and I remember the suit I was wearing.”

  I suspected Cassandra could tell me what she’d worn every day of her life. My ex-wife was like that. I, on the other hand, can’t remember which of my five blue suits I had on yesterday.

  “That’s not encouraging news,” I said. “Whoever lured you here spent a lot of time on his plans. Six months at least. It’s pretty creepy.”

  “Well, I’m here now, so we’ll see what happens.” She didn’t sound as concerned as I thought she should be. I asked if she’d learned anything else of interest during her interview.

  “Yes, I learned some very interesting things. We can discuss them later. I’m going over to the casino now. Why don’t you me meet around nine at the bar there? There are some matters we need to clear up.”

  “That would be fine,” I said.

  After I disconnected, I fed Camus and took him for a walk while I communed with his animal spirits. He seemed anxious, stopping now and then to go into one of his dervish-like spins.

  “Be calm,” I told him, but he just kept spinning, going nowhere fast. Maybe he was trying to tell me something.

  The Paradise Pines Casino, like all of its kind, is a noisy, neon-lit machine for extracting money, and I rarely go there on the theory that life is enough of a gamble without doubling down on it. The casino’s signature design feature is a curved, cascading roof that the architect—some well tanned fellow from Los Angeles—compared to the notched wings of a raptor. Officially, the idea was to “celebrate” the free spirit of the Indian Nation or some such noble ideal. A less inspiring view is that the casino was designed to resemble a giant bird of prey hovering over all the unsuspecting gulls within.

  A bus from Duluth was unloading an eager scrum of old women and the occasional geezer just as I came up to the front door. I waited for the crowd to pass before going inside. The old folks went straight to the cashier cages, where I spotted Ed Boudreau chatting with one of the employees. I went over to say hello.

  “Don’t see you here very often,” Ed said after we shook hands. “Looking to make a killing on the nickel slots?”

  “No, I’ll pass on that golden opportunity. I’m just here for a drink.”

  “Let me guess. You’re meeting that lawyer from Chicago. I saw her come in earlier. Are the two of you getting cozy?”

  “No, we’re just getting drinks, but I know what you’re thinking and you can forget it. It’s all business with her.”

  Ed has a long and storied reputation as a skirt chaser, and he likes to hang out at the casino, buy drinks for women and then try to convince them to atone for Custer’s sins by having sex with him. Like all casino players, he sometimes gets lucky. Maybe he was hoping Cassandra would be his latest conquest, the odds of which I put at zero.

  “Well, enjoy your ‘business,’” Ed said in a way that suggested he didn’t believe anything I’d told him.

  The casino’s main bar is called the Pineries Lounge. It features a stand of dwarf pines, a small pool and a mural depicting woodland Indians on the hunt, presumably for more suckers to fleece at the gaming tables. I found Cassandra seated in a leather-upholstered banquette across from the bar. She was impeccable as always in a navy blue business suit. A waiter was just coming by, so I ordered my daily dose of Jack, straight-up, then slid into the banquette across from Cassandra.

  “So what’s this about your family and the Ku Klux Klan?” she demanded in way that strongly suggested I was about to be cross-examined.

  “And good evening to you,” I said. “You sound unhappy.”

  “Shouldn’t I be? Your pal the sheriff called yesterday to tell me about the cross. He also mentioned your grandfather was quite the Klansman. Funny you never spoke about that to me.”

  “I tried to. I called you at the hotel and left a message to call me back, but you never did.”

  “I received no message from you,” she said.

  “Well then, the hotel screwed up. But I’ll lay out the whole unsavory story of my grandfather’s Klan activities if you’re interested.”

  “It’s a little late for that. I must say I find it very concerning when important information is being withheld.”

  Her tone was harsh and accusatory, and I didn’t like it.

  “I wasn’t withholding anything,” I said. “Besides, what the hell does it matter what my grandfather did a century ago? Fuck him. Are you implying I’m some sort of Klan sympathizer?”

  “I’m not implying anything. I’m just trying to get some honest answers about what’s going on here. But honest answers seem hard to come by. The sheriff, for example, claims he isn’t sure why that cross was burned in your yard. He thinks maybe it was just a teenage prank.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yes it is. That cross was a message aimed directly at me. It’s clear I’m not welcome in your lovely little town. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Didn’t you tell me Pineland went seventy percent for Trump?”

  “I did, but that doesn’t mean the town is teeming with racists. People here voted for Trump mostly because they couldn’t stand Clinton.”

  “Oh, so that’s it. I feel much better now.”

  She was really starting to irritate me. “Let’s can the sarcasm, okay?”

  “Sure. By the way, how did you vote? Don’t tell me you’re a Trump guy.” She was spoiling for a fight—the default position of every hot-shot litigator.

  I tried not to take the bait. “I didn’t vote. I wasn’t a fan of either one of them.”

  “Or maybe you just didn’t want to vote for a woman.”

  “What’s with you? I’m trying to help here. And, if you want to know, I couldn’t vote for Clinton because she spent her whole goddamn campaign shaking money out of Silicon Valley millionaires. She had nothing to offer people here and neither did Trump. But at least he bothered to lie about it.”

  Cassandra, who was sipping on what looked like a Scotch and water, shook her head slowly as though I’d just said something completely nonsensical. Then she pounced.

  “So what about your father? I hear he was Klan sympathizer, too.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Is it true?”

  “I really doubt it, but then again I really don’t know what the hell my father did in his spare time other than drink. We weren’t exactly close.”

  “Well, I’m told he was a big-time white supremacist. I imagine that made him a very popular fellow here in town.”

  Something was wildly off. My father was an asshole, for sure, and no lover of humanity in general, but I’d never heard even a hint that he was a “big-time” racist. Someone was feeding lies about my father to Cassandra and she seemed eager to accept them as the truth.

  “Cassandra, I don’t know where you’re headed with all of this, but you’re starting to sound a little paranoid. Yes, my grandfather was a Klansman, but as far as I know my father had nothing to do with that sort of stuff. Who’s telling you that and, besides, what’s the point? I’m not my father or my grandfather.”

  She sipped at her Scotch and said, “The point is that I have real doubts I can trust you after what’s happened. I don’t like b
eing lied to.”

  “I haven’t lied to you,” I said. “But what about you? Since you prize honesty so much, maybe you should start being truthful with me. Who’s been whispering in your ear? Arne, maybe? Or have you found another source of misinformation?”

  “No, but I have found someone who’s actually willing to tell the truth. Imagine that.”

  A waiter came up to check on our drinks. Before he could say a word Cassandra stood up and said, “Nothing more for me, but Mr. Zweifel will probably want another round. Maybe it’ll make an honest man of him.”

  The waiter and I watched as Cassandra walked off. “Another Jack Daniel’s for you, sir?” he said, coolly ignoring the little drama he’d just witnessed.

  “Why not?” I said. “The night is still young.”

  As I nursed my second and last Jack, an unnerving idea popped into my head. If I was right, Cassandra was doing a very foolish thing and possibly putting herself in grave danger.

  13

  The next morning I went to the office, told Jane and Doug I’d need an undisturbed hour to contemplate the mysteries of existence, and then retreated to my inner sanctum to examine the Jill Lorrimer file. Arne’s investigation had not been particularly thorough. Perhaps he, and I, had missed something. I also wondered why the Serenader had brought up the case. Did he have inside knowledge about what had happened? I hoped the case file might provide some answers.

  The file turned out to be thinner than I remembered. There were just thirteen documents, all from the sheriff’s office or the coroner, along with autopsy photos and a few others showing Jill’s car and her apartment. The official cause of death was acute alcohol poisoning aggravated by a hefty intake of cocaine. Investigators theorized that after becoming deathly ill in her apartment, Jill had gone out to her car, perhaps to drive herself to the emergency room, before collapsing and dying in the front seat.

  The conclusion Jill had died of an accidental overdose appeared to make sense, until I found something in the coroner’s report I’d missed during my initial review. One of the photos showed her in her car, dead. She was wearing a long winter coat, a fur hat, and tall leather boots. But the boots were angled outward in a way that suggested they were on the wrong feet. This seemed strange. She’d apparently been able to put on her coat and hat with no trouble before she went out to her car, but not her boots. It led me to wonder if someone else had hurriedly dressed her, possibly after she was dead, and gotten the boots mixed up.

  Something else struck me as odd. If the investigative file was to be believed, Jill had spent the late hours of New Year’s Eve alone. She’d worked a full shift at the casino from noon to eight and then supposedly returned to her apartment to binge on a lethal combination of alcohol and cocaine. But was it really likely a high-priced call girl like Jill would have been alone that night and not helping one of her customers celebrate? I also discovered from the file that no cocaine or other illicit drugs were found in her apartment. Nor was any mention made of discarded liquor bottles.

  All of which raised the possibility she’d actually been out partying on New Year’s Eve, perhaps with her “pimp” Dewey or, better yet, with his father. I had no evidence of this, but the idea didn’t seem farfetched. Peter was known to revel with attractive women, the younger the better. Perhaps Jill had gone out to Peter’s mansion for a night of carnal recreation, only to collapse and die in his presence. After that Peter or one his minions could have put her in her car and driven her back to her apartment so she’d be found dead in the parking lot there.

  I wondered if the BCA, as part of its investigation into Jill’s activities with Dewey, had already uncovered evidence that her death was no accident. Another possibility was that Arne and his deputies had covered up her death at Peter’s direction. That might explain why Arne’s investigation had been so cursory.

  Then again, maybe I was just building castles in the air ready to vanish with the first fresh breeze of new evidence. I needed solid proof and so far I had very little of it.

  Around noon Doug stopped in. Naturally, he’d already learned the contents of the Serenader’s second message and he took the opportunity to pump me for more information.

  “Boy, that Jill Lorrimer thing came out of nowhere, didn’t it?” he said. “Wonder why he brought it up.”

  “I’ll ask the Serenader when we meet. How about you? Any bright ideas?”

  “Not really. It was pretty much an open-and-shut case as far as I remember. Do you think it needs to be reopened?”

  “Probably not,” I lied. In fact, I’d already decided to take a second look at the case, but I didn’t want to tell Doug because he’d spread the news around the courthouse as fast as he could. I preferred to act discreetly so as not to tip off anyone who may have been involved in a coverup.

  Doug nodded and said, “It’s always hard to reopen an old case. I mean, why create trouble if you don’t have to?”

  “Words to live by,” I agreed and headed out to lunch.

  Koffeeken’s, which sounds like a Finnish name but isn’t, qualifies as one of Pineland’s unlikely success stories. It opened a few years ago in an old storefront on Paradise Avenue with the idea that Pinelanders raised on anemic Lutheran church basement coffee might actually enjoy a better brew. The place is owned by Ken Michaels, who relocated to Pineland after supposedly encountering some drug-related “hassles” with the police in Minneapolis, where he’d also run a coffee shop.

  It was widely assumed that a place selling four-dollar lattes could never make a go of it in Pineland, but Ken proved the skeptics wrong. He installed a fancy Italian espresso machine, brought in the usual collection of stuffed chairs and other second-hand furniture for that rumpled-but-inviting coffee shop look, and hung bad paintings by local artists on the walls. Then he started making friends by dispensing really good coffee along with wraps, sandwiches and salads. Koffeeken’s is now a favorite for locals but also draws a few casino-goers tired of the lousy restaurants along the interstate.

  Ken’s a wiry, ex-army guy in his thirties, with shaggy black hair, a Van Dyke beard and puppy-dog brown eyes. He usually wears fatigues adorned with combat medals, talks in the jumpy manner of a man who’s fully caffeinated, and has a bottomless store of Kuwait-Iraq-Afghanistan-Wherever war stories, some of which may even be true. He’s also Pineland’s chief purveyor of conspiracy theories, the more outrageous the better. Aliens, the military industrial complex and Ivanka Trump—an unholy trifecta if there ever was one—seem to obsess him above all else. Still, I like him, and I like his coffee and food even better.

  “Yo there, Mr. Zweifel,” Ken said when I took a seat at the counter, ready for my usual luncheon repast of a chicken salad sandwich and soup. “What’s new on the crime front? Any more messages from that Serenader fellow?”

  “Yeah, he told me I should always eat lunch here if I know what’s good for me.”

  Ken let out a big rolling laugh and said, “A wise man, that Serenader. Except, maybe he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Apparently not. But I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

  “The sheriff knows who he is. That’s what I’ve been told. There’ll be an arrest shortly.”

  “Well, that’s certainly big news. And what do you suppose the Serenader will be charged with? Littering?”

  “Ha, that’s a funny one.”

  “I’m serious. The Serenader has left two messages. Neither was in the form of a terroristic threat. As I said, maybe we can get him for littering but that’s about it, unless there’s some proof he was behind Peter’s disappearance. So who’s telling you an arrest is imminent?”

  “It’s just something I heard,” Ken said. “You know how it is. I talk to a lot of people.”

  A fine, straightforward evasion if I ever heard one. “I’m sure
you do,” I said. “Anything else you’re hearing that I might enjoy with my lunch?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. There’s a lot of buzz about that Black woman who’s in town.”

  “I can only imagine. So what’s the word?”

  “From what I hear, she’s talking to a lot of people, trying to dig up stuff about Peter. But I guess you’ve spent enough time with her you’d know more about that than I do.”

  Ken was speaking in small-town code but I knew where he was going.

  I said, “Okay, before I enjoy my lunch, I will state to you for the record, under oath if necessary, that I am not sleeping with her, have never slept with her, and have no intention of sleeping with her. Now, what’s the soup today?”

  I was just finishing my lunch when Marty Moreland came in and took the stool next to me.

  “Paul, good to see you again,” he said. “I’m just taking a little coffee break. Don’t feel like eating.” His voice, usually a baritone that oozed confidence, had an uneasy edge to it, and a nervous pallor had replaced his usual sheen of optimism. “So, how are you doing? You must be a busy man these days with everything that’s going on. Did they catch those kids who burned that cross on your lawn?”

  “Not sure it was kids, Marty, but we’ll see. How about you? I suppose everyone in town wants to know why this Serenader guy decided to pick on people like you and me.”

  “Boy, I really don’t know. It’s just the craziest thing. That’s what I told Arne. No idea, I said, no idea what this is all about. I wonder where all this stuff about conspirators and whatnot is coming from. I haven’t done anything wrong and neither have you, I’m sure.”

  “Sounds like you know all about the second message. I haven’t seen anything about it in the press yet.”

  “You know how it is. Word gets around. Hard to keep a secret in Pineland. Sometimes I wish it was easier. It’s weird that Lorrimer woman was mentioned, isn’t it? I thought the ruling was that she died of an accidental overdose.”