Tamarack River Ghost (11 page)

As a result of her hard work, though, and also because so much of what she did amounted to late-night stakeouts, weekend patrols, and unexpected circumstances—such as a car slamming into a deer at midnight, killing three of its occupants—her free time was not predictable. Thus, she essentially had no social life. This was clearly the downside of her job. Living in the Willow River community didn’t help matters, either. Not many single young people lived in this town of just over three thousand people. When they graduated from Willow River High School, most young people left the community either for college or to find work in the
Fox River Valley—Oshkosh, Neenah-Menasha, Appleton, Green Bay. Or in Milwaukee, Madison, or maybe La Crosse or Eau Claire, on the other side of the state.

A few stayed behind to farm with their parents, work in the forestry business, or become part of the small but steady tourist business that tripled the county’s population during the summer months. And a handful, like Josh Wittmore, left for a few years and returned.

Josh’s phone jingled twice before he picked it up.

“
Farm Country News
, Josh Wittmore.”

“This is Natalie Karlsen. You got a minute?”

“Sure,” answered Josh, warily. He remembered her accusing him of tipping off Dan Burman, and he’d decided to avoid her if possible.

“I’d like to take you out to dinner,” she said.

“What?” Josh’s voice must have surely sounded his surprise at the invitation. All he could think of to say was, “Why?”

“Because I owe you a better apology than I gave you.”

Josh was silent, speechless. In his mind’s eye, all he saw was a very attractive young woman in a uniform and all wrapped up in her job. He could think of no response.

“Well, what do you say?” she pressed. Her voice was pleasant and smooth.

“When?” he finally blurted. Why was he spending any time talking to this woman who had powers of arrest and sidearm training? He didn’t know she was more than just competent with her ever-present .40 caliber Glock—she had recently won a pistol-shooting contest with it.

“How about Saturday night? I’ll pick you up at 6:00.”

“OK,” Josh muttered. This woman surely knew how to take control of a situation. He wondered if this was her natural tendency or if she was trained this way.

“Where do you live?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, yes. Where do I live? Right.” Josh was clearly flustered. He gave her the street name and the number of his apartment in the Willow River Manor complex.

“I know right where it is. See you at 6:00,” Natalie said.

Josh sat holding the phone in his hand.
What is it with this woman?
he thought. His defenses once more came into focus—
What does she want with me? What motive does she have for taking a newspaper reporter out to dinner?
He didn’t even ask her where they were going and how much he should dress up. This was surely not like Josh Wittmore; he usually had a good sense of what he was doing, where he was doing it, and why. His feelings about Saturday night ranged from dread to anticipation. It had been a long time since he’d had fun with a good-looking young woman.

He had difficulty concentrating on his work the rest of the week. He continued to dig into everything he could find out about Nathan West Industries. Wearing his every-company-has-something-to-hide hat, he began searching for anything he could find that would provide a more complete picture. Firmly imprinted in his mind was something he had learned when he studied journalism in college—newspapers have a responsibility for digging beneath the surface of stories, for finding out things some people would prefer remain hidden. It was one of the things he enjoyed about newspaper work, the research and digging that often uncovered very interesting information.

For the first hour of his Internet search, everything he found about Nathan West Industries was laudatory. News articles in the digital archives of newspapers had nothing but praise for the company. True, its operations were often criticized by animal rights organizations, but no more than other firms involved with producing meat.

Several articles criticized industrial agriculture and the establishment of large pork, beef, and poultry operations. This had been going on for a decade or so, but nothing pointed to any wrongdoing on the part of Nathan West Industries. Growing larger was certainly not against the law, especially not in a society that prided entrepreneurial spirit, risk-taking, competition, and free-market success. These attributes characterized NWI well. Though an old company with a rich history, the company has prospered and has become a national leader, with its interests in several enterprises, ranging from grain storage and marketing, where it first started, to now owning and operating huge poultry, beef, and hog operations.

Josh remembered well a recent trip he’d made to Duluth, Minnesota, where he had seen huge grain elevators with the words “Nathan West Industries” written in large letters on their sides. Oceangoing ships were tied up to the docks by the elevators, loading corn and wheat for transport to who knows where in the world. And of course, he, and everyone else, couldn’t avoid seeing packages of beef and pork emblazoned with Nathan West Food’s logo—a farm scene with barn, outbuildings, and cattle grazing in a pasture—in local supermarkets’ meat cases. Occasionally a meat display was devoted solely to Nathan West meats.

The company had a good reputation, excellent marketing, and strong market share. Even with the recent push for consumers to buy locally, many people preferred to purchase the Nathan West brand. Unlike some other companies, it had never had a recall of meat contaminated with E. coli or salmonella or for any other reason.

Josh pushed on, a slight pain developing just above his right eye, the kind of headache he often developed when he was intently searching for something. With a few more clicks on the keyboard, he discovered a complaint a Minnesota community had lodged when a local pork processing plant (a subsidiary of Nathan West Industries) had closed and moved to Colorado. The community leaders claimed to have offered tax incentives, and after just five years, the plant moved to a Colorado community that offered even greater incentives. Josh thought,
This is something that happens all the time. Nothing illegal about it—perhaps a bit unethical, and maybe even a little immoral, but certainly not illegal
.

Another subsidiary, Nathan West Grain, got into more serious difficulty when it failed to obtain necessary permits for constructing a storage site in southwestern Wisconsin. Josh read with interest the details of the case. The president of the subsidiary, in effect thumbing his nose at the government regulations, began building structures without permits, even when he knew such were required. The president of the subsidiary was quoted as saying, “If we’re caught without permits and are fined, we’ll just write it off as a cost of doing business.”

The subsidiary was fined $200,000 plus investigatory costs and DNR attorney fees. Nathan West, when it learned what its subsidiary had been
doing, immediately began its own investigation, turning over its findings to the DNR. The president and vice president of the subsidiary were immediately replaced, and the corporation faced no charges, and in fact was commended for assisting with the investigation.

Josh called a reporter friend in Dubuque to get his impressions of the company. He himself traveled there too, visiting the newspaper office and digging into its archives for information about NWI. He could find little evidence of wrongdoing in its long history. In fact, the company received glowing reports from people in communities where it had located its big operations and from the employees who worked for them. While in Dubuque, he interviewed three of the company’s former employees, who told him that the employees liked to think of Nathan West Industries as a big family. Some even seemed to think that long-dead Mr. Nathan West was still at the helm and always prepared to take care of them, come thick or thin.

But try as he did to concentrate on what could potentially be one of the biggest stories of his career, Josh’s mind kept going back to Natalie. So far the woman seemed a total mystery but, he had to admit, an interesting mystery.

When Saturday evening finally arrived, Josh decided to wear tan slacks, a blue dress shirt, and his navy blazer. He thought of wearing a coat, but these October days had been warm, in the sixties, and no coat would be necessary. He combed back his brown hair—thinning faster than he thought it should be—checked himself in the mirror, and smiled. He was as thin and trim as he had been the day he graduated from college. But he was nervous. He remembered how he felt on prom night in high school—except on that night he’d driven to pick up his date.

As 6:00 neared, Josh found himself glancing out the window of his apartment for Natalie’s car. But he didn’t even know if she drove a car. One time he’d seen her driving down Willow River’s Main Street in a big Ford pickup. Maybe that’s what she’d be driving tonight. He chuckled at the thought of it. They could play a little “yours is bigger than mine.” She’d win—her Ford F-150 was considerably larger than his little Ranger.

Josh didn’t see the little Honda Civic pull up in front of his apartment,
so he was surprised when he heard a knock on his door. He pulled it open.

His chin dropped.

“Hi, Josh. You ready?

“I … I think so,” he stammered.

“You look nice tonight,” Natalie said pleasantly.

“So … so do you.” Josh could not believe what he saw. No DNR uniform, no badge, no .40 caliber Glock. Just a beautiful young woman with big brown eyes, blonde hair to her shoulders, wearing a blue party dress. She wore a subtle perfume; Josh caught just a hint of it as he closed and locked his apartment door and followed Natalie to her car.

He faced a dilemma. He wanted to be a gentleman; he had held the apartment door so she could go through first, but what about her car door, should he rush around and hold her car door for her? He decided he should, but when he grabbed the handle, it wouldn’t move.

“Let me unlock it first,” Natalie said, smiling.

Josh’s face reddened. He felt a bit the fool.

She put the key in the lock, turned it, and stepped back. Josh opened the door, and Natalie stepped in.

“Where we headed?” Josh asked.

“I thought we’d do McDonald’s or Culver’s tonight,” Natalie said as she pointed her little Honda toward Link Lake. She hesitated for a moment. “I was really thinking about the Lake Edge Supper Club. You must know it, having grown up here.”

“Nicest place on the lake,” Josh said. “I never ate there when I was growing up. My folks couldn’t afford it. Besides, my dad always said the Lake Edge was for the tourists and lake people. Not for farmers. Few local people ate there.”

They pulled into the nearly full parking lot at the Lake Edge, about twelve miles north of Willow River, and walked to the door. “Reservation for Karlsen,” Natalie said when she saw the hostess.

The hostess showed Josh and Natalie to a table that looked out over the quiet waters of Link Lake; a big yellow moon was sneaking up over the horizon.

“Would you like a glass of wine, or maybe something stronger?” Natalie asked. “Everything is my treat tonight.”

“I … I’ll have a glass of Leinenkugel’s Red,” he said when their waitress asked about drink orders.

“A glass of merlot for me,” Natalie said. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful evening. I’ve forgotten how beautiful Wisconsin can be in autumn; it was always one of my favorite times of the year,” Josh said.

“Mine too.”

Menus soon appeared in front of them. Josh hesitated before making a selection—some of the items were quite pricey, and he was sure a conservation warden’s salary couldn’t accommodate this kind of dining. He knew a newspaper reporter’s salary surely couldn’t.

The waitress took Natalie’s order first—she ordered broiled walleye. Josh quickly did the same—it was a mid-priced item.

Josh slowly got past his concern about having dinner with an “officer of the law.” Natalie worked hard at leaving her job behind; she made no mention of what she had recently been doing, although Josh was well aware of her concern for deer poachers in the Tamarack River Valley.

They talked about Natalie growing up in Wisconsin Rapids, where her dad was chief of police and her mother a middle school teacher. Josh talked a little about his growing-up days on a farm but four miles from where they were enjoying a great dinner. She said how much she had enjoyed attending the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and he said that he had attended the
real
University of Wisconsin, the campus located in Madison. Natalie rolled her eyes at the comparison, one she had heard many times before.

A three-piece band began playing some old danceable tunes, “Moonlight Serenade” and “Shine on, Harvest Moon,” which were especially appropriate for the evening, then “The Tennessee Waltz” and even a couple of polkas, leading off with the “Beer Barrel Polka.”

“Want to dance?” Josh asked. This was the first time the entire evening he had suggested something.

“Sure,” she said.

Josh was immediately surprised at what a good dancer she was. Was it possible that lady conservation wardens could dance? Old stereotypes still hung around his brain, but he knew enough to keep his tongue in control and not say anything.

Josh noticed that several diners glanced at them—a beautiful woman with blonde hair dancing with a tall, dark-haired guy. He was also sure that no one recognized her as the Ames County conservation warden, since she was wearing a blue dress that subtly showed off her figure. Josh had been back in the community only a few weeks, after ten years away, so he was quite sure that no one recognized him either.

After dancing a polka, Josh and Natalie sat down, catching their breath. Josh hadn’t danced the polka since he left Ames County after college.

“Halloween will soon be here,” Natalie said, “which reminds me of ghosts. Josh, have you heard of the Tamarack River Ghost?”

“Ever since I was a little kid, when my dad told me about him.”