Spider Lake Read online

  “John, what happened to you? We got word you were attacked. Would you mind filling us in?” Street inquired.

  “If I do, will you go away?” I replied.

  “Sure. We don’t want to bother you, but you know the saying, ‘Leave no stone unturned,’” answered Street.

  “There’s not much to tell. I was having trouble sleeping and went out to sit on the boat dock by my cabin. I heard a loud noise over by the shop. I went over to investigate and surprised the perpetrator who turned out to be a large black bear. The bear turned on me and gave me a good whoopin’. I fought hard but he was too strong for me. Luckily, Julie Carlson heard the commotion and grabbed a shotgun. She fired a couple of shots in the air, and the bear took off. I was lucky to get off with some bumps and bruises. There’s one bite on the left side of my butt. Want me to show you, Agent Chandler?”

  “You got attacked by a bear? Bullshit!” snorted Chandler.

  “Check the sheriff’s report. You’ll see,” I said.

  “They aren’t releasing the reports yet,” Street replied.

  “Then that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I can provide you with a description of the perp if you want: four legs, black hair, dark eyes, about 400 pounds. No, make that 500. He headed off toward the county road. I even know how you could catch him. Cover Agent Chandler with a bucket of old donuts and honey and set him up next to a tree. When the bear shows up, he can let you know, and you can slap the cuffs on him. If he doesn’t want to go, well …”

  The agents had heard enough and stomped out of the room.

  4

  Dr. May stopped in and asked, “Mr. Cabrelli, are you doing okay? We have the results of your tests, and there is good news. You took a heck of a beating, but there are no apparent injuries that will require you to stay in the hospital. At their request, we sent the results to Madison. The doctors there concur with our findings, although they said they would feel much better if you would go down for a checkup as soon as possible. That is your choice to make. Further examination of your injuries may be warranted. You will likely recover some or all of your memory about the events. Familiar things may trigger your ability to recall specifics.”

  “You know, I think I’m sticking with you and going to pack my stuff and head home,” I told the doctor. “Sitting by the lake will do me a world of good. I’ve had about as much hospital time as I can handle, no offense.”

  “None taken, Mr. Cabrelli. I completely understand. What lake are you on?”

  “Spider Lake.”

  “Good for you. That’s one heck of a musky lake. I love fishing Spider in the fall. We always get fish. We started using crank baits along the edge of the weed beds. The fish really like it, and I pulled a hat trick one day. Sorry, Mr. Cabrelli, didn’t mean to get off topic. I love fishing muskies. Matter of fact, the reason I took this job was because of the number of Class A musky lakes around here.”

  “I hear you, Doc. No problem. When can I leave?”

  “They’re processing your paperwork now. You can get dressed. That nice young woman brought some clothes for you. They’re in the bag here. When you are ready, signal the nurse and she will wheel you down to the front door. I hope you have someone to pick you up. You really shouldn’t drive. Do you need help dressing?”

  “No, thanks. I can handle it.”

  “Call me if you need anything. Maybe I’ll see you on the lake.” Dr. May left the room.

  Julie had still not returned from getting coffee, and the thought then dawned on me that perhaps I lost my ride home. I got dressed and signaled the nurse.

  “All ready to go?” she asked.

  “I’m ready. Any chance you could call me a cab to take me home to the Spider Lake area?”

  “Sure. The Lumberjack Express runs out your way all the time taking people to and from the casino. I can give them a call.”

  “Thanks.”

  I signed some papers, and the nurse wheeled me down to the front as the Lumberjack Express pulled up. However, Julie Carlson was also waiting by the door, coffee in hand. I told her I didn’t think she was here anymore and had called a cab.

  Exasperated, Julie said, “John, please do me a favor. Stop thinking for a while and be quiet. Let me take you home. I will give the transit driver a tip and send her on her way.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  As the nurse helped me into Julie’s Suburban, she said quietly, “Mr. Cabrelli, when I look at my husband like that it’s because he has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. If I were you, I would listen to her, get in the car, and shut up. You do what you want, but that’s my advice.”

  The way back to Spider Lake was an exercise in auditory deprivation—no radio, no talking, nothing. We pulled in the drive and up to the cabin. I opened the door and was able to extract myself with some difficulty but unaided. Julie handed me the cane I had used before.

  “I don’t think I need the cane,” I said.

  She responded curtly, “Use it.” She went into the house.

  I hobbled down to the boat dock and sat in a lawn chair. The lake was stunning. The sun was low in the sky as evening approached. Fish were feeding on bugs that landed on or skittered across the surface. A restored wooden fishing boat I had seen before was near shore, the lone occupant casting in and around a submerged weed bed. I had no urge to move from my chair. I was sore and tired. I wanted to sit still and soak it all in.

  Not to be. Moments later, Julie came out and stood in front of me. I steeled myself for another probably well-deserved tongue lashing. When I looked up at her, the flint and steel eyes had been replaced by the soft, warm eyes I had come to treasure. I motioned for her to sit next to me.

  “I am not going to bother you right now,” she said. “I can’t know how you must be feeling. You were probably scared to death waiting to hear the results of those tests, not to mention the physical pain. I was wrong the way I acted. I can’t really explain, so I won’t try. If you need anything, give me a shout. I will be in the house cooking up some leftovers for dinner,” she said and started to walk away.

  “Julie, wait. Don’t go in yet. Would you sit down for a second? We don’t have to talk. Please sit with me,” I said.

  She hesitated and said, “Well I don’t want you to starve to death.”

  “I think I’ll be okay. Stay for a minute, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I didn’t know what to say to her, so instead, I stared at the lake watching a fellow in a wooden boat start his little engine and putter off for greener pastures. The steady hum of the outboard, unlike the roar of two hundred horses on the transom, was almost soothing.

  “You know who that guy is?” I asked.

  “His name is Seamus Ruwall, retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service. Now he spends his time fishing, hunting, and restoring wooden boats. A couple of years ago he was recognized for his great work by the National Wooden Boat Association. Your uncle Nick knew him and thought the work he did was outstanding. When my school was getting started, we had a fund-raising raffle. He donated a beautiful, restored cedar strip Old Town Canoe. The raffle tickets sold out almost immediately. Bud, Nick, and I bought a bunch of tickets, but the lucky winner turned out to be a man from St. Paul. I did get the chance to paddle the boat around the lake. You wouldn’t believe how smooth and quiet they are. An aluminum or fiberglass boat is noisy. This one slid silently along. I thought someday I might buy one of my own, but that is a ways off. Still, he calls me whenever he finishes one he thinks I will like. I always go take a look.”

  “Why don’t you buy one?” I asked.

  “It’s out of my price range. His canoes sell for several thousand dollars. There is no room in a teacher’s budget for that. Besides, every spare dollar I get I’m putting away for a down payment on a house. Can’t live here forever. I eventually will have to get a place of my own.”

  “I thought you liked living here. Why would you move?”

  “This is your house. I wa
nt a place of my own. For now, it works, but things could change in a hurry.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “For example, eventually you or I or both of us might decide to have a personal social life. That would add a third or fourth person to our combined living arrangement, and that would never work. I’m not packing up today, so no worries. I mean, you must have thought about this yourself, haven’t you?”

  It felt like I had just taken another whack with a canoe paddle. The truth was I had not given it one thought. I was content with my current living arrangement, and the only third person was Bud. But apparently she had, and I began to feel a little sick to my stomach.

  I came to my own defense and lied flippantly, “Yeah, well I’ve thought about it. Shelley, that pretty brunette at Crossroads Coffee, asked me the other day if I was seeing anyone. It was tempting, but I thought I would wait till I was one hundred percent ready to roll. Then maybe I will give her a call.”

  Julie walked over to a bucket sitting on the dock. Exercising total disregard for my physical condition, she dipped it in the lake and dumped it over my head, then stomped off to the house. As a trained investigator, I was certain that I had missed something, but as an average man, I couldn’t be sure. So I was again confused and now wet on top of it. It brought to mind two distinct possibilities: either Julie Carlson was extremely complex or I was extremely dense. Maybe both.

  5

  Within a week, the pain from my beating subsided. Sharp pain was replaced by chronic aches, eventually giving way to more minor aches. Julie and I were back on good terms, and household harmony had returned. Not used to sitting around and watching the world go by, I became restless and started looking for something to do. There were little things here and there that the jeep needed repair from sitting so long. I let Doc O’Malley do the major stuff, but I enjoyed fixing what I could. I went fishing whenever I wanted, but as much as I enjoyed it, fishing was more fun when it seemed like I was playing hooky.

  So when Interim Chief of Police Len Bork called me and

  asked if we might get together, my interest was piqued. I readily agreed, and to my surprise, he said he would drive right out. Twenty minutes later a marked police cruiser pulled in, and a lanky rawboned guy exited from the driver’s seat with a briefcase. There was a hound dog look about him. He looked like a man carrying a sizable burden. Thirty years in law enforcement is a long time. Those that make it that long learn to cope. When they think they have seen it all, they run into something new. Sometimes you’ve got to wonder how they even move carrying all that weight.

  “John, I don’t know that we have officially met. The name’s Len Bork. I’ve been asked by the council to fill in as interim chief until we can find a permanent replacement. Everyone is so spooked by what happened that they are afraid to make a move. We spent the first few months after all that went down doing damage control. The press was everywhere. The tabloids ran pictures of the town and made up stories to make us look like what we never were. A local drunk made the opening of Good Morning USA telling how he knew all along about the conspiracy, and that cocky reporter made it seem like he had uncovered something special. It was really bad.

  “Boy! When the story you gave Bill Presser from the Namekagon County News came out, it was like a feeding frenzy; the papers were gone as fast as the clerks could ring them up. The publisher finally brought down a couple of big bundles and sold them right off the truck. Now that things have calmed down, I’m working night and day to get us back on track. I don’t mind sayin’ that the chief was a friend of mine. I’d known him over twenty-five years and never would have expected this. Greed drives people to do strange things. A life worshiping the dollar is a life wasted.”

  I could see Chief Bork was dancing around something, talking but not saying what he really wanted to say. I decided to help him get to the point, “Chief, is this a social visit? Because if it is, I should offer you a piece of pie and cup of coffee. If not, maybe we ought to get to it.”

  The affable look left his face, and his eyes locked onto mine.

  “We’ve got real trouble in this town. I’ve done some checking on you with a mutual friend. He and I went to some training schools together and have kept in touch. He said you’re the real thing—top investigator and smart to boot. He told me I could trust you one hundred percent. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s a pretty good recommendation. Anyway, I need help and I can’t go to my department or the sheriff’s office to get it. I got two Feds creeping around looking for an excuse to tear into us. You have no reason to help me. Hell, you’ve been through enough, and I wouldn’t blame you if you sent me packing. But I’m here to ask all the same. I got real trouble on my hands, and it is going to tear this community apart if I don’t do something.”

  Len Bork didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would come begging for help. Self-reliance was something he developed a long time ago, happy to handle most things he encountered by himself.

  “Okay, Chief, tell me what you need, and I’ll see if I can be of service. I should let you know right off the bat that if you need someone to fight bears, I’m not the guy. But I am a good listener.”

  “John, what I am going to tell you is highly confidential. I hope you will keep it to yourself, but I have no power to make you do so. Also, if the information I have is real, it could put both of us in danger.”

  “Do you think it’s real, Len?”

  “I believe it is.”

  “Well, what the hell? I haven’t been shot in a while. So, go ahead. I could use something to think about.”

  We sat down at the picnic table, and he opened up a briefcase. In the case was a stack of different types of paper about an inch thick, not like a stack someone had downloaded and printed. On top of the stack was a small leather-bound policeman’s notebook. On the cover was embossed “Got Court?”

  Len took a deep breath and started in.

  “I found this information in a floor safe along with $50,000 cash when we searched the former chief’s house after his demise. I bagged and tagged the money but kept this stuff until I had the chance to look it over. I thought it was wrong at the time, but now I’m sure I made the right decision. The chief kept books on lots of folks, including times, dates, locations, recordings, and photographs. He was making sure that if he went down, they were going with him. It looks like he was ass deep in more than we know. Money looks to be the root of it. I don’t mean a little money either. I mean big, big money. Take a look at this.”

  He handed over some photos. One was a large suitcase full of cash packed in tight. Someone was showing, maybe handing the contents to an elderly couple. They were clearly visible. Whoever brought the suitcase was not.

  “Know these people?” I asked.

  “Know them well. Homer and Irma Jones used to run the bait and tackle store at the edge of town. Been there for a long time, forty years or so. They bought about a hundred acres along the lake when land up here was cheap. They sold out a couple of years ago and left town. The land was worth a pile. The funny thing is, they didn’t get much for it, according to the public record, and sold it for less than half of what it was worth. The company that bought it was a development group out of the cities. The bait shop is gone, and the property now has a fancy hotel and condo development along the water. They subdivided what is left into lots, and I see by the signs that most of them are sold. I did a little checking without raising any red flags and found out that the lawyer who represented the people who bought the property was none other than Derek Anderson, the one who tried taking your uncle to the cleaners.”

  Derek Anderson was truly a slimeball—a con man lawyer stealing from elderly clients. Before he was brought to justice, he hung himself. An okay outcome, but I would have rather seen him enjoy the company of a biker named Brutus in the federal joint where he would have ended up.

  He handed me another group of photos similar in nature, but this time a single older man was pictured with
the cash. The hand of the presenter was visible, and a ring could be seen on his little finger.

  “Know this guy too?” I asked.

  “Sure do. Miles Turner, born and raised here. Started a boat rental business with three or four small boats for rent. He worked hard and when he sold, he had over a hundred boat slips, a full-service shop, and sales center. He had twenty employees and treated them like family. He and his wife ran the business together. She died from cancer about five years ago. The story is he told his workers that he was selling out, but the buyers had agreed to keep them all on. He gave each one a $1,000 bonus when he sold and left town. Two weeks after the new owners took over, they closed down the marina and let all the employees go. Funny thing is, Miles sold for about half price too. A different company this time, but Anderson was the lawyer representing them.”

  “What are those other photos, Chief?”

  “These are the ones that really scare me.”

  He gave me several photographs of a woman. Again, surveillance photos. The subject was not posing, but merely going about her business. Three of the pictures showed the woman in various stages of undress through a window. Other than faces in the crowd from a couple of downtown shots, she was alone in all the photos.

  “Who is she, Chief?”

  “Well, John, this is where the shit hits the fan. She is the missing federal undercover agent.”

  I dropped the pictures like they were on fire. I stared and had nothing to say. The information I had been presented with went from locally interesting to nationally crazy. The chief, probably with the best of intentions, had evidence he had not turned over in an ongoing federal investigation—one involving a lost agent. Agents Chandler and Street would skin this man alive if they knew. Now, because of my misfortune, I too would be skinned alive, and I’m sure they would enjoy the task. The pained look on my face must have spoken volumes.

  “Now, John, hear me out before you run over and jump in the lake. I know it’s bad, but there is much more. Let me show you, and after that, if you can’t live with yourself, call the Feds. I will give them everything, but look at what I’ve got first.”