Dearly Departed Page 22

  “What would?” I replied.

  “If Bettich was shot by Thilgen because he didn’t want her spoiling the environment, harming the animals. It would make everything so … tidy.”

  With Deputy Loushine occupied, I was stuck in the Wisconsin wilderness without a ride. Orman offered me one. We drove a long time toward Saginau. Not a word passed between us. The sheriff was whistling soft and low a tune that started out sounding like something from Fiddler on the Roof but ended up a meandering patchwork of disjointed notes.

  I turned my attention to the trees that blurred past the window. I was not having a good time. I needed to hear a joke. I needed a stand-up comic to make me laugh at myself, take my mind off my troubles. I thought of Officer George Meade of the St. Paul Police Department, the man who had broken me in. Now, there was an entertaining guy. How long was it since we’d last worked together? Twelve years? Thirteen?

  This one time we responded to a domestic, standing outside the door of a third-floor apartment listening to a husband and wife go at it over money. “You spend too much!” he’s saying. “You’re cheap!” she’s saying. Meade knocked on the door, announced that the police had arrived, and then opened the door. The man and woman were standing in the middle of the room, a kitchen table between them. In the center of the table was a kilo of cocaine and several automatic weapons. The four of us looked at the cocaine and guns. The four of us looked at each other. Then we all looked at the cocaine, again. Suddenly, we all reached for our guns and dove for cover. It was like an umpire had yelled, “Play ball!”

  They started shooting first—I remember that distinctly. We returned fire. Over one hundred rounds were exchanged. The sulfur became so thick that my eyes teared up, yet miraculously no one was hit. Not by them, not by us, not by the SWAT team on the roof or the chopper in the air—we had so much backup, you’d think it was the annual meeting of the Minnesota Police Federation.

  Finally Meade yelled, “Hey, buddy, nobody’s hurt yet! We can still make most of this go away!” And the husband yelled back that he doesn’t want to go to jail, but Meade told him he didn’t see how it could possibly be avoided. The husband thought about it for a few minutes and then said, okay, jail’s fine, just as long as he’s not in the same prison with his wife.

  The wife heard that and started ragging the husband something fierce about being such a poor provider and how her mother had been right about him all along, and prison be damned, she didn’t even want to be in the same fucking state with him.

  He told her that that suited him down to his toes, and it was just lucky they didn’t have any children that would grow up to look like her.

  Eventually they tossed out their guns, and we cuffed ’em, Mirandized ’em, and moved them out to the street. Along the way the wife turned to the husband and whined, “You never loved me.”

  And Meade started making like a marriage counselor.

  “Now, now, you kids, let’s hear no more of that kind of talk,” he said. “Sure you have your problems. What married couple doesn’t? But you can work them out; you can make this marriage work. It just takes time and a little effort. Hey,” he said, nudging the husband, “when was the last time you told your wife you loved her?”

  The way the husband looked at him, you just knew he wished he’d shot it out after all.

  “Ahh, the good ol’ days,” I mused.

  “Hmm?” the sheriff grunted.

  “Just thinking out loud,” I said.

  Orman grunted again.

  After a few more minutes of silence I said, “I have a few hard questions to ask you.”

  “I figured you might,” Orman replied.

  “You know who Michael is,” I told him.

  “We don’t have secrets between us.”

  “Where did she get the quarter million dollars to buy and remodel The Harbor?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who told her about the Ojibwa’s plan to turn the civic center into a casino?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I heard it was Charlie Otterness.”

  “I don’t know,” the sheriff repeated yet again.

  “I guess you do have secrets.”

  The sheriff remained silent.

  “Jesus Christ, how can you not know these things?”

  “It never occurred to me to ask.”

  Either that or he didn’t want to learn the answers.

  I turned and stared at him. “Well, don’t you think it’s time we found out?”

  twenty-four

  I was astonished by the sheer size of the Otterness Bait and Tackle shop. A good six thousand square feet and well lit, it had thousands of old-time lures decorating the walls and rafters. And to enter, you had to walk through a small foyer embellished with autographed photos of fishing heavyweights: Bill Dance, Jimmy Houston, Roland Martin, Orlando Wilson, Al and Ron Lindner. I guess I was expecting something like the mom-and-pop bait store near my parents’ place in northern Minnesota.

  Just inside the shop was a huge floor-to-ceiling mural of a typical northern lake painted with a breathtaking devotion to detail—I was afraid to brush against it for fear of getting my clothes wet. An angler, proudly flaunting a brute of a walleye, stood before the mural. He was having a Polaroid taken of himself by a young photographer with the name Otterness stitched to his knit shirt. While the angler and the photographer were waiting for the Polaroid to develop, Sheriff Orman asked if Charlie Otterness was available. The photographer gestured with his head and said, “In the back.” I appraised the mural one last time before heading in the direction he pointed. That’s when I noticed the name R. Orman painted way down in the corner.

  Sheriff Orman and I found a door next to a plastic tank swimming with shiners and stepped through it into a large storage room filled with boxes of tackle, rods and reels, electronic fish detectors, and sundry other gear stacked on rows of metal shelves.

  “Don’t do it!” a voice cried with some urgency from several rows over.

  A second voice replied, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  “Charlie, get used to the idea,” said the first voice. “You’re dead politically.”

  Again came a muffled reply.

  The first voice insisted, “If you try to run … embarrassed … to be humiliated?”

  The volume of the second voice increased. “What do you think … now? That woman … power screwdriver.”

  “… sixteen years. Let it go at that.”

  The voices came from an office at the far end of the room. Orman was all set to break in on the conversation, but I nudged him behind the last row of metal shelves and touched my index finger to my lips.

  “… proud man, Charlie.… Don’t … this way. I appreciate … Nothing you can do.… The bitch killed you.… People around here … Selling the civic center to the Ojibwa, you sold your office.”

  “But I didn’t tell her.”

  A muffled reply.

  “Goddammit, Harry, you’re not listening. I … didn’t … do … it.”

  Harry’s answer was too soft and low, and the sheriff and I began edging closer. I caught part of a sentence: “… people figure you let them down.”

  The voice that I assumed belonged to Charlie Otterness exploded. “How many times do I have to say it? I didn’t tell her anything!”

  We moved closer.

  “Goddammit, Harry!” Otterness shouted. “You’re like all the rest. You don’t listen. Lookit! If I had told Michael about the Ojibwa, she wouldn’t have bought the fucking resort. On Thursday you’ll understand.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The question came from Sheriff Orman. He had circled past me and was now blocking the office doorway with his frame. I came up behind him.

  Charlie Otterness was taller than I was, but, then, so was just about everyone else I’ve seen in Deer Lake, including the children. Something in the water, no doubt. His hair was gray and combed to cover a bald spot, his eyes were watery
and pale, and the flesh of his face was pasty and hung in loose folds. He looked like a man accustomed to drinking alone in the dark. He was also at least thirty years my senior, which made him forty years older than Alison.

  The other man in his office was just as old and half Charlie’s size—but still taller than me.

  When Otterness saw the sheriff, he froze like a small animal caught in the headlights of a speeding car.

  “Sheriff,” he said.

  Charlie Otterness reluctantly rose from behind his gray metal desk, like he was giving up cover. I didn’t blame him. The way the sheriff looked with bloodshot eyes and unshaven face, he scared me, too. Judging from Charlie’s voice and body language, I figured Orman was the last person he wanted to see. But it wasn’t out of fear; there was something else working.

  “Sheriff,” Harry echoed with deference.

  Orman ignored him. He only had eyes for Charlie. “Answer the question,” he insisted.

  “How’s Michael?” Charlie asked instead.

  “She’s in a coma,” the sheriff answered.

  “Coma,” Charlie repeated as if it were a death sentence—and maybe it was.

  “Talk to me, Charlie,” the sheriff demanded. “What happens on Thursday?”

  I’ve been told that some primitive tribes sniff out the guilty party among a group of suspects by smelling for body odor. Others demand that suspects chew and swallow a handful of rice; if their mouths are too dry to manage it, they’re in trouble. As an investigator, I’m trained to look for several physiological symptoms of lying and guilt: sweaty palms, an unusual pallor, a dry mouth, a rapid pulse, erratic breathing. Charlie Otterness? He had them all. I didn’t know if he was feeling guilty or going into cardiac arrest.

  “Tell him, Charlie,” Harry urged.

  When Charlie refused to speak, I said, “On Thursday the Ojibwa tribe is going before the county commissioners to make a formal, public offer to buy the civic center.”

  Apparently it was a good guess. Charlie looked as though he had just caught me peeking through his windows. “Who are you?”

  “Never mind him,” said Orman. “Is what he said true?”

  Charlie straightened his back. “I’m not at liberty to say. You’ll need to come to the meeting and find out.” He may have looked like a liar, but he didn’t sound like one. Chalk it up to a lifetime in politics.

  The sheriff studied Charlie for a moment; I stepped back. I didn’t want to distract him. Finally, Orman asked, “How much money did you give Michael?”

  Charlie’s mouth unhinged and fell open, his bottom jaw just hanging there until he cradled it with his hand.

  “Money?” he asked. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know what money.”

  Charlie looked at Harry and then at me. Neither of us had an answer for him. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I want an exact amount,” the sheriff insisted.

  Charlie’s mouth worked, but no words came out.

  “How much?” the sheriff screamed.

  I flinched. So did Harry. Charlie Otterness didn’t. Instead his eyes grew wide and he stepped forward, prepared to meet any attack. I realized then that despite my earlier impression, there was nothing at all soft about Charlie. He was a scrapper just like Johnny Johannson.

  “No one talks to me that way,” Charlie hissed.

  “I’m the sheriff,” Orman reminded him.

  “What the fuck do I care?” Charlie pointed a finger at him. “You ain’t your father, Bobby. Don’t pretend that you are.”

  Orman leaned forward, clenching and unclenching his fists, but somehow the older man’s words had deflated him; he reminded me of a balloon with a slow leak. I decided it was time to step in.

  “You have a nice place here,” I told Charlie.

  He turned his angry gaze on me, obviously still wondering who I was. “I like it,” he said.

  “Profitable?”

  “I make a living,” suspicious now.

  “Enough to invest in The Harbor with Michael?”

  Charlie laughed at the question. “I get it now.” He laughed some more. “You’re wrong.” He sat back down behind his desk and put his feet up. “You are so wrong. You’ll see.” He continued to laugh.

  Suddenly Orman laid his hands on a metal folding chair and flung it across the office, nearly hitting Harry where he stood in the corner. The sheriff’s face was flushed with anger, his teeth were bared, his fists clenched. He had jumped to the final stage of aggression—assault is imminent—fuck the first stages. I have no doubt he would have attacked Otterness if I hadn’t stepped in front of him.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You know Chip Thilgen,” Orman accused Charlie, pointing at the older man over my shoulder.

  “Where is all this coming from, Bobby?” Charlie wanted to know. “Why are you so pissed off?” Good question, I thought. But Orman refused to answer it.

  “Hey?” I said.

  Orman shook his head slightly, his lips a thin line, and took three steps backward. He nodded at Charlie like he wanted me to keep at him.

  “Do you know Chip Thilgen?” I asked while still watching Orman.

  “Of course.”

  “Friends?”

  Harry snorted from the corner where he stood watching the goings-on as if he couldn’t possibly imagine Thilgen having a friend.

  “No, we weren’t friends,” Charlie said. “We were on the same side on some environmental issues; he actually had some good ideas if you could get past his bullshit. But that was it.”

  “Was the spoiling of Lake Peterson one of the issues you agreed on?”

  “No,” Charlie answered. “Lake Peterson can support a fishing resort now that it’s been restocked.”

  “When was the last time you saw Thilgen?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  I turned to face the man, leaned on his desk. “Where were you when Michael was shot, Charlie?”

  “I was fishing Storm Lake. Who are you, anyway?”

  “Who were you fishing with?” I asked, ignoring his question.

  “I fish alone. Everyone knows that.”

  “No witnesses, eh?” I said. “That’s too bad.”

  “I’ve been keeping a low profile. Since—”

  “Since you sold your office?” Orman again, his voice way too loud.

  Charlie had nothing to say to that.

  “When did you stop seeing Michael?” I asked.

  Charlie gestured toward the sheriff with his chin. “When she started seeing him.”

  “Hmph,” Orman grunted.

  “Did you break up because of the sheriff?” I asked. “Or The Harbor?”

  Otterness looked down at his fingers splayed over his desktop, counting each one carefully. “Buying The Harbor the way she did hurt me,” Charlie admitted. “I told her people would get the wrong idea about it, but she said it was her shot, and she was taking it. But that didn’t break us up, and neither did the sheriff.”

  Orman grunted again as I asked, “What then?”

  “My age,” Charlie confessed. “At first she said it didn’t matter. She said all adults were pretty much the same age, and in the things that counted I was younger than most of the men she knew. But it did matter. I knew it mattered from the beginning.”

  “Then why did you get involved with her?” I asked.

  He grinned like it was the dumbest question he had ever heard. “Have you seen her?”

  “She’s a looker,” Harry confirmed from the corner.

  “I guess they’re right when they say there’s no fool like an old fool,” Charlie continued. “I should have known she was only using me.…”

  Like Raymond Fleck and Hunter Truman, I thought.

  “But, hey, I couldn’t resist. So sue me.” Charlie smiled again. “I have to admit, it was fun while it lasted.”

  “You sonuvabitch!” Orman snarled behind me and again made a violent move toward Charlie,
who sprang to his feet, ready to take him on. I made sure I was between them, my arms outstretched like I was parting the Red Sea.

  Harry in the corner shook his head sadly. “Women,” he muttered. “No matter how old we get, they can still make us act like idiots.”

  Charlie didn’t hear him, but the sheriff did. He moved his shoulders like he was shaking off a heavy cloak, then pointed at Charlie.

  “Don’t go anywhere I can’t find you,” he warned.

  “You won’t have to look for me,” Charlie replied defiantly. “I’ll be here.”

  “Nicely done, Sheriff,” I told him when we were outside again. “Ever think of a career in law enforcement?”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Otterness is a piece of shit, and he’s finished in this county,” Orman told me.

  “Why’s that? Because he slept with your girl?”

  “Get in the fucking car.”

  The sheriff was out of control, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. If he had been working for me, I would’ve had him relieved from duty. Only he wasn’t working for me; we were in Kreel County, and he was the law here. I was just along for the ride.

  “The mural on Charlie’s wall,” I said—maybe if I could remind him who he was—“did you do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  We were on the county road now, driving well above the speed limit. Orman gripped the steering wheel too tightly for safe driving and nodded.

  “So you and Charlie must have been friends at one time.”

  Orman didn’t say.

  “Behind your desk,” I added. “The whitetailed buck. That’s yours, too.”

  The sheriff’s glance shifted to me and then back to the blacktop.

  “It should be in a gallery somewhere,” I said.

  “I know,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he sighed audibly and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. The car slowed to the posted speed limit. “There’s a gallery in Duluth that’s been wanting it,” Orman continued. “But it was my first truly good painting, and I’m having trouble parting with it. It won first prize in the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association art contest three years ago.”