Buried in Wolf Lake Read online

  Then there was Gramps. He missed my Gram terribly after over fifty years of marriage, but he didn’t talk about it. When I told him how much I missed Gram, hoping to get him to open up, all he would say was, “We had a good life together.” His failing health impacted his life, but he never griped about that either.

  And Grandpa Aleckson was the king of silent stoicism. He didn’t waste words unless it was for a good reason, and personal issues were not good reasons. Grandma was the one I bounced my ideas and opinions off of. She was the one who had defended my desire to go into law enforcement, the one who really understood me. She called me “My Heart,” and I told her almost everything—with the recent exception of my confused feelings for Nick and Smoke.

  Secrets, secrets, secrets.

  My personal cell rang a little after five. “Hi, Sara.”

  “Hey. You guys catch any fish today?”

  “We actually both caught our limits of crappies. I left the fillets in Gramps’ fridge—Mom will probably fix ’em when she gets home from work.”

  “She had the shop open today?”

  “Yeah, she says it’s usually pretty busy on Labor Day. Teachers getting last minute outfits and accessories before school starts tomorrow.”

  “I s’pose. When are you taking your supper break?”

  “I usually try for six thirty—depends on any emergency, or being tied up on a call.”

  “Will you be around Oak Lea?”

  I met a car with expired license tags and did a quick U-turn to catch him. “I can be, why?”

  “I thought I could eat with you.”

  “Of course, but that’s a first when I’m working. What’s up?”

  I typed the license plate number of the suspect vehicle on my computer to do an owner search.

  “We’ll talk then. Why don’t you come to my house?”

  “Sure, but I only have a half hour.”

  “I know. Call me when you’re a few miles out.”

  It was a safe place for a stop, so I activated my lights to pull over the vehicle in question.

  Sara set an omelet in front of me three minutes after I walked through the door and took my place at her table. I leaned over so cheese wouldn’t drip on my uniform. “Mmm, this is good, thanks.”

  She sat down on a chair across the table, shook out a napkin, and dropped it on her lap. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since the party, and I can’t stand it anymore. What are you going to do about Smoke and Nick?”

  I chewed and swallowed. “Gosh, Sara, I really don’t know. Just see what happens, I guess.”

  Sara waved her fork at me. “That’s not like you. You’re a proactive kind of person.”

  “Who’s not experienced in matters of the heart,” I reminded her.

  “True, but you must have some indication.” Her green eyes were coaxing.

  I took a break from eating and folded my hands behind my neck to stretch. “Sara, I honestly don’t know.”

  She shook her head.

  I rested my hands on the table. “I’ve known Smoke a lot longer and trust him implicitly, but Nick is great too, and I love his daughter. But don’t forget, it’s not up to just me.”

  “I know, but how long can this go on?” She threw her head back and groaned.

  I shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

  “Okay, I’ll quit bugging you—for now. Something else has been bothering me.” Sara set her fork down and pushed her plate back an inch.

  I studied her face for hints. “What?”

  “It’s your brother. I’m a little worried about him. I know I just met him, but I feel I know him pretty well after everything you’ve told me about him over the years. I think he’s depressed.” She paused. “At your mother’s party, he was preoccupied most of the time. He’d start to relax, then a sad look would creep over his face again.” Sara’s mouth turned down.

  I swallowed a bite and sucked in a breath. “You’re right, unfortunately. His marriage is on the rocks. Mother said he might even move back to Oak Lea if they get divorced. I suppose that’s weighing on him, too. Those are both in the top ten on the stress list.”

  Sara frowned and nodded. “For sure.”

  “The good news is, he’s getting professional help, and Mother prays for him a lot.”

  Sara’s frown turned into a smile. “Your mother is a treasure.”

  “My mother is dating Sheriff Dennis Twardy,” I said slowly, emphasizing each word.

  Sara’s eyes flew wide open. “Shut up. How in the world did that happen?”

  I awed her with all I knew about Mother and Twardy. We commiserated about the Molly case for a few minutes then wound our way back to John Carl.

  Sara stood, picked up my plate, and rested a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want John Carl’s marriage to tank, but I have to tell you, I wouldn’t mind if he moved back here. He’s really, really, really cute.”

  “Sara—”

  “Just saying.” She gave me a light slap on the back.

  I pulled into Lake Pearl State Park once again. I had taken many tours through there over the past few days. One week before, a family’s golden retriever had made an appalling discovery that put everyone in the sheriff’s department and a number of area residents on alert. I ran license plates of vehicles parked here and there in the reserve, and I waved to hikers as they emerged from the wooded areas. There were two horse trailers, both longer than ten feet. Neither was hooked up to an Expedition.

  Lake Pearl held the grandeur of an earlier day when it was part of what French settlers called “Bois Grand” or “Bois Fort.” The English interpretation by the early settlers turned it simply into the “Big Woods.” The park retained over 1,500 acres of the original 3,000-plus forest acres. Sunlight struggled to penetrate the dense masses of maple, basswood, elm, red oak, and tamarack. Red cedar grew on the banks of the numerous lakes.

  Hikers, backpackers, skiers, and horseback riders loved to recreate in the park. Wildlife and bird lovers flocked to Lake Pearl in search of beaver, fisher, red fox, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, loons, hawks, egrets, trumpeter swans, and great blue herons. I did a visual sweep. Nothing in the park seemed ominous or suspicious in any way.

  My eyes focused on a basswood tree, its gray bark furrowed with S-shaped ridges. I visually tracked from its base to the tip of its tallest heart-shaped leaf, over one hundred twenty feet up. The tree had been standing at least a hundred years, perhaps as long as two hundred years. I wondered about all the things it could have seen and heard—if it had had eyes and ears—over that span of time.

  The forest was full of living creatures, but not one could give me information to help solve a hideous crime. Trees with branches bending in the breeze, animals scampering, loping, crawling, digging. All occupied with the basics of survival. Birds winging, singing, and perching. All potential, but mute, witnesses.

  I turned into the Engen’s driveway.

  “Six oh eight, Winnebago County,” I spoke into my radio.

  “Six oh eight?” Jerry in Communications answered.

  “I’ll be out at eighty-five thirty-nine Abbott Avenue Northwest on a follow-up.”

  “Copy that, at nineteen thirty.”

  Tara and Dean Engen answered the door together, with Dean’s arm tightly hooked around Tara’s waist. They looked worried. No doubt they expected some news from me.

  I smiled, hoping to ease their apprehensions. “Hi. I stopped by to see how you two are holding up.”

  “Come in.” Dean pushed the door open wider with his free hand.

  “We were just cleaning up from dinner. Yes, come in,” Tara offered as they stepped aside.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Dean released Tara and indicated a chair for me to sit in. “No, we’re glad you stopped. We see squad cars driving by all the time now and wonder if there are any new developments—”

  “And if somebody else is going to find another body around here,” Tara blurted out as she sank on
to the couch.

  I thought of Amber Ferman, the Minneapolis prostitute who had gone missing a month before Molly. “I certainly hope not, but I understand your concern. No question about that. Unfortunately, there’s nothing new to report. I know Detective Dawes talked to you, gave you what we know about the victim.”

  They nodded in unison. “If she’s from Minneapolis, how did she end up here?” Dean sat down next to his wife.

  I shrugged and shook my head.

  Tara frowned. “What if it’s one of our neighbors that did this?”

  Dean enclosed her hand in his.

  “We’re conducting a very thorough investigation. I can’t give you any specifics on that, but I can tell you we are tracking down every potential lead and checking out everyone within a specific area. If nothing turns up, we’ll widen the scope.”

  Tara looked from her husband to me. “We don’t know if we can stay here. Look at the beautiful day we had today. We didn’t even want to be in our own yard. We drove up to the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge to take Zeke for a hike.”

  I nodded to validate their plight. It was an awful situation having a dismembered body dumped in their small lake. It would squelch the desire to use the lake for any reason.

  Tara paused a moment, then confessed, “I don’t even like to go to bed anymore. I have nightmares.”

  I kept nodding. “That is completely understandable. You know what? So do a lot of the deputies. Me included.” I put my hand on my heart. “Tara, you’re the unfortunate person who got the first view of something very shocking.”

  Her lips trembled, and one tear, then another, rolled down her cheek. Dean laid his hand on her thigh and squeezed tenderly.

  I leaned toward them. “As awful as that was, if she—if Molly—hadn’t been found, her family would be searching for her for the rest of their lives, wondering what happened. There would be no closure.”

  The sheriff’s personnel debriefing jumped to mind. “I’d strongly suggest you get some professional help to help you deal with this. If you’d like, I’ll talk to the chief deputy about a debriefing. Or, if you’d rather talk to a psychologist, we’re lucky to have some excellent ones in our county.”

  “I think that would be good, the debriefing thing,” Dean said, and Tara nodded in agreement.

  She looked at me, her face pinched with regret, or maybe it was sorrow. “Do you ever get used to it? The horrible things people do to each other?”

  I didn’t need to think before I responded. I had known the answer for a long time. “No, I don’t. If I did, I’d quit my job on the spot. To be a good public servant, you can never stop caring.”

  The sun was setting by the time I left the Engen residence. I pulled onto Abbott and headed south to continue my patrol. I was on County Road 10 when I met a silver Lexus with a burned-out headlamp going north. It was a slow night, so I swung around and activated my lights.

  “Six oh eight, County.”

  “Six oh eight.”

  “I’ll be out with Minnesota plate two-William-three-five-five-Sam at County Road Ten and Seventieth Street Northwest.”

  “At twenty oh five.”

  As I approached the vehicle, I was struck with a feeling that something was suspicious, hinky. It happened from time to time and reminded me to be cautious. From what I could see, the driver was the lone occupant. I quickly scoped the small backseat area. It was clean.

  “Good evening, sir. I need your driver’s license and proof of insurance.” My right hand rested on my holstered gun.

  The young bearded man behind the wheel leaned over and found the insurance document in the glove box, then leaned to the right and pulled his wallet from his back left pocket. There was a bottle of water in the seat divider, the only foreign object I spotted in the car.

  “Do you know why I stopped you?”

  “No, officer.” His voice was strained, and his hand shook a little when he handed over the documents. There was no odor of alcohol on him, and when he allowed himself a wary glance at me, I observed his pupils were even—neither constricted nor dilated. But there was something in his eyes that made me uncomfortable—distrust, or defiance, or was it disdain? Most innocent people held eye contact when I spoke to them on a stop.

  The man was clearly uneasy.

  “You have a left front headlight out,” I said.

  He glanced down and frowned.

  “Is this your current address?” I moved the license a little.

  His voice was weak. “Yes.”

  “Hamel. So where are you headed?” I attempted to sound casual, conversational.

  It took him a moment to respond. “Ah, back home. I was at a friend’s house for the weekend. He said this was the shortest way to I-ninety-four.”

  “Okay. I’ll be back shortly.”

  I walked sideways to my squad car and caught the man watching me in his side mirror.

  Langley Kenneth Parker, twenty-seven, five foot eleven, one hundred eighty pounds, brown hair, green eyes. Photograph and physical description matched the driver. Clean record, not even a speeding ticket. He was the registered owner of the vehicle. Not many twenty-seven-year-olds owned $60,000 vehicles. He either had a very high paying job or came from a wealthy family.

  I debated whether to give him a verbal warning or a ticket and decided to write a fix-it ticket. Parker accepted the papers and his driver’s license. I told him he had ten days to make the repair. He read the ticket he held in his slightly trembling hands.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Ah, sure. Ah, thank you.”

  For what? “Drive safely. There’s a lot of traffic on the freeway tonight.”

  He nodded and waited until I turned off my lights to leave. I got weird vibes from people on a fairly regular basis. There was something wrong with that guy. Maybe he had a thing against cops, maybe he had a personality disorder, or maybe he had drugs hidden in his vehicle. But I had no probable cause to search his vehicle. I followed him for about two miles to make sure his driving conduct was safe, then whipped around and headed back south.

  17: Langley

  A stupid headlight. He’d gotten stopped for a stupid burned-out headlight. As careful as he was to stay beneath everyone’s radar—especially the cops’—and his headlight had burned out without his knowledge. It must have happened that day, and it wasn’t dark enough to notice the light was missing on his side of the car.

  The cop had noticed, though.

  A hot wave rushed over him, reminding Langley how much he hated cops. All authority figures, but cops especially. Every pulse point in his body hammered away. As the adrenaline continued to surge, his hands shook even more than they had when that female cop had stood over him, staring at him. The unbelievable part of the whole thing was that the cop wasn’t really a cop at all. She was an Eve dressed up like a cop. She crept up to his car like she wanted to find something so she could pull her gun on him—he was convinced of that. And she tried to sound tough besides. It was almost laughable. An Eve on a real power trip—the worst kind of Eve of all.

  That was not laughable.

  Langley saw the Eve-cop turn her car around in his rearview mirror. He pulled onto the shoulder to think for a minute and shake the remnants of adrenaline out of his hands. All he had wanted was to drive past the burial site to savor the whole experience. She’d put a damper on that.

  The Eve-cop had wrecked it for him, filled him with doubts. What if she had seen him driving past Wolf Lake—would she have stopped him there? Would he have somehow given himself away? But how? He was the only one who knew what was buried in Wolf Lake. He and Sheik, of course. He needed to gain his composure.

  Langley patted himself on the back for making up the story about having a friend in the area. What if the nosy Eve-cop had asked where his friend lived, what would he have said? He had spent enough time around there when he was a kid and knew a lot of the street names to rattle off one of them. But what if she asked for a name and knew
what he made up wasn’t true? Langley swiped his forehead with the back of his hand to remove the sweat beaded there. He rubbed the moisture into his jeans, which caused a stir in his groin.

  No time to get distracted.

  Langley would not let the Eve-cop control him or what he did. He looked down at the ticket he had tossed on the passenger seat. It was signed by Sergeant Corinne Aleckson. She might call herself that, but she was just another Eve to him.

  Langley continued to County 27. He turned left, then right on Abbott. When he crossed Eighty-fifth Street Northwest, he took a quick glance to his right to scan the path he and Sheik had taken out of the park, loaded with their cargo. His eyes fixed on the lake. Wolf Lake. A lake named for one of his favorite animals. Wolves stalked their prey and didn’t give up until they got it. Wolf Lake would hold his concubine forever.

  When Langley got home, there was a message from his mother.

  “Langley! We got home from Vegas this afternoon and saw the Sunday paper. Why didn’t you tell us what happened by your grandparents’ old farm place? I am so glad they don’t live there anymore. Well, we’re off to dinner. Bye.”

  Langley replayed the message. What was his mother talking about? His heart pounded as he made his way to a neighborhood store to pick up a paper. He went through the front section. Nothing. It was in the metro area section.

  Dog Finds Woman’s Dismembered Leg

  The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department reports a grisly discovery made by a family dog in Dayton Township. According to lead investigator Detective Elton Dawes, the dog found the leg of a Caucasian woman in Wolf Lake, which prompted a search of the lake. More dismembered remains of the victim were found by the underwater recovery team. The victim has been identified as Molly Renee Getz, age 27, of Minneapolis. The dog’s owners could not be reached for comment.

  A dog! Dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog. The word churned over and over in Langley’s brain. His careful planning ruined by a dog. What a fool he had made of himself by not keeping up with the news. He hated reading or listening to news, and it had never once occurred to him Eve would be found. The lake was no good for swimming or fishing with its muddy bottom. In all those years at his grandparents’ farm, he had never seen one person use it, ever.