Dearly Departed Read online

  “Hope, this time, is more than the fleeting, seasonal stirrings of spring. It is concrete, and is being poured by workmen just down the road.…”

  “If gambling is our game, we should be ashamed.…”

  “Look at them! They say no to gaming. I say, Where were you when the Kreel County Civic Center needed your support? …”

  “They call it gaming. Gaming is softer and nicer than gambling. But it isn’t the right word. Gaming is checkers and Monopoly and hopscotch. Gambling is when there is a bet on the outcome of a game.…”

  “A casino will supply jobs. Many jobs. Real jobs.…”

  “What’s next? Hookers in low-cut sequined dresses on Broadway and drive-by shootings in the neighborhoods? …”

  “Yes, some people will have a gambling problem. It does break up some families. So does alcoholism, but shutting down the bars wasn’t the answer for that.…”

  “What message are we sending to our children if we condone gambling in this community?…”

  “It’s a chance to pull ourselves up. It’s a chance to make our community strong again, for us and our children.…”

  I paid little attention to the rhetoric. What was the point? Whenever questions of morals and sin arise, factions quickly form and become so deeply entrenched that compromise usually becomes impossible. Just ask the people who have been warring over abortion for the past few decades. Besides, it wasn’t my town.

  Instead of listening, I watched a few Kreel County deputies as they sauntered quietly through the two crowds, looking for trouble; others were leaning casually against cars parked along the county road. I was searching for Gretchen Rovick, hoping I’d see her before she saw me. I didn’t want her to know I was in town. Gretchen had lied to me. She had known Alison was in Deer Lake, of course she had. She’d probably helped her disappear in the first place.

  I moved to a large oak tree and hid behind it. Two teenagers sought refuge in the same spot, both sporting hairdos that were quite the rage among young men in the Twin Cities about five years ago. They were passing a joint between them, telling each other what a bitch it was growing up in Deer Lake. Yeah, they knew where it was at, and it wasn’t anywhere near them, no way. They had seen the world on Daddy’s satellite dish, and they wanted a piece of it.

  I plucked the joint from the taller teenager’s mouth, dropped it to the ground, and squashed it beneath my heel. I’ve seen what drugs do to people, I’ve seen it up close and personal, and I’m no fan. Anyone who tells me grass should be legalized gets it right in the neck. They argue that alcohol is worse. Maybe so. But you can have a drink or two without getting drunk. You can have a glass of wine with dinner or a few beers at the ball game and not be any worse off for it. But you can’t smoke a joint without getting high. And after a while you crave a higher high. Then a higher one still. Pretty soon you want to be up there all the time, until you crash and burn. Not everyone, no. But enough. I’ve seen them. I’ve arrested them.

  The teenager stared defiantly, wondering what to do about me until his companion whispered to him, “Narc.” They both smiled nervously and walked away without looking back. I did the same, retreating to The Height until the rallies broke up and King Koehn returned to his office.

  Ingrid was wearing a white shirtdress with gold buttons that matched the color of her hair. She was sitting at a table with a calculator, ledger book, and a few dozen invoices stacked neatly in front of her. “We’re closed until eleven,” she told me without taking the pencil out of her mouth.

  “My name is Holland Taylor,” I announced, giving her a look at my ID. “Do you remember me?”

  She looked at the stamp-sized photo and then at me. “Gretchen’s friend,” she said, taking the pencil from her mouth. “Good to see you again.” She offered her hand. I took it, probably held it too long—a soft, pleasant current of electricity passed through it into me, and I didn’t want to let it go.

  “Do you have a moment?”

  “Not really,” she said, gesturing at her paperwork. “I’m trying to finish up before the rallies end. I’m hoping for a good lunch crowd. Give me twenty minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ginger!” she called.

  A woman poked her head up from behind the stick like she had been squatting there, listening for her cue. “Ingrid,” she answered back.

  “Take care of Mr. Taylor, here, won’t you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Ingrid repeated, then went back to her calculations.

  Ginger motioned me closer to the bar and asked, “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Summit Ale?”

  I wasn’t surprised when she said, “Sorry.”

  “What do you have on tap?”

  “Pig’s Eye pilsner—”

  I raised my hand quickly to stop her recitation. “Sold,” I said. A moment later she slid a glass of beer in front of me. Pig’s Eye pilsner was named for one of St. Paul, Minnesota’s, more colorful founding citizens, Pig’s Eye Parrant, a rumrunner and all-around scoundrel who had settled in the area when it was still populated almost exclusively by Native-Americans and fur traders. In fact, the city was actually known as Pig’s Eye Landing for many years until a visiting priest decided the name was politically incorrect.

  Ginger returned with my beer, and I asked her if she knew Michael Bettich. Waitresses can be a terrific resource for information, especially waitresses in small towns who can actually put a name and occupation to the face of the customers they serve, who are aware of the emotions at the tables they’re waiting. They know when a farmer is having a bad year, when a customer’s balloon mortgage is coming due, when the weather is making people weird; they can point out the customers who are dating for the first time, who are escaping from the kids for an evening, who want to kill each other. Ginger proved to be more knowledgeable than I had hoped and happy to share.

  “Michael Bettich? Sure. Deputy Gretchen’s pal. We don’t see much of her these days.”

  I took the photograph of Alison out of my pocket and showed it to her.

  “Yep, that’s her,” Ginger confirmed. “I think she’s prettier in person.”

  “You say you don’t see much of her anymore?” I asked.

  “Nah. This gambling thing has emotions running pretty high. I think she’s trying to keep a low profile. Especially around Ingrid.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess because she might become Ingrid’s chief competitor.”

  Have you ever felt like you’ve just walked in at the middle of a movie?

  “I don’t understand,” I said, and my face probably showed it.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” Ginger said and laughed. “Okay, here’s the story. There’s this resort called The Harbor. Mostly it’s a restaurant, but they have plenty of space for campers and such, and you can dock your boat, okay? Anyway, it went broke. The lake it’s on, Lake Peterson, had winter kill some years back and lost all its fish. The DNR restocked it, but rebuilding a fish population takes years. Besides, it’s way out on the highway, and hardly anyone went there. Somehow King Koehn got stuck with it—The Harbor, not the lake—and he’s been trying to unload it for years. Now, along comes Michael, and she buys it for—I don’t know—ten cents on the dollar. People tell her it’s a bad investment, but she buys it anyway.”

  I took a long pull of my beer as Ginger continued.

  “Now, the next day—I mean like the very next day after the deal is done—word leaks out that the local band of Ojibwa is, like, ultrasecretly trying to buy the old civic center from the Kreel County Board of Commissioners—I guess to revamp into an off-reservation gambling casino.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, they haven’t actually come out and said it, the Ojibwa I mean, but that’s what everyone thinks. Why else would they want it?”

  “What does the civic center have to do with Alison?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean Michael.”

&nbs
p; “The Harbor?” Ginger asked. “Because it’s … Okay, here’s the rest of the story. When the county decided to build the civic center as a way to generate convention business, there was a big fight over where it should be located, in Saginau or Deer Lake. The board settled on a compromise. They decided to build the civic center on a lake midway between the two towns.”

  “Lake Peterson,” I volunteered.

  “There you go,” said Ginger. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Only it didn’t do any better than The Harbor.”

  “How close is the civic center to The Harbor?”

  “Directly across the highway.”

  “My, my, my, my, my.”

  “Get it now?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Ginger sighed, exasperated.

  “You don’t think having a casino across the way isn’t going to be good for business?” she asked. “That’s why Michael is keeping a low profile. ’Cuz everyone is mad at her.”

  “Who? Why?”

  Again Ginger sighed. “Okay, let me count the ways,” she said. “You’ve got your King Koehn, who figures Michael stole The Harbor out from under him, like, unethically, using inside information—”

  “Did she?”

  “You got Charlie Otterness,” Ginger continued as if she didn’t want to be interrupted. “Charlie owns a bait-and-tackle store outside of town. Big place; you want minnows and stuff, you go to Charlie’s. Charlie is also a Kreel County commissioner. And he’s a widower who rumor has it—now, I’m not one to gossip, but rumor has it he was keeping time with Michael until the day she bought The Harbor and now has nothing nice to say about her.”

  “Charlie told Michael about the impending sale,” I guessed.

  “It’s amazing what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Oops,” Ginger added, making a dramatic gesture out of putting her hand over her mouth. “Did I say that?”

  She laughed and I smiled, but I wasn’t feeling particularly happy. Alison sleeping with a county commissioner to get inside information? I didn’t want to hear that.

  “Stupid! People are stupid!”

  Ginger and I both turned toward the door. A tall, thin, bearded man dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and an ANIMALS ’R US button, glanced at us and then looked away.

  “Hello, Mr. Thilgen,” Ginger said.

  “Do you know how stupid people are?” Thilgen asked loudly. Ginger went along, playing straight man.

  “How stupid are they?”

  “They’re so stupid, they’re out there arguing about gambling, about gambling casinos, but they refuse to see the big picture.”

  “The big picture?”

  “The environment.”

  “Ahh, yes. The environment.”

  “Don’t you care about the environment? Are you stupid, too? Are you one of the stupid people?”

  Ginger took a deep breath and did not reply. Thilgen seated himself in the restaurant section. Ingrid smiled at him, gathered her materials, and disappeared behind a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Thilgen was obviously well-known and not particularly popular. The waitresses flipped a coin to determine who would serve him; the loser demanded two out of three.

  “Nobody cares about the animals,” Thilgen continued. “They’re going to widen the roads and cut down the trees to make room for parking lots and bring their foul-smelling cars in here and their human pollution. Well, what about the animals, is what I want to know. What about the deer and the woodchucks? Nobody asked them if they want a gambling casino. Oh, no! They’re expendable. So what if we destroy the wetlands, the habitats. So what if we turn Lake Peterson into a landfill. Just as long as everyone makes, a buck, screw the animals, forget the environment.”

  A waitress handed Thilgen a menu and hurried off, not bothering to list the daily specials, not taking a drink order.

  “Damn Indians,” he continued. “Indians, not Native-Americans! Indians and their damn dirty money. They’re supposed to be protecting the environment. Noble savages—yeah, sure! General Sheridan was right. The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

  Ingrid, coming back through the door, had obviously heard him. She was visibly upset.

  “I won’t have that kind of talk in my place,” she told Thilgen, her eyes flashing. “Do you understand?”

  “Kill the Indians, and kill that Bettich bitch who’s ruining Lake Peterson!” he replied even more loudly, as if daring her to do something about it.

  “Get out, Chip,” Ingrid said, moving to his table.

  “People are so stupid,” he added.

  “So I’ve been told,” Ingrid replied, pushing a chair out of her way, nearly knocking it over. “Get out.”

  Chip Thilgen refused to leave his chair. He looked at her across the table and smiled like he owned the place and she was the intruder.

  “Make me,” he said.

  I figured that was my cue. I left the bar with every intention of offering aid and assistance, but before I had taken three steps, Ingrid was leaning over the table, her arms supporting her weight, and speaking to Thilgen in a voice too low for me to hear. But Thilgen heard her—oh, man, did he. The blood ran out of his face, and his eyes became large and still. Ingrid stepped back, and Thilgen rose on shaky legs. His fists were clenched, yet he seemed more frightened than angry.

  “You can’t talk to me like that,” he said softly.

  “Put a sock in it,” Ingrid told him.

  Thilgen headed to the door, moving slowly enough to prove he wasn’t running but quickly enough to get the job done.

  “You’ll see,” he called over his shoulder as he left. “I’m not someone to mess with.”

  “Neither am I,” Ingrid said softly before she disappeared back behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

  I returned to my table and looked over at Ginger.

  “That’s three people who are upset with Michael,” I said. “Who is he?” I asked.

  “Mr. Chips?” Ginger asked. “Thinks of himself as an animal-rights activist. They say he sometimes liberates farm animals— cows and hens and horses. That’s what the activists call it when they sneak onto someone’s farm at night and let the livestock go free. Liberations. Only no one has caught him at it yet. I know some farmers, they say if they do catch him, they’re gonna shoot him.”

  “So, who else?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Who else doesn’t like Michael?”

  “Well, there’s Ingrid.”

  At the sound of her name, Ingrid reentered the dining area and hung a left for the bar. “What about Ingrid?” she asked.

  “You don’t like Michael,” Ginger said.

  Ingrid snorted a very ladylike snort—an Audrey Hepburn-like snort—and said, “I like Michael just fine.”

  “You do not,” Ginger insisted.

  “I’ve liked her from the moment Gretchen introduced us,” Ingrid argued. “What’s not to like? Very smart woman, very charming.”

  “She’ll probably wreck your business when the casino opens.”

  Ingrid smiled and shook her head at the theory.

  “Not going to happen,” she said defiantly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Several reasons,” she answered, turning her brilliant smile on me. “Want to hear them?”

  “Sure.”

  “First, for the Ojibwa to operate a casino out of the Kreel County Civic Center, the land the center is built on must first be put into the name of the U.S. government. Then, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the government must put the land in trust for the tribe, making it part of their reservation—and that’s just not going to happen. The issue has been too divisive. Deer Lake is pretty much fifty-fifty on it, and Saginau is the same; that’s what the protests are all about. What politician is going to take up the Ojibwa’s cause knowing he’s going to alienate half of his constituency?”

  “That’s what they said about The Forks down the road, and the Ojibwa built that casino,” Ginger reminded Ing
rid. But Ingrid ignored her.

  “Also,” she continued, “King Koehn is against it, and he carries a lot of weight. You want to get elected in northwestern Wisconsin, you pretty much need his support.”

  “Why is King against it?” I asked.

  “If he still owned The Harbor, he wouldn’t be,” Ginger suggested.

  “You’re probably right,” Ingrid agreed. “He’s not so much against the casino as he’s against Michael. Michael worked with King for a short time, watching over his investments. After a few months she offers to take The Harbor off his hands. He sells. News leaks out about how the Ojibwa might be considering a new casino—”

  Ginger rolled her eyes at the word “might.”

  “—and King claims he’s been cheated and throws Michael out,” Ingrid continued.

  “Was he cheated?” I asked.

  “Depends on your interpretation,” Ingrid reasoned. “King claims Michael was his employee and therefore obligated to inform him whenever she learned about a good business opportunity. Michael claims that she was not King’s employee, that she was operating her own business and merely providing a service to King, and was therefore free to seize any opportunity she wished. Me? I’m on Michael’s side.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ginger insisted. “The casino is a done deal.”

  “I promise you it is not,” Ingrid told her.

  Knowing her boss considerably longer than I, Ginger must have seen signals in Ingrid’s body language that I had missed because she smiled broadly and said, “You know something, don’t you? What?”

  “Me?” Ingrid asked. “I’m just a saloonkeeper. What do I know?” Then, to change the subject, she beat a quick riff on the bar top and said, “So, Mr. Taylor. -What brings you back to Deer Lake? Come to see Gretchen?”

  “No,” I replied. “Actually, I came to see Michael Bettich.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You know where I can find her?”

  “She used to stay with Gretchen, but I think she moved out,” Ingrid said.

  “A few months ago,” Ginger confirmed.

  “Where to?”

  Neither of them seemed to know. But Ginger had a suggestion.