He had already looked at the channel from land, walked the abandoned dock they would briefly use tomorrow, and even observed the odd fishing boat on the channel. Looking over charts at the local library, he learned that the channel was ten to fifteen feet deep if you stayed in the middle as it wound its way to the old dock. But until now, he hadn’t seen it from the water. From the river, the opening was plenty wide, he thought upon inspection. He could see how he would have to maneuver the boat out of the channel. And, while he couldn’t see the dock from the river, he knew it was there.
Satisfied with his short recon mission, he turned away from the channel and slowly accelerated back out into the open waters of the river. In another five minutes he was approaching Stillwater.
As Smith passed the town, with its parks, restaurants, and marinas, he approached Stillwater’s defining feature, the lift bridge. Built in 1931, the bridge spanned one thousand feet across the St. Croix River, carrying a two-lane highway connecting Minnesota to Wisconsin on fixed arched steel trusses over concrete slabs. On the half-hour, a middle section with towers and cables lifted to allow larger boats to pass through.
Smith took a sip from his water bottle as the boat passed underneath the bridge and moved further north, Stillwater falling away behind them. The river gradually narrowed and shallowed, requiring a slower pace and more attentive navigation. Smith eased back on the throttle, falling in a hundred yards behind a flat-bottomed houseboat, probably better known as a party barge. Several people lounged on the upper deck, sunning themselves and drinking cocktails. He followed the houseboat until it made a gentle right toward one of the long, narrow, sandy islands that occasionally split the river. This island, the second they’d come upon, was filling with boats and tents, people preparing for the revelry of tomorrow’s holiday.
Past the second island, the boat traffic diminished significantly. As the river curved to the left around a high rock escarpment jutting out into the river, the railroad bridge came into view. Sitting two hundred feet above the river, cutting an impressive figure against the deep blue sky, the bridge spanned the expanse of the river from Wisconsin to Minnesota. The bridge served as a marker for Smith’s destination. As they approached the bridge, the river cut through a deep canyon. At the base of the steep walls on either side of the river lay isolated sand bars and beaches, one of which was Smith’s destination.
Slowly, Smith steered the boat to the Wisconsin side, toward a small patch of beach in a narrow channel set well back from the main body of the river. For years, this had been his favorite spot on the river. The last time he boated before the arrest, before prison, was an overnight camping trip in this very spot with his wife and daughter — their last family outing together.
Carefully, Smith navigated to the end of the small channel, not wanting to beach the deep V-hulled boat on the zigzagging sandbars hidden just beneath the dark water’s surface. Two hundred yards out from the shore, he swung the boat far out to the left and then, after another hundred feet or so, slowly veered back right. Fifty yards away, he looked to his depth finder, waiting for and then finding the deeper water, an odd drop-off to fifteen feet, which allowed him to turn left and go straight toward the shoreline. The whole maneuver took five minutes. He beached the boat fifteen yards short, the front two thirds of the boat resting on the soft sand but the rear third in deeper water that would allow him to back off the sandbar with a single reverse thrust of the motors.
Dean and David emerged from the woods and walked out into the water. Monica jumped onto the bow and tossed two ropes with stakes on the ends to her brothers.
“Any problems getting down here?” Smith asked David.
“Nope, took a few minutes, just to make sure it was solid, but once we did that,” David smiled, “it was a piece of cake.”
“Well show me,” Smith ordered. “After that, I want to head back to St. Paul.”
18
The video hit the men hard, with Hisle’s bottom lip trembling when he saw Shannon lying in the box just before the cover was put on. The chief’s eyes closed and his head dropped when the video showed the box buried, with only their air pipes showing.
After watching the video, both men had hard questions for Burton. He had few answers.
“We have to get the ransom ready.”
“Does that mean the investigation is over?” the chief asked. “That we’re going to sit around and wait for the next call?”
“No. We’re not stopping.” Burton explained releasing parts of the video to law enforcement and the public. “We may get a break with the video’s release, and we’re still working through files and might catch a break there as well. We’re not stopping. But…”
“It is what it is,” the chief said.
Burton nodded.
“Chief, we need to be ready.”
Before the chief left with Burton, he pulled his boys aside. He was gaunt and ghost-white, as if his summer tan had faded in less than one day’s time. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and salt and pepper stubble aged his face. His body seemed frail, looking like a listing coat rack for his clothes. But the intensity was there in his eyes, and his deep gravelly voice was commanding as always.
“I’ve heard the story from the FBI, but not from my people. Tell me, no bullshit.”
Mac didn’t bullshit him. “The FBI isn’t lying. We’re nowhere.”
Riley added details, but the result was the same. The chief shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as he looked down to the floor. “I can’t lose my baby girl,” their leader said quietly. He looked each of his boys in the eye. “You need to find her. I don’t care what it takes or what you have to do. You find her.” He pushed his hand through his disheveled white hair and slowly walked out of the room.
“Ideas?” Riles said into the silence.
Lich said what they were all thinking: “We need a break.”
“And,” Rock growled, “The bastards haven’t given us one yet.”
“Look,” Mac said emphatically, “ We, meaning us, need to make something happen instead of waiting around. Burton’s working the ransom angle now. That gives us some room to work our own gig outside of what the FBI’s running.”
“The mayor won’t like that,” Lich said in a warning tone.
“Burton’s been pretty decent. I don’t like sticking a knife in his back,” Rock added.
“Fuck the mayor,” Mac railed. “I’m done waiting for that spineless gasbag. As for Burton, I have no desire to cut him out. If something turns up, we can go to Burton and bring him in.”
“Agreed,” Riles said. “But Mac, you can’t be talking to the mayor that way, no matter how big a political half-wit he is. You’ll be working third shift in the jail before you know it.”
Mac didn’t particularly care at the moment, but knew Riles was right. “I hear ya,” he said, sighing, and then added, “but like I said, with the G-men working the ransom and the mayor licking Burton’s boots, maybe we start making some moves of our own.”
“What moves? How? Where? With what?” Lich said, tearing the top off a pack of Big Red gum. “You have to have a place to start.”
“Then let’s start with the video,” Mac answered. “I’ll go through that with Dick.” He nodded at Riley. “You and Rock check on the laptop, where was it bought. Someone was supposed to be looking into it, but with all the commotion, who knows? Those are the things we can look at now. After that, the four of us should get out of here for a bit. If we’re going to start operating, I don’t want to discuss it around here.” Everyone nodded in agreement, and Riley and Rockford left to run the numbers on the laptop left by the kidnappers.
Mac went back into the conference room and sat down with a department-issued laptop and watched the video again. Lich stood to one side and Paddy was on the other. Mac played the video back and forth, freezing and rewinding in the hopes of picking something, anything, out. He paid particular attention to the view out the front of the vehicle, searching for any buildings, a chimney, snowmobile signs, anything that might give them a lead on the girl’s location.