Harbor Nights Read online

  Harbor Nights

  Rick Polad

  Chanhassen, Minnesota

  Table of Contents

  CoverImage

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Colophon

  Dedication

  Books by Rick Polad

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Preview of Change of Address

  FIRST EDITION MAY 2014

  HARBOR NIGHTS. Copyright © 2014 by Richard Polad. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN – 9781939548115

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover art and book design by Gary Lindberg

  Follow the author at:

  www.rickpolad.com

  www.facebook.com/spencermanningmysteries

  @rickpolad

  To Carol

  "If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...

  I could walk through my garden forever.”

  - Alfred Tennyson

  Other Spencer Manning Mysteries

  Change of Address

  Dark Alleys

  About the Author

  Rick Polad teaches Earth Science, plays jazz trumpet, and volunteers with the Coast Guard on Lake Michigan. For over a decade, Rick has given editorial assistance to award-winning photographer Bruce Roberts and historian/author Cheryl Shelton-Roberts on several of their maritime-themed publications including North Carolina Lighthouses: Stories of History and Hope, and the third edition of American Lighthouses: A Comprehensive Guide to Exploring Our National Coastal Treasures. Rick also edited the English version of Living With Nuclei, the memoirs of Japanese physicist, Motoharu Kimura.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not exist without the help and support of several special people. To my first readers and friends, Mike Polad, Carol Deleskiewicz, Gary Lindberg, Katie Tomlinson, Jonathan Roth, Tom Tallman, and Ellen Tullar Purviance, thanks for your edits and input. Any remaining errors are the property of the author. Thanks also to Jon Jarosh, Director of Communications and Public Relations, Door County Visitors Bureau. And, as before, to all my friends and readers who have asked for more Spencer, my undying thanks.

  Chapter 1

  Two boats motored into the channel between the peninsula and Plum Island. It was three a.m. They weren’t showing any lights. One boat had a tarp covering something on the aft deck. They stopped midway between the two pieces of land and two men tied the boats together side-by-side. One man stepped over the gunwale onto the boat with the tarp. The other man pulled the tarp back and grabbed hold of two arms. The other grabbed the legs. They lifted a body onto the gunwale and rolled it into the water.

  The first man climbed back onto his boat, untied the lines, and held onto the second boat with a boat hook.

  “Okay, sink it,” said the first man.

  The second man took an axe and chopped a hole in the bottom of the wooden hull. He left the engine running in neutral. As the water started to flow in through the hole, the second man climbed onto the first boat and they slowly motored away. When they were four miles offshore in Lake Michigan, they turned on their running lights. Just two fishermen out early.

  Chapter 2

  I hate it when the phone rings in the middle of the night. Of course, middle is relative. It was eleven o’clock Friday morning, but I didn’t get to sleep until seven.

  I had been out with a friend comparing our lives and the success of the plans we had made in the sixties. Our lives didn’t look anything like those plans we had made ten years ago while suffering through high school algebra.

  I considered letting the machine get the call, but that would have meant five more rings and, as long as I had to listen to the ringing, I decided to answer. A groggy hello was the best I could manage.

  “Spencer, it’s Aunt Rose. Why do you sound like you’re still asleep?”

  I tried to come up with something witty, but given that it was the middle of my night, I came up short.

  “Hello, Aunt Rose. Long story. There was this girl with a cowbell. She could…”

  “Spencer! I don’t care about the girl with the cowbell. Kathleen’s been arrested.”

  I tried hard to pay attention but didn’t totally succeed. “Kathleen?”

  “Yes, Kathleen, you silly lout. The girl you almost married.”

  “Oh, that Kathleen. Well, technically…”

  “Spencer!”

  I sat up in bed and switched the phone to my right ear. “Arrested? Arrested for what?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. I just got a panicked call from her from the jail. Something to do with stolen art. She asked me to call you and Rusty.”

  Wondering if I was dreaming, I said, “Rusty? Why would she have you call her uncle Rusty?”

  In an exasperated voice, Rose replied, “I have no idea.”

  “Stolen art? Whose art?”

  “I don’t know that either. But seeing as how I have a detective in the family, I thought you could find out. They’re taking her to Chicago.”

  Things didn’t usually make sense in the middle of the night, and this was no different. “Why would Ephraim police take her to Chicago?”

  “She wasn’t arrested by Ephraim police—she was arrested by Chicago police.”

  “Why?”

  “Stop asking why. That’s why I called you—to find out why. Now get out of bed and do whatever it is you do to get to the bottom of things.” Her voice raised several decibels. “The morning is almost gone for goodness sake!”

  My eyelids closed and wanted to stay closed. Another exasperated Spencer! opened them. I asked for the number of the Ephraim police station. She gave it to me and I jotted it down.

  “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Good!” She hung up.

  I held the phone out in front of me and listened to the dial tone. What happened to goodbye?

  Kathleen and I were at one time thinking about getting married but never got to the final act, thankfully. Things would be going along just fine and then something would snap. She made a living as an artist, mostly painting harbor scenes, but I never quite understood how. Her father was the painter in the family and Kathleen hadn’t exactly inherited his talent. He had a gallery in D
oor County, Wisconsin, which had provided a fine life for all concerned. That included Kathleen, two brothers, and their mother.

  I met Kathleen the first summer my family started vacationing in Door County. I was twelve. When we grew older, our relationship grew into more than kids playing together. When we hit high school, we started to date, but it wasn’t really any different from the time we had been spending together for years. Although we both dated others, the relationship became more serious in college. Aunt Rose liked Kathleen and told me I could do worse. To me, that wasn’t a rousing endorsement.

  Mom and Dad and I spent a month every summer at Aunt Rose’s inn in Ephraim. The inn was a block from the gallery. Kathleen and I had a long-distance relationship through college that mostly consisted of a lot of fun in Door County for a month every summer. We would sail out to one of the islands where she showed me small limestone caves. She would bring her paints and I would bring detective novels. Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett went wherever I did. I admit I was prejudiced, but Mike Hammer, Philip Marlowe, and Sam Spade were far better entertainment than Kathleen’s paintings. She was built for fun summers, and I was smart enough to know a steady diet of Kathleen wouldn’t be healthy. There were great times, but there were also crazy times.

  Her father had showings in a gallery in Chicago several times a year, which gave Kathleen a reason to come to Chicago. He died a year ago, and the gallery had invited Kathleen to continue the showings. I never understood why—her paintings weren’t that good. A year ago, a call from a client had rescued me from attending one of her shows. A few weeks ago, Aunt Rose had informed me that Kathleen would be having another show and would call me. I had started to make a list of excuses.

  I called Stosh.

  Chapter 3

  Lt. Stanley Powolski answered in his usual why are you bothering me on my private line voice filled with all the charm of a billy goat.

  “Morning, Stosh. Beautiful day to be alive.”

  “That depends on why you’re calling. You canceling?”

  Stosh and I had played gin and relaxed in front of the TV almost every Saturday afternoon for years.

  “That depends. For the moment I’m looking for information. I just got a call from Aunt Rose. She says Kathleen Johnson has been arrested by Chicago police up in Door. Something to do with stolen art. You know anything about it?”

  He sighed. “I do. An art dealer on Clark Street called on Wednesday. He said Kathleen stole a painting from his gallery.”

  “What gallery? The one where she shows her paintings?”

  “If that’s Simmons, then yes.”

  That did nothing to help my confusion. “I was hoping to get something from you to clear this up, but you’re not helping.”

  He humphed. “Sorry. I am here to serve you. What’s the problem?”

  “What painting and why did they wait till this morning to arrest her?”

  “Well, evidently she had shipped her paintings to the gallery for a showing and there was some confusion about them. They called us, then said there was nothing missing, and then called back and said there was.”

  “Pardon?”

  “One of the employees saw Kathleen walk out with a painting on Wednesday. It still had the packing material around the frame. So they called and said a painting had been stolen. We sent an officer over there. When he got there, they told him they must have made a mistake because all the paintings were there.”

  “Did they explain that?”

  “Yup. They called when the employee saw her walking out with a painting. While they were waiting for the officer, they counted her paintings, which were still in a crate that had been sent down from Door County. According to the order and the shipping list, there were supposed to be thirteen paintings.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Thirteen. They apologized. The officer left. The next day, Thursday, we get another call making the same complaint—there’s a missing painting.”

  “Was alcohol involved?”

  “I don’t need your smart-assed comments. They unpacked the crate on Thursday to put the paintings on display and there were only twelve. So they called back and filed a complaint.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. You sure about the alcohol?”

  “Yes. And no, it doesn’t.”

  “Did someone ask how the painting disappeared after Kathleen had left?”

  “Yup. They assumed they had miscounted the first time.”

  “What was missing?”

  “Something called Harbor Nights.”

  “Okay, so there’s all this confusion. Bottom line is, they are her paintings. She sent them for the purpose of selling them. Why would she take one? And if she did, why would it be theft?”

  “Evidently Harbor Nights was already sold. I figured we’d find out when we picked her up.”

  “Who arrested her?”

  “Lonnigan and Steele. They questioned her. She said she did take a painting, but it was something called Blue and Green, which she said was hers. They asked her to produce it and she said she wouldn’t.”

  “Strange. But sounds like Kathleen.”

  “And since the owner of the gallery swore out a complaint, they’re bringing her back.”

  I glanced at the clock. They’d be back midafternoon. “Have Rosie call me when they get back.”

  “What happened to please?”

  “Please.”

  He hung up. He and Aunt Rose could use a phone etiquette course.

  I had known Rosie Lonnigan since high school. Our first topic of conversation was that she had the same name as my aunt. We had become great friends and attended the police academy together.

  I like things to make sense and nothing about this did. But all the time I’d spent with Kathleen had taught me that very little of what she did made any sense. I had five hours to catch up on some sleep—after a few phone calls.

  ***

  I called the Ephraim police station. Chief Iverson answered.

  “Good morning, Chief Iverson. My name is Spencer Manning. I’m calling to get some information about Kathleen Johnson who I understand was arrested this morning.”

  “And you are?”

  “I’m a private detective in Chicago and a friend of Miss Johnson.”

  “Private detective, huh.” He didn’t sound too thrilled. “All I can tell you is we assisted with the arrest request from Chicago.”

  “Is she still there?”

  “Nope. Left with two detectives about a half hour ago.”

  “Do you know anything about why she was arrested?”

  “Yup.”

  I sighed. “And?”

  “Do you remember the first thing I told you about all I can tell you?”

  “I do. Thanks for your help.”

  I guess I couldn’t blame him, but less sarcasm would have been nice. I was glad the case was in Chicago where I was used to a friendly conversation—most of the time.

  ***

  My next call was to Ben, my favorite attorney. His hello was more cheerful.

  “Morning, Ben. How are you enjoying leave?” Ben had told the State’s Attorney’s Office he was taking a year off from his public defender duties to re-evaluate his life.

  “Pretty well, Spencer. Lots of golf and fishing.”

  “Any progress with the job problem?” After a sad ending to his last case and a girlfriend who walked out because she thought he shouldn’t be defending criminals, Ben had taken some time off to think about what he wanted to do with his law degree.

  “No. I know ignoring it isn’t going to solve the problem, but thinking about it gets in the way of my golf swing. What’s up?”

  I laughed. “Kathleen has been arrested in Ephraim by Chicago police. They’re bringing her back here.”

  “Arrested? What for?”

  “Good question. It’s a little strange. Theft of art.”

  “Okay, what’s strange about that?”

  “
Well, it was her art. She had a showing at Simmons on Clark. Evidently she took one of the pieces back home to Door.”

  “Okay. Still don’t see the problem.”

  “I don’t know much, but evidently there was some confusion with the paintings. They kept changing their minds.”

  “About what?”

  “About whether or not something was stolen, first of all. Then, she does admit to taking a painting, but she says it was a different painting than the one they say she took.”

  “Sounds like fun. And what do you want from me?”

  “They’ll be back here mid-afternoon. Please go to the bond hearing. I’ll post bond.”

  “And after that?”

  “Bring her back to my place and I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  “Okay. You going to be at home?”

  “Yup. Late night. Gonna try and get a few more hours of sleep.” I’d tell him later about the girl with the cow bell.

  “Okay, I’ll call when I find out times.”

  “Thanks, Ben. Much appreciated.” I paused. I had just thought of something. “But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t make it to Chicago.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  With a little smile Ben couldn’t see, I said, “That means I just remembered something. Maybe nothing. Let me know.”

  “Sure, always fun playing games with you, Spencer. See ya.”

  “Yup.”

  My smile got bigger as I flopped back onto the bed. I had a guess as to why Kathleen had Aunt Rose call Rusty. Kathleen was one scrappy girl. I loved that about her—too bad the rest didn’t work out.

  Chapter 4

  Sleep only lasted an hour until the phone rang again. It was Stosh.

  “Spencer, Kathleen escaped.”

  My smile was back. My guess was right. “Hmmm, interesting.”

  “Hmmm, interesting. That helps a lot. You know something I don’t?”

  “From my humble abode in Chicago?” I asked innocently.

  “Yeah, from your humble abode in Chicago.”