Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  “Have no fear, I’ll keep you informed,” Kat said. “As for you, try to stay out of trouble, will you? It sounds like some serious shit might be coming your way.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I said, rolling out of bed and putting on my clothes. It was past midnight and Kat’s man clock was running out on me. “I’m sure things will straighten out before long. I’ll be fine.”

  Mark those down as remarkably foolish words.

  I gave Kat a goodbye kiss and went downstairs and out toward my Prius, which was parked in front of the dark, vacant Glenning. A car went past as I started across the street but otherwise silence prevailed in the barely beating heart of downtown Pineland. That’s when I saw a beam of light and found the Serenader’s fourth message, posted along with the usual thumb drive, on the Glenning’s boarded-up front doors:

  Now there are three. Zweifel, Sigurdson, Moreland. They have the answers but cannot be trusted. Buried secrets lie among the stones. THE WOMAN is gone but will return. Let the truth shine forth.

  The Serenader

  22

  “This is getting ridiculous,” Arne said after we’d gone through yet another session of questioning. “Either you’re pulling everybody’s chain or the cleverest fucking asshole in the world is on your case.”

  I’d already talked to Jim Meyers at the Pineland Police Department, and once he’d pulled all the meat he could off my bones he turned me over to Arne to pick at the leftovers. We were now in Arne’s spartan office, it was two in the morning, and neither of us was particularly happy to be there.

  “The clever asshole theory works for me,” I said.

  “Yeah, I bet it does. But I don’t think it works for anyone else.”

  Arne had a point. I could hardly believe myself how expertly I’d been set up to discover yet another message. The beam of light directing me to it had come from a flashlight placed on the sidewalk, all part of a carefully timed arrangement.

  When I arrived outside Kat’s apartment, I’d seen no flashlight or message. Presumably a few souls had wandered along Paradise Avenue during the hours Kat and I were recreating. If any of these passersby had seen an illuminated message on the Glenning’s doors, they almost surely would have reported it to authorities, given the Serenader’s notoriety in Pineland. But no one made such a report. That meant the message must have been posted not long before I left Kat’s place, which in turn suggested the Serenader had been nearby the whole time, watching and waiting. I told all of this to Arne and said Kat would back me up.

  Arne was skeptical. “You two an item?” he asked.

  “Come on, you know no one is an ‘item’ with Kat. I was just spending some quality time with her.”

  “Playing tic-tac-toe, I’m sure. Must be that law degree of yours that attracts woman. It can’t be your face. But who’s to say she wouldn’t lie for you?”

  “Well, you go right ahead and ask her if she’d do that. I think you know what the answer will be.”

  “Oh, I’ll ask,” Arne said. “You can count on that.”

  While I entertained Arne in his office, evidence technicians swarmed the Glenning, looking for fingerprints, DNA, a fugitive strand of hair or anything else that might lead them to the Serenader, or to me. The forensics wizards found nothing. The Serenader was the antiseptic man. No surveillance camera footage turned up, either. Few businesses in downtown Pineland bother with cameras because there’s so little worth stealing.

  After my slow waltz with Arne, I went home and tried to catch some sleep. But the Serenader’s new message kept banging around in my head, concussing me with questions. I wondered most of all what he meant by “buried secrets lie among the stones.” An idea eventually occurred to me, but I didn’t like it because, if I was right, a new storm of suspicion could blow my way.

  Once daylight arrived, I took a long shower, ate a stale bagel, drank stale coffee, sent Camus outside to hunt for small sentient creatures, lured him back into the house with a piece of stale chicken, and then drove into town to enjoy coffee and donuts with the Jasons, who wanted another interview with me. They were their usual charming selves as I explained my discovery at the Glenning to them. Many questions followed, many answers were duly provided, and then I bid them a fond and hearty farewell. I knew the two BCA stalwarts were even less inclined than Arne to believe me, but I was past caring. If they wanted to waste their time trying to prove I was playing some kind of weird game, so be it.

  When I reached my office, I found Doug manning the phones because Jane, who does not exhaust herself as my secretary, was already on one of her famously long coffee breaks. Doug greeted me with his usual duplicitous enthusiasm and said, “Sounds like you had another wild night. Isn’t it something how you keep on finding those messages? Why do you suppose that is?”

  “It’s a mystery for the ages. By the way, has Vern called?”

  “No more than ten minutes ago. How’d you know?”

  “ESP, Doug. Runs in the Zweifel family. I’ll get back to him.”

  I went into my private office and closed the door. I knew why Vern had called and I knew what I had to do. My discovery of the Serenader’s latest message was a final coating of radioactive dust that made it inevitable I couldn’t go on as part of the investigation into Peter’s disappearance and Dewey’s murder. The county board had already voted to remove me from the case. Judge Anderson, Vern’s old pal, had denied my motion for a temporary injunction. I had little or no chance at the state Court of Appeals. I had to go, and Vern was undoubtedly pants-wettingly eager to tell me just that.

  When I reached him on the phone, I delivered the joyous news he’d been waiting for. “I’m recusing myself from the case as of today. You and the board can rest easy. You’ll have the paperwork on your desk within the hour.”

  “Well now, that’s a start,” Vern said. “That fellow from the AG’s office in St. Paul, Chad Barrington, is all set to take over. I’m sure he’ll do a fine job.”

  Unlike me, in other words. I had a hunch what was coming next. “I’ll also need your resignation,” Vern said, as though it was a settled matter. “I don’t see how you can continue as county attorney with so many questions being raised.”

  “Won’t happen, Vern. The voters can decide at the next election if they want me out of office. It’s not your call.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Vern said, and abruptly disconnected.

  “Fucker,” I said to the dead phone. I didn’t see how Vern could force me from office, but he was devious and ruthless enough to give it a try. I’d have to be very careful in the days ahead.

  Doug Wifferding, who’s something of a computer whiz, handles all of our office’s online business, sending out news of indictments, jury verdicts and other developments via social media. I, on the other hand, try to steer clear of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and the like for the simple reason that I have no particular opinions, wonders or achievements to share with the world. Nor do I wish to know whose grandchild has just completed potty training. But I pay close attention to the news on a dozen or so websites and I also consult local blogs to sample the latest gossip.

  Tommy Redmond’s “Paradise Detective Bureau” is usually the first blog I turn to, and when I went to it that afternoon I learned he already had the news of my recusal. The only surprise was that he hadn’t called me already for comment. His blog report was accurate, except for a sentence that read: “With Zweifel now removed from the investigation, the local knowledge he brought with him will be lost and will be hard to replace.”

  I didn’t quite see it that way. Although I was officially off the case, I wasn’t out of the game, and I intended to use my “local knowledge” to discreetly investigate on my own. After all, the Serenader had made a point of calling me out in his messages. He’d also called out Dewey, who was now dead. Was I next? Or would it be Arne or Marty Moreland?

  As I went out t
hat evening for my usual exercise with Camus, I tried to figure out how the Serenader had selected his targets. Clearly, we hadn’t been named at random. We all belonged to well known Paradise County families. In the message posted on my door, the Serenader had written that “old sins are the worst sins,” suggesting he was preoccupied with something that happened years earlier. He followed with a message referring to “buried secrets.” But how were all of us—or our families—supposedly involved? What was the common thread?

  The law was one possibility. Marty Moreland’s late father, Theodore, was a Paradise County District judge for many years, and his father before him had been on the bench as well. Arne’s father, also dead, was the redoubtable Magnus Sigurdson, who served three terms as sheriff. And of course various Zweifels have practiced law in Pineland since the early 1900s. The Swindells, however, didn’t have lawyers, judges or members of law enforcement in their family as far as I knew. What they had was money, lots of it, going back to the days when Darwin Swindell helped found the paper mill and built his now destroyed mansion.

  Still, there might be a connection to the law. Perhaps one of the Swindells—Peter?—had been involved in a court case that touched off the grievance suggested by the Serenader’s messages. A lawsuit that left the loser with a festering sense he’d been wronged? A property eviction? A costly divorce settlement? An unjust criminal conviction? It could be anything. And then there was the Jill Lorrimer case. How and why did she fit into the picture?

  I knew that whatever ignited the events now taking place likely centered on something Peter had done, since he was the first target for revenge. Was it something that happened in Pineland, perhaps in the courts, or was it before that, when Peter lived in Chicago? There was no way to know for sure. But if it was linked to an old court case, I faced a big problem.

  Paradise County court records didn’t go digital until the early 2000s, which means most older files are still on paper, without any kind of useful search function. Sifting through them—in search of exactly what?—would be a vast and probably fruitless undertaking. And I couldn’t interview any of the old family members—Theodore Moreland, Magnus Sigurdson or, for that matter, my father. They were all dead, as were Dewey and probably Peter Swindell. That left Cassandra as possibly the last of the Swindells, but she knew very little about the family’s history.

  The next generation didn’t seem to hold much promise, either. Arne would have no interest in helping me, and I doubted Marty would know much about his father’s judicial career. That left me. I still had my father’s office records, stored in a half dozen filing cabinets in the old Zweifel family home, which I own, on Eden Street. It seemed like a fool’s errand, but I decided to go through them, if I could find the time, in search of hidden treasure.

  23

  The opening wave of a news tsunami rolled into Pineland Tuesday morning. The first truck came from a television station in Duluth and soon three more arrived from the Twin Cities, all equipped with antennas, satellite dishes and well-coiffed news people. The trucks parked around the courthouse square and expelled their reporters, who immediately spread out in search of sacrificial victims willing to go on air. Dewey’s murder, the discovery of his body in the fiery ruins of the old Swindell family mansion and the Serenader’s latest message had combined to form an irresistible story.

  “Quite a scene out there,” Doug said when he came into my office, where I was doing my best to escape detection.

  “Must be our lucky day,” I said.

  “Have you seen the story in the StarTribune?”

  “Not yet.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to reading it. A reporter from the Minneapolis newspaper had already left two phone messages, which I’d ignored, asking for comment, among other things, on why I’d recused myself from the investigation.

  Doug handed me the front section of the paper, which offered a page-one story under the heading “Deepening Mystery Grips Pineland.” The story trotted out all the usual clichés. Pineland “is a close-knit community.” People “are locking their doors for the first time.” At the local coffee shop—Koffeeken’s, of course—“regulars talk of little except the Serenader and a crime spree no one can understand.” There was also much speculation about Cassandra and how she might be linked to the investigation. But the story didn’t exaggerate when it said people in town had become “genuinely frightened” about what was happening.

  “You’re mentioned on the jump page,” Doug said, helpfully.

  Sure enough, a paragraph placed like a land mine reported that “all four messages from the Serenader were discovered by Pineland County Attorney Paul Zweifel, who on Monday recused himself from the case. Investigators have questioned him at length on several occasions, according to law enforcement sources. Zweifel, who did not return calls asking for comment, apparently stepped down from the case because of suspicion he may be linked in some way to the Serenader.”

  Arne was quoted extensively elsewhere in the story, and he offered the helpful observation that I had not been “entirely cooperative” with investigators. How nice of him to say so. Before long, Arne would have much more to say to the media and none of it would put me in a good light.

  After lunch, I dodged a couple of reporters loitering by the front doors of the courthouse and went up to my office. Marty Moreland was waiting for me, chatting with Jane Niskanen as he sat in the anteroom. He was in his standard businessman’s costume—dark blue suit, patterned red tie, crisp white shirt, well-shined black oxfords—but somehow nothing about him looked right.

  “Hey, Paul,” he said, standing up to shake my hand, “do you have a minute to talk?”

  “Sure, come into my office.” As had been the case during our talk a few days earlier at Koffeeken’s, Marty looked profoundly out of sorts, churning with some inner turmoil. His face had gone to chalk, and he seemed on the verge of breakdown.

  “Hold any calls for a while,” I told Jane, who smiled at Marty and said, “I forgot to ask: how’s that lovely wife of yours? Haven’t seen her at church in a while.”

  “I guess she’s been really busy,” Marty said, “but she’s fine.”

  We went into my office and I closed both doors—the one leading to the anteroom and the other that connected to Doug’s little den, where I hoped he was busy watching porn and wouldn’t disturb us.

  I didn’t see any point in small talk. “Marty, you don’t look good. Is there some way I can be of help?”

  “This has to be confidential,” he said, glancing around as though in fear of hidden cameras and microphones. “Will you give me your word on that?”

  “I will, and you know my word is good. So what’s going on?”

  Marty gulped down a deep breath and said, “It’s about Jill Lorrimer. Maybe it wasn’t an accident. ”

  I should have guessed. The Serenader had suggested Jill’s death was suspicious, and I’d come to the same conclusion after reexamining her case file. Something had happened at Peter’s mansion the night she died and maybe it wasn’t an accidental overdose. Had Marty witnessed Jill’s murder?

  “Were you at the mansion with Peter the night she died?”

  “I didn’t say that. But believe me, I didn’t have anything to do with that poor woman’s death.”

  “All right, I believe you. But if you saw something you need to come forward as a witness.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Because?”

  Marty let out a forlorn little laugh. “Because that could be dangerous.”

  “Do you mean someone is threatening you? Who?”

  Marty leaned forward, his elbows propped on my desk and said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about any of this. I probably have enough trouble as it is.”

  He was being ridiculously elusive. He might know something about Jill Lorrimer’s death. Somebody might be threatening him. He might be in some kind o
f trouble.

  “I truly cannot help you, Marty, unless you stop being so vague,” I said. “Either some things have happened or they haven’t. Just tell what you know.”

  It took a while but Marty finally spilled out his story, and it came as a surprise because Arne was at the center of it.

  Marty told me he’d received an ominous phone call the day before from Arne. “It was about Jill Lorrimer and Arne basically told me to keep my mouth shut or else.”

  “How was Arne involved with Jill?”

  “He used to go to some of the parties at Peter’s mansion. I did, too. I’m not proud of that. It was stupid, really, really stupid. Jill was one of Peter’s party girls and, you know, would entertain us.”

  “As in having sex.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she had sex with you and Arne?”

  “I don’t know about Arne. I only saw him once at a party and Jill wasn’t there. But I think she must have had sex with him another time because, well, that’s why Arne called me, don’t you see? He was worried word might get out about how he’d been at a party with Jill. I guess those messages from the Serenader spooked him.”

  I doubted it was just sex with Jill that had Arne so worried. “You think Arne was somehow involved in Jill’s death, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know that for sure. But here’s the thing: Peter always had a lot of drugs at his parties and you know, maybe he gave too many to Jill and she died and then he had to figure out what to do with her body.”

  “And Arne helped him out?”

  “Could be. Really, I don’t know.”

  “Because you weren’t there that night, or so you’ve said. Yet you seem to know a lot about what happened and now Arne is calling you and telling you to keep quiet. I’m having a little trouble believing you weren’t there.”

  “I don’t want to go to prison for something I didn’t do,” Marty blurted out, and I saw he was beginning to tear up. “So I’m not going to put myself in jeopardy. Okay? There are other witnesses. I’m not the only one. ”