Chapter 28

On the way north, Deidre mulled over her role in what was left of the investigation. She had been in daily contact with the BCA for more than a month, and they agreed with her that because the FBI had pretty much assumed the lead, she should back out. She planned to close her office next week and file her final report with the state agency.

In a way it felt good to think of being free of the responsibility, but on the other hand, it felt like she was dropping out of a foot race. She wondered what would happen to Gerald Colter, both father and son. And what about Judge DeMarcus? Would he be implicated, or at least be barred from the courtroom? Of course, there were the three girls. Would they grow up in spite of their emotional scars?

These thoughts and many more concerning the case crowded her mind, and she was almost to Two Harbors before it dawned on her how far she had traveled. It was noon when she stopped at Inga’s and picked up her dog. Inga wasn’t home, so she left a note on the door saying hi and that she had taken Pete with her.

The thought occurred to her that she was only an hour from her cabin, and Jerry said he wouldn’t have the driveway cleared until five or so. She decided to stop and see her old friend Pete, the logger after whom she had jokingly named her black lab.

He was outside, splitting wood for his stove, when Deidre pulled up alongside his rusted-out pickup. Pete straightened his back and shielded his eyes against the afternoon sun. His face broke into a grin and he put down his splitting axe.

“Well, Deidre Johnson. How the heck are you? And you brought Pete with you. You know I still haven’t forgiven you for naming him that.” He chuckled and the gaps formed by a few missing teeth showed.

A year-old lab came running in from the woods, and she circled the pair, her tail wagging and begging for attention.

“Pete, you got another lab!” Deidre exclaimed.

“Yeah. After the old guy died, I thought I wouldn’t get another. At first I thought it would be foolish, because I’m so old. But then I thought, heck, I might outlive another one, so I picked up this girl at the animal shelter in Two Harbors. Somebody dropped her off, because she had too much energy for them. I was lucky. She’s a great dog.”

“What did you name her?”

“Deidre.”

“What?” Deidre asked in astonishment.

“Fair is fair,” was all Pete had to say. Then he added, “I call her Deid for short, though,” and Deidre could see his shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter.

“Come on in. Bring Pete with you. He can meet Deid, and we can have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee.”

As they sat at Pete’s two person table, he asked, “What have you been up to? Haven’t seen you for a good three months. I thought maybe you had gone south for the winter. Thought you might be wimping out on us.” He slurped his coffee, but he couldn’t stifle the mirth in his eyes.

“Do you remember hearing about the girl that was found dead under the Silver Bay bridge?”

“You know I don’t get out much, but Terry told me that he thought you were involved in it somehow. How’d it turn out?”

“Can’t tell you too much until everything is done, but it hasn’t been a good scene. Somewhere up here, girls are being held and then sold into prostitution a few at a time, mostly to sailors on the ships docked in the harbor in Duluth.”

Pete took another swig of coffee, got up, and spit out the door. “Those bastards. I’ve lived in the woods my whole life, seen a lot of things up here. I’ve watched a pack of wolves pull down a moose, seen a bear walk off with a newborn fawn, even seen a red squirrel climb my birdfeeder and snatch a pine siskin right off the platform. That unnerved me, I’ll tell you. Squirrels aren’t supposed to do that. But, you know Deidre, I’ve never seen animals do what humans are capable of doing to each other. I know it’s not right, but sometimes I’m happy to be so isolated that I can let all this crap pass me by. I get so angry when I hear of what’s happening out there,” and he swept his arm toward the south and east, “I don’t want to know about it.” He gulped his coffee.

Deidre patted Pete’s hand. “I feel that way too. But then I think, if each of us can do one thing in our lives to make a change, then the world is a little better place. Remember how willing you were to help me when I needed your assistance tracking down that gang of meth manufacturers? You’re a good man, Pete. Don’t underestimate your ability to make a difference. I know how you look out for the logger’s widow down the road. You let it slip once. And what about the way you took care of Jarvinen the time he broke his foot getting off his skidder. You drove it for a month while he healed. If I remember, you didn’t collect any pay, but had the logging company send him the check. Pete, you old goat, you can’t fool me. You do what you can to help others.”

Pete took a bite of his pie so he wouldn’t have to answer. The two visited for a long while, and Pete looked out his window.

“Only about two hours of daylight left. You better get going if you’re going to make it into your cabin with some daylight to spare.”

Deidre looked at her watch. “No, it’s not even three, yet. Jerry said he wouldn’t be done with the plowing by at least five.”

Pete’s eyes lit up. “Well, then you’re staying for supper.”

Deidre laughed. “Thought you’d never ask.” He sat down and made himself comfortable.

A thought struck Deidre. “Say, Pete. You wouldn’t know any business around here that might have the initials or logo RRR? I found an old brass key that had those letters stamped on it. Looked to be from an old lock.”

“Geeze, I haven’t thought of that place for years. Where’d you find the key, in that antique place in Beaver Bay?”

“No, nothing like that. I just found it, and I’ve been wondering where it came from. It seems to be rather unique. You know about it, then?”

Pete shrugged. “I might. Suppose there are a lot of keys that were made like that, but I know of one place that used big, heavy brass locks, the Rocky River Resort.”

Deidre’s heart skipped a beat, and she asked, a little too excitedly, “What can you tell me about it?”

Pete looked at the log beams overhead in his cabin. “Well, let’s see. It must have been 1938, no, 1939, at least that’s what my folks used to say. This area was pretty wild back then, you know.”

Deidre wanted to scream, “For God’s sake, get on with it, Pete,” but she held her tongue. She knew he would eventually get to the point.

“I’ve heard that a group of businessmen from Minneapolis bought two sections of land. It went cheap back then. The area had been logged off by the timber barrens twenty years before, and it had come back with scrub timber, balsam and poplar, sometimes birch. You could buy land for fifty cents an acre. ’Course nobody around here could scrape up enough money to grab it. Well, anyway, these guys from Minneapolis bought two sections, pushed a road in about a mile to the Rocky River. Then they built a hunting lodge. I’ve seen it, been in it. They made it out of timber they got from a small area the loggers had missed in 1910, or whenever they cut that area, huge pines.”

Deidre had to stifle her desire to begin asking questions. She put another bite of pie in her mouth and sipped coffee. Pete con­tinued rambling.

“Yep, that was quite a lodge. They hunted up here with a gang of their friends for a couple of years, and then the war broke out. My dad and most of the men who lived up here enlisted, so they were gone for a few years. I had a chance to roam the woods, and a couple of times my older brother took me with when he walked the road they had put in. Best grouse hunting you ever seen. I guess that’s not what you’re interested in, though. The couple of times I got back there, you could tell it wasn’t being used. One window had been shot out, and somebody had broke in and taken most of the stuff from the lodge.

“After the war, you’d a thought they’d come back and fix it up, but a year later they sold it to some guy from Chicago. Believe it or not, he came up here to live. Fixed the lodge up and built a dozen cabins. Advertised he was opening a fishing resort. Used to be two-pound brook trout in that river.

“He did okay. A lot of people from Chicago came here and paid big money to experience what I had all my life. By then I was old enough to go to work, and I did odd jobs around the resort for him. Even got to do a little guiding. He had a boy about ten years older than me who he really loved, and they did everything together. Then, in 1951 his son was drafted and was sent to Korea. Got killed there. The guy was never the same after that. He asked me to go fishing with him one day, but he didn’t fish much at all. Just watched me. On the way back to the lodge, he told me he was going back to Chicago.

“The place sat empty ever since. I got back there a few times. Everything was starting to fall apart. Last time I saw, it must’ve been ten years ago. Three or four years ago, somebody posted the land, strung no trespassing signs all around its perimeter. We thought maybe somebody was going to try to make something of the place, but I guess not.”

Deidre was sitting on the edge of her chair. “Do you know who bought it?”

“No. Some people tried to find out, but the records at the courthouse show that it belongs to a trust, whatever that is. There’s no way to track down the owners.”

“Tell me, Pete, was there anything unusual about the locks on the doors?”

“How do you know that? They were really heavy, made of brass I think, and big. They made me think of the kind of lock you might find on a seaman’s trunk, the kind that needed a big key to open it.

“Funny thing, though, they were placed on the outside of the cabin. There was another hasp inside, so the guests could lock the door from either inside or out. I still don’t know why you want to know all of this. It’s ancient history.”

“Pete, will you tell me where this place is?”

“Sure. It’s no secret. Go back a mile on Highway 1, and take a right on the Bagna Lake Road. Go another two miles, and on the left you’ll see what used to be two stone and concrete pillars that mark the driveway entrance. It’s mostly grown up now, but I think you can still make it out.”

Before he could say anymore or ask any questions, Deidre stood up and began to put on her jacket. “You make supper. I’m going to take a drive. I’ll be back by five or so,” and she started out the door.

“Don’t get caught back there after dark,” Pete warned. “Every­thing looks different once the sun sets, and I don’t want to have to come looking for you. It’s supposed to be below zero tonight. Do you have a flashlight? And make sure you take some matches with you. How about a compass? Do you have one?”

Deidre turned to face her friend. She was almost as tall as he was, he being stooped from his many years of working in the woods.

“Got them all. And don’t worry, I just want to look around the place. Be back soon.” She gave his sinewy arm a squeeze before she left.

Pete shook his head after she closed the door. “Got a mind of her own, that one,” he muttered to himself, and went to his stove to check the pot of stew simmering on the front burner.

Using a large serving spoon, he scooped up a piece of venison that was cooking in the broth and sampled it, added a pinch more salt, and turned the burner off. Pete heard Deidre back up and drive away. He looked out the window, wishing she hadn’t gone off on her own.