The avenue in those days was part of the fabled Highway 61, so there was plenty of traffic, especially in summer when people from the Twin Cities headed north to Duluth and lake country. I’d like to think Bob Dylan came through town more than once, on his way down from Duluth to find fame and fortune. Maybe he even stopped for lunch or dinner at one of the restaurants—Burger Bobby’s, long since closed, was everybody’s favorite—before Paradise Avenue turned into Desolation Row.
The interstate highway, which opened in the 1960s, and later the casino sucked the life out of downtown, and it’s hard to think it will ever come back. A few stores are hanging on—the Our Own Hardware owned by Vern and his family may be the most successful—but much of Paradise Avenue has become a bleak repository of decaying buildings and shuttered storefronts. It’s sad to see, and whenever I go there I feel as though I’ve wandered onto a stage set left over from some dimly remembered performance of civic life.
A few years back, however, it looked as though downtown Pineland might experience a renaissance of sorts, courtesy of Peter and Dewey Swindell. The two floated a scheme to transform the moribund area along Paradise Avenue into a sort of “ye olde towne” outfitted with boutique shops, cute little restaurants and even a fitness center for the two of three people in town who are known to work out. But the key to the scheme was something called the Lone Pine Club, an upscale gambling salon for high rollers that would be operated, like the casino outside town, by the Grand Lac Band of Ojibwe.
The club was to be located in the Glenning Apartments, which had originally been a hotel. Situated a block from the Northern Pacific Depot, the three-story hotel in its day was the pride of Pineland. Its namesake, Daniel Glenning, opened the place in 1905 at a time when twelve passenger trains a day stopped in town. The hotel, which boldly proclaimed itself “the finest in the Northwest,” did a booming business and even offered a gambling den behind the lobby where craps, blackjack and high-stakes poker games flourished.
But the number of trains began to decline after the 1920s, and by the 1950s they stopped coming altogether. The depot was abandoned, the Northern Pacific vanished into a merger, and then the interstate arrived with new motels and restaurants at the outskirts of town. That was the end of the Glenning. It closed in 1972, a year before I was born, and the building was converted into low-rent apartments.
Peter bought the place in 2013 and announced Dewey would oversee the project to transform it into a luxurious new venue. A lot of people thought the club idea was ridiculous—would high rollers really be attracted to the minimal glories of downtown Pineland?—but the Swindells forged ahead. Dewey took charge of evicting the building’s mostly impoverished tenants, a task he accomplished as gracelessly as possible. Once the building was cleared of its human detritus, renovations began.
A few months later, the work abruptly stopped, for reasons that were never fully explained, although word around town was that a key financial backer had bailed from the project because of certain “irregularities” in the Swindells’ bookkeeping. “We’re having some minor financial issues,” Peter told the Tattler at one point, “but we’ll be back on track soon.” That didn’t happen. Peter and Dewey abandoned the project and decided instead to build their resort hotel next to the casino. The Glenning then became a vacant hulk, and as it turned out, a good place to commit murder in the dead of night.
There were no witnesses to Dewey’s murder, hardly a surprise, since downtown Pineland after dark usually pulses with all of the excitement of an abandoned graveyard, except for whatever zombies have gathered at the Dead Lumberjack. But two residents of nearby apartments reported that they’d been awakened by a loud noise, likely the shot that killed Dewey, around midnight. Both thought it might be a car backfiring and promptly returned to their slumbers.
The most useful evidence came from Dewey’s Mercedes. The front passenger side window was shattered, and a heavy spray of blood—later determined to be Dewey’s—decorated the driver’s side window and the area around it. Clearly, he’d been shot by someone standing outside the car. More blood was found on the ground next to the Mercedes, leading investigators to believe the killer had pulled Dewey’s body from the front seat and then presumably placed it in another vehicle for transportation to the Swindell mansion. To say it was a bizarre crime would be an understatement.
Arne called Saturday afternoon to confirm that Dewey was indeed the victim in the mansion. It wasn’t a courtesy call.
“You need to come down to my office for a talk right away,” he said.
“Be happy to,” I said. “I was going to come in anyway. I’ve got something to show you.”
I knew why Arne wanted to see me. It was all about my ridiculous tussle with Dewey in the courthouse square. Dewey had all but forced Robby Lindquist to write a report on the comic encounter, but it looked much more sinister now that Dewey was dead.
Jason Braddock from the BCA joined Arne for the interview. Arne said our friendly little talk would be recorded, adding: “You have the right to have an attorney present if you feel the need for sound legal advice. We wouldn’t want you to get tripped up and accidentally blurt out the truth.”
“Thoughtful of you to bring that up, Arne, but I think I can manage on my own,” I said. “And believe it or not, you will hear the truth. Now, before we begin, let the record show I am handing you an LG cell phone. I am the owner of said phone. On it you will find a text message left at twelve forty-five a.m. yesterday by a person claiming to be Dewey Swindell. You will also find text messages I sent in response.”
I scrolled to the message thread and handed the phone to Arne while Jason looked over his shoulder.
“Interesting,” Arne said. “I’m guessing you’re now about to tell me you have no idea on God’s green earth why Dewey sent you that message.”
“Correct.”
“Did Dewey send you any other messages or did the two of you talk at all yesterday?”
“No.”
A few more routine questions followed before Arne brought up my dustup with Dewey. “Sounds like a nasty little fight you two had. Duking it out right there in the square. My, my, very unseemly behavior for a county attorney, if you ask me.”
“I’m prostrate with grief over it,” I said. “Please do me a favor and get to the point.”
“The point is that you were angry enough at Dewey to shove him. What were you so mad about?”
“First of all, he was the one who started it by taking a swing at me. Second, he was pissed off at me and not the other way around.”
I explained how Dewey had confronted me because he thought Cassandra and I were plotting to steal his inheritance. “He was being ridiculous. He also smelled like the bottom of a whiskey barrel. That’s all there was to it.”
“So you say. But maybe a lot more was going on between you two.”
“Such as?”
Jason piped up and said, “Why don’t you come clean, Mister Zweifel, and tell us what really happened? The lies have to stop. It’s time to clear the air once and for all.”
“Is that a fact? Well, as far I see it, the air is already crystal clear. I didn’t murder Dewey Swindell and I have no clue who did. But here’s an idea Arne might appreciate. What about that money Dewey was getting from the late Jill Lorrimer and what about those deputies who were getting reduced-price blow jobs from her? Now that might be something to really look into. Might even be a motive for murder if Dewey knew too much about certain important people.”
“Bullshit,” Arne said. “Don’t you dare—”
Jason intervened. “Let’s calm down,” he said and then asked if I had an alibi for the night Dewey was murdered.
“I was home, as usual. Camus would gladly testify to that but he’s not very talkative.”
Jason looked confused. “Who’s Camus?”
“It’s his goddamn dog,” Arne said before I could
answer.
“And a fine dog he is,” I said. “Now, gentlemen, I have a suggestion. Check that cell phone I just gave you. There’s a cell tower two blocks from my house. I have no doubt you’ll find the messages I sent to Dewey pinged off that tower, proving I was home when I said I was. And that’s all I have to tell you this afternoon on the subject of the late Dewey Swindell. But since we’re here, maybe you can tell me if you’ve tracked down Cassandra Ellis. I’m worried about her.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got more important things to worry about right now,” Arne said. “No one’s filed a missing persons report, so there’s nothing to investigate. She went someplace. That’s her business.”
“She’s dropped completely out of sight and that doesn’t concern you?”
“Not at the moment. But feel free to hunt her down in your spare time.”
“I’ll do just that,” I said. “No thanks to you.”
21
After I left Arne’s office I drove out to Walmart to buy yet another cell phone, then went home and took Camus for his daily cavort through the countryside. A lot of border collies like to pluck Frisbees out of the air, fetch sticks or go after bouncing balls, but Camus has never shown the least bit of interest in such plebian activities. Instead, he appears to view them as beneath his dignity. But like his namesake he is a believer in the absurd, so he regularly chases after birds, squirrels and other moving objects he has no chance of ever catching.
I was starting to feel the same way about the Serenader. I wanted to run him down and extract his secrets, but so far he’d proved as elusive as one of Camus’s squirrels. Maybe he was just too smart for me, not to mention Arne and the Jasons and everybody else in town. Or maybe he’d just been lucky in avoiding detection. Either way, it was maddening.
When I coaxed Camus, who had been running free, back to the house, I received a pleasant surprise—my first in quite a while. Kat Berglund called on my land line with an enticing proposition.
“You need a break, poor man,” she said. “I’m off duty at the bar tonight. I’ve got a couple of nice Italian reds and some excellent edibles from a friend in Colorado.”
No man in his right mind would turn down a night with Kat, and as far as I could tell, I was still in my right mind. “That would be lovely,” I said. “See you soon.”
There are women in Pineland who regard me as a “catch,” perhaps because I have a full head of hair, a belly as yet undistended by beer, and I make enough money that I’m not living in a trailer in the woods. In other words, standards aren’t especially high when it comes to Pineland’s limited crop of unattached middle-aged men.
Of course, not all of Pineland’s eligible females view me as a prime specimen, and I’ve had a number of dates that ended badly. It’s also true there aren’t a lot of women in town who interest me beyond the obvious attraction of sex, which I certainly like but which is of itself just a flaring match in the dark, quickly extinguished. I’ve always been most attracted to smart, capable women, probably because that’s who I grew up with.
My aunts Katherine and Anna, who raised me, never married, but not for a lack of suitors. I think they simply felt no need for children of their own once my father turned me over to their care. They doted, as aunts will, but they were rock solid and didn’t let me get away with any craziness. They were both well read, very smart, and highly accomplished. Katherine ran a successful floral business and Anna was the head nurse at Mercy Hospital in Pineland. But no matter how busy they were they always had time for me. They saved my life every day, which is what good parents do.
Sometimes out of the blue I’ll find myself thinking of them and their no-nonsense approach to raising me. Anna, tall and big-boned, was an especially commanding presence, and I’ll never forget the time, when I was twelve or so, that she sat me down to reveal the facts of life. It was, in retrospect, a hilarious occasion—Anna calmly reciting the ABCs of sex and the male and female apparatus while I squirmed with embarrassment—her lecture ending with the memorable observation, “You’ll start having wet dreams soon.” I did.
Both of my parent-aunts, as I like to think of them, died in their sixties. Anna went quickly from a brain aneurism. Katherine took ten months to die from pancreatic cancer. Their funerals were the saddest days in my life and I hope they always will be.
The aunts prepared me well for how to relate to women, or so I thought. When I met Meredith, an aspiring artist and part-time grade school teacher who came from a wealthy suburban Minneapolis family, I thought for sure I’d found my life partner. We were married six months later. It was one of those over-the-top weddings, awash in flowers and designer dresses and sumptuous food, all paid for by her rich father and presided over by a pale-faced Episcopalian minister at a fancy club on the money-drenched shores of Lake Minnetonka.
The wedding wasn’t my style but I really loved Meredith. She was bright and funny and sexy, and for the first couple of years we were happy together. Then everything started coming apart, as though some unseen hand was driving a wedge between us, and my work began to consume me and so did whiskey. The alcohol grabbed me, just as it had my father, and took me out of myself. Of course, I allowed it happen—the bottle comes with warnings, but no blame—and before I knew it Meredith was gone.
Since returning to Pineland, I haven’t had a “serious relationship,” however that’s defined. The pop-psych explanation would be that I was traumatized by my divorce, which in fact I was, and that I now avoid commitment for fear of being grievously wounded again. That explanation could be right. But it also could be that I was born to live alone—I truly believe some people are—and that my three years of marriage were an aberration, a fork in the road I never should have taken in the first place.
As I drove into town, my thoughts turned back to Kat Berglund. She’s the one woman in Pineland who could entangle me again in the hopeless intricacies of love, but I know that will never happen. Kat is triumphantly self-sufficient, a living force who owns her life with a totality I could never match, and she views men as interesting but not essential. She invites visitors to her bed as she wishes, but no one stays overnight.
Kat lives in a second-floor apartment on Paradise Avenue, just three blocks from the Dead Lumberjack and across the street from the vacant Glenning Hotel. Her place is above the rather run-down offices of the Tattler, where Tommy Redmond produces his delightfully tasteless rag sheet on an old basement press. There were originally two upstairs apartments in her building but Kat combined them into one big unit, which she decorated in an eccentric style that somehow combines her love of sea shells, wolves, and Navajo pottery.
She was wearing a strapless, black velvet jumpsuit when she greeted me at the door. “It’s my Catwoman outfit,” she said. “I’m hoping you’re ready to meow.”
I was, and we had a fine time of it, sharing a bottle of Barbera and sampling some of Colorado’s finest before falling into bed. It was a romp to remember, and afterwards we talked for hours, about her life and mine, and eventually we became sober enough to puzzle over the mystery of the Serenader and everything else happening in Pineland.
One of those puzzles concerned the thumb drives I’d found along with the Serenader’s second and third messages. I’d asked Arne what was on the drives but he refused to tell me, calling it “privileged information,” as though he was in possession of a national secret. But secrets have a way of surfacing in Pineland, and Kat told me she knew all about the contents of the latest thumb drives.
“One of my regulars is a deputy sheriff,” she said. “He had a few drinks last night and loosened up. One thing led to another and before long he told me what was on the drives. It was ‘that music again,’ he said. But there was also something new: faint voices in the background.”
“On both files?”
“Yes.”
“Could anyone make out what the voices were saying?”
“I don’t think so. But the deputy said the BCA’s lab technicians in St. Paul will probably manage to enhance the voices without too much trouble. It just may take some time.”
“What about the music? Any luck identifying the tune?”
“Apparently, the BCA is also working on that. There are all sorts of apps designed to identify a piece of music, but so far they haven’t had a hit, or at least that’s what the deputy told me.”
“Maybe it’s an unknown Barry Manilow masterpiece,” I suggested.
“Hey, don’t make fun of Barry. I saw him once at the casino. He can still sing.”
“Good for him. Did you find out anything else?”
“That’s about it from rumor central.”
In return, I filled Kat in on my precarious situation with the county board and Judge Anderson, not to mention my semi-official status as a suspect. I also shared my worry about the missing Cassandra Ellis.
“I certainly hear a lot of talk about her,” Kat said. “Is she or isn’t she Peter’s daughter? I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty split on that question at the moment. I haven’t met her, but the word is she’s extremely hot. You working on getting into her pants?”
“I must say, Kat, I am absolutely appalled by the crudity of your question.”
“No you aren’t and you haven’t answered it.”
“Okay, I will say she’s very attractive, and smart as can be, but no, she’s not my type. I think she’d require extremely high levels of daily maintenance. Still, I really do wonder where she’s gone. I hope she hadn’t gotten herself into big trouble.”
“Such as?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just a sense I have. Cassandra is one of those people who believes she can handle anything or anybody. That kind of absolute self-confidence can be dangerous. Nobody is smart enough to have everything figured out. Let’s just hope I’m wrong and she’s safe. In the meantime, I can use your help. If you hear something at the bar—”
Pineland Serenade Page 13