Three minutes after walking out of City Hall, Cole, Michele, and Deputy Hubbard pushed through the glass door of the Prairie du Chien Courier Press. The paper covered local news and sports and published every Tuesday and Thursday. They also published a weekly shopping supplement that was distributed to area homes and businesses and printed flyers, brochures, business cards, and other projects to bring in extra revenue.
A squat receptionist’s desk sat just inside the door; the woman hunting and pecking on the keyboard there didn’t see them come in.
Cole looked around. Framed articles that ran in the paper over the years covered most of the wall space. He noticed a story with a large photo of President Jimmy Carter’s visit to town. He leaned closer and saw the date: August 19, 1979. He felt a nudge in his side. Michele had a smile on her face and pointed to a framed article with a photo that showed Cole with both hands in the air. It was taken after he won his third straight high school wrestling championship. Cole grinned. It looked like he was three feet off the ground. The large headline blared, Cole Huebsch Three-Peat!
“The young stud himself,” Michele whispered. “I thought the Chicago Bulls coined the three-peat thing.”
“In so many ways I was ahead of my time,” he whispered back.
The receptionist caught movement or a snippet of the hushed conversation and looked up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m Barb McDougal. I’m the receptionist and the gossip columnist, and I put together the classified section of the paper…although that’s dwindled to almost nothing since Craigslist and copycat sites popped up on the internet.”
“I’ll try not to keep you,” Cole said, stepping forward. He introduced himself and Michele and said, “We’re looking for the editor, Grant Grae.”
“You’re in luck. Just go through the door behind me and you’ll find his office immediately on the left. If he’s not there, he’s in the conference room, well, kitchen, right across the hall. Or he could be in the pressroom, which is through the doors beyond that. There’s not many places he can hide or that you can get lost.” She waved them back.
Cole pulled the door open and stepped into a narrow hall. He took a couple steps further and leaned into the open doorway on the left. The guy he figured for Grant Grae sat at a beautiful oak roll-top desk, which made the cramped office more appealing. Grae looked up to face the door and inquired, “Can I help you?”
Cole stepped into the office and introduced himself and Michele to the editor. Deputy Hubbard nodded at Grae and the editor responded with a friendly, “Morning, Deputy.”
Two small chairs faced the desk and Grae gestured for his guests to take a seat. “Randy, if you’re staying, you can grab a chair from out front.”
“I’ll wait in the hall.” He stepped out and left the door ajar.
Michele sat down, but Cole stayed on his feet. He studied Grae. The editor had deep brown eyes that returned his gaze. He had a slender nose and full lips, but the features that caught most people’s attention were his bushy eyebrows and unruly but full head of hair. They were as white as the scratchpad he’d been scribbling on before being interrupted. Cole guessed Grae was in his early sixties. With the editor sitting down it was hard to tell his exact height, but he was definitely on the shorter side.
Cole turned and inspected the massive shoulder mounts of the whitetail deer that dominated two of Grae’s four office walls. He pointed to the first one and asked, “My God, is this the thirty-point buck the Yupers sing about every year on the radio during hunting season?” The base of the antlers was wider than Cole’s wrists and huge; irregular tines jutted out every which way from the wide rack.
“Michael actually has thirty-six points, according to his Boone and Crockett score. He’s got close to a twenty-five-inch inside spread. I took him the first year I moved to Prairie ten years ago. I wanted to get out of Milwaukee and find a place I could still write and educate, but where it was easier to hunt and fish.”
“You name the deer you kill?” Michele asked.
“Before I ever shoot them,” he answered. “I scouted each of those two for months before the hunting season. I got to know their habits so well we were on a first-name basis. The other one’s name is Gabriel, or Gabe for short.”
“Well, Mike’s the biggest atypical I’ve ever seen, and I’ve registered my own share of bucks harvested in the woods around here,” Cole said, impressed. “Gabe’s a monster, too, and I’ve never seen a twelve-point rack that symmetrical. Each side is a mirror image of the other.”
“That’s why I mounted him,” Grae said. “I grew up a meat hunter and never saw the need to have ‘trophies’ made of my hunting successes. But after harvesting Michael, I knew I had to get him mounted. I wanted to share the beauty.”
“You said ‘harvested,’” Michele said, “almost like you picked a bushel of apples or corn. You shot the deer, right?”
“Well, sure. I shot both these fine animals,” he answered. “But I speak for a lot of hunters when I say there’s a spiritual side to the sport. When I shoot a deer and field dress it, I’m not thinking, ‘Yippee, I killed a deer.’ I’m actually taking a moment to thank God for allowing me to take the deer for food. It’s kind of hard to explain to a non-hunter.”
“I get it,” Cole said. “I got that same feeling every time I harvested a deer, or any animal for that matter.”
“After Michael, I figured I’d never have another deer mounted in my life, but when I shot Gabe and saw how perfect the rack was, well, I had to get it done. I don’t make a lot of money here, but I don’t have a lot of expenses either. So what the heck.”
Cole nodded to a tall metal cabinet behind the editor. “That a gun cabinet?”
“It is. I keep a shotgun and a rifle in there. Locked up. It’s not for protection,” he said. “I keep them here in case I get the chance to sneak out early. Since I’m not only the editor and publisher but also the owner, that happens from time to time. But you didn’t come here to talk hunting I imagine.”
Cole sat down and looked directly at Grae. “You’re right, we came to talk about a couple of murders. Right now you’re a person of interest.” He decided to be blunt to make sure he got Grae’s attention.
Grae cocked his head. “What murders are you talking about, and how could I possibly be involved?”
Michele watched the interaction between the two. “Two physicians were killed in our state in the past few days. The first was murdered outside his clinic in Milwaukee by a sniper with a deer-hunting rifle.” Cole purposely let his eyes drift, first to Gabe and then Michael peering down at them from above. He looked again at Grae. “The second physician was shot by the same type of rifle while making a sandwich in his own kitchen. His wife and three daughters were in the house and all of them saw what 170-grain bullets can do to a man’s head.
“I read the stories,” Grae said. He turned to Michele before adding, “And you’re a damn good writer by the way.”
“Thank you,” she said, without emotion.
“But you haven’t told me why you’re interested in me,” Grae said. “The fact that I started running a counter in my newspaper that roughly calculates how many babies have been murdered through abortion since Roe v. Wade doesn’t make me the killer. I’m not going to sit here and lie to a federal agent and say that I don’t have mixed emotions about the killings, but I didn’t murder anyone or aid and abet either. Like a lot of people, I secretly admire the thought that these abortionists are being held accountable, but I can’t imagine taking a human life myself.”
Cole could tell Michele was getting frustrated and was about to take the editor to task for somewhat condoning the murders. He reached over discreetly and touched the back of her hand, but Michele pulled away.
“It seems like too much of a coincidence,” Cole said. “A guy starts killing abortion physicians roughly the same time another starts a hunger strike against abortions. And at the same time, the editor of a newspaper starts running a recurring banner that estimates how many pregnancies have been terminated since Roe v. Wade was decided. The hunger striker and editor both happen to live in the same town with a population under six thousand. We just left John Lawler. He’s staging his hunger strike two blocks from here. What are the odds?”
“Then we walk in here and you have two deer hanging on your walls,” Michele said.
“And they’re not any deer mounts either,” Cole pushed. “Ninety-nine percent of the hunters who pick up a gun and walk through the woods never see a deer as magnificent as these , much less shoot one. And you’ve got two. That means you’re patient enough to scout the deer over a number of weeks, clever enough to come up with a good plan, and stealthy enough to sneak up on them when almost nobody else could. Maybe most importantly, you had to be calm under pressure. Where most hunters’ hearts would be pumping a mile a minute you would have slowed yours down. And then you’d have to be able to make the kill shots. All of that combined makes you a person of interest, make that a person of great interest.”
Grae shrugged and let out a sigh. “Okay, I get that. I’m obviously not shy about how I feel about abortion. To me, it’s the taking of a life, pure and simple. But I didn’t shoot anyone. I can’t shoot a fly off a deer’s ass from three hundred yards out either, but I typically don’t miss what I aim at. You’re right that I scout and plan meticulously. And I don’t take careless shots. Period. I’m patient and wait until I have a good kill shot. Every animal I’ve ever shot at has ended up in the freezer. I’m damn proud of that. I’ve never wounded a deer and had to wonder if it ended up dying a hard, slow death later.”
He looked up at Michael and Gabriel with a satisfied smile on his face. “These two didn’t end up on my wall because I’m the best shot in the state. I took both of these beautiful animals inside of seventy-five yards, because I did the work and had a pretty good idea of where they’d be at day’s end.”
“Tell us about Father Wagner’s sermon,” Michele said. “Did it move you in any way?”
“It got me off my dead ass, both figuratively and literally,” Grae answered. “I sleepwalk through most sermons and through most of life if I’m honest with myself. But Father’s sermon on Christmas Day was a wake-up call. When he asked who would stand with him, I jumped up. I don’t even really remember doing it, but I was out of my seat immediately. I felt silly when I realized Father didn’t mean we should literally stand up, but I didn’t regret standing up that day and I don’t now. If anything, I regret not acting sooner.”
“Have you lost any readers?” Michele asked. “I’m wondering if people who disagree with your view on abortion, who think it’s a woman’s decision and not a man’s, would cancel their subscriptions.”
“Fact is, we lost more than a third of our readers and about the same percentage of advertisers after I ran my editorial explaining my stance and started including the abortion counter. But both readers and advertisers are coming back already. We’ll have some holdouts, but nobody covers small-town news the way a paper like ours does. You want to see your kid’s name in the paper for sinking the winning free throw or winning the spelling bee? Around here you need to subscribe to the Courier Press. And if you want to reach those readers, you advertise here.”
“So you have a monopoly?” Michele asked.
“I wouldn’t say a monopoly. For most of us putting out these papers…we do it as a labor of love. It’s more of a calling than a job. I make half what I made at the Journal Sentinel, but I’d make the switch again. I always figured you could have Pulitzer quality reporting at a small paper like ours. But you have to be in it for reasons other than money.”
“I carried a Springfield bolt-action 30-06 when I hunted deer,” Cole said, redirecting the conversation. “It was a hand-me-down from my grandpa and I loved that gun. I used the 165-grain Remington ammo. It was a little heavier than the 150-grain load but I had it in my head I wanted the stopping power of more lead. Did you use a 30-06 to bag these two?” He nodded at the big mounts.
“It’s funny,” Grae said. “I prefer more stopping power, too. I use the 170-grain bullet. But I like a lighter rifle when I’m tromping through the woods. So, the answer to your question is no. I’ve never hunted with a 30-06. I took both Michael and Gabe with my Marlin 30-30 lever action.”