SUPERIOR JUSTICE - CHAPTER TWO

Jensen pulled into the church parking lot in a white unmarked SUV. I was a bit amused by the notion of an unmarked Grand Lake police car. Everyone in town knew it on sight, which, if Bach had sufficiently boosted my intelligence to understand correctly, destroyed the purpose of an unmarked vehicle.

I climbed in next to the chief. Dan Jensen was in his late thirties. He was tall and a bit heavy, but with a big frame that hid the extra weight well. His hair was blond, thin and short, peppered with almost indistinguishable spots of light gray. His wide Scandinavian face was clean shaved, and his most prominent feature was a pair of piercingly blue eyes. The impression of intelligence and acuity given by those eyes was backed up in reality by a fine brain.

“Hey Dan,” I said, and shook his hand, then climbed into the front seat next to him.

“Jonah,” he returned.

“Whaddya got?” I asked.

He looked at me sideways.

“Hey come on, like you said, I’m the police chaplain. That makes me part of the force. What do you think I’ll do, taint the evidence?”

“Department,” said Jensen.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It makes you part of the police department. We don’t really have a ‘force.’ We have a department.”

“I’d rather be part of a ‘force’ – it sounds so much more exciting than ‘department.’”

“May the force be with you then,” said Dan.

“You gonna tell me about this or not?” I said.

He sighed. “OK. But don’t think that means I won’t throw your rear-end in the slammer if you share evidence in an on-going investigation.”

“Hey do what you think is best,” I said. “Part of my job is keeping sensitive information confidential.”

“I have a feeling we’ll want you in on this one,” said Dan after a minute. “Here’s what we know: They were moving Spooner to the courthouse over the lunch hour. He was out in the open, and someone shot him, probably with a thirty-thirty.” Dan picked up a can of Coke from a cupholder and sipped it.

“You get ballistics back already?”

Jensen nodded his approval of the question. “Not yet. We found a weapon. May be the murder weapon.”

“That ought to make it a bit easier.”

“Not necessarily. We think this guy was smart. There were a few people around -- you know, the press, some rubberneckers, and of course, the cops who moved him. Most everyone we questioned thought the shot came from across the street, maybe up high.”

“Remind me, what’s across the street?”

“Tommy’s café is in the bottom floor. Top two floors are empty. We went over there, and up on the roof, behind the false front, we found the rifle and scope.”

“Shoot,” I said, “all you have to do it track it down.”

“Shoot?” asked Jensen incredulously.

“Hey whaddya expect?” I said, “I’m a pastor, after all. You think I’ll start cussing a blue streak?”

“I am deeply disappointed in you,” said Jensen.

“Get used to it,” I said. “It’s what I do best, disappoint people. Heck, even my mother wanted me to be cop, not a pastor.”

“Heck?” said Jensen.

“All right, we just covered my linguistic habits. Now, you got the gun. What’s the problem?”

“Jonah, it’s a thirty-thirty, an ordinary deer gun. You know how many un-registered deer rifles there are in this state?”

“No idea.”

“Neither does anyone else. You don’t have to register them. They’re bought and sold through papers, garage sales, you name it.”

“Shoot,” I said.

Jensen glared at me. I returned his look with wide-eyed innocence. A man must have his fun somehow.

“That’s not all,” he said finally. “He filed off the serial number – probably wouldnta had to, cause we don’t track ‘em, like I said. He also ran a rat-tail file down the barrel. If he did that after he fired, ballistics won’t match.”

“What about the brass?” I asked.

Jensen looked at me sharply. I shrugged “My dad was a cop,” I said.

“It was only one shot. He didn’t leave the brass. Probably at the bottom of Lake Superior right now.”

“Anything else at the scene?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. It gets better. He left his clothes.”

I envisioned a naked vigilante superhero, racing like a white wad of blubber through Grand Lake. “Anyone see a streaker about that time?”

“Very funny. These still had the Goodwill store smell on them. He probably wore them over the top of his other clothes to prevent powder residue.”

“Smart guy,” I commented. “I’m assuming then, no prints on the gun, or the area?”

“Nothing,” said Jensen.

I digested this for a minute. “Now Dan, not to be contentious, but why Norstad?”

“Come on Jonah, Spooner raped and murdered his daughter.”

“So, motive. Didn’t Missy have a boyfriend? How about him?”

“I’m so glad we have you to help us. Maybe we should promote you to chaplain-detective.”

“Sorry. You checked, of course.”

“In school,” said Jensen.

“So Doug had a motive, I’ll give him that. But if Johann Sebastian has adequately restored my memory, I recall that Spooner molested at least three other minors. What about their families?”

“Those were all out of state. We’re checking, of course, reverend-detective, but Norstad is closer.”

“Hey, Doug is a part of my church. I’m helping you, but I wanna help him too, if I can. I have a right to ask why you’re after him.”

“We’re not after him. But he had motive.” He took another sip of Coke, and turned north on Highway 61. “What about his guns? You ever hunt with him?”

I sighed. “OK, so Doug Norstad uses a thirty-thirty. So do half the men in Superior County, and about a third of the women. So do I, for that matter.”

“Doesn’t matter that much, I guess,” said Jensen. “Whoever this was he’s smart. He will have bought the gun from the paper or at a flea market or something. It won’t be his regular gun. But it will be one he’s comfortable with.” He slurped his soda again. I looked out the window at the lake to our right.

“It was a pretty fair shot,” said Jensen. “Norstad any good?”

“I don’t really like this, Chief.”

“Welcome to police work, pastor,” said Jensen. “Was he a good shot?”

“Dan, everyone up here hunts. You probably coulda made that shot. Heck, I probably coulda made it.”

“And so could Norstad. So we got motive, we got method, and you and I are going to find out if we got opportunity.”

“Motive, method and opportunity are all pretty circumstantial,” I said.

“So far, it looks like that’s all we’ll have. Doesn’t look like we’ll have any physical evidence we can use.” He sipped his Coke and glanced at me. “Look Jonah, Spooner was already a convicted rapist and pedophile. He confessed to killing Melissa Norstad. If Doug Norstad gets the right jury, he may even get off altogether.”

“You really want that, Dan? A killer gets off scot-free?”

“I don’t know what I want on this one. The whole thing stinks. Spooner deserved to die. If Norstad pulled the trigger, he did us all a favor.” Jensen grimaced and readjusted his Grand Lake PD ball cap.

“But you don’t like anyone taking the law into their own hands,” I said.

“Do you?”

“No. I believe in due process.”

“Yeah. It’s a lousy system, but it’s better than the alternatives.”

The car swooped up and down the hills, and I glanced at the rocky, pine-clad hill crests to the left and then turned to gaze again at the great sweep of Lake Superior to our right. I never tired of looking at that timeless horizon and the broad carpet of perfect blue beneath it. But I did turn left to look longingly upstream as we crossed the bubbling, clear water of the Blue River. I could almost feel my rod shudder as I imagined a big steelhead trout stripping line from my reel.

I turned back to Jensen. “Dan, I’ve spent a lot time with the Norstads over the past six months. First Melissa disappears. Then they find the body. Finally Spooner’s confession. That family has been through hell, and they don’t need this right now.”

“I know it,” said Jensen. “That’s why I brought you along.”

We were silent for a few more minutes.

“Did your mom really want you to be a cop?” he asked.

“Heck yeah,” I said.