Pineland Serenade

by Larry Millett

  “Yes,” I said, “I do.”

  Coda

  If you really want justice, an old lawyer once told me, become God. His point was that there are no final settlements in life, only whatever approximations we can devise, and loose ends always dangle in the wind. So it was with the Phillip Ronald Gordon. The BCA dug deep into his past, trying to account for all he’d done, but stubborn mysteries remained.

  It was learned Phillip had indeed served time in prison, from 2008 to 2013, for his role in a huge Ponzi scheme in Texas. He was supposed to be on probation for another five years but instead disappeared, only to show up a year later as the Reverend Ronnie Peterson in Pineland. He’d managed by then to acquire a wallet-full of fake identifications. He also dyed his naturally reddish hair jet black and added a long beard. Although he was a wanted man for violating the terms of his probation, no one in law enforcement had any reason to suspect he might be in Pineland and so he effectively dropped out of sight.

  Perhaps the BCA’s most intriguing discovery was that Phillip, in his guise as Reverend Ronnie, had traveled to Chicago on the same August weekend in 2015 that Peter Swindell’s ex-wife died of sudden cardiac arrest at her home in suburban River Forest. She was alone when it happened and no suspicion was attached to her death. Even so, my old nemesis Jason Braddock at the BCA became convinced Phillip had murdered her, thereby eliminating another potential claimant to Peter’s fortune. But no proof of foul play was ever found.

  Jason had less success in trying to fill in a full picture of Phillip’s crime spree in Pineland. A search of Phillip’s house turned up no incriminating evidence but his office at the church did yield some fascinating clues. The office safe contained sixty thousand dollars in cash as well as a two-hundred-page, handwritten manifesto offering Phillip’s justification for his crimes, including a hard-to-read account of his abuse at the hands of James Biersdorf. The former school band director had first sodomized Phillip when he was six years old and it had continued for another eight years. Then Phillip had meticulously planned his revenge against Biersdorf and his wife, who apparently knew what was going on but did nothing to stop it.

  Most of the manifesto, however, was a long, repetitive exercise in rage and resentment directed at Peter and all of his enablers, my father among them. The wonder was how Phillip could plan and plot with such cool precision even as his insides burned white-hot. What the manifesto didn’t offer was an account of Phillip’s crimes in Pineland, and as a result Jason and his crew were never able to establish exactly how he lured Peter, Dewey and Marty to their deaths. Nor was it entirely clear whether he’d blackmailed Peter, presumably over Patricia’s murder and possibly over Jill Lorrimer’s death as well.

  But the sixty grand in the safe was certainly suggestive, and I believe it was indeed hush money paid through Peter’s mysterious “cloud fund.” Still, no paper trail was ever discovered linking the payments to Phillip. Give the devil his due: he was a genius at covering his tracks.

  The safe contained one other item of interest—a hand-notated version of “Pineland Serenade,” in the key of C major. I had a copy made and Kat Berglund later played it for me on her electronic keyboard. The serenade wasn’t a memorable piece of music—it had the air of a trifle dashed off quickly—but it concluded with a strange coda, in A minor, that dropped off into the gloomy depths of the bass clef. I suspect it was the coda that appealed most to Phillip, who must have known his life was destined to end in catastrophe.

  When the coroner released Phillip’s body, no one knew quite what to do with it. Since Cassandra was his sole surviving blood relative, I called her to ask if she had any ideas.

  “I guess we’ll have to bury him,” she said, “and it might as well be in Pineland.”

  She sprang for the coffin and a plot at Memorial Cemetery. There was no wake or church service—who would have come to mourn him?—so we rented the local Lutheran minister and had him say a few prayers at the grave. We also hired a violinist to play “Pineland Serenade.” Cassandra and I didn’t advertise the burial but we let a few people in law enforcement know. Arne was the only one who showed up. The minister went through his prayers as a light rain began to fall and then the violinist serenaded Phillip one last time before he dropped into his grave.

  Two days later there was another funeral service, for Patricia Gordon, at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Pineland. Cassandra once again made all the arrangements. She’d first wanted to bury her mother’s remains in Chicago but I suggested Pineland would be a better place.

  “Nobody will remember her in Chicago after you’re gone,” I told Cassandra, “but in Pineland I guarantee that she’ll still be a story for years to come.”

  More than two hundred townspeople showed up for the service, out of sheer curiosity or simply because they thought Patricia deserved the decency of a proper sendoff. Cassandra delivered a moving eulogy for the mother she’d never known, and then we went out again to Memorial Cemetery, where Patricia was buried next to her tortured son.

  Peter and Dewey Swindell were also buried in Pineland after suitable services. I went to both. Dewey’s funeral attracted few mourners but Peter’s sendoff drew a big crowd. Cassandra, however, was notably absent and I couldn’t blame her. Peter didn’t deserve her final respects.

  When summer finally arrived and the old houses along Eve and Bliss and Eden streets dozed in their wide green yards, the rhythms and rituals of small-town life returned to Pineland. I had a long talk with Camus on one of those drowsy afternoons and we agreed I wouldn’t seek a second term as county attorney. I doubted anything like Phillip’s wild carnival of crime would ever occur again, and four more years of prosecuting small-time meth makers and trying to placate the county board didn’t appeal to me.

  Vern Blankenberger was pleased to hear of my decision. “I’ve always respected you as an honest and able man,” he said, lying through his tobacco-stained teeth. “I’ll certainly miss your services.” No, he wouldn’t, but no matter.

  Arne, on the other hand, saw his career resurrected by the events at Fortune Lake. His indiscretion with Jill Lorrimer was forgotten, and even Tommy Redmond offered an effusive editorial in the Tattler extolling Arne’s perspicacity and courage. Come November, Arne is sure to be reelected. Alice Sigurdson, meanwhile, obtained a largely uncontested divorce—Arne wasn’t a jerk about it—and she seems to be doing all right. I also see Doris Moreland quite frequently, and I know she’d like to have a relationship. But I’m not ready for that just yet.

  Meredith even called me a few days after my icy adventure at Fortune Lake to say she was glad I’d survived. We talked for a while but the words were empty and I didn’t really know what to say. She’s gone and so are whatever dreams we had together. That’s all right, and I find I don’t need Jack anymore to get me through the occasional bad night. Maybe that’s all peace of mind is—the ability to live with doubt and fear in the wee hours of the morning.

  It took me a while to figure out what to do with my life, but I finally decided to go back to the defense side of the table. Once I leave office, I plan to establish a first-class legal aid society in Paradise County. The pay won’t be much and I’ll work long hours, but I think I’ll like it.

  Kat Berglund also believes it’ll be the right job for me, and of late she’s allowed me into her magnificent bed more frequently than she used to. She knows I’d like to marry her but I won’t propose. Marriage would be a cage for Kat. Best to let her run free.

  I regularly fly to Chicago to see Cassandra and she’s even come up to Pineland once or twice. She arranged for a DNA test after Phillip’s death and the discovery of Patricia Gordon’s body. The results were as expected. She and Phillip were indeed the children of Patricia and Peter, only to be taken by chance along two very different paths.

  Cassandra is likely to inherit Peter’s entire estate once the probate court gets through with it. A few other claimants have oozed o
ut of the ground, not a surprise when twenty million dollars are at stake, but they have little chance of success. Cassandra has already informed me she intends to make a big donation to my legal aid society with some of the proceeds from the estate. I told her that really won’t be necessary, but when Cassandra wants to do something, good luck stopping her.

  Like soldiers who survived a war, Cassandra and I have become very close, or about as close as two people can be who’ve never had sex with each other. She’s doing very nicely and recently won a police brutality case with a twelve-million-dollar payout. She also has a new girlfriend—a demure young lawyer named, of all things, Patricia—and she seems happy in her own intense, driven way. Once Peter’s estate is settled, Cassandra will be a very rich woman, but I doubt it will change her. She’s fueled by battle and the courtroom will always be her arena. Still, I can’t help but think that one day she’ll look out from her beautiful office window and wonder if it was all worthwhile. Then again, who doesn’t have those thoughts?

  Of late, I’ve found my own solace in Gilbert and Sullivan. My little company will stage The Pirates of Penzance in December in the high-school auditorium. I’ve cast Doris, the most beautiful singer we have, as Ruth. I found a twenty-something blackjack dealer with a sweet soprano voice to play Mable, and a school janitor will fill the role of Frederic. The biggest surprise is that Jim Meyers, our portly chief of police, turned out to have theatrical aspirations and will do a turn as the Major-General. I will of course be the Pirate King, just as I was so long ago when I dreamed my boyhood dreams and sailed with buccaneers on the still waters of the Paradise River.

  So if you happen to be in Pineland around the holidays, make a date to see us perform. Tickets are only ten dollars and a good time is guaranteed for all. Our six-piece orchestra will fire up, the curtain will rise, and our troupe will swing into action. I’ll be out on stage in black breeches and a jaunty hat, waving a wooden sword, and I’ll sing and dance, momentarily breaking free of this hard old world, for “it is, it is a glorious thing to be the Pirate King. It is! Hurrah for our Pirate King!”