I had just finished off the peanut clusters by the time I saw the sign GRAND MARAIS • TOWN CENTER • ARTIST POINT • BOAT LAUNCH. I had a lot of time to think while driving toward it. I decided that Montgomery must have known his killer to let him get that close without a struggle. Which meant he was probably from around there. The only way to get a line on him—Or her, my inner voice said, let’s not be sexist—was to speak with Montgomery’s family and friends. Unfortunately, the only people I was acquainted with who could introduce me were Louise and Peg Younghans and both women had claimed that they barely knew the man. So, I did the next best thing. I drove to a bar.
Mark’s Wheel-Inn catered to the people who actually lived in Grand Marais. You could tell because its prices were reasonable and because it was located up the hill several blocks from the harbor, which meant it might as well be on the moon as far as most tourists were concerned. What’s more, it stayed open year-round instead of closing in late October and reopening again in early April like most of its competitors. Nina and I had discovered it the last time we were on the North Shore.
I was surprised by how many cars were in the parking lot until I realized that it was Saturday afternoon during college football season with happy hour prices for beer, wine, rail drinks, chicken wings, and nachos. I stepped inside. The TVs were tuned to the Minnesota Gophers-Wisconsin Badgers football game, although no one seemed to be paying much attention to it. I made my way to the bar. Some of the locals glanced my way but didn’t say anything. A moment later they glanced at Jennica Mehren, who had followed me. This time several comments were made, only I didn’t hear what was said.
The bartender closed in on my position. He set a coaster down and nodded for me to speak.
“You could get in trouble serving underage drinkers even way up here, right?” I said.
He stared for a few beats as if he was trying to translate what I had told him. His eyes found Jennica who was now positioned a couple of steps off my shoulder.
“Miss,” the bartender said, “do you have some ID?”
“What?”
“The drinking age in Minnesota is twenty-one.”
Jennica glared at me.
“It’s the same in California,” she said.
“Do you have an ID?” The bartender repeated.
Jennica’s answer was to spin on her heels and stomp out of the bar.
There were a couple of locals sitting at a table within earshot.
“Hey, man,” the short one said. “Whaddaya doin’ runnin’ girls off like that? They could become scarce someday.”
“What are you talking about, scarce?” the tall one said. “We’re the endangered species ’round here, us men. My wife told me just last night that if we couldn’t shovel snow or open jars there’d be a bounty on us.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the bartender said. “The way things are goin’ lately, I’m surprised women don’t chase us down with torches and pitchforks like in them old-time monster movies.”
“It’s not like we ain’t got it comin’,” the short man said. “All them stories about sexual harassment and rape and shit—I had no idea. Bill Cosby, really? I grew up watchin’ Bill Cosby. America’s Dad. Hell, I liked ’im better than my dad. Geezus. And how many since him? I can’t even count.”
“That guy, that doctor what abused all them gymnasts for like years and years,” the taller man said.
“I’ve never done any of that,” the bartender said. “I don’t know anyone who has.”
“Wasn’t it you who was complaining when they started lettin’ women announce football and baseball games?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Yeah, it is. Well, it ain’t rape, but it is discrimination. Don’t you think?”
The shorter man was looking at me when he asked the question, so I provided an answer I hoped wouldn’t annoy anyone. After all I was there to make friends.
“It’s a new world,” I said. “We best get used to it.”
The bartender nodded as if he agreed with me.
The taller man raised his glass.
“A toast,” he said. “May we all get what we want, but not what we deserve.”
“Here, here.”
“Gentlemen,” I said, “let me buy you a beer.”
The bartender served the beers and returned to his place behind the stick. I remained leaning against the bar; my two new friends stayed at their table. We started chatting. No one seemed to mind at all that I was from somewhere else, not even when I said, “I hear there’s some excitement in town.”
“You talking about the killing?” short man said.
“Dave Montgomery, talk about your sexual harassment,” the taller man said.
“He never harassed anyone I ever heard of.”
“Not harassed, but he got around.”
“That’s not the same thing, is it?”
“Have they even decided if it was murder or suicide?” the bartender asked. “I haven’t heard.”
“I’ve known Montgomery for a long time,” the tall man said. “He wasn’t someone who’d shoot himself.”
“That’s what they say about everyone until they do it,” the short man said.
“What is Sheriff Bowland doin’ about it is what I want to know,” the bartender said.
“That doddering old man?”
“Doddering?” I asked.
“Man’s been sheriff since the eighties, but what’s he ever done ’cept hassle the high school kids he catches drinkin’ in the woods?”
“I heard he brought in the BCA t’ take the pressure off hisself,” the bartender said.
“Let them take the blame if it all goes to shit,” the taller man said. “He’s a politician after all.”
“I know a little something about how this works,” I said. “The first thing they’ll do, the sheriff or the BCA, is talk to Montgomery’s wife. And then his girlfriends. And then the boyfriends of his girlfriends.”
“Good luck with that,” the tall man said.
“What do you mean?”
“Like I said—Montgomery got around. I bet he banged half the single women in Cook County.”
“Just single women?”
“Well, he wasn’t an idiot. There are things you can get away with in the big city that you can’t up here. Everyone’s got a gun up here.”
“You make it sound like Texas or somethin’, guys carrying their AR-15s into the local Walmart,” the shorter man said. He was looking at me when he added, “It ain’t Texas.”
“Fuck Texas,” the bartender said.
“Have you ever been?”
“Well, no.”
“I was in San Antonio once,” I said. “Great barbecue. Can’t say I saw anyone walking around with an AR.”
“Just telling you what I heard.”
“So, Montgomery was only involved with single women?”
“Far as I know,” the tall man said. “You got the librarian…”
“Miss Greyson?” the short man said.
“Yep.”
“No kidding?”
“You got Gillian Davis over at the Gunflint Tavern.”
“I knew about her.”
“Leah Huddleston at the art gallery…”
“Which gallery?” I asked.
“Up on Highway 61 near the Dairy Queen. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“What about Ardina Curtis over at the casino?” the bartender asked.
“Montgomery was seeing an Ojibwa chick?” the short man asked.
“Yeah, and from what I heard, the brother was not happy about it.”
“I’m the BCA and I think Montgomery was killed, the brother is the first guy I talk to,” the tall man said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Man has a temper and those Ojibwa, they think you’ve been trifling with their woman, they take that seriously.”
“You think it’s a racial thing?”
“Don’t know ’bout that. More like a family honor thing.”
“What about Louise Wykoff and Peg Younghans?”
“What about ’em?”
“Could Montgomery have been involved with either of them?”
“Nah,” the shorter man said.
“I don’t know,” the bartender said. “Montgomery didn’t mind ’em being older, the women he fucked.”
“Yeah, okay, but the Wykoff woman? I just can’t see it.”
“Me, neither,” said the taller man. “She’s always been so damn proper. Is that the right word, ‘proper’?”
“Good as any,” I said.
“As for Peggy, she talks a good game yet mostly it’s just a tease.”
“Remember the reception the Art Colony held back in July right before the art festival began?” the bartender said. “Peg was flirting up a storm; maybe she had too much to drink, I don’t know. Anyway, I started flirting back. Woman suffered a full-blown anxiety attack. I’m not exaggerating.”
“Sure it wasn’t just you comin’ on to her?” the short man said. “Fuckin’ stop my heart.”
“Hardy har har. You”—the bartender was speaking to me—“why you asking about Younghans and Wykoff?”
“Cuz they’re the only women in Grand Marais that I’ve met. How ’bout another beer? Can you guys stand another round?”
“If you’re buyin’ we’re drinkin,” the short man said.
While the bartender took care of us, I said, “After the BCA talks to his girlfriends, they’ll talk to his boys. Who’d Montgomery hang out with?”
“I don’t know he was tight with anyone since Wayne,” the short man said.
“What happened with Wayne?”
“Wayne was Montgomery’s best friend going back to grade school…”
Not unlike you and Bobby Dunston, my inner voice reminded me.
“Until he caught him in bed with his wife.”
Not like you and Bobby Dunston.
“Montgomery screwing everything in sight is not a new phenomenon,” the taller man said. “He’s been rovin’ since God knows when. Jodine put up with it how many years? Then she decided what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, am I right?”
“Yeah, but Wayne?” the short man said. “That was pretty rough.”
“I think it was meant to be.”
“Where’s Jodine now?” I asked. “Is she still in town?”
“Nah. Moved to Duluth with the daughter. I heard she’s working for the Duluth Art Institute.”
“Is that right,” the bartender said. “Good for her. She was always one of those artsy types.”
“Place is crawlin’ with artsy types,” the tall man said.
“Only during the summer. Come winter, most are gone, gone, gone.”
“Except for Louise Wykoff.”
“Except for her.”
“What about Wayne?” I asked.
“You mean after he got out of the hospital?” the bartender said.
“He was in the hospital?”
“What can I say?” the taller man said. “Montgomery was a hot-headed fellow.”
“Last I heard Wayne moved to Eveleth,” the shorter man said.
“What’s he doin’ in Eveleth?”
“Got a job workin’ in the new mine they opened near there. We’ll see how long that lasts.” The shorter man was looking at me again when he said, “Mining iron ore has always been an up-and-down thing.”
“Still,” I said, “he sounds like a suspect to me.”
“Whaddya know about it?” the bartender asked.
“Like I said, the cops start looking for suspects close to home and then slowly spread out. Think of it like ripples on a pond. This Wayne, you say Montgomery put him in the hospital?”
“That was over four years ago,” the taller man said. “Four years since the divorce.”
“Some people have been known to hold a grudge.”
“That would bother me, if Wayne killed Montgomery, friends the way they were.”
“Did Montgomery have any other enemies?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“You’re asking a lot of questions about people you’ve never met,” the bartender said. “What’s that about?”
“Yeah,” said the taller man. “You a cop?”
“God no, but let’s say that I’ve had dealings with the police in the past and let it go at that.”
“Hell no, I ain’t gonna let it go,” said the bartender. “Who are you?”
“Just a tourist killing time while my Golden Gophers”—I glanced up at the TV screen—“lose to Wisconsin.”
The taller man’s head jerked up at the screen.
“How the hell did that happened?” he asked. “They were leading by two touchdowns!”
Clearly, I had outstayed my welcome, so I bid a fond farewell to my newfound besties and returned to the Mustang. I pulled a notebook out of the glove compartment and wrote down everything I could remember about our conversation, especially the names. While I wrote, Jennica Mehren rapped a knuckle on the driver’s side window. I rolled it down.
“That was mean,” she said.
“What would have been mean is if you were sitting at the bar nursing a drink when the sheriff walked in. The bar owner could have been in serious trouble.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. McKenzie, I’ve been waiting here for over an hour.”
“So, go home. Who’s stopping you?”
“McKenzie…”
I slipped the notebook and pen into my jacket pocket and started the car. Jennica stepped back.
“Where are you going?”
I smiled in reply and drove out of the parking lot. I lost sight of her before she managed to get to her own car. Which didn’t mean I had lost her. From my condominium in Minneapolis, I could drive sixty miles per hour in a straight line for thirty minutes in any direction and still be in the Twin Cities. I could circle Grand Marais in five minutes, six if I was caught by the town’s lone stoplight. Plus, I was driving a black Mustang, not exactly an inconspicuous vehicle even in the Cities. An industrious young lady like Jennica, I figured it wouldn’t take her long to locate me. So, I hid among the other tourists in the parking lot next to the Dairy Queen, quickly crossed Highway 61 on foot, and walked the block and a half to the public library. It was a pretty building with gray brick and blue siding. The sign painted on the glass door said it closed at 2:00 P.M. on Saturdays. I cupped my hands against the glass to peer inside and saw a woman moving about. I knocked. The woman came to the door and opened it as if she had been expecting me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The library is closed.”
“I’m looking for Miss Greyson.”
“I’m Ms. Doris Greyson.”
“Ms. Greyson, my name is McKenzie. I’m investigating—Ms. Greyson have you heard what happened to David Montgomery?”
Greyson stared at me while I counted the beats—one, two, three, four …
She answered, “Yes,” in a soft voice and looked away.
Thank God, my inner voice said. One of the things I did not miss about being a police officer was delivering heartbreaking news to people.
“Were you close?” I asked.
“Close enough.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“May I come in?”
She held the door open. I stepped inside the library and she closed and locked the door behind us.
“I heard two versions of the story,” Greyson said. “In one, David committed suicide. In the other, he was murdered. I don’t know which is worse.”
“I’m sure an official determination will be made soon.”
She led me deeper inside the building until we were standing next to the reference desk. There was a sign on top of the desk that read SIGN UP FOR INTERNET HERE. Greyson leaned on the desk as if she needed support.
“Why do you want to talk to me?” she asked.
“Your name was mentioned as someone who might be familiar with Montgomery.”
“Are you asking if I was fucking him?”
Not a word you’d expect a librarian to use, my inner voice said. But okay.
“How well did you know Montgomery?” I asked.
“Besides the fucking part, not well at all. He loved his daughter, doted on her. It was sweet to see them together. All this is going to be very hard on her. Beyond that, though … Who are you? You’re not with the sheriff’s department, I would know.”
“My name is McKenzie. I’m investigating the incident privately.”
“Incident?” Ms. Greyson repeated the word as if she didn’t know what it meant. “Who hired you? Jodine?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s not much I can tell you anyway.”
“You could tell me where you were between ten A.M. and two P.M. yesterday.”
“I was here.”
“Witnesses?”
“A lot of people came in and out, plus my co-workers—why are you asking? Am I a suspect?”
“Not anymore.”
Greyson glared as if she wasn’t sure she believed me.
“Do you know if Montgomery had any enemies?” I asked.
“No.”
“No one he might have pissed off? Someone he might have been in business with, perhaps?”
Greyson shook her head. At the same time she said, “David advertised himself as a handyman. He did a lot of home repair and small construction projects—plumbing, electrical, carpentry. He could replace your roof or your furnace or your driveway, which put him in a lot of people’s homes, so I don’t know. We never really spoke about anything like that. His life. My life. David and I never demanded anything more from each other than a few hours of our time.
“You’re probably wondering why a man like him would involve himself with a woman nearly twenty years older than he was. It was a matter of commitment. Or lack thereof. Younger women, women David’s age, spend a lot of time trying to determine what their future should be. They have plans or they’re in the process of making plans: when to get married, when to buy a house and bring two-point-five children into the world, when to put their youth behind them. David wasn’t interested in participating in the process. He liked older women—me—because we already have the future figured out and have determined that a permanent relationship isn’t necessarily part of it. I’ve done marriage and I have no compelling reason to try it again…”
Not unlike Nina.
“Now a temporary relationship with the duration of, say, a Sunday afternoon, that’s an entirely different matter,” Greyson said.
“I’ve been told that you weren’t the only woman he—that Montgomery was involved with,” I said.
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
“You don’t seem upset by the news.”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Perhaps his other partners weren’t as open-minded.”
“When David discovered that his wife was sleeping with his best friend, he beat up on Wayne, yet he never touched her.”
“Meaning?”
“If someone was angry that I was sleeping with David, they would have come after me, not him.”
“I was a police officer for a long time. That’s not necessarily how it works.”
Greyson gave it a few beats before she responded. “I have no idea who he might have been sleeping with besides me. He never spoke about anyone else while we were together.”
“Gillian Davis?”
“It’s possible.”
“Leah Huddleston?”
She shrugged.
“Ardina Curtis?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Peg Younghans?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Louise Wykoff?”
Greyson snorted at the suggestion.
“Now that would shock me,” she said. “That would shock me to my core.”
“When was the last time you saw Montgomery?”
“Tuesday evening.”
After the paintings were stolen, my inner voice reminded me.
“We were together for only about an hour,” Greyson added. “I had an early morning.”
“How did he seem?”
“Happy.”
“Happy? Did he tell you why?” Greyson’s eyes snapped toward me like I had just insulted her. “I mean for a reason besides that.”
“All he said was that it was a beautiful day.”
“Was it a beautiful day?”
“No, now that you mention it. It was cold and raining.”
I thanked Ms. Greyson for her time and left the library. I moved cautiously back to the highway while searching for Jennica. I didn’t see her, but I saw a black-and-white SUV with a light bar on the roof and SHERIFF COOK COUNTY painted on the door. It was two blocks up and coming toward me. I turned around and walked quickly enough in the opposite direction to put plenty of distance between my back and the street, yet not so rapidly as to draw attention to myself. At the same time I threw a glance over my shoulder. Deputy Wurzer was behind the wheel. He didn’t notice me, though, and kept driving until he hit Broadway and hung a right. I felt a little silly, hiding from the police, only I didn’t trust him. When he was out of sight, I spun back around and went to my car.
Northern Lights Art Gallery was located near the Dairy Queen, as I had been told. I could see its sign over the roof of the Mustang as I unlocked the door. I glanced around for both Jennica and Wurzer and not seeing either of them, I relocked the car door, walked the hundred and fifty yards to the entrance, and stepped inside. The gallery was filled with customers. They moved slowly, examining each painting, print, sculpture, carving, ceramic bowl or vase, photograph, and article of jewelry as if they were curating for, well, the City of Lakes Art Museum. Yet except for a few coffee mugs, a couple of hand-painted greeting cards, and a trout knife with a handle made from a deer antler, I didn’t see anyone buy anything.
There were a few paintings by Louise Wykoff hanging on the walls and I spent most of my time studying them until the crowd thinned out. I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like—the line was attributed to Mark Twain, although I doubt he actually said it. I have used it myself, though, often substituting the word “art” for food, music, theater, ballet, or whatever other subject I was woefully ignorant in. I can say, however, that I really liked Louise’s paintings, especially the one of a French voyager working at a blacksmith’s forge. I was wondering what Nina might say about the $3,500 price tag when a woman moved to my side.
“That’s my uncle,” she said.
“Your uncle?”
“My uncle Frank. He’s a reenactor.”
The expression on my face must have revealed my confusion because she continued.
“The National Park Service restored the North West Company’s trading post up in Grand Portage I don’t know how many years ago. Turned it into a national monument. This is the fort where the voyageurs would take the furs they collected in Canada, load them onto boats, and send them across the great lakes to the St. Lawrence River and eventually to Europe. Every August, reenactors from across the country dress in period attire and gather at the post for what is called the Grand Rendezvous and pretend for three days to be living in the late eighteenth century. It’s actually quite extraordinary. My uncle is one of the reenactors. He conducts blacksmithing classes. Louise painted him from photographs she took.”
“She makes me believe she was actually there in the 1790s.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her; the woman’s been around forever.”
The woman slapped a hand over her mouth and for a moment she was thirty years old going on ten.
“Do you know Louise?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Don’t tell her I said that.”
“I promise.”
“We should all look that fabulous when we’re her age.”
“How old do you think she is?”
“I’m just digging this hole deeper and deeper, aren’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She offered her hand.
“I’m Leah Huddleston,” she said.
No kidding? my inner voice said. I thought Leah would be another woman fast approaching retirement age.
“I’m McKenzie,” I said.
“Oh. You’re not what I expected at all.”
“You were expecting me?”
“Peg Younghans said you might be stopping by.”
“Did she?”
“When she spelled me for my lunch break. Minnesota state law requires that small businesses give employees sufficient mealtime if they work more than eight consecutive hours, and I always take an hour at exactly eleven thirty whether the boss likes it or not.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“I am. Peg said you were working for That Wykoff Woman. Should I say what she called you?”
“Please do.”
“She said you were Louise’s boy-toy.”
“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”
“Knowing Peg, I’d say flattered.”
“Knowing Peg, if she was male they’d call her a dirty old man.”
“She does seem fixated by all things sexual.”
“How long have you known her?”
“I inherited her when I bought the gallery four years ago. She works part-time in the summer. Terrifically punctual. You could set your watch to her. During the winter, though, we’re open eleven to five, three days a week and I have that covered.”
“You’re not a native.”
“I am, actually. I grew up here, went to Cook County High School. Go Vikings. Fear no one. My family moved to Chicago, though, halfway through my junior year. I enrolled at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and caught the bug. Later I graduated from Columbia College. Worked in a couple of galleries. When Northern Lights went up for sale, I jumped at it. I love Grand Marais. The hustle and bustle of the summer. The quiet and solitude of the winter.”
“Good for you.”
“What can I do for you, sir? Peg says that you’re looking for some of Louise’s paintings that were stolen?”
“It’s possible that they were stolen by David Montgomery.”
Leah closed her eyes and shook her head as if she did not want to believe my accusation, yet didn’t necessarily disbelieve it. She moved slowly to the counter she kept at the far end of the gallery. I followed her.
“Poor David,” she said. “Peg said that even though it looks like he committed suicide, the sheriff thinks he was murdered. She said that Louise might have done it.”
I was upset by the suggestion and probably my voice revealed it.
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Louise was surrounded by a dozen witnesses when Montgomery died.”
“Thank God.”
“In any case, the authorities haven’t yet officially determined if it was suicide or murder.”
“Peg is the worst gossip.”
“I got that impression.”
“I hope—what do I hope? If David committed suicide you wonder what you could have done to prevent it, what you could have done to help him. If he was murdered, you wonder which one of your neighbors, your friends, is a killer. Oh, God.”
“I was told you dated him.”
“I did. A couple of times last February. ’Course, everyone in town knew about it. There are only a few places in Grand Marais that are open in the winter so it’s kind of hard to keep a secret. The problem—he was—David thought all he had to do was play his flute and women would shimmy and shake for him. When I say flute, I’m speaking metaphorically.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“I came of age in Chicago, though, and I know charmers and I know snakes and he was more the latter than the former. I wanted nothing to do with his flute. That seemed to surprise him.”
“Apparently, others weren’t as discriminating.”
“There’s something like fifty-one hundred people living in all of Cook County, mostly along the lake. There aren’t many opportunities to meet people unless you travel.”
“Do you travel?”
“As often as possible. When you say ‘others,’ who do you mean?”
“You tell me.”
“No. I’ll leave that to Peg.”
“You say you haven’t seen Montgomery since February.”
“Of course I saw him. It’s Grand Marais. I haven’t spent any time with him, though, if that’s what you mean.”
“He wouldn’t have come to you with the paintings then.”
“If he had, I would have contacted the sheriff in a heartbeat. I like Louise and I want her to like me. I want her to let me keep selling her work.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t tell her I said she was old.”
“I won’t.”
“Besides, what would I have done with the paintings? Hang them on a wall in a store located less than six blocks from Louise’s front door? Exhibit them next to the paintings she actually commissioned me to sell? David couldn’t have been that dumb.”
“I have a hypothetical question for you, and please don’t be insulted. If you did have the paintings and you wanted to sell them, where would you take them?”
Leah answered as if it was a question she had been asked a thousand times. “Canada.”
“Why Canada?”
“Because it’s not here.”
“That makes sense. How would you get them across the border?”
“There are a thousand places you can cross the Pigeon River in a small boat. In the winter, you can walk across it. Or just drive across at the, what’s it called—Grand Portage Port of Entry. I’ve gone to Canada and back a thousand times and between the CBP and the Canadian Border Service the trunk of my car was searched maybe twice.”
“Do you think Montgomery might have had the same thought?”
“I have no idea what was in his head. I am sorry he’s dead, though. I really am.”