Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (32 page)

“Why didn’t you just cut the rope, or let me freeze?” I asked.

Jasmine regarded me for a long time. “I thought I saw a boat out there,” she said.

“Superior does strange things to you in a storm,” I said.

She bent closer to look at me. Suddenly she snapped on a bright flashlight, causing me to wince. She pulled me forward and looked at the back of my life jacket. She killed the light.

“Where did you get that life-jacket? It says
Superior Rose
.”

“It was on board,” I said. “They probably have all kinds of old life jackets from who knows where.”

“That’s not your coat,” she observed.

“Says who?”

“What were you doing in the water?”

“I like a midnight swim. It keeps my head clear.”

Jasmine glanced at the GPS next to the wheel and then sat down on one of the benche
s
and drummed her fingers on her knee. I shivered in time with her drumming. I’m musical that way.

“I guess you have this on some kind of autopilot?”

I saw no need to answer the obvious.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she said, apparently to herself.
She looked at me. “I’m working with the FBI.”

“I know that,” I said. “Most of me is frozen, but my brain still works.”

“No,” she said. “I mean I’m
still
working with the FBI. Angela thinks I’ve turned dirty, but I haven’t.
You and I are on the same side.
So tell me what you were up to.
”

“Midnight swim,” I said. “Extraordinarily refreshing.”

“Jonah,” said Jasmine. “I mean it.”

“How happy for you,” I replied.

“I saved you just now,” she said. “You said it yourself – I could have just let you drown or freeze.
Doesn’t that show that I’m on your side?
”

“
If I had frozen,
then you wouldn’t have a chance to know what I was up to.”
I paused for a moment. “I may yet freeze, come to think of it.”

“I gave you your knife back.”

“After
we found out I’m in no condition to use it
anyway.”

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

“And giving me no plausible reason.”

“Okay,” said Jasmine. “I have some coffee here.”

“Now that would be a start,” I said eagerly.

“I’m going to give you some. Do you think you can stay warm enough while I tell you some things?”

“I’ll try not to expire.”

“I’ll talk quickly,” she said, pouring coffee from a thermos into a mug. “In a minute
,
Angela
is going to check on us anyway. She sent me up here to see how you were doing, and to make sure you weren’t trying any funny business. W
hen I talk to Angela, I will say that a wave washed you overboard and I found you clinging to the rail. I won’t say anything about the rope. And I’ll try to get it down once you go below. How’s that for building trust?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“The problem is, this is our best time to talk. We can’t communicate freely in front of Angela and Phil.”

“So talk,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “
Angela and Phil and their
gang operated in northern Washington
for a few years, which you already know
because your mother sent you some of your father’s old case files. They had already got our attention because of the havoc they were wreaking on the small towns there
,
and
because of
the shootings. They were also operating close to the Canadian border, and finally Homeland
S
ecurity stepped in, because no one else really had jurisdiction. They brought us in – sort of seconded the case to the FBI – but we’re still working under their auspices. We have more expertise with bank robbers, even if they are only robbing the customers in the lobbies.”

I sipped some coffee
and felt the warmth begin to spread.
Maybe that was why Jensen and Lund
had been getting
pushback
when they tried
to investigate the Charles Holland angle. Homeland Security was big and powerful enough to cut out other law enforcement agencies.

“Anyway,” said Jasmine,
“
after your father killed Charles Holland, they went to gr
ound for a while. We began doing some undercover work, and because we learned the identity of Holland after he died, we started getting leads.
We
began
to suspect Holland’s older sister. We noticed
also
that she
was using
the robberies as an excuse
to shoot people – usually men in uniform, or
men in
some kind of
obvious
authority
position
.

“It appears that their plan in Washington was to take the money on a sailing trip up Puget Sound to some remote spot on the Canadian coast. Holland had rented a yacht just a few days before he died, and we were lucky enough to get to it shortly after he was ID’d. So, their plan for leaving the country was a bust. Border crossings into Canada aren’t really a big deal, but still
,
it was a pretty big chance to take, just driving across. Once they started hitting banks, Homeland
S
ecurity put out a border watch. The gang must have figured that would happen.”

The coffee was helping, but not enough. I was still shivering.

“So the gang decide
d
to try basically the same thing, only here on Lake Superior,” continued Jasmine. “They added a nice refinement, inspired by you, I’m afraid.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well they were going to rent a sailboat and go to some remote spot in Ontario. But Red Holland and Angela – the two siblings of Charles Holland – wanted revenge on your father. Only
,
he died inconveniently before they could do it, so they decided to take
their
revenge
out
on you. That’s where they started getting elaborate, which made them a little sloppy.
Still, the plan is brilliant.”

“And what is it?”

“They are meeting Red Holland out here somewhere. They’re going to
sink the
Tiny Dancer
with you, Leyla and Tony in it. Everyone else will think that all hands perished on this trip, and so the authorities will stop looking for them. They go to Canada in a different boat
,
that Red
has already rented or purchased,
and start new lives.”

This was pretty much what I
had already figured out, with a few extra details thrown in about Homeland Security and the FBI
. But the fact that
Jasmine was telling me outright
meant something. I assumed that Angela and Phil didn’t want us to know the plan, because if we did, we wouldn’t cooperate by sailing the boat, and we would be desperate, knowing we were doomed anyway. So if Jasmine was telling me this, it meant she didn’t care if I was desperate, or if I cooperated with Angela.

“All right,” I said. “You’ve taken the first step in earning my trust.
But I’ve got some questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“You guys – the FBI – were closing in on them. Obviously, you knew who they were. Why didn’
t you just arrest them?
”

Jasmine shook her head in the darkness. “Sadly, we didn’t have any hard evidence on them until they pulled guns on us yesterday afternoon. We didn’t even have enough for a search warrant. It was all circumstantial connection to Charles Holland, and no one in the gang even has the name of Holland – probably fake IDs, or in Angela’s case, she’s married, so her name is different.”

“OK,” I said, trying to make my numb brain work faster. “How did they think you were dirty, and why didn’t you just stop them
after they pulled guns
?”

“I approached Angela directly. Our profiler thought that she had serious unresolved issues with men, so I told her I hated the male-dominated culture of
the FBI, plus
that
I was looking for money. I don’t think the greed alone would have convinced her, but she is so immersed in her view
of an evil male-dominated world
that she
was very ready to believe I felt the same way
.
It’s a kind of sister-hood
,
woman-power thing.
”

“
OK,
so
you had no evidence until this trip. But
why didn’t you stop her
as soon as she pulled a gun
?”

“
It wasn’t so easy. Phil
pretended to hold
me hostage to stop you and Tony from doing anything, and I really had no choice but to play along.
We feel pretty strongly about protecting civilians, so having you and Leyla here has made it tough
.
Also
,
I think
Angela believes me, but I’m on probation. She made me give her my gun
before
we got on the boat. We had the Coast Guard hiding in the Apostle Islands, but the storm must have screwed them up, and Tony lost his pager. It was really a tracking signal. That, and the storm, was rotten luck.”

I tried to react as if I was shocked and angry. Mostly I was tired and cold. I made a decision.

“I managed to contact the Coast Guard,” I said.

“What?” asked Jasmine. “How?”

“Never mind how,” I said. “You probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. The point is, we’ve got help coming. They aren’t going to get away with it.”

I figured that if Jasmine was
,
in fact, a dirty cop, working with Angela, it wouldn’t hurt to put the pressure on. People who are afraid and pressured make more mistakes.
Now I would see if she shared this
information
with Angela or not.

“So…” Jasmine looked astern. “How did getting in the water help you contact the Coast Guard?”

“I got in the lifeboat,” I said, truthfully enough. “There was a radio in it.”

“Where is it?” asked Jasmine eagerly.

She could have wanted it to send a message to the Coast Guard to call off the rescue. But it didn’t seem like it to me.

“The dinghy overturned,” I said, “the tow rope broke
,
and all I had left was this life-line I rigged up.”

Jasmine swore regretfully. “We sure could have used a covert radio. But I guess you got the main thing accomplished. Thank you.” She seemed sincere. But she also seemed like there were two of her. I shook my head
, but the fuzzy image remained
. Definitely two, maybe three. My teeth chattered noisily.

“You don’t look so good.
Can you get below?
”

“Wait,” I said. “Here’s one more test of trust.
Obviously, I
put the yacht on auto-pilot to get out to the dinghy. It’s draining the batter
ies
. If you leave it on,
the batteries
will drain all the way out. We’ll lose power and light
s
and the onboard GPS.
They’ll have to bring their GPS out here to keep on course, and
one of them will have to stay to make sure we follow the course. That will make them tired and cold and wet. I speak from experience.
It will be dark in the cabin.
They may start making mistakes.”

Jasmine considered me. “You sure you’re a pastor? You have a devious mind.”

“Be wise as serpents but innocent as doves,” I said, but it took me four tries to say it, I was shivering
so badly. Jasmine helped me up, and I stumbled
down the
companionway
to
warmth and rest.

“What happened to you?” asked Angela.
I was still dripping water and shivering uncontrollably.

“Almost fell overboard,” I said. “I was holding on to the rail trying to get back on board for five minutes.”

“So, no all-nighter?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I need to warm up a bit first. Maybe I can go back out in a
while
.”

I glanced around the cabin. There was only one dim light on, but it seemed bright compared to the stormy night outside. Phil was blinking at me sleepily. Leyla was still asleep
, her head on her arms
which were stretched out on the table in front of her, held together by the plastic hand
-
cuffs
. Stone’s eyes were open and filled with pain. I wanted to reassure him somehow. But then I realized that the Coast Guard was going to get to us too late anyway.
That was the whole reason I came back on board – to try and delay or stop
Angela and Phil
until we could be saved.