9

Bill Rom Public Library, Ely, Minnesota

Friday, 14 September

“I don’t really remember the details,” the librarian says, picking up the phone, “but I know who does. Hold on a sec.”

Violet, in her sunglasses, is listing against the counter. I woke her up early and dragged her to a place here in Ely that, I shit you not, was called the Chocolate Moose.

Ely is not like Ford. Its central avenue looks like something from a ski town, all souvenir shops and organic grocery stores. Two blocks over there’s an intersection with a granite WPA office building on each corner, one of which has the public library in it.

So far, the library hasn’t been much help. We’ve read back issues of Ely’s two weekly newspapers on the library’s computers, but they’re both strangely circumspect when it comes to Ford. I don’t know if they consider Ford too far away to be interesting or whether what happens there just isn’t a good fit with the weddings, high school football games, and letters to the editor that make up the rest of the papers’ material. But Ford hardly gets mentioned.

We have managed to confirm that the four deaths there actually happened—Autumn Semmel’s and Benjy Schneke’s as the result of “a boating accident” at the end of June two years ago, Chris Semmel Jr.’s and Father Nathan Podominick’s in “a possible hunting accident” five days later.

And, interestingly, we’ve learned that the University of Minnesota was at one point considering building its High Energy Physics Lab at the bottom of the closed Ford Mine. Which might explain the visiting scientists, although U Minn seems to have come to its senses and put the lab at the bottom of the Soudan Mine instead.

Past that, it for some reason seemed like a good idea to ask the librarian.

“Carol?” she says now into the phone. “It’s Barbara. Is the sheriff in? I’ve got some people here who want to know about White Lake.”

“That’s really not necessary,” I say quickly.

The librarian covers the mouthpiece. “Don’t worry, they’re not busy.”

“No, really—”

She’s not listening to me, though. She’s nodding and saying “Uh huh, uh huh” to whoever’s on the phone. She covers the mouthpiece again. “Carol says to come on over. What are your names?”

“Violet Hurst and Lionel Azimuth,” Violet says.

“Their names are Violet Hurst and Lionel Azimuth,” the librarian says. “I’m sending them across right now.”

★★★

“And Reggie Trager is running this tour?” Sheriff Albin says.

Albin’s early thirties, with a small, knobby head and a slow way of talking, possibly due to the industrial-grade bullshit-detection software he seems to be running. Naturally, he’s done nothing since Carol sat us down in front of his desk except grill the shit out of us. And write down our names.

“That doesn’t seem like something Reggie would do?” I ask, even though I’ve been trying to stay quiet enough that Albin doesn’t feel the need to look me up after we leave.

He barely shrugs. “Who’s your employer?”

“We’re not allowed to say,” Violet says, with the fearlessness of the just. “It’s a large private philanthropy.”

For all I know that’s true, although I’m pretty sure the check I got was from a company with “Technologies” in its name.

Albin weighs Violet’s nonresponse and decides to let it go. “Has any money changed hands between your employer and Reggie Trager?”

“No. At least not yet,” Violet says.

You can practically see Albin wondering if what Reggie’s doing is indictable in advance, under RICO, and if so whether Albin has a responsibility to take it to the DA. Not a lot of thanks in that, I’m guessing.

“And has he stated specifically what kind of animal it is that you would be expected to find at White Lake?”

“No,” Violet says.

“Although your employer sent a paleontologist.”

“I’m the only life sciences researcher he has on personal staff,” Violet says. “I think that has more to do with why I’m here.”

Albin looks at me.

“I don’t do research,” I say. Which is true.

Then at his notes. “And the letter was on CFS stationery. How long is this ‘tour’ supposed to last?”

“Six to twelve days,” Violet says.

“Six to twelve days?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s just a long time to take people who aren’t canoers on a canoeing trip.”

“I think we’ll be on land for most of that time,” Violet says.

“Reggie said that?”

“No…”

“Then I would question that assumption. Do you know where White Lake is?”

“No,” Violet says.

Albin gets up and goes to a gun cabinet that turns out to have maps in it instead of shotguns. Cute. He takes one out and unrolls it on his desk.

It’s a Fisher elevation map. Yellow land, tarp-blue water. I used to use them in my former line of work.

On this one, though, there’s blue all over the place, like the holes in a sponge.

“This is Lake Garner,” he says, pointing to an elongated blue horizontal oval. “And this is White Lake.”

White Lake looks like a lightning bolt touching down at Lake Garner’s northeastern end. Together the two lakes look like a musical note with a jagged vertical stem.

“White Lake looks so narrow,” Violet says.

“That’s because Lake Garner is fairly big,” Albin says. “White Lake is about a hundred yards across where it touches Lake Garner, and it gets wider as it goes north.” Albin points to the southwest corner of the map. “Meanwhile, Ford is three maps that way.”

“How long a trip is that usually?” Violet says.

“Could take two days, could take a week,” Albin says. “Depends which portages you use.”

“ ‘Portages’?”

“Portahges,” he says, changing the pronunciation so that instead of rhyming with “cordage” it rhymes with “fromage.” “Same thing. Just American versus French-Canadian.”

“I don’t—” Violet says. She looks at me.

“No idea,” I say.

Sheriff Albin lets his head drop in a moment of exasperation. “Okay. I’m going to have to teach you about portages. They’re the key to the whole Boundary Waters.”