At my insistence Deputy Gary Loushine drove to Chip Thilgen’s cabin, even though he insisted Thilgen was not at home; he’d had people watching the place for nearly two days now. The cabin was located on a small lake at the base of a heavily wooded hill and virtually surrounded by poplar, fir, and birch trees. It was difficult to see from the narrow, seldom-used gravel road that cut through the forest between the cabin and the hill. We drove past it twice. An abandoned logging trail branched off from the gravel road well above the cabin and wound its way up the hill. After our third pass we took the trail as far as we could, eventually parking the 4X4 behind another Kreel County Sheriff’s Department vehicle that was hidden well out of sight. We worked the rest of the way up the steep hill on foot. At the top of the hill I paused to look at my watch. I really didn’t care what time it was. But it gave me an excuse to rest and regain my lost breath.
“Coming?” Loushine asked. He wasn’t even breathing hard.
“Right behind you,” I told him, a false smile on my face, as I reminded myself that I was in shape, that I worked out, that I know karate and jujitsu and aikido. I just don’t make a habit of climbing steep hills in the forest, is all.
We resumed pushing ourselves through the trees and underbrush until we found a small clearing with good sight lines to Thilgen’s cabin. Hunkered down at the edge of the clearing was a sheriff’s deputy—the one who had driven my car when I was escorted to the county line. He was watching the cabin with a pair of binoculars. He must have known we were coming because he didn’t even acknowledge our presence until we knelt next to him.
“Tell me you’re here to relieve me,” he said.
“Sorry,” Loushine said, promising that another deputy would be along shortly. “Anything?”
“Nope.”
Thilgen’s cabin was about three hundred yards below us. It was tiny, one of those one-story, prefabricated jobs built on cinder blocks—from that distance the entire structure looked like it could fit inside my living room. A short flight of stairs led to a narrow deck and the cabin’s only door. Like the cabin, the deck was stained red. A fire pit surrounded by a circle of large stones had been dug in back of the cabin, about fifty feet from what looked like a crumbling outhouse. Beyond the cabin I could see a small patch of lake peeking through the trees.
We sat and watched for a long time without speaking.
In the forest, first you hear nothing. Then you hear everything: birds chirping, crickets singing, wind whipping through tree branches and sounding just like running water. If you’re not familiar with it, the racket can be downright disconcerting. Sitting, not moving, concentrating completely on the cabin below me, my imagination began to amuse itself at the expense of my nerves. Several times I heard voices and laughter and footsteps yet saw nothing. I convinced myself that I was being watched, stalked; convinced myself that there was a psychotic killer hiding behind every bush—the same guy who escaped from the lunatic asylum in the stories we told ourselves as children … the one with the hook.
A hand gripped my shoulder. I knocked it away impulsively and pivoted on my heels, my hand deep in my jacket pocket digging for the Walther PPK.
Startled, Loushine pulled away from me. Then he smiled knowingly.
“Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again,” I warned him.
Loushine chuckled. “What do you want to do?” he asked.
“Let’s go down there,” I said confidently—or at least with a voice that sounded confident. Man, I was starting to behave like the Woody Allen of private investigators, much too paranoid for this line of work.
I stood and stretched. My thought was to work our way back to the 4X4 and drive to the cabin. But Loushine was already moving down the hill. The show-off. I followed, moving gingerly, picking up the pace when Loushine did. In my haste, I tripped over a root and fell headlong into a blueberry bush. I looked up. Loushine hadn’t even slowed. He was waiting for me on the gravel road at the base of the steep hill when I broke through the last wall of brush. He shook his head at me like he pitied me.
“Poor little lamb lost in the woods,” he muttered.
Yeah? I’d like to see how he’d manage the Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis on a Saturday night!
We went to the cabin and climbed the redwood steps leading to the deck. I peered through the windows while Loushine leaned against the railing. The cabin appeared empty.
“See anything?” he asked sarcastically.
I knocked on the door; its lock and frame were cheaply made and flimsy. I doubted they could withstand a strong wind.
“I told you, no one is home,” Loushine added.
“Shhhh!” I hushed him. “Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounds like a call for help.”
“Excuse me?”
BAM!
I kicked the door in.
“Jesus Christ, Taylor!” Loushine protested. “We don’t have a warrant.”
“Oops.”
“This is breaking and entering.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “Since the door is already open …”
“This is a felony!” Loushine insisted.
The cabin consisted of three rooms, including the bathroom. The first room, a combination kitchen/dining room/living room was papered from floor to ceiling with pages that had been carefully cut from Penthouse and Playboy magazines and Victoria’s Secret catalogs (personally I preferred the lingerie models over the nudes, but that’s just me). The room also contained several bookcases filled with paperbacks with titles like Country Club Wife, Fraternity Initiation, The Girl Next Door, The Naughty Lady, and Curious Cathy. Another bookcase next to the TV and VCR contained adult videos with similar titles. I recognized one: Debbie Does Dallas, an oldie but a goodie. Nowhere did I see a publication dealing with the environment.
“Wow!” Loushine said from where he stood just inside the doorway.
“Man doesn’t get out much, does he?” I said.
“Guess not.”
“Take this room,” I told him.
“And do what?”
“Look.”
“For what?”
“Incriminating evidence.”
“What exactly does incriminating evidence look like?”
“It’s like pornography,” I told him. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
“Yeah, but even if we find some, then what? Without a warrant, a judge would never allow us to admit it into evidence.”
“Trust me,” I told him.
“Trust him,” he muttered. “Big-city homicide cop.”
“Amateur,” I muttered back.
I went into the bathroom. It was small, dirty, and stank of mildew. Thilgen had taped several suggestive photos—they were suggestive in the way a slap in the face was suggestive—to the dirty mirror fronting the medicine cabinet. I opened the cabinet. Thilgen’s toothbrush, toothpaste, electric shaver, and hairbrush were all accounted for.
“If Thilgen is running, he didn’t plan to,” I called out.
“Huh?” Loushine grunted.
I moved to Chip Thilgen’s bedroom and immediately regretted it. The small room reeked of sweat and semen, and the sordid odor made me gag. The unmade bed was soiled; its sheets looked as if they hadn’t been changed in months. More pornography hung from the walls, and several life-sized posters were stapled to the ceiling above the bed.
“You’re one strange biscuit,” I told the absent Thilgen as I went through his bureau drawers. They were filled with clothes and assorted sex aids—manual and electric. Two small suitcases, both empty, were hidden under his bed, and the tiny closest was filled with shirts, pants, and jackets. In the pocket of the jacket hung from a hook on the back side of the door I found his checkbook. Again I concluded that if Thilgen was on the run, it wasn’t something he had planned. At the bottom of the closet I discovered a cardboard box filled with his financial records: old tax returns, receipts, bank envelopes stuffed with canceled checks, and several check registers. I set the checkbook on top and carried the box back into the kitchen with me.